Another "posturing post" on Sinless perfection.

Ray, and coming in the clouds .org has posted some comments on Sinless Perfection.  Now I don't care what you believe.  I am responding to the exegetics of it, and sometimes the posturing attitude of the other author I respond to.  I have a tough time with those that pretend to know it all and expect you to say, OH WOW YOU ARE RIGHT!!!!

I ask that you examine the arguments I make to see if they COULD be true, before you investigate them to see if they are consistent.  You may find the argument I'm addressing here...
http://comingintheclouds.org/issues/sinless.htm

And here is the letter I gave Ray.
"Does the Scripture support such a claim? Can any man attain such a place ) and would his wife and children, or boss, or friends agree that he is perfect? The unqualified answer is no. "


http://comingintheclouds.org/issues/sinless.htm





You are right, you are unqualified to make that answer.

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"The primary difficulty is the concept of the total depravity of man, a.k.a. the thorough inability of man. "



The problem with your statement is that Scripture doesn't say it's up to man to do. It's something GOD does. I'd have to ask you, do you not believe in God, or do you think He is incapable. Or, perhaps you never investigated this topic on both sides to see what is possible and what isn't. OR perhaps you are just addressing one or two people you have fallen across in your life. If both people were wrong, that doesn't make the position wrong. IF Wesley and Finney were both wrong, that doesn't make the position wrong. And I thought all things were possible through God. Isn't that what Christ said? Do you not trust him either?

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"beyond self-reparation. "

1) it's not up to self according to scripture.

2) your doctrine of total depravity isn't stated as such in scripture. It's determined from opinions of scripture. As a result, the opposite argument can be made and be just as scriptural.

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"the Scriptures nonetheless support this doctrine"

I look forward to seeing them. :


What I see is man starts off broken and God fixes. It seems you seek an excuse to remain broken and not surrender it all to God. Which is the story of the Rich Young Ruler.

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"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually." (Genesis 6:5)"

AND Noah reconciled that issue. And after Noah you had Melchizedek, then Abraham, then ... and so forth. What the Genesis 6 verse is speaking of, was reconciled by God. It describes a pre Noah people. Not us today.

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"The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, [I] try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, [and] according to the fruit of his doings." (Jeremiah 17:9-10) "



God searches the heart, you do not know someone's heart, nor do I. God can try the reins, and rewards according to the fruit. With that heart, that God describes there, did he not also say...



Eze 11:19"And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,

Eze 36:26"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Eze 36:27"I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

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"These verses speak directly to the condition of the nature of man."

A nature, that Paul described in the last 1/3 of Romans 7, but stated he no longer suffered in Romans 7:5.



A nature that Romans 8:9 says is GONE IF the Spirit of God in dwells you.

A nature that Paul wrote was removed by a circumcision done by Christ at some point. Col 2:9

So if that nature that is inherently evil, no longer remains inside of you, what's your excuse.

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"who restrains the evil of man were to cease from such restraint, man would indeed then be as bad as he could be."

Which is it, does God have restraint or not? Can man make God release constraint? Big man, right? Or as you put it would God have to cease from restraint?

. "My sheep listen to my voice: I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish: no one can snatch them out of my hand, My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. (John 10:27-29).

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"Though we try desperately to alter or to purify ourselves, we end up with the same problem; we are filthy with both the cause and results of sin, and there is no way to change that fact."

It appears to me, the more you build yourself up to be strong, the more you are fighting God for CONTROL. The rich young ruler was told if He would be perfect he must sell all of the things he built up for himself, and give it all away, and come to follow Christ TOTALLY DEPENDENT ON HIM! In other words, lose your self provided strength, and depend fully on Christ. I trust, a man of such a big and bold website as you have, would know what that word PERFECT means. If not check it out at www.blueletterbible.com.

And, don't forget, along with this position of mine, the verse, blessed are the poor in spirit. Poor meaning someone who requires help from others, can't provide for self..... Poor in spirit, admits they have a weak spirit and lives dependent on God accordingly.

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"If the truth of the salvation program is known, that God has laid upon Jesus the iniquities of His people, and therefore through propitiatory intercession has designated all His people's iniquity to Christ, then God looks upon those who are born of God (see John 3:5) as never having sinned. "

It's true, that you have atonement for your sins, and GOD ignores your sins, as long as you confess them to God or a Spirit blessed man/woman. However, that doesn't interfere with John's statement in any way. And to claim it refutes it is silly. The option I will present will allow your statement to stand, as it's accurate to an extent, but show the rest of the story.

1 john 3:9, after the conjunction, says can not go on sinning. The NEGATIVE word in Greek is an absolute. The word for Sinning is missing the mark continuously. In other words 1 john 3:9 reads like this, If you are born of God you won't continue in the continuing sinful nature Paul discusses in Rom 7, in fact you can not sin anymore.



The problem only surfaces when you claim you are born again, before you are.

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"recalling 1 John 1:10, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

How does this say you will sin forever? It doesn't. It says everyone has sinned. JOHN 3:16 is the same comment. No one is denying that we have all sinned. The conversation is dealing with will we sin going forward.



I have a question for you, if John claims that to be in fellowship with God, you must walk in the light AS HE DOES, can you claim you walk in the light as HE does, and still sin, without saying HE sins? If John walked in the light as God does, John states unequivocally that he no longer sins. He's trying to help the people be in fellowship with God, they are atoned for but not yet in fellowship with God. And if you roll over to chapter 3 you see in vs 6 that John writes, if you still sin you haven't seen Him and do not know Him. <<<>>>

It's pretty consistent my way of reading it. YOU HAVE TO make silly claims like you did on 1:10 above.

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""If we say `We have accomplished sinlessness' we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.""

Do you make a habit of adding words and editing the Bible to suit your theology? That's rather unfortunate. There is nothing about accomplishing a state of not sinning in the verse you paraphrase at all. As you said in the tense comment, it's about sins committed already, or sinning now. A sin you don't commit, can't be finished as your tense requires. :


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"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" (Romans 3:23) "



Again, see 1:10 above, doesn't say you will sin forever. No one claims anyone but Christ was born and lived without sinning. There is nothing in that verse that shows you will arrive at a place that you do not continue to sin. And there is nothing that says GOD will fail if He intends to take you there.

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"If they sin against thee, (for there is no man which sinneth not) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before [their] enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far off or near;" (2 Chronicles 6:36)

Seems to me the word "IF" there allows for someone that doesn't sin against Him. Every man has sinned. Plus at the time of Chronicles, the Spirit of God wasn't in the capacity it is in the NT, and that is the key to Paul's and John's claims on the topic.

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"Who can bring a clean [thing] out of an unclean? not one." (Job 14:4)

So, your belief is GOD fails when He says He will remake us. Impressive, what an awesome God you have built for yourself. The great protector, but not mightier than you... very unthreatening.

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"Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" (Proverbs 20:9)

God says HE can do it in us. Do you doubt Him?

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Again this is a confirmation of the inability of man to do anything truly good, that is, in a Godly (or perfect) manner.



"But we are all as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousnesses [are] as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)



????? Yes, you are born an unclean thing. God says numerous places I have shown you that HE will cahnge you and fix you. I've shown you the unclean part is removed by Christ, unless you find him a failure in His attempts, and the result is it's not me who lives, but HE who lives in me. Col 2:11 flesh is removed, romans 8:9 the Spirit of God indwells me, Gal 5:16 then I won't give into temptations of the flesh.



I'm sorry, but you haven't looked at the other side of this argument very fairly.

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Though we try desperately to alter or to purify ourselves, we end up with the same problem; we are filthy with both the cause and results of sin, and there is no way to change that fact.

It seems to me, you need to think less of yourself and what you can do, and learn to be Poor of Spirit. Only then, can you prevail. And it's not you prevailing, anymore than Moses holding the stick above His head is what parted the red sea.

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Is there an indication of the possibility of sinlessness in the earthly life? In 1 John 5: 18a says, "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not." A popular, but wrong interpretation is that if I am born-again, I will have no sin in my physical life and at that point we will be able to say "I am born of God."

Errr no. The more accurate reading of this would be, if I still sin, I am not yet born of God. That's the conclusion to draw here. Not use some empty claim to be born again, when that's is God's to determine, not yours.

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The question you posed with....."O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7:24-25)"

Is answered by Paul with....

Rom 8:9However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

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You say...The flesh will serve the law of sin until the day of Christ,"



That isn't in scripture anywhere, especially in your commentary.

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What you have done, is an eisegetical assassination of a doctrine you refuse to consider. You have written it off before you studied it. I will provide a very simple, EXTREMELY short argument FOR sinless perfection.



You are born in life with a sinful nature, and it plays with you and controls you according to Paul.

You seek atonement/freedom from sin, then battle with obedience, and in that battle you receive a benefit <<<>>> and the benefit leads to sanctification. Rom 6:22.

The benefit is either Gal 5:16 the Spirit, or 1 john 3:9 His Seed, depending on the author. John probably didn't use the word Spirit because of the Gnostic issue he was sorta dealing wtih.

The sinful nature is removed at some point by a circumcision done by Christ, col 2:11.

And the Spirit of God then indwells you, Romans 8:9.

then, absent the flesh, armed with the Spirit, you no longer give into temptation. Gal 5:16.



I can make the same argument, errrr parallel arguments from Christ, and John. Whether you think that's what those verses mean or not is irrelevant, they COULD mean it. Until you take the horse by the reins and say, I'm going to understand this, you will never have an answer for it.



I don't claim to be the person I describe above. But, I fully defend that scripture claims it.

Gay marriage and the conservative right.

I'm a firmly rooted believer that Jesus the Christ was the Word made manifest, born from the womb lf Mary, named Joshua in his home and Jesus in the common town, who became the messiah, was blessed by the Spirit of God at 30ish, and led a three year ministry teaching, LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, died, was resurrected, and ascended, guided the church in its establishment, trained his Apostles to perpetuate the growth, who trained others to carry on from them and so forth. 

I believe the Bible is a book with a perfect message.  That doesn't mean every word is literal.  For example, Sarx/Flesh/Sinful nature.  Taken literally is always tied to the human body.  This makes Paul and others animated, Dungeon and Dragon skeletons in Romans 7:5.  The message however, is a perfect message.  This means you have room for metaphors, analogies, and other tools to express the message.

With this in mind, Gay marriage should have already been adopted by the Christian Churches in America, and the outrageous, dehumanizing, attacks on the topic never have occured.   I certainly hope that was inflammatory enough to keep you here.  Now, for the reasoning:

There is no example to follow where Jesus, John, James, Timothy, Barnabus, Peter, Paul, John, Matt, Mark, Luke, etc... ever tried to force beliefs on anyone.  Their ministry was with the people.  Jesus didn't tell the village the woman at the well lived in to punish her.  He spoke with her, one on one. 

Paul said it wasn't his job to judge those outside the Church.

Christ said that we are to love our neighbors, who may be our enemies, as perfectly, or completely as God does.  God's love was described as being one that provided for them; not just tolerate them.  (The Church today does neither to GLBT communities.) 

That love provided necessities.  The word Agapao requires the providential, charitable, representation through action to even qualify as Agapao.  The opposite is happening in this discussion.

Christ said to the soldier and the tax collector, two very "unholy" jobs in that culture that they were to do their jobs for the government, just do them fairly.

We are to respect the government, they are God appointed.

Their role, like the tax collector and soldier above, sometimes require them to not function as a Church.  They have to protect all people they govern.  WHY THE HELL (for hell is the only reason you would...)do you try to impede them doing their God appointed task.

If you use Matt 5:43-48, a quote from the Christ, you are to love your neighbor, even your enemies, and not just a warm fuzzy love, but one that provides/takes action to demonstrate that love to them.

You who yell loudest, are the most unChristian among us.  You are also, the most unBiblical. 

But you are the most rabid, and vapid at the same time.

Please, I appeal to you, stop making God and His Church out to be such a fascist regime.  Talk about AntiChrist.  If CHRIST is the Church, that is to be God's instrument of love to the people, this action is anti Christ by every sense of the word.