Replies

I have not heard of this movie. Since Sonny thinks that doing the proper actions is the way to salvation (Sonny rebaptizes himself and anoints himself), it is unlikely that Sonny was saved in the first place. But it is not my job to judge who is saved or not. That's God's job. You seem to be hung up on doing sins. They are not what is important. What is important is what you believe. Whether a sinner or a saint commits a murder has no bearing on that person's salvation. The sinner is still a sinner and the saint is still a saint (unless he ceases to believe in Christ as his savior).

The following analogies are from my book MetaChristianity V - Unlocking Sinner Bible Mysteries:

There is no forgiveness for unbelief - only repentance. Unbelief is akin to a disease. The condition of this disease is that of being a sinner. One is infected with unbelief from birth - indeed conception. Adam was created neither in belief nor unbelief. God gave him a choice of one or the other. Adam did not choose well. He became a sinner and he sinned, eating of the forbidden fruit and breaking God's commandment. The sin was a symptom of his condition as a sinner.

Let's use the typical biblical disease of leprosy as an example. Leprosy is the disease - unbelief is akin to the disease. Those with leprosy were considered Lepers - those in unbelief are considered in the Bible as sinners. The obvious skin afflictions were the symptoms of the disease of Leprosy - sins are the symptoms of the disease of unbelief. All who are born of the lineage of Adam are thus born into the same disease - unbelief. And therefore all are born as sinners. And all will display the same symptoms - sins.

Of course, even saints may display actions of the fallen nature that are the equivalent of sins, just as a man may have skin problems, some of which may be similar to the look of Leprosy. However, just as not all skin problems are symptoms of Leprosy, neither is bad behavior necessarily a symptom of a sinner. We are not judged as a sinner because of how we behave, just as a person is not diagnosed to be a Leper because they have a rash. A person is diagnosed to have Leprosy because they have the disease itself, just as a sinner is a sinner because they are judged to be one because of their unbelief which can be likened to a spiritual disease. The difference in the judgment between the behaviors of the sinner and the saint are that the sinner is in a state of unforgiveness, so his bad behavior is held against him as sin, whereas the saint is in a state of forgiveness, so his bad behavior is already forgiven because of his belief in Christ as savior.

God determines a sin that is still in need of forgiveness based on the same way a society defines a crime – through laws. If a person comes under the laws of a society and breaks one of them they will be convicted a lawbreaker. But if foreigner with diplomatic immunity commits a crime, even though the society's laws are still in effect for the citizens of that society, the foreigner with diplomatic immunity is not considered a lawbreaker for committing what is otherwise a crime. They are not a citizen of that society under those society's laws. It is the same with sins. Unbelievers are held accountable to the law of sin because they are citizens under that law. A believer has become a foreigner with diplomatic immunity to the laws of sin. He cannot be held accountable as a sinner for practices which break a law that he is no longer under. Just as the diplomat cannot be charged with a crime, so too is it with the believer - he cannot be charged accountable with a sin. But just as it is advisable for a citizen of a society not to commit crimes, it is just as reprehensible for a diplomat to commit crimes. And just as it is reprehensible for an unbeliever to commit sins, the same is true for believers. The moral outrage is the same for both. The only difference is accountability. When it comes to righteousness, one is accountable while the other is already legally pardoned.

==================

But this is all a divergence from the topic of this thread. If you want a full explanation of how it all works, I suggest that you read my book series. You can read the first book for free here.

(Back to the topic at hand)

The epistle of James is not canonical, thus proving that this "Sacred Magisterium" is bunk, because it upholds the epistle of James as canonical.