How can salvation be only or even primarily about being forgiven or going to heaven if a person still sins after they are "saved?" As it is taught, the person who has been "saved" is "born again" or "born from above." In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he had to be born again, or more specifically, born from the Spirit if he wanted to see the kingdom of God. But the Scriptures are exceptionally clear that what is born of God doesn't sin. Doesn't it then follow, as many have secretly and not so secretly come to the same conclusion, that if one "sins" they aren't born of God, but of the devil, as 1 John 3 explicitly states? And if they are born of the devil, they can't be "saved," right?
They're taught instead that their "righteousness" in Christ is positional. It's a facade that God sees rather than the truth of their everyday experience. It's like a glamour spell from fantasy stories that magicians cast to hide their true appearance. But this is the only way that their everyday experience can be reconciled with their theology of forgiveness only or primarily, or as they put it, justification. They only need to look like Christ in order to fool God into letting them into heaven.
Really? Does anyone realize the serious amount of theological gymnastics that is needed to reconcile the modern Evangelical doctrine of justification with what the Scriptures actually teach? Is it any wonder sincere people are confused when Jesus explicitly ties forgiveness to forgiving others yourself? Or why John says explicitly that the one born of God doesn't sin, when they clearly still do? It is like the old model of the geocentric universe that, in order to make the calculations work (and they frequently still didn't) with the observations, they had to keep added complicated epicycles to the model when all they had to do was change the model to a heliocentric one, and then everything fell into place naturally, and the calculations worked.
When the justification-centric model keeps requiring more contortions to make it line up with Scripture and observations, it's time to change the model. And the model which lines up more accurately with Scripture and observation is a "Sanctification" centric model that assumes a letting go for everything except of course for a deliberate refusal to turn around and come to Him. The only person who can let go of such a refusal is the person committing it.
Yeshua responded to them, "Amen amen I tell you that every single person who functions with the malfunction is a slave of the malfunction. And the slave doesn't live in the house forever, the son lives in the house forever. If then the son should free you, you will actually be free." - John 8:34-36, my own translation this morning
Paul says the same thing that to whom you offer yourself a slave to obey, you are that one's slave. And John reiterates and doubles down on this in his first letter where he says, "Every single person making their home in Him doesn't malfunction; every single person who malfunctions hasn't seen Him or known Him. Children, don't let anyone lead you astray. The one functioning with the state of right being is right, just like That One is right; the person functioning with the malfunction is from the devil, because the devil malfunctioned from the start. The Son of God manifested for this reason, so that He would undo the works of the devil. Every single person who has been born from God doesn't function with the malfunction, because His sperm makes its home within him, and he isn't capable of malfunctioning, because he has been born from God." - 1 John 3:6-9, my own translation this morning.
So clearly, if someone is "born of God" they can't malfunction. If they are "sinning," that is, malfunctioning, they are a slave to the malfunction because they've offered themselves as a slave to it. So let me ask you this, how does this really jive with the teaching that our "righteousness in Christ" is positional only? More to the point, how does this jive with a salvation that is focused only or primarily on the forgiveness of sins? According to this theological worldview, these Scriptures are teaching that if someone sins they aren't saved because they're not born of God but of the devil. Yet it's very clear that even after someone has prayed the prayer, accepted Christ, believed, been baptized, etc. that they are still capable of sinning or malfunctioning. Does that mean that their salvation "didn't take" and they have to start all over again, this time for real? These are the very real and insane questions and misunderstandings that drive many to doubt their salvation in Jesus Christ, and it is all because they are taught it is only or primarily about being forgiven and going to heaven, when the salvation which Jesus Christ and His Apostles taught had little if anything to do with this.
The salvation which the New Testament teaches is about being delivered from our malfunctioning responses and behaviors through disengagement from our malfunctioning "flesh" and engagement with the Spirit of Christ through our Union with God through Jesus Christ so that it is Jesus Christ acting and speaking through us just as it was and is the Father acting and speaking through Him. And because it is the Spirit of Christ in control, that person who is cooperating with and submitting to His Spirit simply cannot "sin" or malfunction any more than Jesus Christ or the Father can while so doing, because it is not the malfunctioning flesh which is the source of their words or actions. One can only do so by re-engaging with that flesh through submitting to their fear, aggression, or bodily cravings, offering themselves to their malfunctioning flesh as a slave.
It has never been about being forgiven and going to heaven. Did the father in the prodigal son require that all the money he wasted be paid back before accepting him home? No! Of course not! All that son had to do was come to his senses, turn around, and return home and the father threw a party and made sure he was taken care of! and provided for right off the bat. This is all the Father requires for forgiveness. Coming to our senses and returning home.
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