Imagine this, everyday a person goes to a mirror to look at their reflection.
Rather than seeing who they really are and dealing with issues they just see their
idealised version of who they are. The idea is if they see the ideal they will become
it.
But this is like a pharisee seeing the surface of who they are and the illusion of their
projection and taking that as the revelation of God to them. Their conscience will
be seared, their real sin will not be dealt with and they will behave as if things are
resolved when nothing has progressed. This is 100% delusion, and a confessed
delusion, because the illusion is taken as the reality.
To pretend you are something you are not is one thing, but to know you are
not something but try and convince yourself you are, is just self deception.
I cannot think of a more stupid idea, it is like gouging out your own eyes and
then saying you are wonderful, because the image in your head is wonderful.
This is just nuts.
It is nuts!
But do you really believe that Christians think this way?
Maybe there are some flaky individuals out there but no one I know thinks that way.
There is a doctrine in orthodox theology that deals with assurance of salvation.
Once we have been adopted into the Kingdom of God then we are heirs and co-heirs with Christ.
We are not employees of the Kingdom with temporary contracts based on performance.
Instead we are adopted children of God.
In your world no-one can claim to be an adopted child of God instead we are all on contracts and judged by our performance. In other words there is no salvation - we are judged according to our performance - no more and no less.
Before I accept Jesus I am subject to the Law and therefore condemnation because I am unable to claim righteousness before the Law.
However, in your world, I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, but there is only retrospective forgiveness of sins. The very next I sin I am condemned - no salvation only eternal separation from God.
You assume that you are able to remain sin free and therefore stay in God's good books but in this system there is no salvation - you are still under the Law and the slightest infraction condemns you.
Luckily, there is a solution - the blood of Jesus Christ was shed and the death of Jesus Christ is a completed work that fulfils the demands of the Law on our behalf. It is a completed work and it is efficacious.
If the blood of Jesus cannot cover prospective sin then it cannot cover retrospective sin either.
Either the blood of Christ covers one's sins or it does not.
There is no this sin or that sin that is excluded.
There is no sin on this date that is included or a sin on another date that is excluded.
Think on this - why do Paul, John and others acknowledge that the saints sin.
If they did not then there would be no need for statements such as this:
8 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. (1 John 1:8-10)
John is addressing these words to believers.
Born again believers.
True believers.
And again in chapter 2 John talks again about sin and forgiveness of sin to believers. The context makes it clear that this is not retrospective sin committed before they became believers but sin committed as believers:
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.
2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)
In addition let us go to Paul's letter to the Romans to see what that writer says, again writing to believers:
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Why should Paul raise the very fear that you seem to have that if we are saved by grace then why shouldn't we just continue to sin?
The reason is that it is actually true that we have been saved by grace.
All of our sin is covered by the blood of Jesus for all time.
If it were not so there would have been no need for Paul to raise the issue.
However, Paul knows that human beings sin, including believers.
That is why he has to remind these believers in vs 11-13 why they should not sin and again in vs 14 summarises why we should not sin.
There is no mention of losing one's salvation if they should sin rather the emphasis is that we are no longer slaves to sin and the fact that we are under grace and not the law.
Read all the reasons Paul uses to motivate believers not to sin - all of them emphasise that we are in relationship with God - not that we will lose our relationship with God and be condemned because we sin.
Even James, again writing to believers tells them to confess their sins or trespasses to one another in James 5:16. Why would he write that if believers never sinned.
Before you think of responding with other Scripture that you may think 'disproves' what I have said understand that the Word of God does not contradict itself.