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SINLESS PERFECTIONISM
Sinless perfectionism is quite often related to Pelagianism, whether the sinless perfectionist is an avowed Pelagian or not.Pelagians deny core Christian doctrines such as original sin, justification by faith alone, imputed or forensic righteousness,and penal substitutionary atonement.Pelagians are not Christian.
A major danger with regards to sinless perfectionism relates to new believers, who may be less grounded in Scripture.If new believers are exposed to the false teaching of sinless perfectionism, and are transparent enough to realize that they still have incidences of sin, they will begin to doubt their salvation.
Faith produces salvation, and salvation produces obedience.Obedience should characterize the Christian’s life.However, no believer is always perfectly obedience all the time.Believers need to confess their sins on a regular basis.Confession means to admit one’s sins to God in prayer and ask forgiveness. God then cleanses us of all of our sins.
SINLESS PERFECTIONIST ACCUSATIONS
Sinless perfectionists will often accuse those who question their sinless claims of promoting sin.They tend to consider all other Christians as being antinomians.
There may be a few professing Christians who promote sinful living, but those are the exception, not the norm.Sinless perfectionists will still employ the slander that other Christians support sinful living, though.This is ironic because in slandering others like this, they are bearing false witness which is forbidden by the ninth commandment.
Faith leads to salvation leads to obedience.Obedience is never perfect at all times, though.And their claims to be perfect are a product of lying or self-deception, according to I John 1:8-9.
Here is what Christians believe about obedience and whether Christians should sin.
Rom 6:1-2What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?[SUP]2 [/SUP]By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
WHAT IS THE STANDARD FOR HOLINESS?
One of the problems with sinless perfectionism is their low view of the standard that God places before a Christian.
The sinless perfectionist creates a false standard for perfection that they meet.In this manner, they can consider themselves to be sinless.
Is their standard the objective standard of perfection that God asks Christians to seek, though?
Here is the standard that God sets for us:
I John 2:6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
I am convinced that sinless perfectionists tend to make themselves their standard.I believe that’s the essence of self-righteousness.Sinless perfectionists are suffering from a bad case of self-righteousness.
One sinless perfectionist told me that he walked just exactly like Christ walked.He claimed to be a carbon copy of Jesus Christ.His words, paraphrased, were when you see me, you are looking at Jesus Christ.However, that individual used very foul and sexually explicit language while conducting campus ministries, worse than any unbeliever I’ve talked with.
Most Christians know that they fall far short of the standard of God’s holiness.They strive to be like Jesus Christ, but they do
not meet this standard.
WHAT DOES I JOHN 1 SAY?
If someone claims they never sin, they are either self-deceived or lying.Note this Scripture which is written to believers:
I John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous 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.
In regards to these verses, what does it mean to walk in darkness, and what does it mean to walk in light?
Walking in light means to be a believer. God wants us to live transparently with Him.Remember what Adam and Eve did when they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? They hid from God in shame and embarrassment.God wants us to do the opposite.He wants us to live transparently with Him, and go to Him when we sin.
Walking in the light also conveys a sense of transparency and openness to acknowledging one's sins...living before God openly and being willing to acknowledge one's sins. It implies being responsive to the new nature which we receive from God at conversion through the process of regeneration. All real Christians have this new nature, and want to obey and please God.
Walking in darkness means to be an unbeliever, with no concern for obedience, and dwelling in spiritual darkness and deception.
As verse 8 clearly states, if we claim not to have sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. This means that walking in light in verse 7 CANNOT be referring to a state of sinlessness; otherwise we would have a contradiction. Verse 7 clearly refers to being a believer and in a state of transparency or willingness to acknowledge our sin, and being responsive to the new nature.
Also, compare verse 6 with verse 10. Walking in darkness means to say that we have no sin. We are living in self-deception.
Verse 9 teaches that when we sin, we need to confess it, and ask forgiveness, and God will cleanse us from it.
These verses describe the process of progressive sanctification.
My pastor when I was first saved described it to me this way. Imagine being in a totally dark room with very dense blinds on the windows. When the Holy Spirit first comes into our lives, he illuminates the darkness of our souls and shows us a little of our sin. It would be like tweaking the blinds open a bit, and a sliver of light falls on the floor and we see some of the dirtiness on the carpet. We clean that up. He tweaks the blinds a little more and shows us more of our sins. We clean that up. He progressively does that throughout our lives.
If he simply threw the blinds open and revealed all of our sin to us at once, there would be no way that we could deal with it all. God is merciful and cleanses us progressively. We never come to a point where we are a finished work until the resurrection.
Am I saying that God does not cleanse us of some pretty major sins when we first come to Christ? No, I am not. God does liberate us from some powerful sins when we are first saved, and it is a mighty work. I have seen drug addicts, alcoholics, smokers, sexually immoral people, and others cleansed of powerful sins seemingly instantaneously at conversion. Yet, these individuals would never claim to be fully delivered from every sin in their lives.
It is not ok to sin after salvation, but I John 1 clearly teaches that we do, and to deny the existence of this sin circumvents the process of being cleansed of it. The process is confessing, being forgiven, and being cleansed by God.
Viewing these verses correctly is very important, as self-righteous people who claim sinlessness cause Christians who are living transparently and in the light to question their salvation. These conscientious Christians, who realize their brokenness, are negatively impacted by this sort of bad teaching. They may become discouraged, consider it hopeless and quit confessing their sins and being cleansed for a period of time until God shows them the truth. In addition, the supposedly sinless individuals themselves are living in denial of their brokenness, may be unsaved, and if saved, are certainly circumventing the very process that God has designed for cleansing.
We are never sinless short of glorification and never exhaust our continual need for our Savior. Our realization of our need for spiritual cleansing is what drives us to a closer relationship with Jesus Christ. If we claim we are sinless, and have no need of him, we simply circumvent the entire process.
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