When Paul said 'all things are lawful' he wasnt talking about immorality or murder or the like. Most of the NT is referring to mosaic laws and its regulations because the new congregations were still a little confused as to whether obedience to the mosaic law was a requirement or not. The holy spirit eventually revealed that the mosaic law was not a means of gaining Gods approval...only faith and obedience to Christ could gain a persons Gods approval.
Paul went onto say 'let no man judge you in eating or drinking or in observance of a sabbath or a festival' Basically those were regulations of the mosaic law which Paul was saying were no longer necessary to observe and therefore no one should be judging another who does or does not observe them. But some mosaic laws were carried over as binding on all christians and Paul never said they were ok.
Well, I'm a bit confused by your two statements here. Perhaps its me.... But isn't murder and immorality forbidden by the Mosiac Law? However, by your second statement, I think what you mean is only things like dietary restrictions and observances of Holy Days are no longer necessary. Everything else is still on. Am I right in what you are trying to say?
If so, you have linked a quote from 1 Cor to Col.... The topic of conversation is not the same. If that is what you are saying, I disagree with you.
of course we sin in our hearts because our heart is treacherous and tries to push us down sins path.... but it is up to us to fight it. If we are ignoring the temptations of our heart, even though they are there, then God is extremely pleased with us. But if we allow those temptations to always get us to commit wrongdoing, then we are failing ourselves and God. We must always strive to fight the imperfection within us. If we dont fight it, then there is no forgiveness for us because we are allowing sin to rule us.
But if we are fighting it, then God forgives us even though those thoughts may still be in our mind. We cant just give in to sin and then ask for forgiveness.... but in saying that, there may be times when we do give in and God will forgive us ON THE CONDITION that we are repentant over the sin we committed.
Again, I have to see question what you are getting at. Maybe I'm just not understanding. It seems you are saying one of a few different things.
1. For those who love Jesus and follow him, Christ's blood alone with our physical actions and how we conduct ourselves together will get us salvation.
2. For those who love Jesus and follow him, Christ's blood alone is enough, but our physical actions or how we conduct ourselves can overpower it and thus knock us out of salvation.
3. For those who love Jesus and follow him, Christ's blood alone is enough, but as long as we try (to some degree.... Don't know if you mean 10%, 51%, 99% or 100%) to be moral and follow all the laws (or at least the ones not pertaining to dietary and observances of Holy Days).
and of course:
4. For those who love Jesus and follow him, Christ's blood alone is enough, but if we don't try (to some degree.... or perhaps don't try hard enough) to be moral and follow all the laws, then that will overpower the blood and we won't gain salvation.
Are you saying any of these 4 circumstances are true? I want to say again that I believe in morality, I do believe homosexuality is a sin, I do believe people will go to hell unless they have Christ as an advocate, AND I believe that immorality will cause many problems in someones natural life. However, I also believe that Christ does excuse it and will not judge his followers based on their sex habits.
[Note: Italics are the words of Pegg. Sorry, had a bit of a problem with the Quote function!]
