Murder always?

In perspective:

If you become dependent and addicted to alcohol, you're an alcoholic. If you go through AA and break free from alcoholism, and go your entire life without another drink, you're what's known as a recovering alcoholic. In other words, you're an alcoholic your entire life. But you're "recovering" is greater than you being an "alcoholic".

We're sinners our entire lives even though we're saved. When we get saved, our salvation is greater than our sin, but we remain sinners nonetheless.

Hence, you're a murderer or adulterer your entire life. When you repent and are forgiven, you become a repentant murder or repentant adulterer; no longer bound by the sins, but still responsible for the actions that got you there.

 

Mike, it's a good question. The only thing I would add to Johnv's response: If a pregnant teen gets saved when she's 7 months pregnant, does the result of her sin (fornication) disappear?

Obviously, the answer is no.

I wouldn't "label" anyone a fornicator after they're saved. I'd refer to them as "forgiven."

[ December 06, 2002, 01:17 PM: Message edited by: Don ]

 

A murderer can repent of his sin and be forgiven, how can an adulterer thru remarriage after a divorce ever be a repentant adulterer, they are still married and divorced unless they divorce again and remain celibate.
Murph

 

If you are saved, your identity is no longer in yourself or what you do, it is in Christ. When you were saved you became a child of God. No matter if you murdered, committed adultery what have you. Christ covered sin once for all. We are no longer anything but God's child. You are forgiven and now you can walk in newness of life.

I have many problems with the whole AA thing and that is one of them. No, if Christ frees you from alcohol, you are no longer an alcholic you are a child of God! They don't understand Christ, they try to talk to some higher power and that power doesn't have the power to change thier identity.

~Lorelei

 

spoken like a true......



[ December 07, 2002, 12:40 AM: Message edited by: JCLWRB ]

 

This may not sound right at first, but please think about it:

If a person lies once, he is not a liar by definition. That is not his identity. He is a person who has lied.

If a person commits adultery once, he is not an adulterer by identity. It is the person who consistently lies who is a liar; the person who continues in adultery who is the adulterer. In either case, once the action has stopped, so has the identity as a liar or adulterer.

So what about murder? Once is irredeemable. Lying can be forgiven and everyone is around to make sure things come right, or as close to right as possible underneath whatever circumstances are involved. Adultery is actually the same, as a one-time act. (I would make a strong exception here if the girl is a virgin, however, but that is either another post or another thread.)

But with murder it's different. Not everyone is around to help make things right. Thus, murder one time marks one as a murderer, and there is no way around that.

But in EVERY case, there is damage. Sin always results in damage. Different sins, different amounts of damage, but always one leads to another. And damage done is damage done.

Now, if the murder was first degree, then whether or not one is saved, God's decree is capital punishment! But since we mostly do not follow that now, from what I have seen publicly, the person who has murdered someone else will probably always be tagged as a murderer.

Think of these statements:

"I used to lie a lot."

"I used to steal from stores."

"I murdered someone years ago."

The first two are certainly more than once, but which one sort of hits you between the eyes? The last one. While we would not call the first two, in the present tense, a liar or a thief, there is a very good chance the third would always result in the person being referred to as a murderer.

You see, no matter how much we talk about forgiving and such, deep within each person we know that murder is different from everything else.

If you murdered someone and then became born again afterwards, you would find yourself saying something like, "I murdered a person before I was born again," making sure people understood that you were a different person now. But with the other crimes, that might not even be necessary!

 

Liar, Adulterer, Theif, Homosexual, Murderer. These are are labels that can be applied to people, but there is one thing that all of theses have in common. The label is given after a person has sinned. What that makes us a sinner. It really dosn't matter what the sin is we are all a sinner.

Bill

 

"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
- 1 Corinthians 6:9-11