The Westminster Confession of Faith is erroneous. It is rooted in Augustinian fatalism and utterly denies genuine heart purity in a Christian.
It teaches that Jesus obeyed for you and that His obedience is credited to your account. Chapter 9, Article 1
It teaches that "the elect" you can sin and not surely die, only fall under God's displeasure. Chapter 9, Article 5. Chapter 17, Article 3.
It teaches that sin is a malady as opposed to a crime. Chapter 6.
It denies the free agency of man which in turn is a denial of men being responsible for their rebellion. The blame is shifted to Adam and ultimately God. Chapter 9.
It is a document of one error establishing the premise for further errors. It is a very dangerous statement to believe.
So then God doesn't love us, while we were yet sinners, I see nowhere we are to continue in sin, nor do I see where we are to stop sin on our own accord.
I do see
1 Thessalonians 2:13 [
Their Conversion ] For this reason we also thank God
without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed
it not
as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively
works in you who believe.
God's work is effective, and that God's work is placed on us, and is what has freed one from stress, strife and worry over whether God doe just love us or not.
God does, he died for the sins of the whole world, and for some reason you interpret this as a license to sin, when the death, burial, resurrection and ascension was never meant to continue to be controlled by the sinful nature, and is attributed back to Adam and Eve. God went the Spirits in prison that died without the Law and that died with the Law, and those then had their chance to be redeemed, (forgiven) and those that believed were released from prison, and he took captivity captive
WE all here have a loving God a Merciful God. It has been this way from day one.
For you to say one need to work out their salvation on their own is not doctrinal, if that is what you are saying.
It is only doctrinal if on uses the verse that says that on its own and does not read on. For it is God that works in you to God good pleasure and will.
The problem is free will, we bounce back and forth from flesh to Spirit and back to flesh whenever we sin. When in actuality one had never left the flesh, those that are doing good and then bad and then asking God to forgive them over and over again have grossly misinterpreted the word as we have professional doing the interpreting and causing all to work in the energy of their own flesh. I am responsible for any of my own sins, and Christ took then away for me, you and all that will believe God. This is the Mercy of God, and by this Mercy one either appreciates, in believing in God or one does not and stays worldly, and acting good, when no good act is ever righteous by physical flesh, for all sin has been condemned to flesh.
By the cross, first the death we are forgiven, and then by the resurrection we are made alive in God's Spirit, and dead to the old life of flesh and then we receive our guide, comforter, the Holy Ghost, and this is here for us to be led into all truth that sets one free from that old sinful life.
[h=3]1 John 2[/h]New King James Version (NKJV)
2
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. [SUP]
2 [/SUP]
And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.