Are there Catholics and Orthodox that are practicing and saved?

Thanks for nitpicking my posts to death.

Larry, I appreciate your need to be right about everything, but given the context I said it in, I stand by it.

 

Actually, I didn't misdefine it. I simply said that being justified does not mean that you can sin with impugnity, but that when one is justified, the result is that he receives a new nature that no longer seeks to serve sin.

Please feel free to twist my words.

 

I am not nitpicking your words. Historically, for the last 500 years, there have been significant debates about justification. To misuse it, particularly in a discussion that includes Catholics is at best unwise. It is misleading as well.

I don't have to be right about everything. I am not right about everything. But I am right about some things.

Can you show any place in Scripture that uses dikaiow the way that you used it, as "you no longer serve sin"?

I didn't see that anywhere in the discussion. Can you point me to where you said that?

If I have twisted your words, my apologies. Please show where. I have no intent to do that.

As I said, I responded merely because "justification" is at the heart of the distinction between Catholics and Biblical Christianity. If we mess that up, we have messed up the evangel, the gospel, the good news. That's why it deserves more than a passing smart aleck response to those who are concerned about the way that we use it.

You see Catholics do not deny justification. They simply define it differently. And when we use it improperly, we lend credence to their wrong use of it.

So it is important. It's not personal. I was merely clarifying the issue. Do not take offense at it.

 

I'm sorry you feel that it's "misleading" and "misusing" to explain to someone that justification is not a license to sin.

First of all, as you well know, I was not defining justification, but defending justification from the idea that justification is a lisence to sin, so I'm not going to play your game of giving you ammo to claim that I "misdefined" it, when I never defined it as such in the first place.

Second, yes, Romans 6:1-7 does support my assertion that those who are jstified no longer serve sin.

Right. And so, not meaning to twist my words, you naturally "accidentally" accused me of "misdefining" justification.

Yes or no: do those who are justified serve sin?

Then stop accusing me.

 

I have no interest in getting into any personal squabbles, and I think (or at I would hope) I'm smart enough to understand what you are saying. However, I have to agree with Pastor Larry here, who has given the proper meaning of "justified" and I have to disagree with your conclusion, for the Bible simply never says what you are implying. Hence your argument, as I see it, is a non sequitur, at best.

It may "sound good" and appealing to say that once one is justified, one will no longer serve sin, but the Bible simply does not say this, at least as far as I have seen.

Ed

 

So how do you explain Romans 6:1-7?

 

No. 1., I do not recall anyone claiming (at least on this thread) "that justification is a license to sin' in the first place, this oft-erected "straw-man" notwithstanding.

No. 2, Rom. 6:1-7 does not even mention "justified" or "justification" but rather says this.

Paul is exhorting "holy living" in vs. 1 & 2; referring to our position 'in Christ' in vs. 3 - 4b, & 5; using this position as the basis for other exhortations to a 'godly walk' in 4c & 6c, by referring to the results (5a & b); and making the conclusion that we are freed from sin, in our standing in vs.7. The phrase "του μηκετι δουλευειν ημας τη αμαρτια" carries the idea of being a slave or "bond-servant" (which incidentally, Tyndale recognized, rendering it as "that hence forth we shuld not be servauntes of synne" even though this somehow seemed to get lost in the shuffle with Coverdale and following, for about 3 1/2 centuries), and refers to one's 'standing' or position, and not merely to one's 'actions' in acquiescing to sin.

There is a subtle idea that seems to get carried into our Biblical understanding that somehow, one 'must' have some undefined better lifestyle when one is a Christian. While I (and the Bible) agree that we definitely should have this better lifestyle, as it were, it simply does not follow that one must have this, in order to be a Christian. That "should" (or our works) is the basis for numerous exhortations to holy living, throughout both the OT and the NT. Yet our justification is said to be on the sole basis of believe/faith, and that totally apart from our works, as per Rom. 4:1-8. Back to the main point.

I believe the NKJV, and the other versions that carry this import in Rom. 6:6 are more accurate, here. At least, that is how these opening verses of Rom. 7 generally seem to read, as I see them.

Ed

 

OK: do people who have been justified serve sin or not? It's a simple question. There are only two possible answers: "yes" or "no".

Really? So then we can continue to serve sin?

What happened to the new nature we were supposed to receive when we were born again?

 

I don't think that is misleading or misusing justification. As I read, that's not what you said. I asked where you said that.

I don't know what. All I know is what you said. That's what I responded to, and it wasn't to attack you (as you seem bent on doing to me), but to clarify.

I think the point technically is that those who are justified are no longer under sin's dominion. We can "serve" sin if we present our members to sin. But that passage is not about justification, per se, but about the results of union/identity with Christ.

You said, "Justification does not mean ..." The word "mean" often speaks of a definition of something.

They can; they don't have to.

I didn't. I think I have been pretty clear here that I was clarifying the issue of justification.

 

Romans 6:12-13 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

Romans 6:16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

Nothing. The old man (who we were in Adam) is dead. The old nature is not. We now have a new nature and an old nature. This is why Paul tells us to "put off" the things of the old way and put on the new way.

As Rom 6 makes clear, it is still possible for a believer to serve sin. But unlike an unbeliever, he has another option. He does not have to serve sin.

 

The Bible says they can't.

And I think I was very clear about what I was saying.

 

Sorry, but 1 John says different:

 

The 'problem' is not with the answers, the 'problem' is with the question. I'll illustrate with three questions of my own to you, all of which have only the same two possible answers.

1.) "Are you still boot-legging?"

2.) "Have you finally stopped beating your wife?"

3.) "Did you ever get caught for the robbery of that bank?"

What is wrong with these questions, here? All of them have 'only two possible answers: "yes" or "no".'

See above.

We did receive that new nature, when we became a new creation. However, that new nature is not in the business of 'improving' the old nature, even one whit. Rather, they are in a continual state of war, one with another. Read the rest of Rom. 6 and 7. Note especially (NKJV, unless noted):

Seems clear enough to me.

Ed

 

So why does Paul say "Don't do it" if they can't? Why does Paul present a clear situation in which they can? What do you think Rom 6:12ff. mean?

Actually 1 John doesn't say that.

First, in 2:1, John plainly admits that we can sin. Second, the passage you refer to is either talking about the consistent practice of sin (which experience would lead us away from this interpretation), or using a wisdom type statement, much like when a father says to his child "You can't talk to your mother that say." Well, the child can talk to his mother that way; in fact, he just did. But the father means, "That's not acceptable."

The verse the way you read it would lead to sinless perfection. We konw that it doesn't mean that.

 

Gotta love liberals.

The difference, of course is that each of those are loaded questions, intended to trap the answerer into giving a pre-determined answer.

The only two answers to the question I asked were "yes, a justified person can still serve sin" or "no, a justified person cannot serve sin".

 

Actually, it does. I quoted it verbatem.

Of course. You said that we can continue to sin, and so I quoted a passage that talks about ongoing sin. It ain't exactly rocket science, Larry.

"Experience"? Really? I guess I'm not familiar with the "experience" school of hermeneutics.

No, what it would lead to is the understanding that one cannot continue to serve sin and have any assurance of his salvation.

 

Yes, but did you quote it as John intended it? You got upset when you thought I used your words wrongly. But did you use his rightly?

It's certainly not. But I have to admit that I missed the word "ongoing" in that passage. Can you help me find it?

Paul used it in Rom 7 to make the very point I am making. He also made it theologically in Romans 6 (which you haven't addressed ... What do you think Romans 6:12ff mean?).

Notice how you just changed the topic. Your question was can a believer serve sin. Now you changed it to having assurance. I agree that a believer can't have assurance of salvation while involved in ongoing, unrepentant sin. But that wasn't what you were talking about.

Perhaps we should have started with a more foundational question: What does it mean to "serve sin"? What exactly are you talking about?

 

OK. I thought you were sincere, but now I see that you're just playing games.