rbell said:
Um, if I knew, I wouldn't ask.
Just list them. That will further the discussion. List below, if you will, the sins that a Christian cannot commit.
Can I define "ungodliness?" Yes...but that's not the question I asked. Don't make it about me.
Now...go ahead, please, and someone list below all the sins that it is impossible for a Christian to commit. Thanks.
Ungodliness ecompasses ALL sin, not some sin. We are commanded by God as Christians to deny ALL sin. Yet the reality is while we are in these bodies of flesh we will still sometimes fail.
Much of this talk is a complete and utter failer to recognize the Biblical teaching of imputed righteousness.
Romans 4:4-8(NIV)
"4Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. 6David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 7Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.""
1 Corinthians 1:30(NIV)
"It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption."
If our faith is credited to us as righteousness, and specifically when we trust in Christ, he becomes our righteousness and holiness before God at what point does God remove this righteous standing from us once it is imputed to us? What sin will God count against me as a Christian? The answer from passages like Romans 4:8 is none!
I have read the many threads on this subject and see these passages often quoted in trying to argue that a Christian will not commit certain sins:
"I John 3:4-6 & 9-10(NIV)
4Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him...
9No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother."
If we were to take this passage alone without looking at the rest of the scriptures(let alone the begining of I John) we may have the impression that Christians don't sin anymore. Therefore, if each of us searched our heart we would believe we were not saved because we all sin everyday, whether it is in thought or in deed.
But if we understand the context of I John, and who is was writing to, and what he said in the begining of his epistle things begin to make more sense:
I John 1:5-10(NIV)
5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
I John 2:1-2
1My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
John was writing to combat Gnostism whose teachers denied the incarnation of Christ, and the fact of the sinful nature of man. There were many forms of Gnostism, some more aestic, others just the opposite. John was writing here concerning the latter.
Both John's gospel and his epistles are at the forefront of attacking Gnostics and there wrong view of Christ and the nature of sin.
He tells us that Christ purifies us from all our sin, then tells us if we claim we are without sin, we make God a liar. He tell us not to sin, but if we do sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ. So he is now acknowleding the reality of sin in the life a believer.
When he writes that a whoever is born of God does not sin, he cannot mean that we do not commit any sin, else he would be contradicting himself, and the Word of God never contradicts itself. So he must mean something else by these statements.
I believe these statements are written toward false Gnostic teachers who would allow people to sin with impunity. Sin did not matter, because all matter was evil anyway.
So the message of I John is simply this, to deny the reality of sinful nature of man is wrong. If we as Christians do sin however, we have an advocate with the father in the person of Jesus Christ. Anyone who teaches that Jesus Christ was not God in the flesh, or that we can sin with impunity because it really isn't sin is a false teacher. These are the ones who walked in darkness that John spoke of.
When John speaks of sin that leads to death, we are not given the details of what this means and I think reading a list of sins into this as some have done here is quite the stretch.
IFBReformer
