Thoughts on Sinfulness and Claiming Sinless Perfection

---------

I am definitely not a sinless person. I need his grace and mercy every day and acknowledge that I can be extremely sinful. I'm not vain enough to say I have no sin. Through Christ I am saved, am being saved, and will be saved.


Life is a journey and we are the journeyman traveling through it. Passions are not easy to break and sanctification doesn't just happen in entirety the moment Christ comes in. It's a gradual progression to holiness instead. And a tough road that requires a lot of confession and continual repentance hence why every day I try to pray at least once "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" even if I don't think I've sinned that day. I suggest everyone else take this mindset in case you've unknowingly sinned against God and require his mercy and grace which we all do.

We are "joint heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17) and everything Christ is by nature the Father gives to us by grace. We see contrast in 8:18 between sufferings and glory. As Christians we have gods glory in us though his glory is not fully revealed in us (Col 3:3,4). We live in a constant tension between our present and future expectations of the kingdom of God.

 Paul said himself in the Scriptures that he struggled with thoughts of coveting and coveting himself. This should give us some comfort in our own fight against sin to know that the great saint dealt with it just as we all must try to do. I think he conquered it and came close to theosis however, yet, nonetheless, the contrast is there. It's also found written by Paul in Romans 7.

St. Paul understands that he is saved by grace, is being saved by grace, and will be saved by grace. Where sin abounds and abides, God's grace and mercy abounds all the more. And does this give us a license to sin? Certainly not.

It takes a special pride in someone's heart to claim they are sinless. The saint's mindset is not so. They will be marked with a humbleness. In other words even if they have not sinned they will still pray "Lord have mercy on me a sinner" because they are humble and experiencing right glory.

The opposite is a prideful heart and vain glory. I don't pretend to understand how someone can honestly twist it so bad that they believe they are sinless through Christ completely now. Makes no sense. Christ inside of us should make us happy and fill us with joy but also fill us with an emptiness of sorts. In other words Christ in us sinners is a conflict. How is it resolved? By us focusing on Him.

Still... Some teach a doctrine called instant sanctification and that is false doctrine from the devil and often comes from a misinterpretation of the Holy Scriptures and zero adherence to the Church Fathers, Tradition, and history.

Christ's atonement was a gift to mankind. We have free will and we have sin and death still exists in a fallen not yet fully redeemed world. There is a conflict between Christ and us because of this. The doctrine of instant sanctification is a farce. Sanctification comes progressively over time as we let the Spirit of God teach us and guide us. Learning requires discipline and is tough work. You will not get an A+ on the report card every time. And we will not be perfect nor complete until Christ's return.

Thus, St. Caesarius of Aries' commentary of 1 John 1:8 rings very true that "The worst kind of sin is not to acknowledge that you are sinful".

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Response to Preston's Critics Post #3

In his last blog post, Preston has continued, as I wrote in my last blog on this topic, to push the narrative towards Romans 8:18 and all of Romans 8 instead of sticking to Romans 11:25-27. This is all a clear attempt to distract his readers from the issues I raised and these are issues he has not actually responded to with anything meriting legitimacy. I have already in my last blog explained why I did not focus on the shame versus glory motif he so desperately wants me to do, and for obvious reasons, the focus of this formal written debate was not and is not about Romans 8. The main reason I put something about Romans 8 was because it has to do with election which has got everything to do with the fullness of the Gentiles being completed eschatologically and causing the hearts of the Jew to remove their hardening of hearts so that all Israel can be saved (Romans 11:25-27). He has continually poisoned the well, dodged, deflected, and outright been dishonest as is to be expected when...
Read more

Response to Preston #4

Can I just say first how amazing it is that Preston has gone 2 whole articles off on a rabbit trail in an attempt to hide from facing his first topic Romans 11:25-27? I find this utterly fascinating how far someone will go to deny the truth even when they know it’s been laid out right there for them. The lengths some heretics like Preston will go to deny the truth is astounding. He didn’t even bother tagging me either. I suppose it was to try and claim I never responded or something? Who knows? In this new article he continues to not answer Romans 11:25-27 as he didn’t last time but continues the same spiel that I need to do something about shame vs glory motifs in Romans 8… Should I bother doing this he’ll just claim I need to do an entire commentary on Romans which I will not be doing. You can go order Archbishop Dmitri Royster’s Commentary on Romans or read St. John Chrysostom’s commentary of Romans for one. I already explained this in the last 3 articles why I didn’t go into th...
Read more

Answer to a Friend On Eschatological Questions About Mt 10:23 & Mt 26:64

Recently a friend I'll write as D.W. asked me an eschatological question. This is the response I felt would be adequate. I hope it assists others as well. My friend asks how I would respond to full preterist when they try and use Matthew 10:23 and Matthew 26:64. Jesus told His Apostles in Matthew 10:23, “You will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.” How would you handle that passage of Scripture? From an honest perspective, Matthew 10:23 I would say can be interpreted a few ways. For example, one could say maybe that it is referring a bit about the destruction of Jerusalem to some extent. If it was then this would not contradict the Patristics as they all say that the destruction of Jerusalem was a type and prefiguring event of what is to come in the future when the Christ in His 2nd Coming comes in a visible, physical bodily event. Some thoughts though... If “before the Son of Man comes” meant that the Parousia is expected before the...
Read more