| Author | Message | ||
| Punababe808 Registered user Username: Punababe808 Post Number: 39 Registered: 4-2012 |
And, by the way, I already know the answer. I just want to know youall's answer. So, here it is: Someone is planning a sin, to commit a sin that he or she full-well knows is sin. Is this person who willingly and with full knowledge of the sin before actually commiting the sin still covered by full grace and pardon at the time of the sin or does remorse have to settle in first? What about the prayer, "Lord, forgive me for what I am about to do?" Discussion please. | ||
| Chris Registered user Username: Chris Post Number: 1701 Registered: 7-2003  |
Okay, I'll bite. I suspect you are not getting any responses to your question because of the way you've constructed the scenario. If we really believe that justification before a holy God is an accomplished fact because of the foreign righteousness of Christ forensically reckoned to us, then the answer to the question is self evident. I would note though that the setup of the question does not take the new birth into account nor does it take into account the harm that sin does to our intimacy with Christ. When God sovereignly brings a person from death to life and places His Spirit within them, they are a new creature with a new nature. Since they have not yet experienced glorification they will fall into sin, but their life will not, cannot be, defined by habitual, ongoing, unrepentant, willful sin because that is not who they are anymore at their core. They are a new creation in Christ. There certainly might be episodes of willful sin where the person pulls on the old grave clothes for awhile, but that is inconsistent with who they are in Christ so they cant help but expeience remorse. They simply cant be okay with ongoing sin. Not to mention, if God is truly their Father, then their Father will do whatever it takes to turn them around one way or another, no matter how severe the discipline. Your scenario makes it sound like its not that big of a deal for a Born again, Spirit in dwelt believer to willfully choose to sin and to glibbly throw out a prayer for forgiveness in advance. That's just not how the born again experience is. This then brings us to the other problem that occurs when we sin. When we sin we're involved in a kind of infidelity that harms our ability to experience deep, growing intimacy with Christ and thats not okay with the Spirit filled believer. It's not terribly different from how intimacy with your spouse would be harmed if you had sex with someone else. In that scenario, the only hope of restoring intimacy with your spouse would be to confess your sin to them and seek their forgiveness. This may or may not work with your spouse, but with Jesus, you can always be assured that He will never turn you away and that intimacy will be restored. That's the gist of 1 John 1:9. So are we forgiven, in the sense of being justified before God, before we ever sin? Yes. Is the truly born again believer ever comfortable living in ongoing sin? No. Should we confess our sin in order to restore intimacy with Jesus. Yes. Does a glib pre-sin request for what amounts to an indulgence maintain our intimacy? Try that with your wife and see. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13742 Registered: 12-2003  |
Chris, I agree with your explanation. I think, Punababe, that Chris is right: the way you framed your question pretty much made it hard to engage with it. Being born again is a completely new reality. The issues of committing sin and asking forgiveness are completely different once a person is spiritually alive. The issue really isn't whether or not there is remorse. The issue is whether or not there is LIFE. If a person is not born again, he or she is still dead in sin, even if he's very moral. Spiritually dead people know what acts are "sins". Avoiding sins isn't what makes one right before God. If a person is spiritually alive, he is transferred from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of God's beloved Son (Col 1:13). In this kingdom he is hidden with Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He may sin, because he still has a mortal body, but as Chris explained above, the Holy Spirit will not allow him to get away without being convicted of his sin. Jesus' sacrifice for sin cleanses us from all unrighteousness...but if we are not born again, we are not cleansed by His sacrifice. We remain in unbelief, citizens of the domain of darkness. Colleen | ||
| Punababe808 Registered user Username: Punababe808 Post Number: 41 Registered: 4-2012 |
I have a friend who was about to loose his ranch due to his suvere finincial woes. He decided to smuggle a cachet of drugs into the US and as a one-time ordeal he figured he could get out of hisk despetate finincial problem. He knew full well at the time ni of coming up with this plan it was wrong. Well, he got caught, spent a long time on prison, lost his ranch anyway and had plenty of time while incarcerated to come to remorse. Now, if he were a christian would.grace have covered him through | ||
| Punababe808 Registered user Username: Punababe808 Post Number: 42 Registered: 4-2012 |
I have a friend who was about to loose his ranch due to his suvere finincial woes. He decided to smuggle a cachet of drugs into the US and as a one-time ordeal he figured he could get out of hisk despetate finincial problem. He knew full well at the time of coming up with this plan it was wrong. Well, he got caught, spent a long time on prison, lost his ranch anyway and had plenty of time while incarcerated to come to remorse. Now, if he were a christian would.grace have covered him through the entire ordeal? | ||
| Skeeter Registered user Username: Skeeter Post Number: 1918 Registered: 12-2007  |
If he were a Christian he most probably would not have gotten involved in drug smuggling in the first place. It is a good thing that he did get caught even though he lost his ranch. If he had not gotten caught he would have felt it was easy money and most likely would have continued. Desperation should send us to our knees in prayer, not looking for a risky, dangerous and illegal way out of a financial problem. I am glad he "came to remorse". does that mean he turned to God ? or just that he was sorry he got caught ? Just wondering what you meant by "remorse". | ||
| Chris Registered user Username: Chris Post Number: 1702 Registered: 7-2003 |
Punababe, I may not be entirely tracking with your question. Christ's grace and His imputed righteousness are sufficient to justify us before a holy God no matter how seriously we have sinned. However, grace is never a license to sin. God forbid! So when you ask if grace would "cover" a person in sin I am unclear if you are asking A) Does a born again believer who falls into sin lose their salvation when they sin? or B) Does grace provide a permissive cover for sin? The answer to both questions is "no". Since you started the thread by saying you already knew the answer, I'm curious to hear your answer? Thank you in advance for sharing. | ||
| 1john2v27nlt Registered user Username: 1john2v27nlt Post Number: 408 Registered: 5-2009 |
Was David's murder of Uriah premeditated? Did he decide & plan & carry it out? Did he 'lose his salvation' over it? Did he ever turn away from God & worship other gods? Did he break that covenant with God? He certainly broke several of the 10Cs. And deliberately too. Did he get to reap the consequences of the choices he made? Most certainly. Did it cost him his salvation? No. How does this fit with your original question Punababe? | ||
| Colossians2v8 Registered user Username: Colossians2v8 Post Number: 125 Registered: 4-2012 |
You're right 1John2v27nlt, and God called David a man after My Own Heart, David is no kind of role model for me, even as an atheist I despised and was disgusted by adultery (But murder I could understand, haha) King Jesus Christ is the Only Worthy role model, and while I might not have committed adultery or murdered, I've done much evil after having known the Truth, and God knows my heart and knew how grieved I was at my sin, and I know He still Loves me and still has a place prepared for me. I think being perfect isn't what matters most, true love matters most, first to God, then to our neighbors as ourselves, Matthew 22:37-40 Love covers a multitude of sin | ||
| Chris Registered user Username: Chris Post Number: 1703 Registered: 7-2003 |
Col, While I think I understand what you are saying, in terms of salvation, perfection is essential. There is no way we can be reconciled to a perfectly holy God short of perfect holiness. That's why we need a substitute. Jesus' perfection, His perfectly holy life, is substituted for our own. His perfect righteousness is credited to our account as if it were our own. So not only did He die on our behalf, but He lived on our behalf as our substitute. No matter how loving we are, as important as obedience to that command is, our love and actions can never reconcile us to a holy God because no matter how wonderfully we love it will always fall short of God's perfect standard. Only Jesus' perfection, forensically credited (imputed) to us, can meet the standard. | ||
| Colossians2v8 Registered user Username: Colossians2v8 Post Number: 127 Registered: 4-2012 |
Yes of course Chris, what you are saying is Gospel 101, but it is very important and in no way contrary to what I was saying, All our righteous deeds are like filthy rags(Hebrew root for menses rags) before God. This sort of thing keeps coming up, I take it that this is a Former Adventist thing, I have never been in a state where I thought Jesus' Blood was only a down payment. But we are to strive for righteousness, it doesn't save us. Be ye holy as I AM Holy. The concepts aren't in conflict, unless of course someone IS teaching that we have to be perfect in ourselves before we can be with Him. I think it's more accurate to just say, "By their fruits you will know them." Those born of the Spirit will either bear good fruit, or come to the point where they are grieved and repentant over the bad fruit they bore in their state of deception. I have still a have time wrapping my mind around Salvation as an honorable motivation though. My Salvation is not only assumed but assured, my best and noblest motivations have been born out of having grieved the Spirit within me, quenched the Spirit's fire, wanting to please Him, and we CAN please Him by doing what is right, but it doesn't save us. I require mercy and not sacrifice, I require obedience and not sacrifice, etc. While I cannot support preaching a false Gospel, some of the SDA assumptions are true about the motivations of people, but it can merely be summed up in the verse about having turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. I just go with "by their fruits you will know them." And by my own fruits He has brought me to a point AFTER I had accepted the Gospel, that I knew myself and repented. We will fall, and He will pick us back up, and though it doesn't save us, we are called to righteousness. | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2648 Registered: 7-2007 |
Punababe808; if he was a born again Christian, doing a sin - any sin - won't make him "un-born," any more than when a child disobeying his parents makes him not their kid anymore. That's one of the biggest differences between Christianity and the cults. In a cult, being a child in God's family depends on one's behavior. In Christianity being a child in God's family is permanant. As in any family, a child's disobedience leads to consequences though and the Father might spank the child. The "Relationship" stays the same, though the "Fellowship" might suffer. | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 521 Registered: 2-2011  |
Asurprise~ I would like to add~ that when a Person is born-again from above into GOD's Kingdom, Scripture tells us that we are ADOPTED as a child of ALL Mighty GOD~ A Person CAN-NOT be "un-adopted"!! Praise GOD! ~mj~ | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2649 Registered: 7-2007 |
 Yes! | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2650 Registered: 7-2007 |
When I was an SDA I felt I was doing all right as long as I kept my "check list." I would do such things as read the labels on cans in the store to make sure there wasn't any "animal shortening," make sure I didn't wash my clothes from sundown Friday evening until sundown Saturday evening, make sure that I didn't "think" about the sci-fi book that I planned to read after sundown Saturday, because it wasn't a "Sabbathy" thing to think about; etc. I still some "baggage" in that area - a "feeling" that as long as I'm feeling like I'm "good" that I'm alright, but that's wrong. A person is either in the family of God or not and it's not based on feelings of "goodness." I guess any cult would leave a person with such baggage... | ||
| Punababe808 Registered user Username: Punababe808 Post Number: 43 Registered: 4-2012 |
I brought this up for discussion because at church the pastor recently gave a sermon on this very topic. His presentation was extremely different than what I had been taught in the SDA church which was we are constantly going in and out of being saved to eternal life with Christ. The pastor told those same examples as 1 john 2:27 mentions above, then the minister went on to explain even our future sins have been forgiven which is an unheard of concept in the SDA religion. He also pointed out that good people sometimes get sucked into doing bad things and that's just the way it is. After that sermon I just can't let myself get too worked up anymore about the nitty-gritty issues. Although personally I don't go out of my way to knowingly sin I am at peace with the assuracence that if I do sin I am covered by His grace. And, to plan something that would be a sin shows desperation and we all fall short in faith, etc. Just some of my ramberlings. | ||
| Katarain Registered user Username: Katarain Post Number: 174 Registered: 1-2012 |
While I don't think getting "worked up" is useful, I also don't think we should turn a blind eye to sin in our lives, no matter how small or nitty-gritty. As saved children of God, we should want to please Him, and sin displeases Him, no matter how insignificant it means to us. There has got to be some space between getting frenzied and worried over sin and not caring at all. The Holy Spirit can help us overcome these sins, and to have the courage to do what is right when it's hard. We can be assured of our salvation and not be complacent in our sins at the same time. | ||
| Rain Registered user Username: Rain Post Number: 53 Registered: 9-2011  |
This topic is still one that trips me up sometimes. I recently read Hebrews 10 and in verse 26 it talks about how there won't be any more sacrifice for sins if we keep deliberately sinning. It confused me and I was going to ask about it, but you beat me to the punch. Thanks for the great discussion, guys. It's helped me out. | ||
| Tedahmeister Registered user Username: Tedahmeister Post Number: 1 Registered: 6-2012 |
Being an exadventist for over 1 month... and having lost my wife recently ... I think watching God's grace in her life taught me the 3 circles... motivation wise.. she died 1) Believing in God, 2) Knowing she belonged to God, and 3) Her behavior (balanced outlook --gracebased on life)... was a special balance... i miss her Christlike influence on my life. She knew Jesus relationally thru her cancer. Earning salvation wasnt something she focused on... just how to I recognize God today and show how thankful I am that he is my God and saviour. | ||
| Mkfound Registered user Username: Mkfound Post Number: 191 Registered: 1-2011 |
Welcome Tedahmeister! I am sorry to hear about your wife. | ||
| Punababe808 Registered user Username: Punababe808 Post Number: 46 Registered: 4-2012 |
Tedahmeister, my condolences for your great loss and sadness. | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 524 Registered: 2-2011 |
Tedahmeister~ WELCOME to the Forum ! My sympathies in the death of your wife~ I will remember You in my prayers~ ~mj~ | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13746 Registered: 12-2003 |
Welcome, Tedahmeister! We look forward to getting to know you. Colleen |
