I appreciate, the view, but it is a view. Repentance does happen every day. Folks are brought into the understanding of YHWH God and blessed by the scriptures. They read it and change. Good beans. But your ‘acknowledgement of our sins’ argument is mute when you take the entirety of scripture into context. It’s a big and complex issue. I make the assumption that Christ’s atonement was and is satisfactory to all humanity. Geez, take it for what it is … Good news.
“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:15
What separates ones view from the scriptures message is letting the scripture speak for you. I have yet to hear you give a scriptural support for the historical cessation of confessing sins.
First off I don’t give a hoot about any so called Christian historical support about confessing sins. My belief is that Christ has taken care of all of sin. Do you understand my position?
Yes I understand your position. You are building on sand.
Yes, and you are being a judgemental piss ant, because I don’t like your judgemental ways.
I am somewhere between both Maintenanceman and Pastor Mark (I think).
Like PM, I indeed believe that the Hades POW camp still exists for the wicked (Paradise and its residents having been taken up to heaven with Christ at his ascension, Eph. 4:8 ESV), and that Hades-hell-Gehenna will one day be cast into the remedial, temporary lake of fire, Rev. 20:14. And, that the only way to avoid hell, and the subsequent lake of fire, is to receive Jesus as Savior before physical death, Mark 16:16, John 3:3, Heb. 9:27.
But like MM, I believe everyone, whether they know it or not, is now forgiven and redeemed, and that since the cross, there is now not any requirement to confess our sins to God in order to be forgiven by Him.
Most people are still enemies of God in their minds (Col. 1:21), but not in reality. Nevertheless, the free gift must be received, in order to be enjoyed, Rom. 5:17. The gift is many things, but for the purposes of this discussion, it is like an offered “Get out of jail free” card, that to be of benefit, must be received and utilized.
We certainly need to honestly recognize our captivity to sin, and acknowledge our need for a Savior, in order to be saved. And under the New Covenant, we are exhorted to confess our sins to one another, James 5:16. But, regarding the idea of a supposed requirement to confess our sins in order for God to forgive us, as I said elsewhere,
And again, I address 1 John 1:9 here—
“I writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven ON ACCOUNT OF HIS NAME.”
I cant see how merely emphasizing the past tense of the experience of forgiveness sets aside the need for ever confessing sins again. Instead I would assert that John was emphasizing the agent of forgiveness as opposed to indicating some absolute terminative force that precludes ever having to go to God in humility over our sin ever again.
If that is the case we should be telling new Christians, “By the way, now that you have accepted Jesus you never need to confess your sins again.” So how then do we respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit grieving our hearts when we have displeased the Father? Ignore it? that to me means hardening our hearts against the Spirit so as to prop up a very unstable doctrine. I would rather err on the side of humility and honesty before God than to risk hiding sin in my heart out of some theologically spiritualized stubbornness whereby I say “Don’t bother me Holy Spirit, talk to Jesus he will explain everything, Im off the hook kind of automatically because of the cross.”
I john 1:8-10
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
Walking in the light means the opposite of hiding in the dark. Confession is bringing our sins into the light. If not then all we are left with is saying that walking in the light means walking in some perfect holiness. Only if we walk perfect are our sins forgiven? Thats incoherent. If we could walk perfect we would not need to be forgiven. Jesus walked perfect. No, walking in the light means only as we walk honestly and openly before God regarding our sins does the blood of Jesus cleanse us of all sin.
Narrowing the relevant audience down to gnostics in order to put the believer outside this counsel seems like a very precarious path.
Again what harm is there in confessing sins to God? The bible is full of stories where people did not and the devil seems to use that. He gets more control the more we sin and refuse to confess. As it is written,
God opposes the proud but gives GRACE to the humble. James
When I refused to confess my sins my bones rotted within me. King David
Thats not Mosaic Law thats just spiritual reality.
Regarding receiving forgiveness from God, you believe these above verses are addressed to Christians, and (apparently?) you believe that we must confess our sins (attempt to continuously, over and over again, recall, itemize, and renounce our sins) to God in order to again and again become newly forgiven—thus through our own efforts maintaining our forgiven state. And further (apparently?), that if we fail to continue this process, we will fall out of forgiveness, out of God’s favor, and therefore be in a state of sin.
But regarding these above verses (1 Jn. 1:8-10), I laid out to you earlier a whole case to show that John is not addressing the genuine Christians among his readers. In part, I argued that:
And that,
You ask,
What harm? Well, IF someone thinks that without confessing their sin–
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that they are unforgiven
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that they are cut off from God
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that God will turn His back on them
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that they are in danger of losing their salvation
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that God is an accountant who must continuously balance His books–first with the blood of Jesus, and then with OUR required, ongoing confessions of sin,
–great harm! Possibly leading to nervous exhaustion or neurosis! (I’ve been there.)
Anything that keeps the focus on self and what we must do, instead of on JESUS, and what he has already done, is legalistic bondage.
I have no problem with talking to my Father about my struggles with sin–honestly laying things out before Him, and seeking His help. That is part of the sanctification process.
But I have a big problem with any idea of pleading with God to “please forgive me,” when I am already forgiven! An “asking for forgiveness” mentality blocks the divine sabbath rest we have available to us–because of our permanent (Rom. 11:29) state of justification before God through having received His gift of righteousness, Jesus (Rom. 5:17).
Our good performance does not make us righteous (in right standing) before God–Jesus’ performance at the cross makes us righteous before God. So our bad performance cannot take away our right standing before God, because our right standing is based on the perfect performance of Jesus, not our own performance.
As Christians, we have a new nature; but we must renew our minds in the truth, because our flesh still wants to be in control. We Christians still sin every day; and for both us, as well as for non-Christians, “honesty is the best policy.” But I do not believe that for us Christians the Holy Spirit is a faultfinder.
… He [the Holy Spirit] will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness…of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more. John 16:8–10.
As grace teacher Joseph Prince has pointed out regarding this passage,
The Holy Spirit convicts the world (non-believers) of one particular sin—the sin of not believing in Jesus. We believers cannot be convicted of this sin of unbelief because we already believe in Jesus. What the Holy Spirit does convict us of is our righteousness. God gave us the Holy Spirit to remind us that we are righteous in Christ because of His sacrifice.
Beloved, thank God that the Holy Spirit is in you to convict you of righteousness. When you fail, He is the warm, encouraging voice that points you to the cross and says, “Jesus’ blood has removed this sin. You are still righteous.” He gives you the strength to get up on your feet again and to keep walking with God. And when you know that you are righteous, you will live a life that honors God!
The devil wants to keep our focus on SELF in order to make us feel cut us off from God: when we fail, he condemns us as unworthy of blessing; and when we succeed, he wants us to think we ourselves have earned our blessing, so that we will become proud like him.
Regarding putting the focus on Jesus and his obedience/ his finished work (a grace viewpoint), versus keeping the focus on ourselves and our performance (a legalistic viewpoint), here are two different translations of the same verse (2 Cor. 10:5), showing, I think, translation bias:
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…[We are] bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of the Christ ….(YLT)
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… WE take captive every thought to MAKE IT obedient to Christ. (NIV)
The literal translation exalts the finished work of Jesus; the NIV puts the focus on self.
As Prince said in his book Destined To Reign,
“We have been taught to focus on achieving, on doing and on relying on our self-efforts. We are driven to “do, do, do”, forgetting that Christianity is actually “done, done, done”.
Wow…ok then. Thank you for your patience with me. I think i understand where your coming from a bit better. I have to admit i have heard something like that but ive never considered in depth the stuff you say. Sorry if i was brash in a couple of spots. Typical paridigm defense i guess.
I dont ever feel like im begging God but that i am running to my Savior who I know always welcomes me and is eager to forgive and restore.
Is your position something rather recent in doctrinal development or is there teaching in early church history?
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I think its important, in fact vital to combine faith with confession. When I confess my sin, I accept my freedom from condemnation and refuse to let Satan badger me with it. That would dishonor Christs forgiveness to keep beating myself up.
That opinion is consistent with James Relly and John Murray and Hosea Ballou. My feeling is that that view does not do justice to the particularizing passages of Scripture which is one of the reasons I am more in the Elhanan Winchester, Robin Parry camp on that question. I am leaning toward Origen’s metempsychosis view with any possible post-mortem chastisements being non-redemptive.
Hermano, I disagree. The New Covenant was, is and always will be the way of God. Speaking of being bi-polar, was God unforgiving before Jesus came along?
Sorry but there is a self- I am. And we need to focus on making improvements within ourselves. Instead of trying to force everyone else to change, change yourself and the world around you will change. As Prince, the singer says, " Take a look at yourself and make a change."
Speaking about childhood beliefs, Jesus didn’t do it all for you. I don’t do everything for my children. At some point they need to grow up and do things for themselves.
Yes. As PastorMark mentions, you need to live openly and honestly with God, yourself and others. Confessing your sins is a reminder that “Hey, I did wrong, I need to work on that.”
Pretty much.
This portion in this epistle is not about the pedantic presentation via confession of a litany of sins one-by-one to God. It is simply stating the case that we agree or acknowledge the case in the first place, i.e., that sins we have. To experientially realise God’s forgiveness (something ALREADY established) it pays to acknowledge that there was in fact a reason for said forgiveness in the first place, i.e., sins — to deny this is to effectually deny forgiveness — apparently what some were doing this.
There is nothing wrong with laying your heart open to God in thankful acknowledgment for His forgiveness when we mess up, BUT THAT isn’t to establish forgiveness but more to live in its reality. It’s the difference for the follower of Christ between having bathed fully (salvation) and that of washing the feet (sanctification), or as Jesus alludes to here…
Jn 13:10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”
This washing of the feet in that sense is about removing the dust that can accumulate in terms of our dealings with each other where any needed confession of sins one to another releases healing horizontally in accord with the forgiveness we have received vertically, as per Jas 5:16.
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I also disagree with your viewpoint here. Instead of rising up to meet God’s standards, some want to change His word and proclaim themselves righteous simply because Jesus was righteous. This is the same old belief that many of the Israelites had. Abraham was righteous, and so they too were righteous no matter what they did. Not so. My father may be a loving, kind, honest man. However, that does not automatically make me righteous. I could be a mean, greedy, unloving person. Jesus was righteous, and IF you follow Him and obey His word, you are righteous as well. Big difference.
It is not as much a dilemma if you think about, who were the persons Hitler killed:
Communists, Homosexuals, Jews
They would all go to hell aswell according to traditionalist belief, if God is burning them forever in hell, why is it so bad then when Hitler burned them on earth? This might be a provocative argument but isn’t it the fact?
Edit: I see you came to the same conclusions, I answered before I read the entire post.
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While the Jews may have had among them every type of fallen human, they were in fact victims. When God said thou shalt not murder He was tacitly promising each of us the right not to be murdered.
The conclusion you seem to agree with was meant to be an argument from absurdity not an actual justification. Hitler was a monster. He was fully possessed by evil. If hell is forever for his victims as well as he then there is no justice in the afterlife.
They would all go to hell as well according to traditionalist belief, if God is burning them forever in hell, why is it so bad then when Hitler burned them on earth? This might be a provocative argument but isn’t it the fact?
And this is exactly how Augustine and the Medieval church justified burning people at the stake. And hell was at the heart of the justification. Jesus said no good tree can bear bad fruit. It doesn’t matter how many theological backflips we do to build a rational for these things, they bear only the fruit of murder and oppression.
Belief in eternal hell does bad things to peoples heart.
James declared that the people who curse their fellow men have tongues set on fire by Gehenna. Gehenna was a man made burn dump. It was place where men burned other mens bodies.
It represented mens devaluation of human life more than Gods anger at sinners. It began as a place of sacrificing babies! It was always a place where human life was tossed aside in callous, evil superstition.
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Dear Hawkeye: Welcome!
Your first post is without question, for me, absolutely correct. I know not the process our God the consuming fire will take with each and every one of our broken race, from least to greatest of sinners. In the end, He prevails!
“One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as “those evil people” or “those poor people who need our help.” Nor must we search for signs of “loveworthiness.” Grace teaches us that God loves because of who God is, not because of who we are.” -Philip Yancy-
As I understand it… hell be it eternal OR temporary is bad for the heart.
Which is why I maintain Jesus’ Gehenna of the gospels actually references their own this life real time DoJ catastrophe of AD70… and thus has no reference to a supposed postmortem destiny no matter its argued duration — again, BOTH universalism AND partialism actually argue for the SAME hell; huge misreading of the bible IMO.
I actually had an AD 70 reference in that comment and then it got edited out in my final revision. But yes Im inclined to see Gehenna in the huge impending shadow of AD 70 which loomed over every single NT book.
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I think the tragedies of a.d. 70 and 135 are being given too much weight here. It’s just my reading, of course, but the preterist perspective can if carried too far, actually cause warpage of author’s intent.
Now I’ll be accused perhaps of being too …evangelical or too (fill in the blank) and maybe I am, but I do have one or 10 open minded and responsible exegetes on my side.
We’ll find out soon enough…