Can we sin all we want?

[reddogs]

That's what some claim, that grace allows them to sin, that it matters not how much or how often, or against whom they sin, even God, because of grace. Being saved is not accomplished by just saying you are saved and then ignoring what the scripture teaches. We do not just say that we have become Christians and then become saved, with no change at all, just because we said it. We do not merely say we hate sin and wont do it again and suddenly all of the consequences of our sins gone. It isn't a formula for salvation that saying we are a Christian somehow cleanses us and then permits us to go out and sin.

The Bible says, "1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (Rom. 6:1-2).

Unfortunately, there are those who think becoming a Christians gives them a license to sin. They actually do what Paul denied of Christians in Romans 3:
"8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just." (Romans 3:8)

On the contrary, salvation is an appeal to God for cleansing from sin, forgiveness, and repentance so that we might not sin. This appeal is a heartfelt confession of our hopelessness before God and an acceptance of Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf. It is simultaneous with sincere repentance which is a turning from sin, not to it. And when we truly receive Christ, we are regenerated; we are changed; we are born again. This means that there is something different about us. Something has happened to us. This is why Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," (John 3:3). To be born again means that something new has happened in us. To be changed, the put away the old man of sin, to be regenerated, new in Christ, to break the bonds of sin:
"Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come," (2 Cor. 5:17).

The old things were the carnal sinful passions and desires. Once we are born again, we are no longer our own and we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sins:
"8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:" (John 16:8).

This conviction of sins occurs and the Lord builds in us the Mind of Christ to help us stop sinning. We are not saved so that we are free to go out and sin more but we are saved so that we might bring glory to God and turned from our sinful ways.

This is why it says in Rom. 6:1-2:
"1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

And also verse 15:
"15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." (Rom. 6:15).

And in 1 Corinthians 10:
"10 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," (1 Cor. 10:31).

How can we bring glory to God by going out and sinning? We cannot. In fact, anyone who says that he is a Christian and then continues in his sins without seeking repentance and without conviction is a liar. When we accept Jesus, we are accepting the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, by faith. We are trusting Jesus alone for salvation. When we do this, the Holy Spirit lives in us. Since the Holy Spirit convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8) we then seek to please God and avoid sin. It is a natural result of being saved.

No, accepting Jesus does not mean that we can then go out and sin. It means we have turned from sin and we are new creatures who desire to bring glory to God and not use the grace of God to sin.

 

[reddogs]

True believers are commanded to become in practice what we are in Christ: dead to sin and alive to God:

"11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:11)

"13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." (Romans 6:13)

“He [Jesus] did not consent to sin. Not even by a thought did He yield to temptation. So it may be with us. Christ’s humanity was
united with divinity; He was fitted for the conflict by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And He came to make us partakers of the divine
nature. So long as we are united to Him by faith, sin has no more dominion over us. God reaches for the hand of faith in us to direct it to lay fast hold upon the divinity of Christ, that we may attain to perfection of character.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 123.

“At our baptism we pledged ourselves to break all connection with Satan and his agencies, and to put heart and mind and soul into the
work of extending the kingdom of God. . . . The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are pledged to cooperate with sanctified human
instrumentalities.”—Ellen G. White Comments, The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1075.

“A profession of Christianity without corresponding faith and works will avail nothing. No man can serve two masters. The children of the wicked one are their own master’s servants; to whom they yield themselves servants to obey, his servants they are, and they cannot be the servants of God until they renounce the devil and all his works. It cannot be harmless for servants of the heavenly King to engage in the pleasures and amusements which Satan’s servants engage in, even though they often repeat that such amusements are harmless. God has revealed sacred and holy truths to separate His people from the ungodly and purify them unto Himself. Seventh-day Adventists should live out their faith.”—Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 404.

 

[reddogs]

Here is a link to check out...

http://www.absg.adventist.org/2010/3Q/SE/PDFs/EAQ310_07.pdf

 

[Section10]

I've been in a lot of different protestant and catholic churches and I don't think I've ever heard that said. I think you're battling windmills.

 

[reddogs]

I've been in a lot of different protestant and catholic churches and I don't think I've ever heard that said. I think you're battling windmills.

Its being discussed in many places as grace is being misrepresented by some to allow sin to continue...

Living Word Christian Center - A Casual Contemporary Church. - Grace Misunderstood

 

[JohnMarsten]

Its being discussed in many places as grace is being misrepresented by some to allow sin to continue...

Living Word Christian Center - A Casual Contemporary Church. - Grace Misunderstood

Lets say somebody gave his life to Christ, after some time he has fallen back into some old habits because of circumstances or whatever, like drugs, porn, you name it. Then he repented and stopped those habits, and after a while relapsed again... and again and again and again...

Tell me, after which time does it become impossible for him to repent? When is it over?

 

[hownow]

Regardless of all this blather we still have the direct words of scripture itself: "where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound." This would suggest the way to experience more grace is to sin more. But I would challenge the notion that it is quantitatively more. Doing the same things ten times more often than you used to would get awfully boring and provide its own cure in the form of making you lose all taste for them, I would think. Ever loved the stuffing out of a CD and played it over and over till you just couldn't stand to hear it anymore? I think everyone has. The more frequently we repeat the same thing the more likely it becomes that it will lose its attractiveness. We just plain get sick of it, if not sick from it.

No, I think it means qualitatively. Sin like you mean it, really mean it. There's something to be said for that verse in Revelation about those who are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm -- that god basically pukes them up, can't stomach them. That's what most believers are today: lukewarm. Oh sure they can shout and sing and yell amen and hallylooyah and whatever else, putting on a great show trying to convince themselves even more than others that there's something real there, but there's no genuine heart or spirit in all that noise. You can tell by their tepid and timid sinning. They're so afraid of things heating up. Maybe God is afraid of irrelevance, or the perception of irrelevance anyway, and that's why he can only deal with the cold and the hot -- not the lukewarm that could take him or leave him.

Show God you mean business. Sin like it counts. The Bible makes it abundantly clear this is a recipe, a sure-fire-formula, to finding grace which "much more abounds." Don't take my word for it though -- and don't debate my word if you've never tried it, either. I won't accept or listen to anyone who doesn't have firsthand experience. Try it, and find out for yourself.

 

[hownow]

OK, all goofing around aside ...

Lets say somebody gave his life to Christ, after some time he has fallen back into some old habits because of circumstances or whatever, like drugs, porn, you name it. Then he repented and stopped those habits, and after a while relapsed again... and again and again and again...

Tell me, after which time does it become impossible for him to repent? When is it over?

This is a very excellent question and one I'd like a solid answer to myself. It's also a very open-ended revelatory question, meaning, how people answer it, how they approach answering it, can reveal a lot about what kind of people they are and how they really think about things.

First, I think people in general make a critical error when they equate the life of faith in Christ with an ongoing lifelong behavioral-modification project in the first place. Who sold us that idea to begin with? I suspect it originates in the conflation of spiritual redemption with popular social redemption myths. That's why we typically hear "testimonies" that sound like "I was a nasty, selfish, teenage/young-adult/former [insert whatever here -- gambler, sex fiend, druggie, thief, whatever] but now I found JAAAAYYYYSUS .... and now I'm a good upstanding citizen who pays my taxes without complaint, spends my weekends at nursing homes and church behaving right and encouraging others to do likewise, and obeys what everyone wearing a badge or title tells me to do." This is NOTHING like the authentic NT testimonies that sound more like, "I was blind but now I can see!" "I was deaf, but now I can hear!" "I was sick for years and no one could help me but now the sickness is all gone!" or even, "I thought I was better than everyone else because I served God and did what was right -- and now I realize I was just a huge egotistical bloated fat head who drove others away from the kingdom of heaven while completely believing I was sharing the gospel like Christ told me to do."

See, the prevailing social redemption myths are all based upon changing your behavior and bear the underlying assumption that if you announce you are doing so, and at some juncture fall short, you might never have been sincere in the first place. You might have been putting on a show to get your way, or "snowing" people about your life and choices to keep your secret tryst with whatever they disapproved. The problem with these social redemption myths is the expectations they raise and the way they pin summary judgment upon intentions and character integrity based on a person's success/failure rates over which he or she has zero control or ability to predict ahead of time or decide ahead of time. The assumption is made that if you failed, it's because you were not really trying or worse, were not really sincere about wanting to make those changes. AND THAT IS JUST NOT MERELY 100000% UTTERLY FALSE, IT IS TOXIC, ABUSIVE AND CRAZYMAKING WITH ROTTING CHERRIES AND MOLDY SPRINKLES ON TOP!

The bulk of the biblical injunctions and admonitions warning us of how impossible it is to change ourselves, how our tendency as humans is to go back to what is familiar even if it's "dog puke" making us sick, how we cannot and therefore must not presume to judge others because we are pointing three extra fingers back at ourselves in the process, etc. are designed to make us aware that what we think we see or know about another person based on what we see of their behaviors is every bit as much a judgment based on "outward appearances" rather than looking at the heart as it would be were we to judge someone over the length of their hair, the size of their waist, or how attractive (or not) we found their face to be. It is just as misleading as imagining everyone short and unattractive to be automatically wicked, vile and selfish while thinking everyone tall and attractive is automatically good, caring, and generous. We glibly assume that people with pleasing personalities (pleasing to US that is, hint hint) are "good people" and anyone with a personality we don't "get", don't "mesh with" or feel uncomfortable around must be a "bad person." Many assume persons of a phlegmatic nature to be "good" but those with a more melancholy or choleric nature to be "selfish" or "bad" somehow. And that, dear readers, is complete and utter rubbish.

The LIE out there is that we can see who people are inside based on their behavior. FALSE! We can see what we JUDGE them to be based on how we judge their behavior, and we can see what behaviors they exhibit that WE might find desirable or at least tolerable in a relationship versus ones that would be intolerable or "deal breakers" for us. But we cannot tell one single thing about the heart through behavior. The synoptic gospels are chock full of example after example in this regard.

So if the former drug user relapses after going through rebirth or even just rehab, does that mean he's putting everyone on and doesn't intend to stay clean? Or does it just mean he's human and whatever pressures he was fighting before to try to stay away from running back to his former comfort zone of a narcotic haze suddenly increased and overwhelmed him? Or maybe he had doubts about whether what he was doing was really what he wanted to be doing, and that got to him. Or maybe someone just died whom he loved, or something else happened that was so mentally devastating he simply lost the ability to exercise good, rational judgment as a result. There are both physical and mental states that can cause something like that to happen.

But the typical default of the self-righteous onlooker is to smugly assume the struggling person to just be "making excuses for his sin" or "making plans to continue in his sin" and to make matters even worse, should the person attempt to explain what happened or what he thinks happened to trip him up, it's assumed he's just lying to cover up some secret deliberate plan to keep using.

The same thing happens with parents and children -- how many times does a parent instruct a child "don't talk that way" or "don't act that way" which is completely natural to that child, and then proceeds to stack evidence against him to make a case that he is "disobedient" or "defiant" or "rebellious" simply because PEOPLE, children included and most especially, tend to act and react from who THEY are rather than what they are told to "act like", and doing so is not some deliberate slight, insult, or attempt to disregard the preferences of others as it is natural and involuntary, like breathing? Then these negative labels get jammed into a kid's sense of himself or herself and become little abusive pockets of self-fulfilling prophecy in which anything he says or does can and will be held against him to reinforce said negative labels, and pointed at as "proof" thereof somehow.

Or think of areas where spouses disagree and try to negotiate together how to deal with that. How many times does one spouse slip into doing what comes naturally to them that it's going to take time, patience and ongoing effort to alter a largely unconscious thought process leading there, and a squabble erupts as a result -- how many times should that be considered just normal human trajectory before someone turns it about and starts assuming the other just NEVER intends to respect their boundaries or needs in the matter and accuses them of being uncaring, selfish, or abusive?

Ultimately all these situations and questions get back to the whole, "how many times shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Seven times?" -- "No, not seven times, but seventy times seven times." The point is not whether someone wants to try counting to 491 before losing track -- the point is whether we ought to be keeping track and keeping score in the first place. Too many have that judgmental scheme of things confused with the idea of "accountability" ... and that just makes it all worse.

 

[JohnMarsten]

OK, all goofing around aside ...



This is a very excellent question and one I'd like a solid answer to myself. It's also a very open-ended revelatory question, meaning, how people answer it, how they approach answering it, can reveal a lot about what kind of people they are and how they really think about things.

First, I think people in general make a critical error when they equate the life of faith in Christ with an ongoing lifelong behavioral-modification project in the first place. Who sold us that idea to begin with? I suspect it originates in the conflation of spiritual redemption with popular social redemption myths. That's why we typically hear "testimonies" that sound like "I was a nasty, selfish, teenage/young-adult/former [insert whatever here -- gambler, sex fiend, druggie, thief, whatever] but now I found JAAAAYYYYSUS .... and now I'm a good upstanding citizen who pays my taxes without complaint, spends my weekends at nursing homes and church behaving right and encouraging others to do likewise, and obeys what everyone wearing a badge or title tells me to do." This is NOTHING like the authentic NT testimonies that sound more like, "I was blind but now I can see!" "I was deaf, but now I can hear!" "I was sick for years and no one could help me but now the sickness is all gone!" or even, "I thought I was better than everyone else because I served God and did what was right -- and now I realize I was just a huge egotistical bloated fat head who drove others away from the kingdom of heaven while completely believing I was sharing the gospel like Christ told me to do."

See, the prevailing social redemption myths are all based upon changing your behavior and bear the underlying assumption that if you announce you are doing so, and at some juncture fall short, you might never have been sincere in the first place. You might have been putting on a show to get your way, or "snowing" people about your life and choices to keep your secret tryst with whatever they disapproved. The problem with these social redemption myths is the expectations they raise and the way they pin summary judgment upon intentions and character integrity based on a person's success/failure rates over which he or she has zero control or ability to predict ahead of time or decide ahead of time. The assumption is made that if you failed, it's because you were not really trying or worse, were not really sincere about wanting to make those changes. AND THAT IS JUST NOT MERELY 100000% UTTERLY FALSE, IT IS TOXIC, ABUSIVE AND CRAZYMAKING WITH ROTTING CHERRIES AND MOLDY SPRINKLES ON TOP!

The bulk of the biblical injunctions and admonitions warning us of how impossible it is to change ourselves, how our tendency as humans is to go back to what is familiar even if it's "dog puke" making us sick, how we cannot and therefore must not presume to judge others because we are pointing three extra fingers back at ourselves in the process, etc. are designed to make us aware that what we think we see or know about another person based on what we see of their behaviors is every bit as much a judgment based on "outward appearances" rather than looking at the heart as it would be were we to judge someone over the length of their hair, the size of their waist, or how attractive (or not) we found their face to be. It is just as misleading as imagining everyone short and unattractive to be automatically wicked, vile and selfish while thinking everyone tall and attractive is automatically good, caring, and generous. We glibly assume that people with pleasing personalities (pleasing to US that is, hint hint) are "good people" and anyone with a personality we don't "get", don't "mesh with" or feel uncomfortable around must be a "bad person." Many assume persons of a phlegmatic nature to be "good" but those with a more melancholy or choleric nature to be "selfish" or "bad" somehow. And that, dear readers, is complete and utter rubbish.

The LIE out there is that we can see who people are inside based on their behavior. FALSE! We can see what we JUDGE them to be based on how we judge their behavior, and we can see what behaviors they exhibit that WE might find desirable or at least tolerable in a relationship versus ones that would be intolerable or "deal breakers" for us. But we cannot tell one single thing about the heart through behavior. The synoptic gospels are chock full of example after example in this regard.

So if the former drug user relapses after going through rebirth or even just rehab, does that mean he's putting everyone on and doesn't intend to stay clean? Or does it just mean he's human and whatever pressures he was fighting before to try to stay away from running back to his former comfort zone of a narcotic haze suddenly increased and overwhelmed him? Or maybe he had doubts about whether what he was doing was really what he wanted to be doing, and that got to him. Or maybe someone just died whom he loved, or something else happened that was so mentally devastating he simply lost the ability to exercise good, rational judgment as a result. There are both physical and mental states that can cause something like that to happen.

But the typical default of the self-righteous onlooker is to smugly assume the struggling person to just be "making excuses for his sin" or "making plans to continue in his sin" and to make matters even worse, should the person attempt to explain what happened or what he thinks happened to trip him up, it's assumed he's just lying to cover up some secret deliberate plan to keep using.

The same thing happens with parents and children -- how many times does a parent instruct a child "don't talk that way" or "don't act that way" which is completely natural to that child, and then proceeds to stack evidence against him to make a case that he is "disobedient" or "defiant" or "rebellious" simply because PEOPLE, children included and most especially, tend to act and react from who THEY are rather than what they are told to "act like", and doing so is not some deliberate slight, insult, or attempt to disregard the preferences of others as it is natural and involuntary, like breathing? Then these negative labels get jammed into a kid's sense of himself or herself and become little abusive pockets of self-fulfilling prophecy in which anything he says or does can and will be held against him to reinforce said negative labels, and pointed at as "proof" thereof somehow.

Or think of areas where spouses disagree and try to negotiate together how to deal with that. How many times does one spouse slip into doing what comes naturally to them that it's going to take time, patience and ongoing effort to alter a largely unconscious thought process leading there, and a squabble erupts as a result -- how many times should that be considered just normal human trajectory before someone turns it about and starts assuming the other just NEVER intends to respect their boundaries or needs in the matter and accuses them of being uncaring, selfish, or abusive?

Ultimately all these situations and questions get back to the whole, "how many times shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Seven times?" -- "No, not seven times, but seventy times seven times." The point is not whether someone wants to try counting to 491 before losing track -- the point is whether we ought to be keeping track and keeping score in the first place. Too many have that judgmental scheme of things confused with the idea of "accountability" ... and that just makes it all worse.

Good one!!!

I very much agree with you. Jesus told us to forgive our brothers 'countless' times, if we were to be without sin (after conversion or something) we wouldnt have the necessity to forgive our brothers as there wouldnt be anything left worth forgiving. But the truth is much uglier...

Matthew 25 is IMHO a prime example of how religion can mislead people, in effect religiousness counts for nothing if the Holy Spirit doesnt work through people to do the good works of Christ.

 

[Alithis]

Lets say somebody gave his life to Christ, after some time he has fallen back into some old habits because of circumstances or whatever, like drugs, porn, you name it. Then he repented and stopped those habits, and after a while relapsed again... and again and again and again...

Tell me, after which time does it become impossible for him to repent? When is it over?

I was this person .so I can tell you what happened ..I shared it HERE

 

[Alithis]

Good one!!!

I very much agree with you. Jesus told us to forgive our brothers 'countless' times, if we were to be without sin (after conversion or something) we wouldnt have the necessity to forgive our brothers as there wouldnt be anything left worth forgiving. But the truth is much uglier...

Matthew 25 is IMHO a prime example of how religion can mislead people, in effect religiousness counts for nothing if the Holy Spirit doesnt work through people to do the good works of Christ.

Can't disagree with the essence of the information your replying to.
The delivery presents itself some what embittered ,but "y'all get that at times"

 

[Alithis]

Oh...I'm not in the forum I thought I was in.
Apologies if I have spoken out of place.