Once again, do you not believe that God can cleanse us from ALL Sin? The verse before, and the verse after 1:8 both claim that this is what God does if we confess our sins. If ALL does not mean ALL, what sins is the Atonement of Christ too weak to cleanse us from?
Consider what it says in Matthew 8:1-4. Jesus told the leper, who was completely cleansed, to tell no man, but go and show yourself to the priests.
So, it is not that I believe that a man cannot be completely cleansed so that he has no sin; but that if he says that he has no sin, he is deceiving himself and the truth is not in him.
Consider Isaiah 42:19 (kjv), John 9:41 (kjv), and Job 9:21 (kjv).
If someone is truly cleansed from all sin, they are blind to the fact of the matter and therefore would never say that they have no sin.
And also, if anyone is truly cleansed from all sin and knows it, the truth of Ephesians 2:8-9 is not in them if they are prone to boasting about it; and if they actually violate this passage and boast that they have no sin, they are sinning against Ephesians 2:9 and therefore in saying that they have no sin, they are also deceiving themselves.
People who have been truly cleansed do not go around saying, "I am cleansed". They show it by their lives. They may say to someone, "I believe that God can cleanse
you."
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Run along now, as you have issues.
Run along now, as you have issues.
Run along now, as you have issues.
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Ive explained this 40 times to justbyfaith, and he's not able to understand it.
So, i'll try you.
If im preaching to a group, and there are a few in the group who do not believe that sin exists, or do not believe they are sinners..
And they interrupt me and say....>"there is no such thing as sin, sin does not exist, we are not sinners".
Then i say....>"listen, if WE say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.....etc".
So, i just said. "WE"< yet, im not talking about me, am i? Im only talking about THEM.... yet i said "we".
This is what Preachers to...they say "we" when they are talking about the group.
If you can see this, then find justbyfaith and try to get him to understand it, as he can't for the 7 weeks obo that ive been explaining this to him in many Threads.
Good luck.
I understand perfectly that a minister is trained to say "we" when referring to other people. But you do not understand the reason for it. It is because the minister is not supposed to point the finger at his audience and say that they are in a certain plight that he himself is not also in. John, in saying that we all have sin, in not excluding himself, he really is not excluding himself. It is not just because he has been trained not to point the finger; but it is also based in the reality of the fact that we are all in the same plight. If John had wanted to say that not everyone has sin; and if he himself had no sin, he had the perfect opportunity to relay that as a truth. He could have said, "If you say that you have no sin, you deceive yourself, and the truth is not in you." At least then, your pov would have more validity. But as it is, John included himself in the grouping of those who would be deceiving themselves if they were to say that they have no sin. If John was denying indwelling sin in his private moments, he is saying here that he himself, is deceiving himself, and the truth is not in him. I don't think that this is the case.
He's not.
He's also not a sinning apostle.
Of course not. Indwelling sin does not have to be obeyed; because it can be rendered dead (Romans 6:6, Galatians 5:24, Romans 7:8) so that it no longer has any dominion over us (Romans 6:14) in our behaviour.
The carnal christian, who is unable to handle "the meat of the word" and has to be fed the milk of the word, cannot yet SEE themselves as anything other then a SINNER.... a saved sinner.
And because of this they believe they are a sinner who is saved, vs being a born again SAINT and Child of God who is "the righteousness of God".
It is a trustworthy saying and worthy of all acceptation that each and every one of us is the chief of sinners (as we each one owns that saying for ourselves). We are all of us sinners in that we all have indwelling sin.
If we are born of God and abiding, we are not sinners in that we "do not" and "cannot" commit sin (1 John 3:9) as those who are born of God; and in that we "sin not" (1 John 3:6) as those who are abiding in Christ.
the same way youi became trapped in Hebrews, and can't get out.
I read through the book of Hebrews every Saturday.
I also read through every other epistle throughout the course of an entire week.
What is it that Behold teaches? I can put his central theme into a couple of sentences, accurately.
Yes, please do that,
@marks. I'm interested in your synopsis.