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Disclaimer that is on almost every page; please read if you haven't already! Thank you :) : This website is research-based. All information is research completed to point someone to the truth. The author is more than confident in his ability to figure out what is true and not true, and with every document he did his best to be right. Still, he did not complete all documents with 100% certainty. So, while at least the vast majority of the information referenced in this website is accurate and helpful for coming to the right conclusion, it is not guaranteed that anything on or referenced by this website is true. This is intentionally allowed so that people are invited to think for themselves.
So, please use your own judgment when coming to any conclusions.
Based on emails, this website will be edited to be more beneficial for anyone interested, when it's appropriate.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise referenced, are from the NASB 1995.
Paul introduced the church in Corinth as truly saved (1:2-3, 7-8), and wrote 1 Corinthians to rebuke them for many sins. Quite a few examples in 1 Corinthians show word-for-word that a Christian can sin -- and all the time it took for Paul to hear about their disgrace and then get a letter back to them means they were being sinful for quite some time.
Paul introduced the church in Corinth as truly saved (1:2-3, 7-8), and wrote 1 Corinthians to rebuke them for many sins. Quite a few examples in 1 Corinthians show word-for-word that a Christian can sin -- and all the time it took for Paul to hear about their disgrace and then get a letter back to them means they were being sinful for quite some time.
Quite a few verses show that the church of Corinth was very disobedient to God (3:1, 3; 4:18-19 cf. 8:1; 6:8, 15; 8:11-12; 11:17-18 cf. 1:10-15;11:20-22, 27-34). In the examples below, someone is identified as a Christian while they are sinning.
Paul compared "infants in Christ" to "men of flesh" (3:1) who have "jealousy and strife among" them (3:3).
When someone was sinning in a way so heinous that "even... the Gentiles" find it repulsive (5:1), they did not "remove" him from church gatherings (1 Cor. 5:2, 13), and instead used it as a reason to be proud (5:2)!
The person was never identified as one of them, but only "among" them (5:1) and alongside "any so-called brother" (5:11). Thus, it is further emphasized that Paul was writing to actual Christians. So, actual Christians turned a terrible lifestyle into an opportunity to be proud -- the sacrifice of Jesus shows God has no tolerance for sin, and His word says many times that He hates and even "opposes" pride (for example, Prov. 6:16-17; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5)!
They did "wrong" to and "defraud[ed]" their own "brethren" (6:8; cf. 6:5-6).
Paul phrased this issue this way: "Have ye not known that your bodies are members of Christ? having taken, then, the members of the Christ, shall I make [them] members of an harlot? let it be not!" (Young's Literal [brackets original]). He did not write, "Shall I forfeit membership with Christ for a prostitute?" Their "members" are first identified as being spiritually members of Christ, and then they are told not to take the spiritual members of Christ and use them to be physically "one body with her" (6:16 [italics removed]). Paul implied that it's a terrible thing to take what spiritually belongs to Christ and abuse it because it's His possession.
They could sin against their own "brother" ( 8:11-13) by eating food when they shouldn't (8:4, 7-10).
They who were the "brethren" needed to "be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment," because there was "divisions among" them (1:10; cf. 1:11-14; 11:18). Paul rebukes "divisions" (11:18) because they are "not for the better but for the worse" (11:17).
Because they drank "the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner," they were "guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord" (11:27). That is such a terrible sin that "many among [them were] weak and sick, and a number sleep" (11:30). (1 Cor. 15:20, 51; 1 Thess. 4:13, 14, 15 show that when Paul used the word "sleep," he was writing about dead believers who were "dead in Christ" [1 Thess. 4:16].) Paul was blunt by saying that someone who is "judged" in that way is "disciplined so that [they] will not be condemned along with the world" (11:32, emphasis mine).
The Corinthians are explicitly told "Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning" (15:34). They could only "come back" if they were away, and if someone hasn't stopped doing something, they are keeping it up. Therefore, this verse alone says Christians really can get away from God and be in sin.
Can Christians start sinning and continue doing what they shouldn't?
Can Christians start sinning and continue doing what they shouldn't?
In order for Paul to write a letter of rebuke to someone, either his audience is not willing to listen to the church around them, or the church isn't correcting them. Either way, they keep doing what they were doing. It must have continued long enough to grow into a big enough issue for someone to see, travel with that information by foot -- or boat or some other slow method of travel from the ancient world -- and get all the way to Paul, him to write a letter, and it to safely make its way back to them. That's much longer than just a few days.
In other words, Paul eventually wrote to the church in Corinth because what they were doing kept happening. It was time for him to rebuke them, because they clearly showed by what they were consistently doing that someone needed to correct them. Therefore, no matter what else the Bible says, it is clear from the example of the Corinthian church that Christians can persist in sin.
The sin problems of the Corinthian church -- how "worldly" (3:1, 3 NIV 1984) they were -- were so great that one of the largest letters to churches was more or less written for the one purpose of turning them away from their sin. Therefore, a significant portion of a Christian's life can be given over to sin for quite a while.
The sin problems of the Corinthian church -- how "worldly" (3:1, 3 NIV 1984) they were -- were so great that one of the largest letters to churches was more or less written for the one purpose of turning them away from their sin. Therefore, a significant portion of a Christian's life can be given over to sin for quite a while.
How many don't interpret "no one born of God will continue to sin"
How many don't interpret "no one born of God will continue to sin"
A three-page document written to show that:
because all Christians will sin, no one can be anywhere near fit for Heaven by their own independent choice
a Christian doesn't have to try to live a certain way to be saved
the verse that says "no one born of God continues to sin" doesn't mean that living sinfully can by itself suggest to the sinner that they are not saved
One Interpretation of John 3_16 and One Conclusion on 1 John 3_6, 9; 5_18.pdfPage updated
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