Quote:
Originally Posted by wwjd.usa
...This verse says that every single person has sinned. (That is before coming to know Jesus.) However, I believe that after a person is saved, the person can gradually live his life without sin. If that would not be so, then why else would Jesus command us us to be as perfect as the father in Heaven is? (Matthew 5:48)
God is perfect, and has never sinned. Jesus commands us to be perfect as God is. If Jesus tells us to be perfect as God is, then this means that a person can become perfect, as God is, and not sin. Why else would Jesus tell people to do the impossible?
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You said, "However, I believe that after a person is saved, the person can gradually live his life without sin. If that would not be so, then why else would Jesus command us us to be as perfect as the father in Heaven is? (Matthew 5:48)"
The point of the sermon on the mount, was not to provide a higher and loftier standard of holy living that people should aspire to live by through prayer, study, striving, effort, discipline, drive, or determination. The message was to show the impossibility and utter hopelessness of doing so. To strip humankind of any and all self-righteousness. Again, the only way you can be, listen now, think about this, PERFECT AS THE FATHER IN HEAVEN IS PERFECT, is by receiving Jesus Christ. It's His righteousness not ours.
We should indeed put off, put on, yield, yield not, submit, follow, put away, flee, pray, study, love, forbear, cease, and obey the teaching of God in His Word. No one is suggesting that the power and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is a divine permission slip to live the way you desire. Follow and submit to Jesus Christ by the power of Holy Spirit operating through the written Word of God.
You said, "If Jesus tells us to be perfect as God is, then this means that a person can become perfect, as God is, and not sin."
To me this is a most disturbing and troubling statement, the way you are applying it. Reflect on your words. Perfect as God? Some glorious day, when we are changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, in His very presence, we will have utterly put off sin and experienced ultimate and final sanctification. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that,
when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that
hath this hope in him purifieth himself,
even as he is pure" (1 John 3:1-2).
The above verse in 1 John is a statement of fact. It is a reality. Every man that hath the "hope in him" is speaking of a person who has Jesus Christ Himself. He has purified himself even as he is pure by believing in and receiving Jesus Christ. The result of being in Him and Christ being in you is that you've become the
righteousness of God.
I 0nce thought "purifieth himself" was a call to live a pure life, until one day I observed the last statement, "even as he is pure." Even as God is pure! How is that possible? Not in this corruptible body, brother. Jesus Christ is my righteousness and Jesus Christ alone. This verse is not addressing changed outward behavior, it is a "spiritual" and "positional" reality of what we are in Christ. "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you
holy and
unblameable and
unreproveable in his sight:" (Colossians 1:21-22).
Again, I'm not suggesting our mortal life does not change. But, in my opinion, these verses (in Matthew and 1 John) do not address the mortal life.
My love for the Lord Jesus Christ constrains me to follow Him. Yet, being honest with you, the things I know I should do, I don't. The things I should not do, I do! I'm still a wretched man! Longing for that glorious day of final transformation.