Eternal Security based on a holy walk and the fear of falling away.

[aiki]

The thing that made me aware of these truths is Romans 4:5, But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Our identity in Christ is that we are justified, even when we blow it He counts us as righteous. So then, my identity in Christ is that I am righteous in Him (see 1 John 3:7). So the natural outcropping of this is that I am going to now live like my identity.

Another truth extending out of what you've noted here is that, since we are justified by Christ and his imputed righteousness and accepted by God only on that basis, our ability to be righteous in our living has no bearing on our standing before God. We are "accepted in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6) and only in - and by - him.

Also, if a believer has no idea what it means to be a new creature in Christ, it is doubtful that he will walk well with God. Does this mean he is not saved? No, only that he is ignorant. If you inherit a million dollars from a distant relative but don't know that you have, are you still the inheritor of the million dollars? Yes. You won't live like a millionaire, though, until you actually know that that's what you are and begin to spend your inheritance. In the same way, many believers don't understand what their spiritual "inheritance" in Christ is and so they live like spiritual paupers, struggling constantly with sin and chronically out of fellowship (though, not out of relationship) with their Maker.

Something I wanted to mention though is that 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 isn't speaking of justification but sanctification. I think that you may be confusing the two, equating sanctification as being justification.

No, I'm not confusing them, it's just that I recognize that there is significant overlap between them. Sanctification is the immediate consequence of justification or the inevitable effect of it. You can't have the former without the latter.

Undoubtedly, if we are in Christ, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. Now I have been saying elsewhere in these forums that those who receive the promises concerning eternal security have to be the same people who heed the warnings not to fall away. Because we are born again, and soft-hearted, we will not harden our hearts to specific warnings of scripture (though they may be hypothetical, they are still to be heeded by us as though they weren't) not to fall away.

There are many things from which a believer may fall away: God's blessing, freedom from the killing effect of OT law, the cleansing of confessed sin, the grace available in Christ, repentance, the power to live righteously, fellowship with God, etc. In every instance where the SAL (saved and lost) crowd want to assert that Scripture teaches that a believer can fall away from salvation, I see that they have not let the context, both immediate and general, qualify and shape their reading. The SAL folk come to Scripture with a SAL lens through which they understand it. And so, not surprisingly, they see their SAL doctrine in places where it doesn't actually exist. These passages, though, make it clear that it is not salvation from which believers may fall but these other things that I've listed.

I would say that in my view of practical entire sanctification, sin is not eradicated from the body, and therefore we still have sin; but it is rendered dead within us (Romans 6:6-7, Galatians 5:24, Romans 7:8) so that we don't have to commit sin; the element of sin has no authority over my behaviour so that I cannot willfully sin against the Lord (1 John 3:9 with Hebrews 10:26-27).

Well in what sense do you speak of sin here? As I understand it, the "old man" is crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6) and through his crucifixion, the "body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin." What is the "old man"? He is the source of all of our sin. He is the unregenerate Self, characterized by a carnal mind subject to fleshly impulses, living in bondage to the World, the Flesh and the devil, confined in its focus to temporal, corruptible things, and in rebellion to God. It is from this Self, this Adamic nature, this old, spiritually-unregenerate man that all sin is produced. It is not, then, that our sin was co-crucified with Christ but our Self, our rebellious, spiritually-dead old man. And as we understand that it is, and by faith reckon it so (Romans 6:11), then it is that we experience our death to sin in our daily living. But the truth of death to Self is no certain guarantee of a life lived dead to Self. Only as a believer knows, and, by faith, in humble surrender to the Spirit, reckons himself dead to sin will he begin to manifest his death to Self in how he lives. It isn't, then, that a genuine believer cannot sin - Paul's letters to the Corinthians make it very clear that believers can - but that he doesn't have to sin and increasingly will not as he enters into the truth of his identity in Christ.

I believe we are indeed forgiven of sin as a principle (once we get our doctrine right). We need to be forgiven for what God says is true of us (before we got saved--Ezekiel 36:25-27, Luke 8:15) in Jeremiah 17:9.

Yes, we do need forgiveness for who we were apart from God. But 1 John 1:8-10 isn't speaking only of a past life of sin but of a progressive state of affairs from which cleansing is regularly necessary.

Amen (although, sin that was never revealed to us will simply be swallowed up by life when we receive our glorified bodies; unless we are counting on the confession of individual sins as being our salvation/forgiveness).

It also means that no one can claim entire, practical sanctification since there is always sin within us that God has yet to reveal to us - sin we don't even recognize as sin.

 

[justbyfaith]

No, I'm not confusing them, it's just that I recognize that there is significant overlap between them. Sanctification is the immediate consequence of justification or the inevitable effect of it. You can't have the former without the latter.

It seems to me that positional sanctification means the exact same thing as justification; unless sanctification is practical in my life it is nothing more than justification as I perceive your theology dictates.

It isn't, then, that a genuine believer cannot sin - Paul's letters to the Corinthians make it very clear that believers can - but that he doesn't have to sin and increasingly will not as he enters into the truth of his identity in Christ.

In interpreting 1 John 3:5-9, I have been accused of departing from the plain meaning of the text because I have interpreted it to mean simply that we who are in Christ are new creatures in Him...and that we have turned away from sin and so are not walking in its direction any more.

It also means that no one can claim entire, practical sanctification since there is always sin within us that God has yet to reveal to us - sin we don't even recognize as sin.

If you want to take the time to do some studying, I have some scriptures for your consideration in the kjv (if you have one...if you don't, please look them up in an online Bible in that translation):

Jude 1:24~, 2 Peter 1:10~, Titus 2:14, 1 John 3:5-9, Hebrews 10:10, Hebrews 10:14, 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24*, Luke 11:36, Romans 6:6~, Colossians 2:11~, Romans 6:7*, John 8:31-36, 2 Corinthians 5:17*, Philippians 1:10 (with James 3:2*), Ephesians 2:1-9, Ephesians 4:24, Ephesians 5:27, 1 John 3:3, 1 John 3:7, 1 John 2:6, Ephesians 4:12-13, Matthew 5:48, 2 Corinthians 13:9, 2 Corinthians 13:11, Hebrews 13:20-21, Hebrews 13:12, Hebrews 10:29, Hebrews 12:14~, James 1:4, Jude 1:1*, 1 John 2:10, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Peter 1:2, Acts of the Apostles 20:32, Acts of the Apostles 26:18, Galatians 5:24, 2 Timothy 3:17~, Philippians 3:15, Colossians 3:14, Colossians 4:12, Colossians 1:28, 1 Peter 5:10-12, Psalms 51:7, 1 John 1:7, 1 John 3:3, Acts of the Apostles 15:9~, Matthew 5:8, 1 Peter 1:22, 1 Corinthians 10:12-13, 1 Peter 1:5-7~, James 1:12, James 1:2-4, 1 Thessalonians 3:5, Ephesians 3:16, Colossians 1:11.

If none of these verses speak of the perfection of the believer in other translations, then consider that people of other translations may indeed be heaping up to themselves teachers to tell them what their itching ears want to hear; and that these teachers ended up being the translators of certain Bibles that water down the true message of the Lord's word to us (2 Timothy 3:3-4).

Scriptures that I have placed asterisks (*) next to are better in the kjv; references that I have not placed asterisks by are sufficient in the ASV of these boards.

The scriptures that I placed a squiggly line (~) next to are simply ones that I like better in the kjv, but focusing on the kjv in them has no bearing on the understanding of Christian perfection.

 

[Paidiske]

MOD HAT ON
This thread has had a clean.
Please avoid further flaming and goading;​

if not out of love of one another,
at least out of fear of falling away from CF rules.​

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[justbyfaith]

So, @aiki, I hope that this discussion can continue.

 

[justbyfaith]

It also means that no one can claim entire, practical sanctification since there is always sin within us that God has yet to reveal to us - sin we don't even recognize as sin.

Once God reveals to you that your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) is there any more sin that can be revealed?

 

[justbyfaith]

Deacon Dean said in post #117:
Scripture clearly is against you.

"he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision." -Gal. 2:12. Clear cut hypocrisy.

Apparently you do not want to answer my post (#116) as a whole but want to pick bits and pieces and find contention with them.

Deacon Dean said:
Again, scriptures are against you:

"Thus saith the Holy Ghost," -Acts 21:11

Ah, but what did the Holy Ghost say? He did not tell Paul not to go to Jerusalem, only that he would suffer great persecution from the Jewish people if he went there.

Deacon Dean said:
I call them like scripture calls them. Paul disobeyed the Holy Ghost.

Nope.

Deacon Dean said:
Be that as it may, Paul may have been ignorant of the fact he was the "High Priest" but even from an OT Torah perspective, there were provisions for sins committed out of ignorance. Just because Paul didn't know, does not negate the fact that he sinned.

Non-willful sins are always covered by the blood.

Deacon Dean said:
Ha! Any sin, willfull or not, is a sin against the Lord.

Amen. So I would ask, how do you think you are going to enter into heaven? if it is by your works/ the law/ your own righteousness, then any sin will keep you out.

But if you are forgiven of past, present, and future sin/sins, the effect it will have on your life is that you will love Jesus much (Luke 7:36-50, 1 John 4:19, Romans 5:5). If you love Him, you love what He loves and hate what He hates. That is all I am saying. Love rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6).

Those who abide in these principles will not sin willfully against the Lord (see also Hebrews 10:26-31).

For the genuine believer, non-willful sins are automatically covered by the blood of Jesus (Romans 4:6-8).

Willful sins must be confessed with real contrition and genuine repentance to be forgiven (1 John 1:9, James 4:7-10, Proverbs 28:13).

 

[justbyfaith]

deleted.

 

[aiki]

It seems to me that positional sanctification means the exact same thing as justification; unless sanctification is practical in my life it is nothing more than justification as I perceive your theology dictates.

No, my justification is a forensic declaration by God that I am righteous. My sanctification - positionally - is God setting me apart unto Himself as His vessel which involves a purification of my standing before God (accomplished by the imputation of Christ's perfect righteousness to me). So, justification and sanctification are inextricably entwined, but they are not synonymous.

But if I have been justified and sanctified by God, the reality of these things will be manifested inevitably in my day-to-day living.

In interpreting 1 John 3:5-9, I have been accused of departing from the plain meaning of the text because I have interpreted it to mean simply that we who are in Christ are new creatures in Him...and that we have turned away from sin and so are not walking in its direction any more.

1 John 3:5-9
5 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.
8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

Taken in isolation, this passage could be very easily construed as saying that a true Christian never sins. But this isn't because he is careful not to, if we take just the teaching of this passage by itself. It is God who makes us unable to sin, right? That's what the passage appears to be saying. If we have been born of God, the result is that the "seed of God" makes it impossible for a real Christian to sin. So, there is no struggle with sin at all. The ability to sin is just simply gone, eradicated, by the advent of Christ into the Christian's life. This is what this passage, taken in isolation from the rest of Scripture, seems very clearly to be saying.

The problem with this is that neither reality nor Scripture agrees with this "natural reading" of what John wrote. If we allow Scripture to interpret, and qualify, and clarify itself, it is very quickly evident that we cannot take John's words entirely literally. As I said, Paul's two epistles to the Corinthian Church run right up against what seems to be the "plain" import of the passage from 1 John 3 above. Paul condemns the Corinthian believers - not apostates, nor the yet-to-be-saved - but born-again brethren for all sorts of carnal thinking, sexual sin, back-biting and infighting, and abuse of the Lord's Table. How do we reconcile a "plain reading" of the passage from John above, that a true Christian never sins because he doesn't have the ability to do so any longer, with Paul's description and rebuke of sinning Christians?

As understand it, John was intending to describe the general character of Christian living, not an utterly sin-free state of being. Generally, a Christian is living a life that is moving increasingly in the direction of holiness. A Christian cannot be content in a life of sin; he cannot make a constant practice of sin. But a Christian's life is not sin-free. He must contend daily with the World, the Flesh and the devil and in so doing sometimes falls into sin. But he will not make sin a common feature of his life. In light of Paul's frequent rebukes to sinning believers in his various epistles, this is how I understand John's words in 1 John 3:5-9.

If you want to take the time to do some studying, I have some scriptures for your consideration in the kjv (if you have one...if you don't, please look them up in an online Bible in that translation):

Jude 1:24~, 2 Peter 1:10~, Titus 2:14, 1 John 3:5-9, Hebrews 10:10, Hebrews 10:14, 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24*, Luke 11:36, Romans 6:6~, Colossians 2:11~, Romans 6:7*, John 8:31-36, 2 Corinthians 5:17*, Philippians 1:10 (with James 3:2*), Ephesians 2:1-9, Ephesians 4:24, Ephesians 5:27, 1 John 3:3, 1 John 3:7, 1 John 2:6, Ephesians 4:12-13, Matthew 5:48, 2 Corinthians 13:9, 2 Corinthians 13:11, Hebrews 13:20-21, Hebrews 13:12, Hebrews 10:29, Hebrews 12:14~, James 1:4, Jude 1:1*, 1 John 2:10, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Peter 1:2, Acts of the Apostles 20:32, Acts of the Apostles 26:18, Galatians 5:24, 2 Timothy 3:17~, Philippians 3:15, Colossians 3:14, Colossians 4:12, Colossians 1:28, 1 Peter 5:10-12, Psalms 51:7, 1 John 1:7, 1 John 3:3, Acts of the Apostles 15:9~, Matthew 5:8, 1 Peter 1:22, 1 Corinthians 10:12-13, 1 Peter 1:5-7~, James 1:12, James 1:2-4, 1 Thessalonians 3:5, Ephesians 3:16, Colossians 1:11.

I have encountered and considered all of these verses at one point or another over the last forty-some years I have been a believer. My thinking on the impossibility of total practical sanctification is not altered a bit by the content of any of these verses/passages. Many of them refer to the believer's spiritual position in Christ rather than their daily mundane condition.

If none of these verses speak of the perfection of the believer in other translations, then consider that people of other translations may indeed be heaping up to themselves teachers to tell them what their itching ears want to hear; and that these teachers ended up being the translators of certain Bibles that water down the true message of the Lord's word to us (2 Timothy 3:3-4).

Why could they not accuse you of the very same thing? Why couldn't they say that you are just cherry-picking translations that suit your preconceived ideas, too? I always become very wary of those who profess to have understood where the majority of others - careful and qualifed Bible scholars though they might be - have not.

 

[aiki]

Once God reveals to you that your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) is there any more sin that can be revealed?

Acknowledging this about one's heart doesn't preclude further contraventions of God's will. And when we neglect to confess our individual sins to God as they crop up in our lives, we soon find our fellowship with God entirely halted. It is not enough, then, merely to recognize and confess one's sinfulness; God expects that we will keep short accounts with Him, confessing those moments of sin that arise from our yielding to our "old man."

 

[justbyfaith]

No, my justification is a forensic declaration by God that I am righteous. My sanctification - positionally - is God setting me apart unto Himself as His vessel which involves a purification of my standing before God (accomplished by the imputation of Christ's perfect righteousness to me). So, justification and sanctification are inextricably entwined, but they are not synonymous.

But if I have been justified and sanctified by God, the reality of these things will be manifested inevitably in my day-to-day living.

So sanctification is in God considering that you are holy (and not that you are actually holy). To me this appears to amount to mere justification; as sanctification in my understanding is a practical thing.

John 3:5-9
5 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.
8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

Taken in isolation, this passage could be very easily construed as saying that a true Christian never sins. But this isn't because he is careful not to, if we take just the teaching of this passage by itself. It is God who makes us unable to sin, right? That's what the passage appears to be saying. If we have been born of God, the result is that the "seed of God" makes it impossible for a real Christian to sin. So, there is no struggle with sin at all. The ability to sin is just simply gone, eradicated, by the advent of Christ into the Christian's life. This is what this passage, taken in isolation from the rest of Scripture, seems very clearly to be saying.

The problem with this is that neither reality nor Scripture agrees with this "natural reading" of what John wrote. If we allow Scripture to interpret, and qualify, and clarify itself, it is very quickly evident that we cannot take John's words entirely literally. As I said, Paul's two epistles to the Corinthian Church run right up against what seems to be the "plain" import of the passage from 1 John 3 above. Paul condemns the Corinthian believers - not apostates, nor the yet-to-be-saved - but born-again brethren for all sorts of carnal thinking, sexual sin, back-biting and infighting, and abuse of the Lord's Table. How do we reconcile a "plain reading" of the passage from John above, that a true Christian never sins because he doesn't have the ability to do so any longer, with Paul's description and rebuke of sinning Christians?

As understand it, John was intending to describe the general character of Christian living, not an utterly sin-free state of being. Generally, a Christian is living a life that is moving increasingly in the direction of holiness. A Christian cannot be content in a life of sin; he cannot make a constant practice of sin. But a Christian's life is not sin-free. He must contend daily with the World, the Flesh and the devil and in so doing sometimes falls into sin. But he will not make sin a common feature of his life. In light of Paul's frequent rebukes to sinning believers in his various epistles, this is how I understand John's words in 1 John 3:5-9.

I agree that our sin is ever before us (Psalms 51:3). However, if I may just take the opposite side of the issue for a moment...it can be argued that Paul's letters to the Corinthians was not only to born again Christians, but to a group of people who were identified as believers in the visible sense. They called Jesus, Lord, Lord; this does not necessarily make them redeemed.

Now when I say that we who are born of God are new creatures in Christ, and that we have turned away from sin so that we are not walking in its direction any more, I am not necessarily talking about sinless perfection; although walking in the opposite direction of sin could very possibly amount to that in the long run (or the short run, for that matter).

I have encountered and considered all of these verses at one point or another over the last forty-some years I have been a believer. My thinking on the impossibility of total practical sanctification is not altered a bit by the content of any of these verses/passages. Many of them refer to the believer's spiritual position in Christ rather than their daily mundane condition.

The problem that I see with this concept is that positional sanctification still amounts to mere justification as far as I still see it.

Why could they not accuse you of the very same thing? Why couldn't they say that you are just cherry-picking translations that suit your preconceived ideas, too? I always become very wary of those who profess to have understood where the majority of others - careful and qualifed Bible scholars though they might be - have not.

Preconceived ideas such as the understanding that Jesus isn't satan (which can it can be inferred that He is from such translations as the NIV and NASB when looking at Isaiah 14:12 and Revelation 22:16).

So yes, there is a certain extent to which I favour the kjv because it does not say what other translations do appear to say very clearly.

I also favour the kjv because I began with it and then someone suggested that I use a different translation (which turned out to be watered-down; but I didn't immediately know that). My walk with Christ went downhill from there. When I returned to the kjv many years later; my walk with Christ began to look bright again. Now you might want to say that this effect on my walk with Christ may have happened for other reasons; but you cannot be certain of that. It is my testimony that the kjv has been more beneficial to my walk than other versions. If you look at a comparison of versions in-depth, you might see that there are many things taken out of watered-down translations (which they, in self-defense, say, is that what was taken out was not in the original text). Personally, I don't want to be cheated out of something that God wants to say to me because it is not there in the Bible that I am reading. A primary example is how God once ministered to me out of Luke 9:55-56. If I had not been reading the kjv at the time, but in a translation that left Jesus' words out, I would not have been ministered to by that scripture at that time; and for all that anyone knows, that single instance may have made a huge difference in my experience in eternity; if not concerning salvation then concerning reward.

 

[justbyfaith]

Acknowledging this about one's heart doesn't preclude further contraventions of God's will. And when we neglect to confess our individual sins to God as they crop up in our lives, we soon find our fellowship with God entirely halted. It is not enough, then, merely to recognize and confess one's sinfulness; God expects that we will keep short accounts with Him, confessing those moments of sin that arise from our yielding to our "old man."

Concerning position we are forgiven of all sin by confessing that we are sinners according to 1 John 1:9. The word for sin and sins in 1 John 1:9 is in each case hamartia; and I am not certain from looking at my Strong's that there is a differentiation between the singular and plural of that word.

Therefore 1 John 1:9 can be translated, "If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Sin being the aspect of indwelling sin that is in our flesh. When we confess what Paul confessed therefore in Romans 7:18, we are forgiven of what is in our very nature that causes us to commit individual sins.

Now if we do not have the understanding that we are sinners by nature, then of course we would take 1 John 1:9 to mean that we are to confess individual sins and that we will be forgiven of each individual sin as we confess it. However, it seems to me that there is a strong possibility that we could go to the end of our life without having confessed every sin that we have ever committed; so forgiveness of sins cannot be based on the confession of individual sins but rather on the confession before God that we are in the state of being sinful.

With that understanding we do not become surprised when the Holy Spirit pinpoints some individual sin in our lives; and confession of the individual sin is not even needed (because a general confession that we are sinful has already been made) but only an acknowledging in our hearts that what we have done wasn't pleasing to God and a course correction being made concerning that particular action that was sinful.