Paul was speaking from his life as a Pharisee in Romans 7 and not as a Christian.

[Presbyterian Continuist]

To all:

It all comes down to whether or not a believer justifies sin or not. Do they think they can sin and still be saved? If so, the Bible warns against this very kind of thinking. Eve was deceived by the serpents lie that she could break God's commandment and yet still live (See: Genesis 3). For the believer who says they know the Lord and yet they do not keep His commandments, they are a liar and the truth is not in them (1 John 2:4). 1 John 3:10 says, "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother."

So the mark of a true believer is that they do righteousness and that they love the brethren. Also, 1 Corinthians 2:16 says that we have the mind of Christ. Did Christ ever justify sin? No. So that means we cannot justify sin, either.

If you are not sinlessly perfect, which you are definitely not, and you sense the struggle within yourself when you see yourself falling short of your own ideals concerning personal holiness, then your argument falls flat, because you are having the same experience as Paul did as a Christian believer.

If you don't sense a struggle between your flesh and your new heart that intensely desires after holiness, then all you might have is the Christian religion, and not the Spirit of God.

A couple of years ago, we had a fellow on the forum who maintained that he had not sinned for the last 30 years. I asked him for his secret, but he couldn't tell me.

If you think that those who believe that Romans 7 was Paul's experience as a Christian, are justifying sin in their lives, then you are on shaky ground, because the actual presence of a struggle between the flesh and the spirit shows clearly that such a believer is definitely not justifying sin at all, because he is not happy that he is having a struggle with his flesh when temptation occurs. A person who is justifying his continuance in willful sinful practice is totally in the flesh and not the Spirit, and therefore is not converted to Christ, and as Paul says, will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Right on!





Correct. They can't face the obvious fact that Paul was speaking in the present tense in Rom 7. Some try to deflect by abusing the "historical present", as if Paul was describing his pre-conversion experience. But the plain language of the text refutes that notion completely.

It is because they cannot accept the reality that they have a body of flesh attached to them and they cannot admit to themselves let alone to others that they still fall short of perfect holiness.

There must be something in their theology that has bewitched them to believe that if they commit a sin (which we all do), the sins they commit will be stored up and held against them at the judgment. The flaw in their theology is that they have an imperfect view of what Jesus really did on the cross to absolutely deal with sin for those who have faith alone in Him.

They cannot see that in Christ, God does not see them as sinners at all, because their sinful flesh is totally covered by the righteousness of Christ. Therefore, God sees them as totally righteous. It is the way we see ourselves that causes the problem. Because we are conscious that we still sin in many ways, we struggle against temptation because we have a new heart that hates the sin and would strongly desire to be rid of it. This is why Paul cries out, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord."

Charles Spurgeon quoted: "I'm just a poor sinner, and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all".

D Martyn Lloyd Jones said: "There is no such person as a good Christian, but just vile people who are saved by the grace of God."

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

What do you make of 2 Corinthians 7:1?
What do you think it says?
Please give me a word for word commentary on this verse.
Does your interpretation attempt to rewrite this verse in what it plainly says in the English, or do you accept this verse for what it normally says?

It is commendable that you have gone to great lengths to try and prove your position. Everything you have said is quite true, no doubt. But the way to eternal life is narrow, and few actually find it. There will be millions of professing Christians who will find themselves in hell, because although they embraced and adopted the Christian religion and behaved in a way that one could not tell them apart from true believers, all they had was the religion and its associated beliefs and practices, but they did not have Christ or the Holy Spirit. Anyone can walk into a church, become a member, live a moral life, talk the talk, and pass themselves off as a true Christian. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.

Those who have just the Christian religion are the ones who will fall away in time, because their hearts were not transformed by the Spirit of God.

In actual fact, for a truly converted Christian, it will be much harder, almost impossible to fall away than it will be to persevere in fellowship with the Lord to the end.

I became a Christian in 1966 and for two years was a very zealous Pentecostal with all the talk, bells and whistles that went with it. But I came to the point where I knew that deep down inside something was missing. I started asking God what was missing, and realised that although I was doing everything right as far as the church was concerned, I did not know Christ on a personal level. In fact, I was being a hypocrite, wearing a Christian badge without knowing Christ. It is interesting that while in that state I had no struggle with the flesh because I believed that God had forgiven all my sins, past, present and future, and so I didn't have to worry if I kept sinning. I just put it out of my mind.

But it then started to really trouble me that I didn't know Christ personally, so I started to really seek God in prayer, telling Him that something was blocking me from knowing Him. I went to a weekend conference, and received ministry. While being prayed for, I had a vision of a figure in white standing before me, and the next thing I knew I was on my face on the floor weeping my heart out. Two weeks later, I got in the middle of a golf course at my home town, at 11pm and introduced myself to God. I said, "People have introduced me to church, Bible study, prayer, fellowship, etc., but no one has been able to introduce me to You, and I know that you are within earshot of my voice, so I am introducing myself to You. I am [oscarr] and you are God and I'm very glad to meet you." As soon as I said that, I felt all lit up inside, and I knew Jesus was real, and if He had stepped out from behind one of the trees, I would not have been surprised. Then I started to hear His voice in my spirit. After that the Bible became a different book to me, and He started speaking to me out of it. I believe that I was truly converted to Christ that night. I had turned from religion to Christ and was totally transformed.

Ever since then (1969), for the 50 years since, I have never wanted to go back into willful sinful practice and have done all I can to resist temptation, and have continually expressed my strong desire for holiness. The Holy Spirit has had to continually encourage me through Scripture that He is working in me to develop sanctification in me and that to have no fears about my salvation, because it is by His grace, through my faith, that I am saved, and there is nothing I could have done, or can do to contribute to it.

Therefore, now we come to the Scripture that you want me to comment on.

"Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Corinthians 7:1).

I believe this as it is literally said. I do this every day by quoting 1 John 1:9 to the Lord when I feel that I have fallen short in any way of the holiness I want to achieve. I pray for the Holy Spirit to continue working in me so that I move further and further away from the works of the flesh to conducting myself according to the fruit of the Spirit. I know that I will not achieve perfection in this until I am free from my mortal body and be with the Lord. Therefore, my present life in the Lord will be a struggle between the flesh and the Spirit, and I will have to put on all the armour of God to ensure that I will keep persevering until the end.