veteran said:
That Dr., whoever he is, is correct. The 1 John 1 Scripture is not all that difficult to understand that it's written to BELIEVERS on Christ Jesus...
I Jn 1:6-10
6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
HOW can one have fellowship with Christ and NOT be a believer on Him? This is very... simple.
7 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
The idea of walking by The Spirit is also an idea Apostle Paul taught in Galatians. That walk isn't for the unbeieving, it's for believers on Christ Jesus.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
HOW in the world can an unbeliever even CONFESS their sins in order to get forgiveness unless they ask The LORD and BELIEVE FIRST?
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
(KJV)
This is so... easy, all one need do is put theirself in the position of an unbeliever and think, would a non-believer ask for those things??? No, of course not!
Oh how many love... to use that word "context" without even READING the Scripture with understanding as written first!
The heresey indeed is with the Hyper-Grace theology of men's traditions, it is false. That's what the 1 John 1 Chapter reveals. It reveals that as a believer on Christ Jesus we still... have need to repent of sins we may commit after... having believed on Him and been baptized.
Hi Veteran,
While I'm inclined to agree with you with respect to the notion that John was writing to believers, I'm also inclined to believe that those who receive the Spirit of the Living God are saved, were saved, and will be saved. People keep making the argument that a "believer" can loose his salvation by walking away from God, but this denies what the scripture says, starting with the Old testament verse "God alone is our savior." Now, while it's true that we have choice in every decision that we make, and we can choose to be disobedient to God, will He deny His eternal and unchanging character, and deny Himself, given that His Spirit takes up residence in those to whom He has given it? I want to qualify my last statement with this, not every "believer" is necessarily born again and you must be born again to have His Spirit within you; one goes with the other. Some believe in a Jesus who they don't believe to be the Son of God, nor equal with God in nature, nor even risen from the dead, and such "believers" aren't genuine as such.
The scriptures, both Old and New Testament, gives us a picture of God as our loving Father who alone is good and will do what is necessary to discipline His sons, to correct them and lead them in the way that they should go. Ideally, we should be willing to obey His voice all the time and therefore avoid sinning, but having a will of our own, and one that sometimes differs in it's desire from that of our heavenly Father, we are prone to wander, to leave the One we love. For most of us sin remains a problem. God's plan of salvation is through a covenant, the new covenant initiated in His blood. This isn't a doctrine of man, but was foretold in the Old Testament and met in the New and through the blood of our Savior. What sacrifice do you make to be a participant in that New Covenant?
If we make any sacrifice at all to the Lord, it is only our submission to His will, and who is in perfect submission? Really, I'd like to know and would be pleased to meet him, but I do know the One who walked in perfect submission and paid the full, not some partial, price of our redemption and with His own precious blood.
I agree, that we do indeed make wrong choices and go our own way at times, rather than be in perfect agreement with our Father, especially in those seasons when we suffer loss and are grieved by it, not seeing any "good purpose" in it. Consider Job, whose losses were more than he could bear, yet he did not sin and raise a condemning voice against his Lord. In his grief he certainly was not centered in God's will, but instead sought to justify himself before his "friends" and before God. The Lord spoke to him directly and put him straight, set him back on the path, so to speak, bringing him to repentance, and this was a man from long before the New Covenant promises and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
I wrote a brief note to these two teachers, because they mocked at the notion of a Christian seeking God, as God is already there within them, but I pointed out this simple fact: Our salvation is a promise by covenant that God will not break and therefore not of our volition (once having received Him), however, seeking God remains an act of the will. Since the scripture says that no one seeks God, but rather that He seeks us out, I would say that it is impossible to seek God unless you already have His Spirit within you. In this light, confessing your sin to God as in John's epistle, is not so much an act of repentance, but an act of reconciliation, as a child who admits that he's done wrong to his father so that his father may freely forgive. What good father would openly forgive his child some wrong doing if the child refused to admit that what it had done was wrong? This is the sort of thing which brings on what I like to call "the wood shed" experience, or the discipline of a good and loving father. Yet such a father, even an imperfect human one, doesn't have the goal of harming his child, but of restoring his child to a place of trust and loving fellowship. This being said, our salvation remains dependent upon the Lord, because the scripture clearly tells us: 13
for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
I also like the following verse for the benefit of our heretic hunters:
Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. Roman's 14:3-5
One man is confident in his relationship with God and another is not, which one would you be more inclined to pay attention to? God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of adoption, and that sir, is an awesome thing.