Clean enough for communion!

No, I understood that you meant th Lord's body.

I didn't take back my sin, and you have no reason to say I did. I am not more sin concious than righteous conscious, and you have no reason to say I am. And actually, ITimothy is refering to people who don't feel the sting of their sin at all, not to people who feel the sting too intensely.

I do not focus on my sin. but I do feel it when I sin, as you should, too. We are to confess our sins one to another, meaning that we are not free of sin, nor are we free of needing to continue to confess when we do sin. Sin and its affects are with us, even after we are saved. We confess, not to cleanse our souls (this was done when we came to Christ), but to free our consciences and hearts, so we could go on to live for Christ. Our souls are clean, but our hearts and minds still get dirty.

I'm concerned about you Andrew, because a lot of the things you say are similar to what many of the cults teach, not in conformity to what orthodox Christianity believes.

God still cares about whether or not we sin. Living in sin and taking communion are incompatible. Poor table manners at communion do not make you sick.

I know Christians in Asia who have to sneak into the forest to have communion in secret. They don't worry about the table setting, they worry about whether or not they will get caught and punished. They discern the Lord's body and blood, but they do it in a hurry, before anyone can notice them missing from the village. You might call them unworthy in your way of thinking, but I call them brave and very worthy!

Andrew, if I were to go out and commit a sin, say adultery or murder, would God not see that as sin?

Sorry, Andrew, if I misconstrued your recent post (it's not that I didn't read the original, just it was a while back, and I got a bit lost in the last one - it was getting on for 2am I think!). Certainly the point I thought you were making is a common one in charismatic circles, so worth addressing anyway, even if not really directly relevant to your own point of view!

However, I reject your closing accusations; being aware of what my sins cost the Lord Jesus is hardly being 'sin conscious' to the exclusion of 'righteousness consciousness'. (Tho' I agree that some false relgious understandings never get beyond the 'problem' to the 'solution') But, properly understood and contextuialised, the opposite is the case: when we know how desparate our plight without Christ would be, we can more fully appreciate the magnitude of the salvation which He has won for us! (As the liturgy says: 'We are not worthy to come to this your table trusting in our own righteousness BUT in your manifold and great mercies...'). But to allow our knowledge that we are 'saved by grace' to lead us into complacency, where sin does not matter because He's already forgiven me, is far closer to the 'seared conscience' which you refer to - it's certainly highly offensive to the one who saw sin as so deadly serious He gave up everything to die to set us free from its grip! The New Testament letters abound in exhortations to reject 'even the garment stained by sin' and so forth.
A truly 'seared conscience' is one which is so hardened to sin that it no longer sees it as sinful, feels no guilt wnen it does wrong, and sees no need to change its ways. Which is totally contrary to everything I am saying here!

Anthony

Andrew,

Wow! A lot of food for thought there.

Thinking through all I read on "Clean Enough For Communion", it made a lot of sense.   

Anyway, I believe that if we know we have sinned we need to repent immediately.  And I don't think you dissagree with that.  It appeared that some thought you were saying that since Jesus bore all past/present/future sins that there was no need to repent when we know we've sinned.  For instance: if I gossip about someone, the Holy Spirit jumps right in and shows me. So I repent to God, I repent to the person I gossiped to, and, I repent to the person I gossiped about. And, then I should not gossip anymore!

What I understood you to say was that there is no need to be condemned when all we need to do is repent and sin no more.   God is good. He made it so simple.

Did I understand correctly?

Thanks Andrew,

 

 

 

 

Originally posted by Andrew
I can still come to the Table and eat, even though I drove like a madman to get there (ha! ha!). 

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Ha Ha, you're funny! And. . ., how would this fall alongside obedience?  James 4:17 and 1 Sam 15:22, and Romans 6:16

 

Hi Andrew - I haven't been ignoring you, just out of town for a few days climbing mountains for charity!

that's the traditional explanation.

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...And tradition is necessarily wrong?

 Do you happen to have a Greek Bible dictionary by Thaeus?

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No.

 My Pastor says that according to that dict, the Greek meaning is actually "going about with a consciousness of sin/feeling condemned with sin etc".

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Hmm

Vine's has another interpretation, "The reference is to apostates whose consciences are 'branded' with the effects of their sin".

 This happens when we stray away from pure grace. When others teach that you are not really clean yet or that only your past sins are forgiven, or that you havent prayed enough, fasted enough, confessed enough etc.

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That is certainly one possible effect of the sin of apostasy - and I am not denying that an over-obsession with sin and a legalistic insistence on following the letter of the law is wrong - I have read Galatians (in some depth, after leaving a very legalistic 'Faith Church'!)

 

However, looking at the specific passage in Timothy (ch 4 vv 1 -4);

The preceding verses talk about the basic sin of the false teachers - that they have (i) departed from the faith (ii) listened to seducing spirits (iii) spread lies (false teachings) and (iv) done all this under a cloak of hypocrisy.

They are then said to have had their "consciences seared with a hot iron" - ie their deliberate and repeated embracing of false doctrine etc. has marked them, and rendered them insensitive to the Holy Spirit's conviction over their errors. (According to part of your own quoted definition, their cnsciences have been 'removed by cautery'.)

The subsequent verses do, as you say, then go on to mention other effects of their sin-hardened hearts - that they impose legalistic demands on their followers (specifically re; marriage and abstention from meat).  However, this is not at all speaking of calling upon folk to repent of things that are truly sinful and damaging to their relationship with God.  Rather, (as v.4 makes clear), it is about imposing false concepts of 'righteousness', and, specifically, calling 'evil' what God has pronounced 'good'.  That is, these folk are promoting a distorted concept of right and wrong, expecting their followers to live a legalistic righteousness which is over and above anything God asks of us (if not actually in direct opposition to His standards).  The implication seems also to be that, in so doing, they also overlook areas of real sin - and end up both calling good things 'evil' and evil things 'good'.  

In contrast,  Paul goes on to say, "godliness is profitable unto all things" and to exhort Timothy to set a positive example in all areas of his personal conduct (vv 8f).  Indeed, much of the Epistle is specifically dealing with the importance of good conduct (particularly in leaders) and how to deal with those who do sin in various ways.

 

All of which does nothing to contradict the improtance of examining ourselves before Communion and repenting of any areas of sin which God brings to our attention before partaking of His Body and Blood.

 

Anthony

I have no problem with what you say there. 'Falling from grace' by imposing legalistic restrictions as a/the means of achieving salvation is clearly a serious error. But that is still a far cry from what we are (I think!) talking about here - the need for 'saved' individuals to confess and repent of actual sins in order to preserve clear lines of communication with God, and avoid turning the 'cup of blessing' into a 'cup of judgement'.

Historically, the type of 'religious' error you refer to crept into the early church through the beginnings of gnostic heresy etc., whereby a complete division between 'flesh' and 'spirit' was postulated. Thus every kind of natural, physical activity - particularly of a sexual nature - was seen as evil and contrary to the pure life of the spirit. Which, obviously, is at odds with the creationist idea of God creating all things 'good', and lead to a denial of the actual physical incarnation of Christ (pure spirit could not take on the impurity of physical nature). Out of this came two main lines of false teaching re: Christian living; the one (which you refer to) being that Christians should shun all forms of physical indulgence, shunning marriage, and embracing extreme asceticism as a means of purifying themselves for the kingdom. (Linked to this, it later became 'fashionable' to postpone baptism as near as possible to death, to avoid corruption and possible loss of salvation through post-baptismal sin). The other being that, having been born again and set free from the law of sin and death, the Christian could indulge all manner of fleshly appetites with impunity, as his regenerate spirit was incapable of corruption by anything he might do between conversion and death/rapture.

As I said before, this is a far cry from the thoroughly biblical ideal of Christians maintaining tender consciences and bringing known sin under the blood of Christ. Repeatedly in NT Scripture we are told to 'examine ourselves', 'flee from sin', 'confess our sins', 'put to death the old/carnal man' and 'put on the new man created in the likeness of Christ', to avoid 'even the garment stained by sin' and to live as 'slaves to righteousness'.


Anthony