But we are not free to embrace our sin and continue in it because we're forgiven anyway.
Maybe you better read that last verse again:
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
What do you think Paul was saying if not that we, while still bound to these fleshly bodies, would continue to sin?
I'm still not convinced that this person is in sin. Freeatlast can't know the motivation of this person based solely on the knowledge that church association gives. True believers will be chastised for their sin, true, but how do you know that isn't happening in this person's life?
Rev, you and freeatlast can call me liberal all day long, but it doesn't change the fact that some sins are irreversable. Do you tell the murderer to go back and bring the victim back to life before they can be saved? What about the theif? How many of those do you expect to make restitution? How much restitution is enough to enable a person to be saved?
I'm sorry, but you are liberal one who expects a person to be able to lift themselves out of their sin! You are acting as though they can and must somehow work for their salvation.
While those things do not save, it does make your point of no value.
If these things don't save, it makes my point perfectly. The point being that you have to deal with this person with the same measuring stick you use to deal with any other sin in the life of any other church member. We all still sin and sometimes we commit the same sin over and over again. Does this mean we can't be assured of what God promised us?
As I see it, this person is already suffering the consequence of their sin. They can't go back to being male. They are stuck. They could possibly be a eunach, but just as a murderer is stuck with that title, the man who once was is stuck being a woman.
If all their sins are forgiven, then the act of becoming a woman has been forgiven. Continuing to be a woman is no longer a sin.
It is the same with a person divorced and remarried before salvation. We don't expect them to put off the second wife and go back and be reconciled with the first. Why? Because that sin is forgiven and the binding broken. (not to mention going back and forth between spouses is warned against specifically in scripture)
Rev Mitchell said:
I could explain the vastness of your error
Don't worry Rev. I understand exactly what you think my error is. Unfortunately, you have chosen(as have a good majority of "conservative" Christians) to focus on God's wrath instead of God's love. While His wrath is a terrible thing, His love and patience outshines it by far.
1Co 5:11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler--not even to eat with such a one.
1Co 5:13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
Let me just add the last verse so that we have the context of the passage you quoted. It isn't God Paul is worried about judging, but those without the church. And if you read the entire passage, you'll find that the church was celebrating the fact that one of their own was shall we say "experienced". And that one was evidently "experiencing" and encouraging others within the church to "experience". And therein lies the trouble. Yes, we should expect Christians to attempt to live more perfectly because the world expects us to live more perfectly.
That is not the case here. The person described in the OP, while living with the consequences of previous sin, is NOT encouraging others to follow in their footsteps. They even have gone to great lengths to prevent their sin from becoming public knowledge in order to better protect the church in which they serve. (if freeatlast can think the worst of them, then I get to think the best of them.

It comes with being a liberal.)
And while we are on the subject of which sins are going to keep us from salvation let me point out a few things that God hates:
Pro 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
Pro 6:17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
Pro 6:18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
Pro 6:19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
Let me count, lets see....pride....wicked imaginations.....mischeif....discord... Wow, I can count four out of the seven happening in this thread! How so?
Pride: that this person's sin is somehow worse than those of the other member's of their church (or ourselves since we are the ones debating)
Wicked imaginations: The very first idea that freeatlast considered was that thesee people were hom*sexuals in disguise. He won't even consider the idea that this person may have been born with ambiguous genitalia and was raised as a boy only to find later that he fell more toward the feminine than the masculine.
Mischief: Someone outed this person. I have yet to see proof that the outing was done for the good of the person (ie, to make them deal with their sin). This person was well liked and well respected. Who started the trouble?
Discord: I can see the potential for all kinds of discord, can't you? I mean, I could take it personally that Rev Mitchell called me a liberal that was full of error. We could put each other on our ignore lists. If we were a church, I can fully see the potential for it to rip a church in half and me and the Rev might end up on seperate sides! (freeatlast would be on the other side too)
Yeah, see we need to tread awfully carefully when dealing with issues such as this.