[star!]

back to the stinketh thing Mr. Ian. We just can't seem to get away from it.
The more I understand his love for me, the more I want to please Him. How could we not?

I'm thankful for sanctification, Steve. Sometimes I just gotta remember it isn't just a process for me, it's a process for everyone.

Bev, I'll take love every time!

Voice, just when I think my works are shiny and nice, I discover to my chagrin how deceived I'd been. I'll stick w/grace.

Crystal, the good I do is the result of the Holy Spirit at work within me, causing me to will and to act according to God's good purposes. I stink too!

Barb, at one point John the Baptist recognized the perfect Lamb, then later his vision wasn't so clear and he doubted. We all need to be reassured concerning the Lamb from time to time. This blog is my reminder. :-)

Amen Joey....very well put. 

Juanita, many, perhaps MOST Christians, go around insisting that Jesus PAID IN PART, not in full. Sad isn't it?

Thanks WL. When we immerse ourselves in God's word, we are immersing ourselvse in reminders! lol

Oh yeah....another good one! I certainly need no more reminders of how sinful I am. That one is built in. BUT...I do need reminders that His blood was enough,, His grace is enough, His Love is enough.....

that is where I need to be pointed.....

Thanks for the reminder about reminders that we REALLY need.

Keep up the good work!

This verse seems backwards when compared to the common concept of "righteousness".  Instead, our current Christian culture insists, "Sin not and awake to righteousness".  (Or as you say in your blog, "Quit sinning! Start living righteously!")

Paul's concept of righteousness specifically excluded behavior.  Paul would make a lousy modern Christian.

Justification (righteousness) by faith is a distinctly Pauline doctrine - not shared by many.

I take exception with you, however, when you imply that Paul considered himself a sinner.  He did not.  Look at the context of the verse you quoted:

Paul's sins are listed in verse 13.  These are the sins that makes Paul a "sinner".  At the time Paul wrote Timothy, was he a blasphemer, persecutor, or injurer?  No.  Why?  Because Jesus saved Paul from those sins.

Salvation is NOT license to sin.  Paul's attitude toward sin and salvation is best described in the book of Romans.

Paul understood that he was free from sin because he was not "under law".

Sin has been dealt with.  Whether we sin or not sin is not important.  If we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (see Gal. 5:16).  If we're fulfilling the lust of the flesh then we are not walking in the Spirit.  If we are "born of God" (John wrote), we cannot sin.

The doctrine of "sinless perfection" exists in the New Testament.  Whether you or I live in that particular reality neither validates nor nullifies the promise.  Let God be true but every man a liar, ya know?

Paul was in touch with his spiritual side.  He understood and taught certain divine realities that most modern Christians reject and condemn as heresy, arrogance, and delusion.

If we say we "have no sin" we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  But I we say that we are not sinners, we confess God's reality.  All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  We, therefore, need God's grace to walk in His glory (His reality).  Without God's ability coursing through our veins, we are as helpless against sin as we were before Jesus saved us.

This body will be destroyed but the soul will be saved.  The soul is what God is interested in preserving.  Unfortunately, the soul is governed by the mind and not necessarily the by the spirit.  The challenge is to "keep in step with the Spirit" (Gal 5:25 NIV).  Keeping in step with the spirit is a decision.  Decisions are a function of the mind.  Repentance literally means to "change your mind" (or "change the way you think").

The apostle Paul told us that we are "transformed by the renewing of our minds".  Therefore, repentance is not a "one-shot" but a way of life.  Everyday, we have to be willing to abandon what we believe about God if a better, more complete, more consistent theology comes our way.  Such an attitude is RARE in the Christian world.

"Sinless perfection" is one of those attitudes that people want to reject on the grounds that it doesn't sound humble enough.  After all, "pride cometh before the fall", and "Let him that thinketh he stand, take heed, lest he fall".  And if our confidence was in our flesh, those warnings would be valid.  But if our confidence is in the One who saved us then the power of sinless perfection is coming from another source.

We walk by faith and not by sight.  Right?  We are free from sin NOT because we're not tempted but because the word of God tells us, "For he that is dead is freed from sin".  Whether that is my present reality or not does NOT nullify the promise.  We are also told that "by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are the sanctified" (Heb. 10:14).  We are perfect NOT because we don't make mistakes but because the word of God says we are perfect.

Our definitions are so linked to our personal circumstance that we would rather destroy our confidence in the word of God than to abandon our limited (and limiting) concepts of God's reality.  We would rather invent doctrines to explain why our lives are not working than to repent and live the life that God enabled us to live.

The apostle Paul said, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling".  The work is not in behaving ourselves and doing good works, the work is in believing that the promises God has made are always "Yes" - no matter how impossible they may currently seem.  This is the challenge.  This is the work of God - to believe on the One whom He hath sent.

Rob

Rob, dear brother, I'm not suggesting Paul was a slave to sin or lived a defeated life. That would be taking my words further than I intended. I am suggesting Paul was hugely humble, poor in spirit, fully knowing what he had been capable of (and perhaps still was, should he have ceased walking in Christ). This same attitude of humility was also clearly seen in the attitude of the tax collector:

I may be important to note that these verses don't suggest that the tax collector had a conversion experience. That is beyond the point of Jesus' illustration. He is simply revealing an attitude of the heart that is pleasing to God.

Paul's words express this very attitude. Even with all the great evangelistic work on Paul's "resume", he refused to exalt himself but counted himself lower than the lowest of God's people:

(again note the verb tense) .....and...

Paul certainly identified with the words of Isaiah. He knew his righteousness was like filthy rags. His weakness was an opportunity for Christ's strength, to the glory of his Savior. I'm sure you would say the same in his shoes. You probably have in fact. Our perspectives though different are not in conflict. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to clarify, Rob. And I kindly request brevity should you reply, I simply don't have time to address long comments point by point, though I do value your thoughts. :-)

Did Paul indeed think he was carnal or was he using such a statement to make a point?  Remember that Paul scolded the Corinthians for being carnal.

Was Paul congratulating the Corinthians for being as carnal as he was or is carnality something we should avoid?

Paul also said, in Romans 7:14 (above), that he was "sold under sin".  "Sold under" is an expression that means "sold into slavery".  In fact, the NIV translates Romans 7:14 as follows:

Did Paul consider himself a slave to sin?  No.  This is the same apostle who also wrote the sixth chapter of Romans.

Paul's opinion was that if you were "under Law" then sin had dominion over you.  In Paul's opinion, the Law was the "power of sin".

Therefore, if Paul thought that he was a sinner (i.e. a slave to sin) then we could conclude that Paul also thought that he was under the Law (the power of sin).

These dominos are setting too close to one another.  If you push one down, they've all got to fall.  Paul's doctrine had no room for the possibility that he was still a sinner.  Paul's sin of choice was murder.  If God didn't save him from that then he's doomed and he knows it.

So, when Paul says, "...I am chief" (1 Tim. 1:15), he's talking about a "Paul" who did not have Jesus.  Because, certainly, without Jesus, we have no power at all over our sins.  All we have, without Jesus, is will power and that's simply not enough.  "For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not".

Therefore, given the sheer weight of evidence, we have to conclude that Paul did not consider himself a present sinner in Christ.  Out of Christ he's a big time sinner and that's what the context of 1 Tim 1:15 is saying.  "Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am chief".  Since Paul was the chief of sinners, he therefore became the chief of the saved from sin.

I'm sorry, Mike.  There's no way to say this in just a few words.