Go And Sin No More

1 John 3:3. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
4. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
5. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.
6. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.
7. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;
8. the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
9. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

Paul did NOT say that he sinned. The “I” in Rom. 7:14-25 is rhetorical, and is the portrayal of a devout Jew struggling unsuccessfully to keep the Law, but finding that he has not the ability to do so. Paul was the last person who would have struggled to keep the Law, for he forcefully taught that we are NOT under the Law, but under grace. And Paul was the last man who would write that he “delighted in the Law of God,” because according to Paul the Law was the very power of sin. (Cor. 15:56). Paul was redeemed from sin by the blood of the Lamb; the man in Romans 7:14-25 was “sold into bondage to sin.”

No man can find salvation by struggling to keep the Law. And the Law itself is powerless to save anyone, for it is itself “the power of sin.”

Rom. 8:2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
3. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4. so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

John did NOT write instructions for “when” we do sin; he wrote instructions for “if” we sin.

All Scriptures NASB, 1995, except for Rom. 7:22, KJV)

 

I believe this topic is very important and one of the reasons for the state of the Church as it is today.

The more we as Believers live the Surrendered and Abundant Life, the more we hate sin and see how horrific it is. We gain more of God's perspective of sin and it no longer becomes a question of how close to the world we can be, how much sin we can commit and still be a Christian; it now becomes our intention to see how far away we can keep from sin. We want nothing to do with it and we avoid it like most people avoid filth and disease. Yes, while we are in the flesh we will sin sometimes, but we will FALL into sin, not DIVE into it. Our thoughts will not be how much sin we can commit and still be saved, but rather when we sin, it will be as shocking or horrific to us as when we fall in a pit of chicken manure (I know, I grew up on a chicken farm and this happened to me once). We hate it and we immediately repent and seek to be cleaned up. We hate what sin does to our closeness to Jesus and we immediately go to Him to be cleaned.

I once was a person who thought, "Why is sin such a big deal? I'm human, I can't help it. If I sin, God will forgive me anyway." I believe many Christians have similar thoughts today. I am not so naive to believe I was the only one who thought this way. The result of this thinking is seen in many of the lukewarm, "having the name of Christ, but none of His power" churches in existence today.

 

If they remain tares.

HankD

 

SandbergToGrace,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us! And welcome to the Baptist Board!

 

Hey guess what if any thing came from you that God would be pleased with, if any good fruit was produced it wouldn't be you anyway, it would be God's rightness working in you because you are saved.Your rightness is nothing but filthy rags but God's rightness is what he want's to manifest in us that are saved.Give him all the praise and glory and you your flesh will drop a lemon no matter who you are,all have droped lemon's and came short of God's glory.

 

That would be your analogy that says so, since your analogy says sinning=not saved, and sinning = not loving Jesus, therefore not loving Jesus = not saved.

Scripture says all sin, and the one who says he does not sins is not being truthful. Scripture also says Paul loved Jesus, and yet Paul is not only a sinner, but the chief of sinners. So go argue with Jesus yourself.

 

I always wondered why the " Man " she was sinning with wasn't held accountable ? Why was he allowed to sin ?

 

I used to think the same thing. One explanation might be the cultural view of men vs women of the day. Another might be that the man simply got away. Another might be that the men in the crowd knew the man, and wanted to protect him at the woman's expense.

But the most likely reason who the man isn't mentioned is because he isn't pertinent to the story we're being told.

 

That would be your analogy that says so, since your analogy says sinning=not saved, and sinning = not loving Jesus, therefore not loving Jesus = not saved.

Scripture says all sin, and the one who says he does not sins is not being truthful. Scripture also says Paul loved Jesus, and yet Paul is not only a sinner, but the chief of sinners. So go argue with Jesus yourself. </font>[/QUOTE]That is your own dichotomy. Sinning = not saved? Where did I ever say that? I said if your sinning you don't love Jesus. You are the one who insists that you have to love Jesus to be saved. I think the Bible said to believe on Him and you would be saved.

 

Then there is no one on this earth who loves Jesus, including you. Do you believe that?

 

Am I sinning? Do you not believe the Bible speaks of such a thing as relative righteousness? God said Job was perfect and upright before Him. In the absolute sense, yes we all sin. But you do not have to continually willfully sin. Jesus came to set you free from sin, don't you believe that?

John 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

 

So now that you've been forced to acknowlege that you sin, you're changing your tune from "If you're sinning, then you don't love Jesus" to "if you're continually willfully sinning, you don't love Jesus".

 

If I say I have no sin, I am made a liar, no? There is always sin in us that we must continue to purge. But Jesus already dealt with that on the cross. Now, if I go out and commit adultery, is that loving Jesus? Are you going to tell me that I can't choose not to commit adultery?

Jesus said if you love Him, keep His commandments. You make it seem as if there is nothing we can do about willfully sinning. You are commanded to subdue your flesh and walk in the spirit. I never claimed I knew I was loving Jesus perfectly, but I can give you a long list of sins that I have been able to overcome through His grace. When we do stumble, we have the Lord's promise that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us. But if we just go on like everything is ok, because everybody sins you know, we will have to give account at the judgment seat and then we will find out if we loved Jesus or not. But don't for a moment think I ever said you had to love Jesus to be saved.

Romans 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

 

That's corret. And, unless it is your contention that there is no one who loves Jesus, it also negates your claim that the person who sins does not live Jesus.

You said that Jesus dealth with sin on the cross. Why do you think that Jesus did not also deal with the sin of adultery on the cross?

I neither said, nor did I remotely imply, any such thing. The contention is your original claim that if you sin, you don't love Jesus.

In fact, I do believe there is something we can do about willully sinning. We can choose to not sin. However, we are imperfect humans, and we will fail, and fail regularly. That's no excuse to not sin, of course, and it's no reason to think that someone who sins doesn't love Jesus.

Which in no way implies that the one who sins does not love Jesus.

Great. That doesn't change the fact that you said that the one who sins does not love Jesus. Therefore, you do not love Jesus.

You didn't say anything about repenting. You said the one who sins does not love Jesus.

We don't have to love Jesus to be saved? Uhhh, okay. I always figured that loving Jesus was one of the things we did when we started following him.

 

That's corret. And, unless it is your contention that there is no one who loves Jesus, it also negates your claim that the person who sins does not live Jesus.

You said that Jesus dealth with sin on the cross. Why do you think that Jesus did not also deal with the sin of adultery on the cross?
</font>[/QUOTE]This is certainly dealt with by the cross. But this is dealing with our positional sanctification, not our daily walk with Christ. Just because God no longer sees our sin in regards to our eternal salvation does not mean that our sin is now acceptable to Him. You have to distinguish between the positional and the practical or the bible will make little sense.

I neither said, nor did I remotely imply, any such thing. The contention is your original claim that if you sin, you don't love Jesus.

In fact, I do believe there is something we can do about willully sinning. We can choose to not sin. However, we are imperfect humans, and we will fail, and fail regularly. That's no excuse to not sin, of course, and it's no reason to think that someone who sins doesn't love Jesus.
</font>[/QUOTE]Once again, the Lord said that, not me. I don't think that the great commandment ( And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength ) is talking about a feeling. Love in the bible is an action. When we disobey the Lord, we do not love him.

Which in no way implies that the one who sins does not love Jesus.

</font>[/QUOTE]see above

Great. That doesn't change the fact that you said that the one who sins does not love Jesus. Therefore, you do not love Jesus.

</font>[/QUOTE]I probably do not love the Lord the way I should. I pray that He will reveal my sin to me and purge me of it.

You didn't say anything about repenting. You said the one who sins does not love Jesus.
</font>[/QUOTE]Not loving the Lord is a sin, isn't it? We should repent of it. He will forgive us like He said, praise God! But when we walk in sin, we have that condemnation on us.

Hebrews 10:26-27
26 For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

That is what we have to look forward to if we sin willfully and try to justify it with the 'everybody sins' defense.

We don't have to love Jesus to be saved? Uhhh, okay. I always figured that loving Jesus was one of the things we did when we started following him. </font>[/QUOTE]I never said you had to follow Him either, believe on Him and you will be raised up on the last day. But you must be a faithful disciple to recieve the reward of the kingdom at the judgment seat.

 

I agree with all of that. However, you alluded to none of that when you said the one who sins does not love Jesus. It is this statement of yours that is incorrect.

There are several loves mentioned in scripture, and all of them are translated "love" (one of the down sides of translating to English). You're referring to agape, or unconditional love, and you're correct. It's the decision to love, not accompanied by or motivated by feeling. That being said, when we commit to loving God the Father and Christ the Son, we will still invariably fail to remain sinless. We continue to love by learning from that failure and continuing on. However, we do not cease to love Jesus at those times we fail.

I likewise probably do not love the Lord the way I should. I love the Lord regardless.

Yes, not loving the Lord is a sin. However, I wasn't arguing that point. I was arguing the claim that if you sin, you don't love Jesus.

If being faithful is a prerequisite to being saved, then it salvation not based on a work?

 

How, out of all of that, did you get being faithful is a prerequisite for salvation? I said you must be faithful to recieve the reward of the kingdom, which is a salvation, but eternal salvation is in no way meritted by our works. When Jesus said whosoever believes on Him would be raised up on the last day, He meant it. But the millennial kingdom is not assumed in this promise, the kingdom occurs before the last day. You must be found faithful at the judgment seat or you will not have part in it. Nevertheless, on the last day, all who believe will be saved, regardless of their works, because of His perfect work.

 

I got it from your phrase "you must be a faithful disciple to recieve the reward of the kingdom at the judgment seat."