What you are saying is that born again christians become sinless. I hope you get a hold on of how idiotic is that claim
Hosea 6:6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings (bit see 9:4). It’s not really hard to view sacrifice as being in the realm of divine accommodation.
“We cannot treat the bible as a holy encyclopedia where we can look up information about the divine, because we are likely to find contradictory data in the very next chapter.” Karen Armstrong, In The Beginning
It amazes me how many protestants think dead animal blood somehow forgives sin but reject transubstantiation out of hand.
Vinnie
It was an awful day and a terrible scene. Often, I have tried to imagine what it looked like up close, in person, as He was crucified. The sounds, the smells, the humidity, the feel of the air, the grime and the faces of his killers, Mary, Mary and Mary and John. I have looked closely into his face. Something hit me I had never thought of for a second.
I noticed the reflection of his mother in his eyes as He chose not to come down even as she begged him to. He watched her watching him, be tortured and murdered. He endured her agony for me.
And I spit in his face, gambled for his clothes, punched him with clenched fists repeatedly squarely on his jaw, as He stood there helpless.
“Father God, forgive them…”
I jumped this morning. I sinned this morning. Why so literal?
God made him who never jumped to become jumping for us. Say what?
Can someone please explain to me how that statement that Jesus became sin is intelligible when taken literally? How does one become sin when such a thing is an action that is contrary to God’s will committed by a being with free will? How do you become that? I can take on my child’s debt. That doesn’t mean I become debt or I become money. It means I will use my money to pay the money you owe. In fact, one might argue that what Jesus did is unethical if we take that literally. It is not just to be punished for someone else’s crime. It makes no sense. It is just to give your life in an effort to save someone though.
Jesus literally taking on sin is unintelligible to me as a statement.
Vinnie
What I am saying is clear by what I have already stated. In Christ we die to the power and authority that sin had over us. WE WERE SLAVES TO SIN, and could not free ourselves. But in Christ I have been executed and raised to life in Him. I have been crucified to the world and the world to me. Think of the power and authority that we are declaring when we say, “Jesus is my Lord”. We are acknowledging that Jesus is our master now, not sin, the devil, our own flesh or any other power. Jesus rules over and in us. This is not some little confession that we say but then still continue submitting to the lordship of sin and the devil. This is a confession of freedom and power. JESUS IS MY LORD!!!
Can we sin? Yes. Is there forgiveness if we truly turn from it and submit to Jesus? Yes.
By continually willing submitting to sin can we trample under our feet the blood of Christ? Yes.
Is there the possibility that after having our inward man made new and clean, that if we return to sin that we will become tenfold more fowl than we were? Yes.
There shouldn’t be even a hint of sexual immorality among those that confess Christ as Lord, nor greed, nor idolatry, or any other wickedness. Don’t you know that those who have died with Christ are freed from sins power. Wake up, has not it been shown to us clearly that Jesus died and raised again to set us free. So live as those who are free, don’t submit yourself to sin’s temptations.
All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. That call on Jesus happens whenever we are tempted. He will save us from the enemy, moment by moment, day by day. Walk in the Spirit and you won’t fulfill sin’s temptations. It is by trusting (full reliance upon) loving and obey the Father and the Son that we are daily saved.
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Congrats my friend
You just contradicted yourself
If you believe you are sinless just because you are Christian and born again ,tell that to God when you see him. He might laugh at you though
Sin is a power, it is a nature.
It may end in an action but it starts with evil rising up from within.
Your lusts, cravings, desires are powers that are within you.
Jesus took on that nature, he was the second Adam. The second Adam was executed, I was executed.
Jesus raised up from death. I raised up from death with Him. The inward man was recreated, born again.
Sin is a power. Sin is a nature.
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The Gospel or good news is that in Christ a person can be recreated in the image of Jesus. Filled with His Spirit and nature. Living a life under the authority of God, freed from the power of sin.
If this is not what the death and resurrection of Christ provided, then you are still dead in your sins and without hope. A slave, subject of sin with no ability to set yourself free. You will go and be judged by God as a slave of sin rather than a slave of righteousness.
Being born again, or becoming a new creation, are not just some cool terms, they are the reality that is in Christ. We are not born again but still remain slaves to sin and the devil. We are born again into the family of God, free men, servants of Jesus and subjects of the King of Kings.
Sin is not my master or lord. If a person does not understand or trust in the freedom that comes through Christ’s death and resurrection they will continue to live as subjects and slaves of sin.
It’s all there in the scripture. Jesus made it clear to Paul when He revealed it to him.
Don’t fight against it but dive into the scriptures, for that good news is there for all to receive.
"For me, at the time, it felt like an enormous relief, a lifting of burden, a sense of connecting with the universe in a way I never had before. Very powerful!” “At that point Jesus became not only my Lord and Savior, but also my best friend and closest ally.” “Jesus was my model of self-giving love…” Dr. Bart Ehrman
Bart is one of a multitude who discovered in Christ a best friend, a Lord and a Savior, a model of self giving love and a closet ally.
I didnt understand all this when I first turned to Jesus. But the affects of His death and resurrection were active in me. The things I used to love now were repulsive to me. Being born of God, being made into a new creation was immediately working in me, saving me from sin. Jesus was already actively being my Lord. His death was my death to sin and the devil and His resurrection to life had filled my spirit with eternal life, God’s life, which was saving me from sin daily.
THAT IS GOOD NEWS!!!
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And that my friend is the TRUTH, Jesus is the Way the Truth and the life.
That is why we give thanks and praise to the Son of God.
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Good news indeed! some of us feel like Paul in Romans 7.
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Vinnie
So Jesus didn’t take on sin, he took on our sin nature? What makes us have a sin nature? Who created the evil that is rising up within us? Is this not just a metaphor for the bad things humans do? There is evil within us that exists apart from our sinful free willed actions? Where did that evil come from? Did God create that evil I allow to somehow rise up within me?
If we truly believe the flesh is bad is it God’s fault? Do you believe he created everything and deemed it good?
I might be able to buy some sort of sin nature but I need more information on how someone else can take on my sin nature and if they did, why I do continue to sin.
Vinnie
Consider why you sin (rebel against God).
Think of how temptation comes, you see a woman or a vehicle, or tool or new toy of some kind and you begin to want it. Your affections, attention and desires are for it. You find yourself thinking about it often and imagine having it. Covetousness or lust rises up, you begin to idolize it and you eventually fulfill that desire by obtaining it. Sin mastered you and you were its slave.
Now a person who has the knowledge of right and wrong but have not been united to Christ in His death and resurrection can know it’s wrong to covet something but they are still the slave of sin, so they sin. But those who have died to sin through Christ and have had the inner man raised up by the Spirit and power of God, are free men. Free from sin’s lordship. Like Romans 8 declares.
Rom 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. 5 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness." This is the freedom that Christ provides through His death and resurrection.
Now when we are tempted, there is the Law of Life in Christ that has power over the law of sin and death. It is God working in us both the desire and the ability to do His will. It is God saving us, moment by moment from the power of sin. Though temptation still comes as it did with Jesus, we can overcome through our death with Him and our resurrection with Him. He abides in us, how can we keep on sinning.
1 John 3:8 The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother."
If a persons continues to sin and enjoys it they are not born of God, for those who are born of God can not continue in sin. Does a person want to have freedom from sin? Then submit yourself to the death and the new life that Jesus has provided. That person must without reservation submit to Jesus as Lord, Master, Sovereign over them.
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How outdated are you man? Bart is an atheist
That is a gnostic teaching at some extent
It is a shame that he fell away. His born again experience was very powerful. Many don’t continue on the path even after experiencing the God of the universe first hand. Bart’s turning away was the result of too much evil in the world he said, which is difficult to understand. There was as much evil in the world when he discovered God is real as when he left Jesus.
Cling to the God of Christ on this question, NIck. Don’t let anybody here or anywhere else persuade you that God is an evil god that delights in cruelty and bloody sacrifice. Such is not the God of Christ - the loving God of creation.
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Maybe because He has an Evil nature as well? Vindictive might be better. Remember what happened woth Isaac? “Yeah bro just sacrifice your child to show me your loyal to me” and then The Father is like “Its just a prank bro dont do that”.
Same thing with Christ. Sent him like a pig for slaughter"
HE is what HE is. They murdered his son because they hated him. Many, many people hate God. He demanded that Christ shed his blood or there wouldn’t be forgiveness. I don’t have to understand it or like it. Christianity is a bloody religion, as they say.