Those Who Deny Sin in a Believer

[PeterJens]

I hope you understand that when it comes to saving you and making you acceptable to God, Jesus did it all and his perfect work cannot be improved upon.

Paul disagrees with this statement

Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
2 Cor 7:1

If Jesus has done everything and nothing is left for us to do in obedience,
faith and following, why is Paul saying we need to purify ourselves and we
are perfecting holiness.

Jesus opens the door to friends to be able to walk in the way and learn
how to be bond servants, friends and people who love from the heart and
freely follow and share in the ways of God.

Only a fool would say being free to come and go is a certain destination,
because implicit in this reality is both choice, discipline and relationship.

The biggest lies are those which are enormous and in your face, blatent,
and full of promise but with nothing to deliver.

 

[Grace777x70]

And we know what happens to these Christians wo began to believe false teachers and blasphemy. We know the consequences to that

That's why we need to be preaching the love and grace of Christ to them - give them the gospel instead of a false gospel of works. It's time to Repent and believe the gospel just like Jesus said in Mark 1:15. The gospel means "good news"...news is something that has already happened!

 

[wsblind]

Yes....having a ship-wrecked faith is not believing in Christ's finished work on the cross and resurrection.

Here is a great article that talks about ship-wrecked faith in the light of what Christ has done on the cross. There are questions people have asked at the bottom of the article which I find helpful as we usually have the same questions.

Shipwrecked Faith

“Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.” (1 Tim 1:18-20)

What does it mean to shipwreck your faith? Paul said this had happened to at least two people so I guess it can happen to you. But how does it happen and what are the consequences?

Most people have no idea but fear the worst: “Shipwrecked faith means you’ve lost your salvation. It means you’re going to hell.”

As we will see in this note, it means no such thing.

What causes faith to become shipwrecked?

Look again at the passage above and note how Paul defines fighting the good fight as “holding on to faith and a good conscience.” These two things are connected. If you reject or cast away a good conscience your faith will be shipwrecked:

Holding fast to faith (that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence) and having a good (clear) conscience. By rejecting and thrusting from them [their conscience], some individuals have made shipwreck of their faith. (1 Tim 1:19, AMP)

This is not about ignoring your conscience; it’s about the dangers of thrusting away your good and clear conscience. In other words, if your conscience condemns you, you will have trouble believing what God says is true about you.

Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask… (1 John 3:21-22)

Condemnation is a faith-killer. Condemnation will cause you to be timid before God making it hard for you to receive from the abundance of his grace. If your conscience is constantly telling you that you’re unworthy, you’re a hopeless Christian, and you don’t deserve to be in the kingdom, you will be in danger of shipwrecking your faith.

What is shipwrecked faith?

Paul spent a fair bit of time at sea and he liked nautical metaphors. He described spiritual infants as those “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching” (Eph 4:14). If you are not secure in your Father’s love – which you won’t be if your conscience condemns you – you’ll make a wreck of your faith. Like a ship that fails to reach its destination, you’ll fall short of all that God has in store for you.

And no, that doesn’t mean you’ll lose your salvation and go to hell. It means you won’t mature in the faith (Lk 8:14). It means you’ll lose the freedom that is yours in Christ (Gal 5:1), you’ll become unstable (2 Pet 3:17), and you’ll fear punishment that isn’t coming (1 John 4:18). The New Testament writers list many bad things that can happen when we fail to trust God in our daily lives, but the thing many Christians fear most – Christ writing them off – is the one thing that absolutely cannot happen.

If you are one with the Lord be at peace, for the one who took hold of you will never let you go. If the Holy Spirit dwells in you rest assured he will never leave (John 14:16).

What does it mean to shipwreck your faith? It means moving from the secure foundation of Jesus Christ. It means diluting your faith in God with faith in self, faith in effort, faith in your ability to perform. It’s trying instead of trusting. It’s striving instead of resting.

What Paul never said

“If you shipwreck your faith, you’ll lose your salvation.” Preachers of insecurity love to quote this verse as support for their evil idea that we can undo what we never wrought – as though we could unfuse the Holy Spirit from our spirits and tear ourselves from God’s mighty grip. Don’t you think if that could actually happen, Paul would’ve mentioned it? Yet he says nothing of the kind.

What Paul does say is that a group of “certain men” had shipwrecked their faith and of that group two men had been handed over to Satan so that they might be taught not to blaspheme. I don’t exactly know what Paul had in mind with this handing over business but note that (a) he did it, not Jesus, (b) he did it with the intention of teaching them, not condemning them.

I know it is common to hear the New Testament preached in such a way to instill fear and insecurity among the children of God. To settle this issue in my own heart, I spent the summer examining nearly 200 scriptures that are used by some for this nefarious purpose. And do you know how many scriptures I found that said those who are saved might yet become unsaved? None. Not one.

In the coming weeks I plan to look at some of the scriptures that have been misused to preach insecurity to the secure, but for now I hope you will agree that there is nothing in 1 Timothy 1 that hints at eternal condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Agreed? Got your boat back in the water? Good. Let’s press on.

Hymenaeus and Alexander

Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. (1 Tim 1:20)

What do we know about these two guys Paul handed over to Satan? We know they were part of a group of false teachers (i) who were promoting controversies rather than God’s work – which is by faith (v.4) and (ii) they saw themselves as teachers of the law (v.7).

Ask the right questions and you will begin to understand what happened.

– How do we preach law? By telling people they need to work for salvation/sanctification, etc.
– What is the purpose of the law? Its purpose is to condemn us.
– What had happened to these law-teachers? Their consciences became condemned.
– What was the result of their ministry? God’s finished work was not being preached and faith was being shipwrecked.

Here’s the story as I see it. After Paul, the apostle of grace, left Ephesus, false teachers arose from among their own number and began preaching law. They might have been Judaizers with circumcision knives or they might’ve preached the Ten Commandments or they might even have preached the commands of Jesus.

The point is not what sort of law they were preaching, but their improper application of it. Paul said “the law is good if one uses it properly (but) they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm” (vv.7-8).

In any case, the outcome was they were distracting themselves and their hearers from “God’s work – which is by faith” (v.4).

Paul said Hymenaeus and Alexander were blasphemers. To blaspheme is to slander or speak falsely of someone. It’s saying, “The blood of Jesus doesn’t avail for me.” (It does!) It’s saying, “Jesus needs my help.” (He doesn’t!) “The Holy Spirit is convicting me of sin.” (He isn’t!) “God will not finish what he begun.” (He will!) “I can sin my way out of his grace.” (You can’t.) This sort of teaching promotes controversy and distracts people from trusting in God’s finished work.

Fight the good fight

I hope you understand that when it comes to saving you and making you acceptable to God, Jesus did it all and his perfect work cannot be improved upon. This is the gospel truth and it is worth fighting for! I am not talking about fighting people but demolishing arguments and taking captive every thought that is opposed to Christ. Usually this is a battle waged inside our own minds.

Here, then, is how you fight the good fight.

If your conscience condemns you as a sinner (Christ died for sinners!) or unworthy of grace (grace is for the unworthy!), the remedy is not to try and clean yourself and make yourself acceptable. That way lies disaster and shipwreck. The only cure for a guilty conscience is the cleansing blood of Jesus (Heb 10:22). So look to Jesus, see the cross and the empty tomb, and believe the good news. Jesus has done it all!

If someone uses the mirror of the law to point out your imperfections, don’t cast off your good conscience but fix your eyes on Jesus and his glorious perfections. You are one with the Lord and as he is so are you in this world (1 Jn 4:17)!
And the next time someone says, “You’re not good enough for God and you need to work to improve yourself,” tell them, “I am one with Christ and he is good enough for God, his work is finished, and in him I have found my eternal rest!”

Here is the link for anyone interested.

https://escapetoreality.org/2013/01/30/shipwrecked-faith/

Worthy to repeat often Brother.

SOOOOOOOOOO much false doctrine and confusion would end if we could only see that It was the OBJECT(Christ) of our faith that saved us and not our personal faith.

 

[Roughsoul1991]

Romans 11:22Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

22*Therefore, consider God’s kindness and severity: severity toward those who have fallen but God’s kindness toward you—if you remain in His kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.

We sure have a lot of scriptures warning a believer to remain, follow, or persevere towards the hope we have in Christ

 

[Roughsoul1991]

Worthy to repeat often Brother.

SOOOOOOOOOO much false doctrine and confusion would end if we could only see that It was the OBJECT(Christ) of our faith that saved us and not our personal faith.

This sounds like the Calvinist belief of only the chosen are saved.
Except Jesus came to save all who believes.

Faith is what must hold to the end as it says we move from faith to faith

 

[Grace777x70]

Let's take a look at 2 Cor 7:1 "in context" to see what is really being said. Works-based salvationists which rely on their own righteousness think they need to make themselves holy but it's a false gospel of works that will nullify the grace of God in our lives.

I love John 13:1-10 and how we need our daily walk cleansed by the washing of the water of the word. I watched a talk on this subject and it had an illustration of us being like a gold bar which had mud on it helped me to understand some things.

The gold bar still had it’s real value in it even though it had mud on it. Gold in the Bible speaks of God’s righteousness which of course we know He gave to us – we became the righteousness of God in Christ.

It goes on to show how the washing of the water of God’s word about righteousness and grace cleans off the mud from the gold bar which represents us.

As far as 2 Cor. 7:1 - "context" is very key here. We need to be reading the scriptures that are prior to 2 Cor. 7:1 which is why it starts out with "therefore"...when you see that - always see what it is "there for".

2 Corinthians 7:1

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

2 Corinthians 7:1 always confused me a bit when it says to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. How can we cleanse defilement in our spirit when we are righteous because of our new creation in Christ?

In context - I see this verse as us believing who we are in Christ now as the verse before in 2 Corinthians 6:18 says we are sons to our Father.

The verses before verse 18 talk about being “separate” from the world – like what partnership does righteousness have with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness..etc. ( verses 14-16 )

Cleansing the defilement from our flesh is obvious but of the spirit confused me. I think this verse is referring to how we view ourselves when defilement comes as when we viewed the mud on the gold bar. This defilement distorts our view mentally of our true selves ( the word spirit has been used in the N. T. to convey our thinking or mindset ) which we are in Christ because we are His righteousness now.

When we believe ( through the washing of the word of righteousness or hearing the word of Christ ) – we view who we really are in Christ. In this “beholding” of ourselves in Christ as in a mirror – we “become” or manifest outwardly who we really are.

Perfecting holiness in the fear of God means to me = fulfilling or accomplishing ( meaning for perfecting in greek ) our “otherness ” ( which holy really means “other” ) or separateness outwardly in the fear of God. ( Fear of God to me is realizing the awesomeness of God in His goodness ).

 

[Roughsoul1991]

This sounds like the Calvinist belief of only the chosen are saved.
Except Jesus came to save all who believes.

Faith is what must hold to the end as it says we move from faith to faith

Romans 1:17Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

17*For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith,[a] just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith

 

[Grace777x70]

Worthy to repeat often Brother.

SOOOOOOOOOO much false doctrine and confusion would end if we could only see that It was the OBJECT(Christ) of our faith that saved us and not our personal faith.

I know the works crowd will reject the message of the finished work of Christ but we put these up so that the readers can see the true gospel of the grace of God in Christ. The Holy Spirit within them will bear witness of His life and truth in them. I refuse to go back and forth with the same unbelieving believers and leave it in the hands of the Lord.

 

[wsblind]

This sounds like the Calvinist belief of only the chosen are saved.
Except Jesus came to save all who believes.

Faith is what must hold to the end as it says we move from faith to faith

No, Calvinism is just as much a hindrance as Arminianism is to His Gospel.

 

[Sully]

I know the works crowd will reject the message of the finished work of Christ but we put these up so that the readers can see the true gospel of the grace of God in Christ. The Holy Spirit within them will bear witness of His life and truth in them. I refuse to go back and forth with the same unbelieving believers and leave it in the hands of the Lord.

I wonder if they view their posts on this forum as works worthy to be counted...

 

[PeterJens]

Condemnation is a faith-killer. Condemnation will cause you to be timid before God making it hard for you to receive from the abundance of his grace. If your conscience is constantly telling you that you’re unworthy, you’re a hopeless Christian, and you don’t deserve to be in the kingdom, you will be in danger of shipwrecking your faith.

Listen to the twisted logic here.
Your conscience is telling you you are in sin.
You should therefore repent, confess your sin and get right with God.

No the answer here is ignore you conscience and believe in Christ
everything is ok. This is total rebellion against Christ and heresy.

If you think this is good teaching and worthy of repeating God help
your soul.

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
James 5:13-16

My warning to people who wish to follow g7 teaching, God will not stop you, and you
will be allowed to descend into the whole until sin in your life has fully come to fruition
and the reality of your state is known to all and you will be a spectical left out for all
to see.

This is Gods justice, He does not need to do more than this.

 

[Grace777x70]

Romans 11:22Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

22*Therefore, consider God’s kindness and severity: severity toward those who have fallen but God’s kindness toward you—if you remain in His kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.

We sure have a lot of scriptures warning a believer to remain, follow, or persevere towards the hope we have in Christ

That scripture is talking about the Gentiles need to have faith or they too will be cut off like the Jews were for their unbelief in Christ's finished work.

It is describing the 2 groups of people Jews and Gentiles and the fact that all of them need to believe in Christ's work on the cross - it's not talking about individual Christians that are born-again and sealed with the Holy Spirit of who Jesus said would be in us and with us forever. John 14:16

Brother - you really need to hear the gospel of what Christ has done for us in His finished work and start preaching that.

 

[Roughsoul1991]

Let's take a look at 2 Cor 7:1 "in context" to see what is really being said. Works-based salvationists which rely on their own righteousness think they need to make themselves holy but it's a false gospel of works that will nullify the grace of God in our lives.

I love John 13:1-10 and how we need our daily walk cleansed by the washing of the water of the word. I watched a talk on this subject and it had an illustration of us being like a gold bar which had mud on it helped me to understand some things.

The gold bar still had it’s real value in it even though it had mud on it. Gold in the Bible speaks of God’s righteousness which of course we know He gave to us – we became the righteousness of God in Christ.

It goes on to show how the washing of the water of God’s word about righteousness and grace cleans off the mud from the gold bar which represents us.

As far as 2 Cor. 7:1 - "context" is very key here. We need to be reading the scriptures that are prior to 2 Cor. 7:1 which is why it starts out with "therefore"...when you see that - always see what it is "there for".

2 Corinthians 7:1

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

2 Corinthians 7:1 always confused me a bit when it says to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. How can we cleanse defilement in our spirit when we are righteous because of our new creation in Christ?

In context - I see this verse as us believing who we are in Christ now as the verse before in 2 Corinthians 6:18 says we are sons to our Father.

The verses before verse 18 talk about being “separate” from the world – like what partnership does righteousness have with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness..etc. ( verses 14-16 )

Cleansing the defilement from our flesh is obvious but of the spirit confused me. I think this verse is referring to how we view ourselves when defilement comes as when we viewed the mud on the gold bar. This defilement distorts our view mentally of our true selves ( the word spirit has been used in the N. T. to convey our thinking or mindset ) which we are in Christ because we are His righteousness now.

When we believe ( through the washing of the word of righteousness or hearing the word of Christ ) – we view who we really are in Christ. In this “beholding” of ourselves in Christ as in a mirror – we “become” or manifest outwardly who we really are.

Perfecting holiness in the fear of God means to me = fulfilling or accomplishing ( meaning for perfecting in greek ) our “otherness ” ( which holy really means “other” ) or separateness outwardly in the fear of God. ( Fear of God to me is realizing the awesomeness of God in His goodness ).

Saying works salvationist over and over proves nothing. No one here believes works will gain us salvation.

What we believe is geniune faith is what saves and a remaining in this faith. Paul speaks of a spiritual battle going on in our mind every second. The devil is smart and can make you feel false secured and your sins dont matter.

Just cuz we in the spirit dont mean we are completely safe from evil

 

[PeterJens]

The judgement God brought on Israel

Israel became corrupt, murdering, theft, sexual immorality, idolatry nothing was
left alone but they also had wealth and felt secure.

Today is no different.

A power arose which was much worse than them, that gained prominence and knew
how to truly crush societies and God sent them to crush Israel.

The church will suffer no less judgement if it continues down this sinful self indulgent
heretical route, and when the judgement comes there will be nothing left to help them.

 

[wsblind]

I wonder if they view their posts on this forum as works worthy to be counted...

A constant, wave crashing sound................of Gods going to BURN believers IF......

Those works are worthy? I wouldn't want to stand before Him and tell Him I spent my life BURNING His Children.

 

[Grace777x70]

Saying works salvationist over and over proves nothing. No one here believes works will gain us salvation.

What we believe is geniune faith is what saves and a remaining in this faith. Paul speaks of a spiritual battle going on in our mind every second. The devil is smart and can make you feel false secured and your sins dont matter.

Just cuz we in the spirit dont mean we are completely safe from evil

Some believe that they must do something else other then believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ "in order" to stay saved. That's a perversion of the gospel of Christ.

The process for salvation is simple. Hear the message of Christ's work on the cross and resurrection - believe it and then we receive the forgiveness of sins and we are sealed with the Holy spirit of which Jesus said would be with us and in us forever - unless He is lying to us.

I don't believe Jesus is a liar. I'm a believer in His finished work on the cross and resurrection and that I too died with Him on that cross and was raised up and I am now a new creation in Christ - created in righteousness and holiness. I encourage you and others to be a believing believer too.

You are NOT your own savior by what you do or don't do. That is a perversion of the true gospel and it is a gospel of self-works and it has an appearance of good but it is not the gospel.

 

[PeterJens]

This is how
we know that
we love the
children of God: by
loving God and
carrying out his commands.
1 John 5:2

Now walking in the way is not a option
it is the only way.

 

[Sully]

This is how
we know that
we love the
children of God: by
loving God and
carrying out his commands.
1 John 5:2

Now walking in the way is not a option
it is the only way.

What is a specific example of a believer stepping out of the way?

 

[Roughsoul1991]

That scripture is talking about the Gentiles need to have faith or they too will be cut off like the Jews were for their unbelief in Christ's finished work.

It is describing the 2 groups of people Jews and Gentiles and the fact that all of them need to believe in Christ's work on the cross - it's not talking about individual Christians that are born-again and sealed with the Holy Spirit of who Jesus said would be in us and with us forever. John 14:16

Brother - you really need to hear the gospel of what Christ has done for us in His finished work and start preaching that.

Or you too will be cut off is a bold statement and those who have fallen had to fall from something.

Thank you for the concernment and i only feel so inclined to say these things because I see it all over scripture and I see what geniune faith should be.

We can proclaim Jesus is Lord until we are blue in the face but in less our life has the evidence of the work of the Lord in us, we would expect to hear Jesus say go away I never knew you.

I have people near a dear to me who are turning away. I see it in church sometimes. Jesus told us in the end times this will happen.

Its just not logical to tell someone oh your saved now and forvever and your sins oh yah those are good now too. So if you sin you dont have to repent just keep living brother because your free. I wonder how many Calvinists take advantage of that.

Or my favorite no one can fall away that is a true believer. Well thats great but what of the ones who truly believed for years and fell away. Not many people except Jesus and not felt called to do so.

My preacher was just telling us the other day of preachers who he had known preached for years but what came to lighr was they no longer believed in what they taught.

They told the board they was too old to find a new Job.

 

[Roughsoul1991]

Some believe that they must do something else other then believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ "in order" to stay saved. That's a perversion of the gospel of Christ.

The process for salvation is simple. Hear the message of Christ's work on the cross and resurrection - believe it and then we receive the forgiveness of sins and we are sealed with the Holy spirit of which Jesus said would be with us and in us forever - unless He is lying to us.

I don't believe Jesus is a liar. I'm a believer in His finished work on the cross and resurrection and that I too died with Him on that cross and was raised up and I am now a new creation in Christ - created in righteousness and holiness. I encourage you and others to be a believing believer too.

You are NOT your own savior by what you do or don't do. That is a perversion of the true gospel and it is a gospel of self-works and it has an appearance of good but it is not the gospel.

So what happens if we no longer believe?