Re: 1 John 3:9 Can a True Christian Sin? Part 2

Hi Vektek, good to see you and thank for joining the discussion.

Ephesians 1:13

"In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."

An amazing scripture, thanks for sharing. This is one that does seem to be quite different from the one that I am looking at. In the KJ translation it reads:

"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise."

In your translation, it all seems to be happening at one time (which I do think is possible), but in the King James version it says that first you hear the gospel, the once you believe only AFTER all that are you sealed with the holy Spirit. There is nothing in this scripture saying that it must all happen immediately at once, in other words the moment you believe that you are immediately sealed into salvation with the Holy Spirit. If that was the case then what about all the scriptures about enduring to the end; if we are sealed by the Holy Spirit to salvation that is already enduring to the end. The way I understand this scripture, and others like it is that Christ seals us with the holy Spirit when He sees fit. It could be immediately or it could be after we endure in our faith for some time. It is up to Christ Himself to seal us with the Holy Spirit; therefore He can seal whom He wishes, when He sees fit.

I need to study Romans 7 more before I can understand this scripture. From what I can tell on my first impression, in Romans 7 Paul is expounding on various stages of His faith. First there is the God's law, and we try to follow the law but we cannot, because we are in the flesh and the flesh is sin. In the verses you are quoting is where Paul finds himself trapped in sin because he is trapped in the flesh. Listen to what Paul says in continuation of the verses you quoted:

7:24 "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Do we think this is the current state of mind of Paul while He is writing this letter? Personally, I don't; I think He is describing His predicament in the past.

And immediately in chapter 8, he continues his thoughts:

8:1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
2 "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
3 "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:"
4 "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

To me this continuation of his teaching contrasts what he wrote before that you were quoting. What you were quoting to me he was saying "I wanted to follow the law of God because it was a righteous law but no matter how hard I tried, I could now follow the law because of the sinful flesh". Then in 8:1-4 He explains how to get past that, because the flesh is sin and death we must rely not on our own flesh but the Spirit of life in Christ, then we can walk "not after the flesh, but after the Spirit".

I really have to study this more, it's kind of mind-blowing actually, thanks for sharing.