Time and time again, believers start discussing and teaching the doctrine that believers can be perfect and live a life without sin here on earth. That doctrine is a very evil and dangerous false doctrine. Please read this text with prayer and test it by the Word of God.
The whole article is on my site: http://www.kotipetripaavola.com/liarsdonothavethewordofGod.html
And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. 1 John 3:3
As he is pure - Until he is as completely saved from his sins as Christ was free from sin.
Let me ask, how much sin may we be saved from in this life?
The doctrine of sinlessness has many variations. Some people teach that when a person is saved, he or she becomes perfect and sinless. Others teach that it is possible for believers to achieve a perfect, sinless state where believers no longer consciously commit sin. The advocates of the doctrine of sinlessness argue that because believers have been released from sin, they can no longer commit any sin.
1 John 3:6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.
Here is the Bible passage which the advocates of the doctrine of sinlessness use as the basis for arguing that the Bible says that believers cannot commit any sin after they have been saved.
When we study this subject by comparing it to what the Bible as a whole says about it, we understand that nobody born of God can sin continously without realising that it is wrong and then stopping doing it.
Galatians 2:
11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.
12 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation (hupokrisis - hypocricy).
1 Peter 2:
1 Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
The Bible says that hypocrisy is a sin and people should not act and live like hypocrites. Peter and Barnabas also went astray and were hypocrites, which means that 1 John 3:6 does not say that believers can be sinless and that believers never commit sin.
Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
Based on the above verse, many people teach that believers can be perfect. When you study the context, you will notice that the passage instructs us to love our brethren. Here, it means that believers must try to live their lives through the love of God, and the love of God is perfect.
However, believers do not become perfect in this life, which is proved by 1 Peter 2:1, 2 as well as Paul's teaching where he says that he has not become perfect but is on his way to it:
Philippians 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
When we study the Word of God in the Bible (Jewish Puclication Society Old Testament), translated by Jews from Hebrew into English, we see that they have translated the word "perfect" as "wholehearted" or another word, but never as "perfect" when it concerns people. When it concerns God, the word "perfect" is used in the translation.
The word "tamiym" in Hebrew for "perfect" can be translated in different ways, depending on whom it concerns. People here on earth can never be perfect in this life because their journey here on earth is always imperfect. That is why Apostle Paul taught that he had not become perfect. God is perfect but believers do not become perfect and sinless in this life. The Bible as a whole says that no believer can become perfect and sinless in this life.
Some people teach that believers can become perfect so that they never again consciously commit sin. This is a false doctrine, too, because just one wrongful thought of your brethren is a sin and you cannot think wrongful thoughts without being conscious of them. Many advocates of this doctrine defend it fiercely and they are bitter, proud and contemptuous of those who do not believe them. Bitterness, pride and contemptuousness are conscious choices. The list could continue forever, but already the things I have listed above prove that no one can live their life without sin, not even so that they do not consciously commit any sin.
I don't believe there is such a thing as living perfectly. I do believe that believer's should learn to mature in their faith and through that learn how the Spirit is leading them in their lives. Part of that is doing good works, when in the natural, the human experience say NO WAY. i.e. someone spits at you and you bless them back in some way. Someone cusses you out and you help them with something back to their car. It will cause them to step back and wonder. That is how one would like perfectly and yet still be a sinner under God's Grace.
John
These two verses are the clearest for me to see what my goal is, what the pathway to fulfill what I have been bought for is.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
(Galatians 5:16)for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live (Romans 8:13)
And also:
...keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
(Colossians 3:1b-2)
1 John 1:
6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
8 If we say that we have no [ekhomen] 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.
The verses above are intended for those who are already saved. Verse 8 includes the Greek word "ekhomen" which is in the active present indicative form, which means that the sin had been committed now, in this moment, which was an occurred fact.
Many people argue that it was not the present, but sin committed in the past when the person was not yet saved. The testimony written in the Bible disproves this because it was about believers who had been saved and had went astray to commit sin, which is why they were advised to confess their sins and to stop doing them so that the sins would be forgiven.
According to the Bible, it is not possible for believers to live totally without sin. This passage teaches us that if believers deny that they have sinned, they make God a liar and the Word of God is not in them because no one becomes totally sinless in this life. The Word of God clearly teaches this. Also, if a believer denies that they have sinned and they believe they are sinless, the Word of God is not in them and they are living a lie.
This teaching is very important because the Bible says that a person, who believes that they are sinless, is living a lie, and does not have the Word of God. Many believers say that we should only take that what is good and not care about that what is wrong. It is true that no one is perfect and that we all are mistaken in regard to something. When someone claims that he or she is sinless, the Bible says that he or she is living a lie and does not have the Word of God. This means that we cannot receive anything from him who is living a lie and who does not have the Word of God. That is why you should avoid such doctrines and people, and you should not listen to their teachings or be in contact with them.
God has a serious, unsympathetic approach to people who imagine that they are sinless. That is why He says that such a person does not have His Word. This kind of teaching also mocks the atonement of the Lord Jesus because the atonement not only atones sins which we committed when we were not yet saved, but also the sins which we commit as believers.
Because the Bible teaches that believers cannot live a sinless life here on earth, those living under the misconception of a "sinless" state mock the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus because they do not bring their sin of being proud (sinlessness) and other sins of their to be cleaned by the blood of the Lord Jesus Messiah. Therefore, they are living a lie and the Word of God is not in them, and that is why we must not listen to the teachings of such people, but we should advise them to stop committing their sin of being proud.
The Bible as a whole says that the Bible does not teach that it is possible to reach a state of sinlessness. That is why the Bible teaches us to grow in faith because a person who is growing has not reached perfectness (sinlessness) and is growing towards it, but will not reach it in this life.
The teaching of the congregation says that we, believers, must avoid sin and try to win the temptations of sin and to stop committing sin if someone has gone astray to commit sin or to live in sin. It is the right thing to do to try to avoid sin, but deception sets in when someone teaches that it is possible to reach a sinless state or that believers are sinless. We can live free from sin up to the point where God has grown us to and up to the point where we have agreed to grow to, but we will never be totally sinless.
I understand that many people want to believe in a pure faith in the Lord Jesus Messiah, but our desire and faith should adhere to the Bible, or else we lose our way and go astray.
It is correct to teach and encourage believers to abandon sins and to learn to avoid the temptations of sin. The teaching becomes false when people teach that you can reach a sinless state, or become sinless and be sinless. The Bible teaches us that faith is growth to becoming similar to the image of God. This means that we cannot become perfect for as long as we live here on earth, growing in faith. That is why Paul taught that he has not become perfect but is on his way toward it, that is, is growing toward it.
The doctrine of sinlessness is non-Biblical. It opens doors for demonic activity as people try to find glory of their own and are proud because according to the Bible as a whole, it is not possible for believers to live in this world without sinning or living a totally sinless life. The Word of Faith movement (many people, not all) has forgotten Biblical truth, which is why satanic spirits have an impact there through different manifestations, such as that sick people are healed and powerful deeds take place, but they are performed by the enemy's demons.
When people imagine that believers can be sinless, they are proud, and, according to the Bible, they are living a lie and do not have the Word of God in them. Among the Word of Faith movement (not all), there is a doctrine which argues that people are sinless. This teaching and "anointment" is based on demonic spirits because the Bible says that this kind of person does not have the Word of God because they are living a lie.
The enemy has several ways of deceiving people. Teachings and things which are totally contrary to what the Bible teaches, and deception where the topics may be correct, but the power originates from elsewhere, building on false, harmful teachings and the pride of people. Through all this, demons are fueled to do deeds through false power. The doctrine of sinlessness is a fuel which opens the door to demons.
However, many believers have not understood the gift of faith and what being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Messiah means. Many do not understand that they are righteous by the grace of God, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, they have the opportunity to be released from sins.
Many believers focus too much on themselves and their own flesh, and because of this, they bear guilt and shame in their hearts. They focus on their own flesh because they are incapable of living a victorious life in faith and in the power of the Holy Spirit, where sins are broken from their heart and they have the ability to say "no" to the temptations of sin.
Some believers caress their sins in their hearts, which is why they cannot experience the victory over the sins through the power of the Holy Spirit. When you understand that you need to stop committing sin and that you have the opportunity to say "no" to sin through the power of the Holy Spirit, you will learn to say "no" to sin by the grace and power of God.
God has promised to release us from sin and that He certainly does that when we grow in faith, love God and follow truth, and want to grow in knowing God and in doing the will of God.
The healthy, Biblical teaching is that we should avoid sin and to be ready to die (death of the flesh) from sin through the power of the Holy Spirit. However, we must keep in mind that we will not become sinless in this life. However, we must not support sin in any way, but we must grow in faith every day and, with the help of the power of the Holy Spirit, to block and say "no" to the temptations of sin according to the point we have grown to in our faith.
Anyone willing to answer these questions?
Should believers live there lives and continue to sin?
Let me ask again, how much sin may we be saved from in this life?
Edited to ask additional question
I think we can pursue the Kingdom to the point where God pours out on us and those around us (revival). At that point one could scarcely say during that time there is any sin, since the Spirit is so abundant. Or rather that during that time sin is being brought up and purged/repented of.
But Zac Poonen talks a lot about being free from sin--to the point of not knowing anything against oneself. That's the kind of freedom from sin I believe I can have. There's always more to refine.
some thoughts
Galatians 2:
11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.
12 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation (hupokrisis - hypocricy).
1 Peter 2:
1 Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
The Bible says that hypocrisy is a sin and people should not act and live like hypocrites. Peter and Barnabas also went astray and were hypocrites, which means that 1 John 3:6 does not say that believers can be sinless and that believers never commit sin.
Is hypocrisy a sin? Bible say yes. Peter and Barnabs were not sinless but committed sin of hypocrisy.
God has promised to release us from sin and that He certainly does that when we grow in faith, love God and follow truth, and want to grow in knowing God and in doing the will of God.
You can overcome, for example, sin of drunkenness that you never commit it again to and never fall to practice it. However, you have not come as perfect, because there are other areas in which you can fall. Remember also that drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God. You cannot play with the sins, because sins have destruction power, which leads into the eternal damnation.
The healthy, Biblical teaching is that we should avoid sin and to be ready to die (death of the flesh) from sin through the power of the Holy Spirit. However, we must keep in mind that we will not become sinless in this life. However, we must not support sin in any way, but we must grow in faith every day and, with the help of the power of the Holy Spirit, to block and say "no" to the temptations of sin according to the point we have grown to in our faith.
Quote: But Zac Poonen talks a lot about being free from sin--to the point of not knowing anything against oneself. That's the kind of freedom from sin I believe I can have. There's always more to refine
And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void to offence toward God, and toward men Acts 24:16
Can believers live their lives without committing sin?
According to God's Word, such believers "cannot" (not should not, or might not) commit sin, for God's seed remains in them producing an impossibility to live in a state of Adamically-natural and unrepentantly-deliberate sin. A dead man has more of chance to sit up and play the piano than a Holy Spirit-birthed child of God can continue in (commit) the same habitual sin as he did in his pre-converted mode of life. If he is able, he is not truly converted.
So, in order to answer your question scripturally, we must rightly define these two words: "commit" and "believer" and take a dive into the original Greek semantic if necessary. Of course, genuine believers can "sin" post-conversion, but this is not the same as the habitual sense of "commit" we see in John's first epistle.
1 Peter 4:1
Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the sane purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.
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Those saints suffering in shipping containers in Eritrea or death camps of N. Korea are not contemplating sin. Perhaps persecution might be desired for the American church as a purifying agent. But do we have the courage to pray for it
Bearmaster.
This topic in one form or another will always be back, and discussion will always be lively. Sin is the old ball and chain that we all deal with in ourselves and in others- not going away in our immediate futures.
Explaining it is one part, living out a solution is even more important.
Three things come to mind from the testimony of my own experience, beginning with a complete assurance that God speaks to me through His word which I have come to love.
The second thing is that the indwelling and presence of the Holy Spirit has led me to love God with my whole heart making it nearly impossible to do things I know He of necessity hates. I just have no energy or desire to pursue things like that.
Lastly, I live in a body of flesh. Things sneak in, and I am subject to deception. I don't know all truth, and I don't always have my guard up where it should be. So I have learned to carry a readiness for repentance in my spirit backpack. It is needed from time to time but sin is not my way of life- righteousness is. Sometimes I see the problem myself, sometimes others have to point it out, and sometimes the Holy Spirit just pulls back a veil blocking my vision.
But the aim is always toward living in righteous obedience to my Savior, and carrying His Name before a fallen world. They have seen too many fall, and have used these personal tragedies to justify their own path of sin.
I just don't want anyone looking at me and concluding that faith does not work.
I think asking questions of this nature in the church as a whole reveals just how obsessed we are with our ourselves, our own righteousness and holiness.
In Christ I no longer even think about sins and sinning, that's religion based upon self appraisal with the excruciating exactness of the law being the measuring rod.
In Christ God the father does not relate to me on the basis of my sin, but by my relationship with his son. If he no longer relates to me in that way why should I relate to myself that way? I we trying to help God?
Its a trick on the devil to take our attention away from the completeness of Jesus Christs work in his death, burial and resurrection and place it back onto ourselves.
My salvation is based upon an external action by a God whose own own son fulfilled every detailed requirement of the law so that he could take away the written commandments that stood against me. All he asks of me is to believe in the one that he has sent.
My only obsession is Jesus Christ. I am in Jesus Christ, and he is in me with every righteous attribute of the spotless lamb of God credited to my divine bank account.
Our obsession with sins is like orphans attempting to obey rules to stay in an orphanage whereas we are now sons in the household of God. With our adoption papers signed with the precious blood of Christ.
Friends, this is our God, this is His Grace!!!
One thing is for sure, if a man believes that he cannot live in complete obedience to God, through the power that created the heavens and earth, raised Jesus from the dead, and created man and woman who did at one time, live like this, and if he backs this up with a few scriptures taken out of context, that seem to confirm him (and ignore many many more that contradict him) then as sure as the sun rises, when he is faced with temptation, it will be hit and miss as to whether he will overcome. If he gains mastery over one area, he will fall in another and will never, in this life reach the state for which we are commanded.
Rather than trust in my own notions, I choose to believe the scriptures that state unequivocally :
Jude 24
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.
Heb. 13:21
Make you perfect in EVERY good work to do His will working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 2:9
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation.
1 Cor 10:13
God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation, also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it.
Scriptures tell us that they exist so:
2 Tim. 3:17
That the man of God may be perfect, THOROUGHLY furnished unto good works.
This is the way it works. It is not an obsessive looking inwards at our weaknesses, it is a stand in faith in the almighty power of the living God, that He will deliver me when temptation comes, so that I will escape it and stay loyal and true to my Lord and Master and will therefore have a clear conscience before Him that I am a worthy servant, not through my own abilities but through his power alone to keep my heart pure and my hands clean.
As it is through faith alone and is never of us, as we will never have a righteousness of our own, we stand in danger every moment of falling and indeed we do as soon as we depend on our own understanding or strength.
We see that the apostles in the early stages, did fall and sin, hence the Peter and Paul confrontation, and the dissimulation involving Barnabas. It takes time to be able to be established in this state of grace, as John Wesley observed. My own experience is likewise, I have not yet achieved this consistency that is found in the mature.
This doctrine is not to be likened to the WoF heresy. To be healed on command and to have riches, is not only to be found amongst Christians. Witchcraft and Satanism also experience these 'miracles' and we should have the discernment to know where this power comes from. However, it is only the power of God that enables man to obey His Lord and Saviour in resisting temptation and any teaching that claims that faith in such is evil, is from the pit itself.
Men who have taught this doctrine, like John Wesley and George Fox, were the means whereby thousand upon thousands of people became saved, and not only that, but the revival became the means whereby their societies were changed and turned upside down. Because Fox and the early Quakers taught the doctrine of entire sanctification, and because men became holy before God and lost their selfish focus, they stood against the abuses of their day, and the results still remain though are quickly disappearing. Prison conditions were reformed and the mentally sick were treated humanely. To call these men evil can only mean one thing.
There are a few verses which seem to back up the opposition, and they are very few indeed, in comparison with the verses which back the doctrine up and are clung to by men who have a heart problem with this doctrine. They have been repeatedly explained on this site. However, a man whose heart is set against it, will not be swayed by the explanations.
I will agree however, that there are men who put the doctrine to shame by false confessions. They say they have no sin because they call their sins mistakes. They are full of pride and arrogant and it is seen in the way they respond to objectors. Just because we have met with the fake, does not mean that the true does not exist.
I have a question for brother PetriFB. How do you explain the thousands of conversions and revivals brought about by such as John Wesley and George Fox, along with the many others who have frequently been the greatest missionaries, hymn writers, musicians (J. S. Bach included) if they were evil men?
This discussion is locked.
