I can accept what you said Josiah with no problem, when I say repeating sin I am talking of those we are aware of and dont care, we just keep doing them, for those sins until we quit doing them there is no forgiveness
I suspect I respectfully disagree.... Although perhaps in life, there's not much practical difference in our views???
IMO, God is ALWAYS faithful to His promise to forgive.... that He keeps His own counsel that forgiveness is "70 times 7." Not, "three strikes and you're out".... not, "but my mercy quickly wears out." BUT.... as I said before..... WE can destroy our relationship, WE can get to a point where neither the repentance or faith exists since WE have destroyed it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor in Germany during the Nazi years used this example: Bob does X (this example probably only works with a specific, known ACT). He has a heart of repentance and faith, and so repents and seeks mercy through the Blood. And God, true to His promise, forgives and forgets. Bob does "X" again. Repents again. God forgives and forgets again. Fast forward a few million times of this.... now, Bob DOES "X" BECAUSE he knows God will forgive/forget. Now, Bob repents. Does God forgive him? Yes - God is faithful, He cannot be unfaithful. Fast forward...... all this becomes just a GAME for Bob, He is taking advantage of God's mercy to empower what he knows is depravity..... This, Bonhoeffer says, eventually destroys our faith, our repentance - so that we no longer repent, we no longer come to Him for mercy, we no longer come in faith, we just sin. Does God cease to forgive? No..... He CANNOT do that. WE cease to repent, to trust..... WE have broken things. We are no longer repenting, relying. Now, this does NOT mean God has abandoned His mercy..... this does NOT mean that repentance needs to be x,y,z..... this does NOT mean our repentance needs to involve buckets of tears..... this does not even mean that we don't repeat the sin (in this case, that we are aware of).... it simply means that repentance and faith happens in a CONTEXT, a relationship.... and we can wreck that relationship by our our presistent games. We can wonder off to a far country. BUT (don't forget) even here, even in this, God is faithful..... He waits by the gate for us, EAGER to forgive this too!
In a FEW - a very, very tiny FEW - cases, it could be said that PERSISTENT doing something might perhaps lead to one not repenting, not believing and this perhaps not receiving God's forgiveness. But I'd be careful we that because we NEVER cease being sinful.... we are ALWAYS sinful and unclean..... we are ALWAYS the "chief of sinners," there might (perhaps) be some single, individual ACT we crease (as in stop smoking) but this has very little to do with no longer being sinful, no longer being totally deprived, no longer standing TOTALLY and ONLY in need of His MERCY, coming to God with NOTHING whatsoever to suggest ANY goodness in us..... "NOTHING in my hands I bring (except sins! unworthiness!) only to Your Cross I cling (and that by God's gift)." "God be
merciful to
me, the sinner." And of course, perhaps 99.9% of our sinfulness we perhaps aren't even aware of.... sin isn't limited to OUTWARD, intentional behaviors (a key disagreement Jesus had with the Pharisees).....
Thank you.
Pax
- Josiah
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