Confronting the doctrine of sinless perfection with 1 Corinthians 3:1-4 and Colossians 3:5-10

[Tenchi]

Verses 6, 8, and 10 address those walking in darkness...which is sin. (Pro 4:19)
Sinners can't honestly say that they have fellowship with God or that they have no sin.
Those walking in the light, which is God, can honestly say both.
Those walking in Christ have fellowship with the Father and don't commit sin.

As I've pointed out to you in other threads, John used the pronoun "we" in his remarks in 1 John 1:8-10. In doing so, he included himself in his remarks. And so, when he wrote,

1 John 1:8
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us

John was describing himself as well as his fellow born-again readers. But John didn't just include himself among those who cannot say they have no sin, he also used the present tense verb "have." In other words, John wrote that at the time he was writing, as a born-again apostle of Jesus Christ and the single greatest contributor to the New Testament, he could not say he was without sin. To do so, to say he was without sin, John went on to write, was not only to be self-deceived, but was to call God a liar.

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

And then, making it crystal clear that John did not hold to a sinless perfection view, he wrote the following:

1 John 2:1
1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Who was John addressing here? Non-believers? No, he specifically identified fellow believers (eg. "My little children") as the object of his remarks and to them he wrote that, if they do sin, they have an Advocate with God the Father in Jesus Christ. Again, John used the pronoun "we" including himself among those who, having sinned, have an Advocate in heaven in Jesus Christ. All of this is totally nonsensical if John and his fellow believers were sinlessly perfect, as you assert Hopeful 2.

True.
Do you really think God would require His son to die so we could remain rebellious and hateful towards Him ?

Who's saying such a thing? I'm certainly not.

That is one pathetic interpretation of the love of God.
What the OT's men in the "flesh" could not accomplish, the NT's men in the Spirit can, perfectly !

??? I wasn't speaking to the matter of the love of God but to the purpose of Christ's Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7.

Yes, the Holy Spirit enables in the born-again believer a life of holiness and reconciliation with God that the OT Jews could not achieve or enjoy. But the Spirit-filled life is not a life of perfection any more than a water-filled bottle is itself therefore water. We only contain the Spirit; we are not the Spirit himself.

It is written..."And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." (1 John 2:3-6)

These things are to be taken in tandem with all that immediately preceded what you've quoted here, qualified and clarified by it. And when one does this, the quotation above simply cannot be construed as teaching sinless perfection.

You seem unaware of verse 5's referral to a past time: a time still in and walking after the "flesh".
That verse sets the stage for his continued narrative of unsuccessfully trying to serve God by keeping the Law.

No, I'm not "unaware." I simply pay attention to the tense in which Paul wrote the following:

Romans 7:14-25
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
15 For I do [present tense] not understand my own actions. For I do [present tense] not do [present tense] what I want [present tense], but I do the very thing I hate.
16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells [present progressive] within me.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have [present tense] the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want [present tense] to do right, evil lies close at hand.
22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me [present progressive tense] captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve [present tense] the law of sin.

 

[leroy]

Do you believe Jesus is God?

Hello Elect,
Let me answer this question by sharing the scripture that has caused me to dig deep into the gold mine of the topic of the incarnation and the nature of Christ.
POINT1) I used to believe that God somehow turned his Son into a human embryo and placed him in Mary's womb.
CONCLUSION I've come to doubt this explanation because that means that his flesh came from some other source than our flesh. So how could he be my example or savior?

POINT 2) Some even go as far to say that he had the nature of Adam before the fall. He did not have sinful flesh. He was dealing with a divine or perfect nature, not like ours.
I’ve also rejected this teaching.
Romans 1:3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
CONCLUSION It seemed to be clear to me that when it speaks of the 'seed of David' it's talking about genetics and clearly infers that Jesus was physically related to David.
Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
Luke 3:23 begins the list of Mary’s genealogy which goes all the way back to Adam. It says that Joseph was the son of Heli…. But in the margin of my Bible it says that Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli. Therefore Heli was Mary’s father. Joseph’s genealogy is in Matthew 1.
CONCLUSION Jesus had sinful human flesh to deal with. He was of the genetic line of Adam and David and by that he undoubtedly had to deal with the hereditary influences of his ancestors and all of the evil they failed to overcome. He took the weight of their sin upon him and overcame where they failed. Some shudder at the thought that Jesus had sinful flash or a fallen nature. The fact that he had sinful flesh and a fallen nature did not disqualify him but actually qualified him to be our savior. Despite having these setbacks he never exercise them and gained victory over all of it. What he gained he can give to us, for if God can produce this in him with his handicaps he can produce it in any child of Adam.
POINT 3) Some say that he was fully human and fully divine. I preferred to believe that he was humanity and divinity combined. This means that there were two individuals involved. The son of Mary a descendent of Adam with the same battles to fight that we do. And the divine Son of God who is a spirit Being, the Creator of all things. The Son, as a spirit being, possessed the son of Mary. The two became one.
An analogy: I believe that human marriage and the act of procreation are the premiere examples given to teachers about the plan of redemption and how the incarnation could be understood.
In marriage it states that the two become one. In my mind when they have children they become one. The mother provides genetic material that is fully mommy. The father supplies genetic material that is fully daddy. When the sperm meets the egg the genetic material is combined to create a new being. It is not fully mommy and fully daddy but mommy and daddy combined for the two have actually become one in that child.

The Bible says that we are the bride of Christ and also talks about the marriage of the lamb.
With all of our faults and feelings, with all of the stores from the top of the head to the soul of our feet, we stand naked in unashamed before God the lover of our soul. As God looks upon us He only sees purity. “Thou art all fair my beloved, I see no spot in thee.” Because we feel our great need of Him he comes in and brings to life the Seed that was given to Eve and passed on to every being who has ever been born on this planet. As the Son begins to grow up in us, more and more He is revealed to us. The closer of the relationship comes greater we see our need. Again and again the Father comes in to us and provides more of the life and virtue of the Son filling our life with his purity. This is how the two of us become one. "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Eph 4:13
The redeemed are bound to God with ties that can never be broken.

This is the only way that God provided to save us, There was no other way. Throughout eternity the redeemed will be part of the godhead.. We will reign with Him, priests and kings.
In John 14 Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit being given to the disciples to live in them in the next verse he says I will come to you. A few verses later he says if you keep my Commandments my Father and I will make our abode in you.
SOME QUESTIONS I HAD TO ASK MYSELF
Is Christ in us any different than Christ in Mary’s son? Apart from the fact he was given a different work than our work.
Was he the Son of God and we the son’s of God?
Did the Father give His small ’s’ son to us and a capital ’S’ Son to Mary’s son?
Did we get a lesser or detuned son?
Since we lost our life in Eden the only way we could survive forever is if we had the life that God gives. In 1 John 5 it says, “This is the record that God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has life.”
So I concluded that eternal life is not some kind of substance that God gives us but it comes in the person of His Son and He is our eternal life. We are his body and the body according to Paul is comprised of many members and then he says this marvelous thing, “...so also is Christ." Yes Christ is a multi membered body. We are His human body that he inhabits and throughout eternity the Father will see His Son when he looks at us.
Some would say oh but Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the head of this body we are the arms and legs and all the other bits and pieces, meaning that there is only one body and it is comprised of the redeemed and it is the human body of the Son. He lives in us, He moves in us and works out His will in us. We have no other life but him and he has no human body but us and that includes the son of Mary.
So you ask is Jesus God?
I say that he is because God lives in him and so are you because God lives in you. But to be a God does not mean that you've become something, NO NO! it means that you, your humanity becomes nothing you lay down your life. You are an empty vessel and the divine Son of God uses you to fulfill his will throughout eternal ages.

 

[electedbyHim]

Hello Elect,
Let me answer this question by sharing the scripture that has caused me to dig deep into the gold mine of the topic of the incarnation and the nature of Christ.
POINT1) I used to believe that God somehow turned his Son into a human embryo and placed him in Mary's womb.
CONCLUSION I've come to doubt this explanation because that means that his flesh came from some other source than our flesh. So how could he be my example or savior?

POINT 2) Some even go as far to say that he had the nature of Adam before the fall. He did not have sinful flesh. He was dealing with a divine or perfect nature, not like ours.
I’ve also rejected this teaching.
Romans 1:3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
CONCLUSION It seemed to be clear to me that when it speaks of the 'seed of David' it's talking about genetics and clearly infers that Jesus was physically related to David.
Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
Luke 3:23 begins the list of Mary’s genealogy which goes all the way back to Adam. It says that Joseph was the son of Heli…. But in the margin of my Bible it says that Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli. Therefore Heli was Mary’s father. Joseph’s genealogy is in Matthew 1.
CONCLUSION Jesus had sinful human flesh to deal with. He was of the genetic line of Adam and David and by that he undoubtedly had to deal with the hereditary influences of his ancestors and all of the evil they failed to overcome. He took the weight of their sin upon him and overcame where they failed. Some shudder at the thought that Jesus had sinful flash or a fallen nature. The fact that he had sinful flesh and a fallen nature did not disqualify him but actually qualified him to be our savior. Despite having these setbacks he never exercise them and gained victory over all of it. What he gained he can give to us, for if God can produce this in him with his handicaps he can produce it in any child of Adam.
POINT 3) Some say that he was fully human and fully divine. I preferred to believe that he was humanity and divinity combined. This means that there were two individuals involved. The son of Mary a descendent of Adam with the same battles to fight that we do. And the divine Son of God who is a spirit Being, the Creator of all things. The Son, as a spirit being, possessed the son of Mary. The two became one.
An analogy: I believe that human marriage and the act of procreation are the premiere examples given to teachers about the plan of redemption and how the incarnation could be understood.
In marriage it states that the two become one. In my mind when they have children they become one. The mother provides genetic material that is fully mommy. The father supplies genetic material that is fully daddy. When the sperm meets the egg the genetic material is combined to create a new being. It is not fully mommy and fully daddy but mommy and daddy combined for the two have actually become one in that child.

The Bible says that we are the bride of Christ and also talks about the marriage of the lamb.
With all of our faults and feelings, with all of the stores from the top of the head to the soul of our feet, we stand naked in unashamed before God the lover of our soul. As God looks upon us He only sees purity. “Thou art all fair my beloved, I see no spot in thee.” Because we feel our great need of Him he comes in and brings to life the Seed that was given to Eve and passed on to every being who has ever been born on this planet. As the Son begins to grow up in us, more and more He is revealed to us. The closer of the relationship comes greater we see our need. Again and again the Father comes in to us and provides more of the life and virtue of the Son filling our life with his purity. This is how the two of us become one. "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Eph 4:13
The redeemed are bound to God with ties that can never be broken.

This is the only way that God provided to save us, There was no other way. Throughout eternity the redeemed will be part of the godhead.. We will reign with Him, priests and kings.
In John 14 Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit being given to the disciples to live in them in the next verse he says I will come to you. A few verses later he says if you keep my Commandments my Father and I will make our abode in you.
SOME QUESTIONS I HAD TO ASK MYSELF
Is Christ in us any different than Christ in Mary’s son? Apart from the fact he was given a different work than our work.
Was he the Son of God and we the son’s of God?
Did the Father give His small ’s’ son to us and a capital ’S’ Son to Mary’s son?
Did we get a lesser or detuned son?
Since we lost our life in Eden the only way we could survive forever is if we had the life that God gives. In 1 John 5 it says, “This is the record that God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has life.”
So I concluded that eternal life is not some kind of substance that God gives us but it comes in the person of His Son and He is our eternal life. We are his body and the body according to Paul is comprised of many members and then he says this marvelous thing, “...so also is Christ." Yes Christ is a multi membered body. We are His human body that he inhabits and throughout eternity the Father will see His Son when he looks at us.
Some would say oh but Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the head of this body we are the arms and legs and all the other bits and pieces, meaning that there is only one body and it is comprised of the redeemed and it is the human body of the Son. He lives in us, He moves in us and works out His will in us. We have no other life but him and he has no human body but us and that includes the son of Mary.
So you ask is Jesus God?
I say that he is because God lives in him and so are you because God lives in you. But to be a God does not mean that you've become something, NO NO! it means that you, your humanity becomes nothing you lay down your life. You are an empty vessel and the divine Son of God uses you to fulfill his will throughout eternal ages.

Jesus was fully human and fully God in the flesh?

 

[Carry_Your_Name]

What it appears here that you understood me to mean and what I actually meant are widely-differing things. In actuality, I don't believe the Bible is "customized for you," or is a "personal self-help message," or that it's appropriate to pick and choose among its contents what you like. And in all of the posts to CF.net that I've written, in none of them will you encounter such advice from me.

Well I'm sorry that I may have misunderstood, but I'm not responsible to read your mind. The bible is God's special revelation of his character, sufficient but not exhaustive, through and through.

And by the way, you're wasting your time debating with Hopeful 2, he's hopeless. Trust me, I've been there, it's like banging your head on a wall.

 

[Hopeful 2]

I don't know that you've been entirely clear about what you mean by "truly born again from God's seed." God isn't a plant, right?

Correct.
He is the Father of Jesus, and also of all those who are born again.

He doesn't inseminate His children with spiritual sperm, with divine "seed," either.

God's children are born of God's seed.

I am born-again by the Holy Spirit coming to dwell within me and making of me his "temple" (Romans 8:9-16; Titus 3:5; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; John 3:3-7).

But still. you fight against Godliness ?

He is never referred to in the NT, though, as the "seed" of Christ in the born-again person. What, then, do you mean by "born again from God's seed"?

Just as Jesus was born of God's seed, so too are God's children born of God's seed.

These things are nowhere stated in the NT of genuinely born-again people in the Early Church,

That is correct, as sinners aren't reborn of God's seed
It is those who are unrepentant who "seem" to return to sin.
In fact, they never left sin.

though many of them are criticized for sinful conduct in many places in the NT.

Paul graciously shepherds the unregenerated to a state they should have reached much earlier.
Truly repentant and bearing godly fruit unto God.

I once saw online a cat raised by a dog that acts like a dog. It plays like a dog, fetching balls, and picking up sticks, and digging in the dirt. The cat hangs out with dogs, going where they go, eating what they eat, and generally behaving quite unlike a cat. Is the cat, therefore, not a cat?

That cat is still a cat.
If Rom 6:6's "old man" of the cat had been destroyed, and it was reborn as something else, it would bear the fruit of the something else.
Your cat is just mimicking its pals.
It will never breed with nor bear puppies.

The "fruit" of its behavior is not consistent with its feline nature. This, though, would not be good grounds upon which to say that the cat is a dog. This the-cat-is-a-dog logic is what you're employing in the quotation above concerning Christians.

Where is your cat's rebirth from a dogs seed ?

It is, though, precisely because the writers of the NT did not think in this fallacious way that when they saw sin in the lives of Early Christians they wrote to them in criticism of their sin as "brethren," and those "in Christ," and "God's field and buildings," and "temples of the Holy Spirit" and so on.

No preacher or pastor wants to lose anyone he thought had converted.
Paul was graciously fighting for their souls.
But what did he advise regarding the adulterer of 1 Cor 5 ?
First he admonished them to cast him out of the church; to deliver him to satan in order to save the church. (1 Cor 5:5)
Eventually, however, he wrote..."So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow." (2 Cor 2:7)
Paul wasn't willing to give up on him.

Nowhere in any of Paul's writings does he ever write that the only thing he had yet to attain to was his resurrection to a glorified body. It is entirely eisegesis that you're doing - forcing an idea into the biblical text - when you assert such a thing.

You should read Phil 3.

In verse 15, Paul wrote of being mature, but maturity doesn't necessarily imply sinless perfection. And his admission to not yet having attained denies the idea of his being sinlessly perfect. The "prize of the upward call of God in Christ" is what Paul described at length only a few verse earlier: knowing Christ.

The bible says "perfect": as perfect as one can get before the resurrection and new vessel are provided.
I beleive the bible.

Philippians 3:7-10
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

Repeatedly in this section of verses, Paul emphasized that Christ - knowing him, being like him - was his chief preoccupation and that toward this goal - not yet fully attained - he was constantly pressing. It is the repetition of this goal that signals what Paul had primarily in view when he continued on, writing of what he had not yet attained. This "prize" Paul had actually referred to repeatedly earlier in his letter to the Christians at Philippi.

If only you had printed verse 11..."If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."
The resurrection was the only thing he waited for...until verse 21..."Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."

Philippians 1:12-18
12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel,
13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.
14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will.
16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.
17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.
18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice,

Paul's interest here isn't in a resurrected, glorified body but in Christ.

Supra.

Philippians 1:20-23
20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell.
23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Paul's focus here was not on getting a resurrected, glorified body but on being with Christ and on Christ being honored in Paul's body. In light of Paul's very clear emphasis in his letter on Christ and achieving more in regards to his relationship with Christ, to imply that Paul's resurrected body was all he had yet to attain is just, well, bizarre. But this contortion of the obvious is always what false doctrines require of those who hold them.

It was a good thing you weren't there to tell him it was impossible.

 

[Hopeful 2]

As I've pointed out to you in other threads, John used the pronoun "we" in his remarks in 1 John 1:8-10.

Yes, he does.
IF we walk in darkness we can neither say we have fellowship with God or that we have no sin.
However, IF we walk in the light, we can say both !

In doing so, he included himself in his remarks. And so, when he wrote,

Yes, but as a faithful apostle of Jesus, it think it clear that he had both fellowship with God and could say he had no sin.

I also think it fair to believe that John knew Jesus and His Father.
It is written..."And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." (1 John 2:3-6)

People that know Him don't walk in darkness.

 

[Hopeful 2]

I appreciate the format that is used by those of you who are familiar with this forum. By being new I don’t know how to parse out statements and comment about them separately as Hopeful has in his last post. Also I know I am long ‘winded’ but there are so many points and scriptures that come to mind as I write. I would hope that my long replies do not put any of you off. Lastly If you have a concern it would be well to question specific statements and text I have used.

(Just hit "enter" after the portion you want to answer.)

 

[leroy]

Jesus was fully human and fully God in the flesh?

Your reply is strange to read. The sentence is just a statement but there is a '?' at the end. Do you have a question?

 

[Tenchi]

Well I'm sorry that I may have misunderstood, but I'm not responsible to read your mind.

I never asked you to read my mind. However, if you're going to make assertions and draw inferences from my remarks, be sure first that you can do so accurately. If you don't, if you're making statements about my views that are false, are you not bearing false witness concerning me? It certainly looks like it to me. I'm sure you don't want to be guilty of telling falsehoods, so maybe just ask me what it is I believe rather than jumping to wrong conclusions about my views and then sharing them as though they are what I actually believe. Thanks.

And by the way, you're wasting your time debating with Hopeful 2, he's hopeless. Trust me, I've been there, it's like banging your head on a wall.

As is often the case in my back-and-forth with folks on various threads, I'm not writing only - or even primarily - for the person with whom I'm engaging but for all the "lurkers" who remain silent but are reading through the thread. I know Hopeful 2 is well-blinded by his/her long investment in the false doctrine of sinless perfection and cannot now readily discern the Truth, but there are others reading his/her words who could be infected with his/her error that I want to help to steer clear of it.

 

[Carry_Your_Name]

I never asked you to read my mind. However, if you're going to make assertions and draw inferences from my remarks, be sure first that you can do so accurately. If you don't, if you're making statements about my views that are false, are you not bearing false witness concerning me? It certainly looks like it to me. I'm sure you don't want to be guilty of telling falsehoods, so maybe just ask me what it is I believe rather than jumping to wrong conclusions about my views and then sharing them as though they are what I actually believe. Thanks.

But did you ever tell me to read the bible as God's personal word to me in a reply? If so, then I'm not bearing false witness.

As is often the case in my back-and-forth with folks on various threads, I'm not writing only - or even primarily - for the person with whom I'm engaging but for all the "lurkers" who remain silent but are reading through the thread. I know Hopeful 2 is well-blinded by his/her long investment in the false doctrine of sinless perfection and cannot now readily discern the Truth, but there are others reading his/her words who could be infected with his/her error that I want to help to steer clear of it.

I don't think there's any "lurkers" bother to read this endless back and forth spat, they'd be totaly clueless if they're just randomly checking out. Most of the time you're probably just preaching to yourself.

 

[Tenchi]

God's children are born of God's seed.

This is no more clear now than when I first encountered this statement from you many threads ago. What do you actually mean by "born of God's seed"? Can you explain this phrase you use? Or is it just as impenetrable to you as to those at whom you throw the phrase? Usually, when folks wax tautological - as you do here - it's because they don't really know what they mean by the phrase they're using.

But still. you fight against Godliness ?

Deflection. I asked you to carefully explain what you mean by "born of God's seed" but you have replied by stating the phrase requiring explanation. Doing so is a tautology; it's talking in a circle, which is irrational.

And no, I don't "fight against godliness"; I just don't foist upon my fellow believers a false notion of what walking in the Spirit entails.

Just as Jesus was born of God's seed, so too are God's children born of God's seed.

??? What do you mean "Jesus was born of God's seed"? And how, exactly, are we likewise born? My mother wasn't impregnated by the Holy Spirit, as Mary was...

That is correct, as sinners aren't reborn of God's seed
It is those who are unrepentant who "seem" to return to sin.
In fact, they never left sin.

Again, this isn't what the NT clearly indicates. I've already cited several instances that plainly contradict your statement here.

1 Corinthians 3:1-4
1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

1 Corinthians 3:9
9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

1 Corinthians 3:13-15
13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

1 Corinthians 3:16
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

1 Corinthians 3:23
23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

Paul begins chapter 3 by describing his Christian brothers in Corinth as fractious, partisan "infants in Christ" who could not take in spiritual "meat" but were perennial "milk-drinkers." Paul even calls them carnal, or "behaving in a human way." Does Paul go on to warn them that they were never, therefore, truly saved or that they had lost their salvation? Not at all. Instead, he confirmed that these carnal, immature, contentious believers were "God's field and building," God's "temple," that they were Christ's and that even if all they had built upon the foundation of their life in Christ was burned up at the Last Day of Judgment, they would still be saved! Very clearly Paul did not hold to a sinless perfection view of the born-again believer.

And, again, neither did the apostle John, who wrote that both himself and the Christian brethren to whom he was writing could not say they were without sin and that to do so indicated self-deception and was essentially to call God a liar.

1 John 1:8-2:2
8 If we say we [both John and his readers] have [present tense] 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.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 My little children [born-again believers, not unbelievers], I am writing these things to you so that you may not [as opposed to cannot] sin. But if anyone does sin [again, as opposed to cannot sin], we [both John and his readers] have [present tense] an advocate [not a Redeemer or Savior] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 He is [present tense, rather than "yet to be"] the propitiation for our [again, John includes himself in his remarks concerning sin] sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Either one of these examples thoroughly defeats your sinless perfection error but together they make your error both glaring and decidedly willful. And these are only two of many examples in the NT of believers who were sinning.

Paul graciously shepherds the unregenerated to a state they should have reached much earlier.
Truly repentant and bearing godly fruit unto God.

Nope. This is just a straight-out false representation of Paul's statements. See above.

If Rom 6:6's "old man" of the cat had been destroyed, and it was reborn as something else, it would bear the fruit of the something else.

But what does Paul say to those to whom he wrote what he did in verse 6?

Romans 6:1-7
1 What shall we [Paul includes himself in what he is writing here] say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [Why in the world would Paul write such a thing to sinlessly-perfect people, among whom he had included himself? If they were all sinlessly-perfect, no such remark would be at all necessary!]
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ["We" implies commonality. About both himself and his readers, Paul wrote this rhetorical question. But why, if they're all sinlessly-perfect, why would he write "still live in it"? Were there born-again believers in Rome who were doing so? Were there born-again believers (just as Paul was), who were still living in sin? This is what makes the simplest, most straightforward sense here.
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [Paul's rhetorical question here implies that his readers did not know that they were baptized into Christ and thereby into his death.]
4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. [Why explain all this to fellow believers who were, by virtue of being believers, sinlessly-perfect? This is all extraneous and unnecessary information for already sin-free believers. If, though, the Christians at Rome were not actually sinlessly-perfect but were "continuing in sin that grace may abound" because they did not know the facts of their spiritual union with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, as Paul implied, his explanation here makes good sense and has a lot of value.]

Rather than being ground for your sinless perfection false doctrine, @ Hopeful 2, this passage from Paul's letter to the Roman Christians is actually another example of believers living in sin and thus confounding your false doctrine!

Continued below.

 

[Tenchi]

Your cat is just mimicking its pals.
It will never breed with nor bear puppies.

Every analogy can be overstretched - especially when one wants to avoid the point the analogy was intended to make.

Where is your cat's rebirth from a dogs seed ?

Again, this is just a purposeful overextension of the analogy in order to deflect from the point I made with it. What was my point? That behavior is not necessarily indicative of nature. A cat, though truly a cat, can behave like a dog. And a Christian, though truly born-again, can behave like a non-Christian - as the examples from the NT above demonstrate very well.

No preacher or pastor wants to lose anyone he thought had converted.
Paul was graciously fighting for their souls.

No, he wasn't. Nothing in what Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers indicates this. Instead, as I pointed out from Paul's own words, he confirmed again and again that, though his readers were guilty of sin, they were still "brethren," "in Christ" and God's "temple." Why, then, you throw out this facile and glaringly false mischaracterization of Paul's remarks in 1 Corinthians 3 I don't know - except that this glaring distortion of God's truth is what false doctrine always requires of those who take them up.

First he admonished them to cast him out of the church; to deliver him to satan in order to save the church. (1 Cor 5:5)
Eventually, however, he wrote..."So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow." (2 Cor 2:7)
Paul wasn't willing to give up on him.

Did Paul do the same with all the other sinning brethren in the church at Corinth? No, only the one fellow, a unique case in both its willfulness and grossness of sin. And so, extrapolating from this one instance to all the sinning believers Paul mentions in his letter is a maneuver unsupported by Paul's actual words. Only this one person does Paul eject from the community of the believers at Corinth.

You should read Phil 3.

You should take your own advice here. Of the two of us, I have been far more faithful to what Paul actually wrote, understanding his words in their context. You, though, have had to constrain and confine his words unnaturally in order to accommodate your false doctrine.

The bible says "perfect"

By "telios," Paul meant "mature," or "complete," not "utterly without flaw" (which is what "perfect" means).

Philippians 3:15 (ESV)
15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

Philippians 3:15 (AMP)
All of us who are mature [pursuing spiritual perfection] should have this attitude. And if in any respect you have a different attitude, that too God will make clear to you.

Philippians 3:15 (HCSB)
Therefore, all who are mature should think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.

Philippians 3:15 (NASB)
Therefore, all who are mature, let’s have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that to you as well;
And so on. As you can see, the rebuttal "The Bible says 'perfect'" is not at all helpful in making your case for you.

If only you had printed verse 11..."If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."
The resurrection was the only thing he waited for...until verse 21..."Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."

I didn't include it because it is not part of the main thrust of Paul's words, as I showed you from the text of his letter to the Christians at Philippi.

Yes, he does.
IF we walk in darkness we can neither say we have fellowship with God or that we have no sin.
However, IF we walk in the light, we can say both !

This is just another of the many facile and deflective responses you offer that simply demonstrate how weak and superficial your defense of your false doctrine really is.

Yes, but as a faithful apostle of Jesus, it think it clear that he had both fellowship with God and could say he had no sin.

You see? You have to deny the plain declaration of John in order to sustain your false doctrine. Amazing, how blind to this you are! Wow.

1 John 1:8
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

1 John 2:1
1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;

It is written..."And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." (1 John 2:3-6)

People that know Him don't walk in darkness.

But this isn't all that John wrote, as I've pointed out to you before. When you take all John wrote together, you find no ground for sinless perfection in his thinking and words. See above.

 

[Tenchi]

But did you ever tell me to read the bible as God's personal word to me in a reply? If so, then I'm not bearing false witness.

*Sigh* It seems you just can't admit to acting poorly even when it's quite obvious that you have...

I don't think there's any "lurkers" bother to read this endless back and forth spat, they'd be totaly clueless if they're just randomly checking out. Most of the time you're probably just preaching to yourself.

You're entitled to your opinion. But merely denying my view doesn't secure your own. Simple contradiction isn't actually an argument for your view or against mine. It's just contradiction.

I think there are many "lurkers" of threads. In other subforums on this site where I have posted, I have had hundreds of readers but not a single commenter. It seems very evident to me, therefore, that there are "lurkers" who will, I think, benefit from seeing reasoned, biblical counters to false doctrine.

And even if there were no readers of my posts at all, I've still benefited from the thinking, and Bible study, and writing that I do in making the threads that I post.

 

[electedbyHim]

Your reply is strange to read. The sentence is just a statement but there is a '?' at the end. Do you have a question?

Do you believe Jesus was fully God and fully human while on this earth?

 

[Hopeful 2]

This is no more clear now than when I first encountered this statement from you many threads ago. What do you actually mean by "born of God's seed"? Can you explain this phrase you use? Or is it just as impenetrable to you as to those at whom you throw the phrase? Usually, when folks wax tautological - as you do here - it's because they don't really know what they mean by the phrase they're using.

Are you aware of the terms "rebirth", or, "born again" ?
Are you aware that nobody who hasn't been reborn will see the kingdom of God ? (John 3:3)
As Jesus didn't elaborate on that in John 3, we must look to other scrips' in order to see how rebirth is facilitated.
And what happens to the old "us" ?
1 Peter 1:23 gives us a hint at the answer to the first question..."Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever."
That incorruptible seed is God's own seed.
The seed is planted in our heart by Jesus Christ, who is the Word made flesh, who liveth and abideth forever.
It will either bring forth the fruit of God, or it will shrivel in "bad soil".

The old "us" ?
Paul tells us in Rom 6:3-6 that the old man is baptized into Christ's death and burial.
Then we are raised with Christ to walk in newness of life. (Rom 6:4)
That is rebirth, and the start of our new creature.

Deflection. I asked you to carefully explain what you mean by "born of God's seed" but you have replied by stating the phrase requiring explanation. Doing so is a tautology; it's talking in a circle, which is irrational.

I hope the above answers your questions.

And no, I don't "fight against godliness"; I just don't foist upon my fellow believers a false notion of what walking in the Spirit entails.

Yes, you do fight in defense of sinning.
Your theme seems to be that nobody can remain loyal to Christ and to his Father and won't quit serving sin.

??? What do you mean "Jesus was born of God's seed"? And how, exactly, are we likewise born? My mother wasn't impregnated by the Holy Spirit, as Mary was...

It is written..."And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)
As you do seem to understand how Mary got pregnant, why do you question from whence the seed that was responsible for Jesus' life came from ?

Again, this isn't what the NT clearly indicates. I've already cited several instances that plainly contradict your statement here.

1 Corinthians 3:1-4
1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

You don't seem to be able to recognize a slap-down when you read it.
Those people had the choice right then to manifest from Whom they were born.
Did they want to be addressed as men walking after the flesh? Or as spiritual men ?
Because right then, Paul couldn't address them as spiritual men.

Paul begins chapter 3 by describing his Christian brothers in Corinth as fractious, partisan "infants in Christ" who could not take in spiritual "meat" but were perennial "milk-drinkers." Paul even calls them carnal, or "behaving in a human way." Does Paul go on to warn them that they were never, therefore, truly saved or that they had lost their salvation? Not at all. Instead, he confirmed that these carnal, immature, contentious believers were "God's field and building," God's "temple," that they were Christ's and that even if all they had built upon the foundation of their life in Christ was burned up at the Last Day of Judgment, they would still be saved! Very clearly Paul did not hold to a sinless perfection view of the born-again believer.

What would their fate have been if they ignored Paul ?
It would have been the fate of all the other carnal folks that walk in the "flesh".
Paul was gracefully trying to reel them back in from the precarious point they had fallen to.

And, again, neither did the apostle John, who wrote that both himself and the Christian brethren to whom he was writing could not say they were without sin and that to do so indicated self-deception and was essentially to call God a liar.

1 John 1:8-2:2
8 If we say we [both John and his readers] have [present tense] 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.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 My little children [born-again believers, not unbelievers], I am writing these things to you so that you may not [as opposed to cannot] sin. But if anyone does sin [again, as opposed to cannot sin], we [both John and his readers] have [present tense] an advocate [not a Redeemer or Savior] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 He is [present tense, rather than "yet to be"] the propitiation for our [again, John includes himself in his remarks concerning sin] sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Either one of these examples thoroughly defeats your sinless perfection error but together they make your error both glaring and decidedly willful. And these are only two of many examples in the NT of believers who were sinning.

We, and the church John address, have two choices.
Walk in the light-God, or walk in darkness-sin.
Here is how to tell who is doing which,
Those walking in darkness-sin cannot say they know or have fellowship with God, or that they have no sin.
Those walking in the light-God can say they know and have fellowship with God, and have been washed of all (past) sin by the blood of Christ.
They can say they have no sin because the sin was washed away by the blood of Christ !
How can we be sure that we know God ?
1 John 2:3-6..."And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."

Nope. This is just a straight-out false representation of Paul's statements. See above.

You are entitled to have an opinion.

But what does Paul say to those to whom he wrote what he did in verse 6?
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Amen to that !
What does "set free from sin" mean to you ?

[Why explain all this to fellow believers who were, by virtue of being believers, sinlessly-perfect?

What makes you think that everyone who would ever read it was a believer ?
I wasn't a believer when I first read it.
Paul's Spirit guided words were for more that just Romans of the year 30 or 40.

This is all extraneous and unnecessary information for already sin-free believers. If, though, the Christians at Rome were not actually sinlessly-perfect but were "continuing in sin that grace may abound" because they did not know the facts of their spiritual union with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, as Paul implied, his explanation here makes good sense and has a lot of value.]

What would have been the value of those words if no Roman could ever be free from sin ?

Rather than being ground for your sinless perfection false doctrine, @ Hopeful 2, this passage from Paul's letter to the Roman Christians is actually another example of believers living in sin and thus confounding your false doctrine!

Doesn't it seem odd to you that Paul is describing how to be free from sin, if nobody could ever be free from sin ?
We can do exactly as Paul writes, getting baptized into, and partaking of, Christ and His death and burial.
From which we can be raised with Christ to walk in newness of life.
Killed with Him, buried, with Him, and raised with Him.
Now walking in the Spirit, and not in the "flesh".

All we need to keep from returning to sinfulness !
Thanks be to God !!!!

 

[JJonas]

As is often the case in my back-and-forth with folks on various threads, I'm not writing only - or even primarily - for the person with whom I'm engaging but for all the "lurkers" who remain silent but are reading through the thread. I know Hopeful 2 is well-blinded by his/her long investment in the false doctrine of sinless perfection and cannot now readily discern the Truth, but there are others reading his/her words who could be infected with his/her error that I want to help to steer clear of it.

Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. (Titus 3:10)

Dear Tenchi, you don't need to try to be smarter than God's word. You exchanged a few words with blinded people like Hopeful 2 to expose the truth? Fine, but it's time to move on. Your time is too precious to be wasted like that. And no, lurkers will not read 9 (!) pages of this back and forth, which isn't stopping because both sides want to have the last word!

 

[JJonas]

J wrote: "Indeed, the word of God testifies in many places that although being believers, we all stumble in many things"

For your information: you didn't use the quote function correctly so that I didn't get any notification.

What you have quoted is human history within God's book. What I have quoted is God's WORD. There is a marked difference!

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16).

There is no such thing like “human history within God's book” that is not God's Word! All scripture is given by inspiration of God! All scripture, including James 3:2, is then God's Word!

By the was, James 3:2 is not about the example of a particular individual or “human history”. We all stumble in many things is a general statement that applies to us all!

If God can keep Mary's son from falling why can't He keep you?

Do you see Jesus-Christ merely as Mary's son? Do you mean that he is just a human like us? That is at least what your choice of words suggests, because you called Him the same way the unbelievers called Jesus (Mark 6:3), while the believers see in Jesus, God's only begotten Son (John 3:16) who has the words of eternal life (John 6:68; comp. Matt 16:16-17)

I was once like you. (...)

Should I believe what an anonymous poster says about his own experience? First, it's much easier to pose as a sinless believer in a forum, as in the real life. Second, only God's Word is to be absolutely trusted. It is the yardstick to measure experiences, so that experiences that contradict God's Word are not to be taken seriously.

 

[electedbyHim]

For your information: you didn't use the quote function correctly so that I didn't get any notification.


All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16).

There is no such thing like “human history within God's book” that is not God's Word! All scripture is given by inspiration of God! All scripture, including James 3:2, is then God's Word!

By the was, James 3:2 is not about the example of a particular individual or “human history”. We all stumble in many things is a general statement that applies to us all!


Do you see Jesus-Christ merely as Mary's son? Do you mean that he is just a human like us? That is at least what your choice of words suggests, because you called Him the same way the unbelievers called Jesus (Mark 6:3), while the believers see in Jesus, God's only begotten Son (John 3:16) who has the words of eternal life (John 6:68; comp. Matt 16:16-17)


Should I believe what an anonymous poster says about his own experience? First, it's much easier to pose as a sinless believer in a forum, as in the real life. Second, only God's Word is to be absolutely trusted. It is the yardstick to measure experiences, so that experiences that contradict God's Word are not to be taken seriously.

These people claim sinlessness over the internet and interpreting Scripture to put forth there claims.

I am willing to bet if you talk to someone close to them, they would disagree with their theology of sinlessness.

Grace and peace to you.

 

[Carry_Your_Name]

*Sigh* It seems you just can't admit to acting poorly even when it's quite obvious that you have...

Did you or did you not, sir? Maybe you have long forgotten, but I haven't.

You're entitled to your opinion. But merely denying my view doesn't secure your own. Simple contradiction isn't actually an argument for your view or against mine. It's just contradiction.

I think there are many "lurkers" of threads. In other subforums on this site where I have posted, I have had hundreds of readers but not a single commenter. It seems very evident to me, therefore, that there are "lurkers" who will, I think, benefit from seeing reasoned, biblical counters to false doctrine.

And even if there were no readers of my posts at all, I've still benefited from the thinking, and Bible study, and writing that I do in making the threads that I post.

Sir, we're on the same side, I'm for you, not against you. In the past century, Satan's propaganda was that God doesn't exist, in the 21st century it's that sin doesn't exist, I appreciate your effort to expose this heresy. But to be honest, it's not fun talking in circles, soon you'll notice that this guy copy-pastes the same reply, he just keeps repeating the same talking point no matter what you post.

 

[Hopeful 2]

Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. (Titus 3:10)

Dear Tenchi, you don't need to try to be smarter than God's word. You exchanged a few words with blinded people like Hopeful 2 to expose the truth? Fine, but it's time to move on. Your time is too precious to be wasted like that. And no, lurkers will not read 9 (!) pages of this back and forth, which isn't stopping because both sides want to have the last word!

Words like..."Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:" (Col 1:28)
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Tim 3:16-17)
"But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." (Heb 10:39)
?