Is this heresy?

Ben,
Think about this, or ask your Dad to think about it -- is any one of us actually aware of every sin we have ever sinned? Because if even one has escaped his attention, he is going to hell according to him.

In fact, under that doctrine, we are all going to hell, for all of us have commited unknown and unintentional sins along the way.

However, Jesus was and is the ONE sacrifice for ALL sin. In the Old Testament we read of special sacrifices for unknown and unintentional sins. Jesus, being the one sacrifice for all, covered/covers those sins, too.

The point James makes about works is that our faith has changed our lives, and this shows up in what we do. A number of times Jesus spoke of the heart as being the origin of what we say and do. Thus, when the heart is changed, as it is when someone is born again, what they say and do will reflect that.

We have a profoundly retarded son who is 22. He had encephalitis when he was three, and now his IQ is too low to be measured (officially less than 20), but he is active and usually hungry! He will always be in diapers, cannot speak, but loves music. Many times during the day he will come up to my husband or me and either pat us to get attention or try to actually push or drag us someplace (usually the refridgerator or the CD player so we will put on music for him). Barry may be doing research, or I may be typing, as I am right now.

So we ignore him, and sometimes even snap at him if we feel we have just spent special time with him, his diapers are changed, and he is fed. He can get mad. He can hit or pull hair or try to take off Barry's glasses.

Ben I have no idea if we are sinning when we try to get him to settle down when he is being a pest and I have no idea if he is sinning when he gets so demanding.

So we have a choice. We can apologize to God for absolutely everything we do and say both for us and for Chris, or we can rest assured that God understands, that He has covered our sins and we are born again Christians and His -- and that if there is something He wants to bring to our attention that needs repentance and a change in behavior, He will call our attention to it.

To always worry about oneself is the opposite of truly following Christ. We are told to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. That means paying more attention to them and not us. To worry, as your father does, regarding possible unrepentant sin is to spend one's time concentrating on oneself.

Personally, I would not go so far as to call it heresy, for we should be truly repentant when we know we have done wrong and offended our Lord. But I think that particular doctrine carries it too far and ends up causing the person to always be worried about himself -- and what if THAT is a sin in and of itself? What a nasty merry-go-round!

Make sense?

 

I answer your question with a question:
What would it take for you to lose your salvation? What could be so BAD that it would render the power of Christ's blood null and void? You cheat on a math test? You kick the coffee table at night on accident and shout @#%&!!! ?

Think about it: if one sin has the power to sin a saved person to Hell, then how powerful can Christ's sacrifice for us be? If a BB gun can put a hole thru the plate armor on a tank, how good is the armor of the tank?

1st John 2:1 ¶ "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. "

John wrote to Christians--NOT to unsaved people. Christians sin too. We are ALL sinners and there are two types of sinners: lost ones and saved ones. So when you sin, you need to confess it to Jesus. Unconfessed sin is a major problem.

Benz, worship time is powerful and wonderful, but you need to balance it with learning the Word....maybe Sunday school or Bible study. It is during this Bible study time that you learn about what the Bible says regarding forgiveness of sins, Christian living, faith, persistance, Christian freedom, etc.

Benz, you cannot change your dad's opinions. Before you say anything, pray about it. The Holy Spirit has a way of working on a man's heart. Pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth to you (and to your father) as you read His Word.

On a personal note: I'm sorry to hear that your parents have divorced. So are mine. You keep trusting in Jesus Christ and you keep going to a Bible believing church.

God bless!

Jkdbuck76

 

I'll just ditto what has already been said, and add 1 John 1:9.

:jesus:

 

Listen to your Father and "make it as sure as you can, for you only pass this way but once." Why seek to see how far away from God you can go? Why not see how close you can live to Him. Your Father sounds like a good Christian man to me. When you pray ask for all your sins for God already knows anyway. Believe me, if you sin against Him, He will let you know if you need repentance for He does have the chastisement rod. He said "My Grace is sufficient to keep thee". Trust in that Grace and He will deliver you all the way to Heaven.

I think your Father is a wise man, he is trying to teach you so you will seek to serve the Lord above all. There are so many looking and searching the scriptures to see what they can get away with. I say, as your father, live as close as you can and His Grace will take care of you.

Luke 11:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
3: Give us day by day our daily bread.
4: And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

 

Amen to Brother Bob, if there are unknown sins, as Brother Bob says, ask God to forgive them. As one matures as a Christian, those unknown sins become less and less. You know.

 

What if there are known sins?

 

Why on earth would you have a question about that James?

 

It is not a matter of "how far can one go," but rather "does the blood of Christ cover all our sins or not?" If the blood of Christ is all sufficient, and the penalty of sin has been paid, I need not fret about my salvation. My sins are covered by His blood. He cried out in John 19:30 "It is finished!" There is nothing more to be done. Once I accept that sacrifice by faith that is all there is to be done. If you demand that unconfessed sin must be confessed to go to heaven you have changed a salvation that is by grace into a religion by works. That is heresy.

If we sin, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous. We can go to him, confess our sin to him, and he will forgive us our sins. That will restore our fellowship with him. But our salvation will never have been in question. Sin causes a break in fellowship not a loss of salvation for the believer. Jesus told Nicodemus: "You must be born again."
He did not tell him: "you must be born again and again and again."
We are born into God's family only once. He never disinherits us.
He gives us eternal life. That life never becomes temporary. God does not lie.

Sin may affect our fellowship; but it will never affect our salvation.

 

Salvation is not based on works. Its foundation and security is in Jesus Christ. Salvation cannot be gained or lost on the basis of works.

Good works are the results of a genuine saving faith. Faith does not come as a result of works. Works provide the proof of a saving faith. Anyone can do works apart from a genuine saving faith. However nobody can claim to have faith not accompanied by works though.

Eph. 2:8,9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Titus 3:5-7, "He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

Eccl. 7:20, "Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins."

If one reads the context of Matthew7:15-27 he will find that there are false prophets who come to deceive and claiming something they are not.

Mt. 7:15- , "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? "So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. "So then, you will know them by their fruits. "Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. "Many will say to Me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' "And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. "Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. "The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great was its fall."

 

Heres your sign.

 

No works but then give a whole list of them.

Can someone tell this old man how you lose "fellowship with God" and still be in His Kingdom?
What is God going to say, " you have to sit over there for we don't fellowship you"? I hear some of the craziest nonsense on here I ever heard in my life.

 

1 John 1:7-8 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. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Isn't interesting how John includes himself (we) in these verses.

 

Ben you really answer your own question in your post. Your dad is doing what a lot of Christians do today and that is mix contexts. He is mixing eternal salvation and the kingdom. They are two different contexts and two different messages.

When folks try to make them the same message that is when mistakes start to take place and then they just build on top of each other because contradictions start to arise and then folks do all kinds of things to try to work around them.

 

1Jo 3:9Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

1Jo 5:18¶We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

1Pe 1:23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Well, according to DHK, down here you lose fellowship with the others and are cast out of the church and if you die that way then I guess God has a place over in Heaven for the ones in fellowship and those who are not in fellowship.

 

Thank you, DHK.

Bob, 'fellowship' the way it is being used in this thread refers simply to the closeness of the relationship, not to whether there is a relationship or not.

The closeness of anyone's (who's born again and His) relationship with God very much depends on the time the person and God spend together. That's just like any two people, actually!

Think of your own children. A child, young or old, who spends time talking to you and discussing things with you and laughing and praying with you is going to be much closer to you emotionally than a child which you love just as much but which lives at a distance and only calls occasionally.

It's the same idea. A Christian does not WANT to sin. But we do sometimes. When we are aware of that sin, we often find that we are embarrassed before God. That embarrassment, that shame, creates a change in the relationship. We want the close, open relationship back, so we go to Him and ask forgiveness. At no time is salvation in question, simply the closeness of the fellowship, or relationship.

He stays the same; it's us who do a bit of bouncing back and forth. We are 'images-of-Christ' in training!

So yes, we do want to make sure our relationship with our Lord is as close and open as possible. On the other hand, to spend so much time concentrating on trying to determine one's own sinfulness is quite a waste of time. Remember, Christ told us that the Holy Spirit convicts of sin. So the point for us is to keep our eyes upon our Lord and He will guide us in the way we should go, and that includes what needs to be repented of.

 

You asked a sincere question Ben and I side with your father and gave you my answer. As far as DHK and I we have a discussion going on another thread on this very subject and I am not going to hijack your thread to answer DHK. So, God Bless and don't be too quick to think your father is wrong. Scripture says to "stand in the old paths for therein is the "good way", walk there in and you shall find rest for your soul. We have a lot of new boys coming on the scene who think they know more than the old but hard to beat experience.

 

This is not what you said in your first post. You said you couldn't remember every sin. Now you are saying the Holy Spirit will show you so which is it?

Helen, I think the Scriptures give us ample discription of what fellowship is and it is not what you said. I don't know where you got your definition for fellowship. Never heard of two who could not fellowship each other but yet worship together. I think they would not be in peace and the scripture says if you bring your gift to the altar and remember you have aught against you brother to leave thy gift and go and make peace with thy brother and then offer thy gift.

1Jo 1:6If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:

Eph 5:11And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove [them].

2Cr 6:14Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

 

I am quite sure I have sinned more than I know.

However I do know that when the Holy Spirit brings a sin to my attention, I am grieved and repent. If I did not make that clear initially, I apologize.

As far as the word 'fellowship' goes, I do think the way it has been used in this thread is a bit different than what the Bible is saying. I was simply trying to explain that.

In the meantime, Ben's father appears to be dealing with a doctrine of self-absorbed fear, and that is not something that is conducive to loving God and one's neighbor.

 

Helen; I would hope it was different than scripture but DHK and I have been going at it for two weeks I guess and I know what he meant by it.

No, Ben's father is teaching him the same as mine taught me. "make it as sure as you can" and I am sure the Lord will smile upon you, God Bless Helen,