Forgiveness or Remission?

[good samaritan]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

There is this notion flowing from the Evangelical world that states that God cannot cohabit with sin, so, flowing from that notion, is the belief that when God filled Cornelius and his household with the Holy Spirit, He must have first cleansed them with forgiveness.

But the premise is false. God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, while the serpent was present the whole time.

Adam and Eve where expelled from the garden immediately following their sin. God did not continue that same relationship with Adam and Eve after sin entered the picture.

God walked with the Patriarchs, flaws and all.

God also withdrew from people such as king Saul for his disobedience. The patriarchs demonstrated their week human nature at times, but overall displayed a life of faith that was evident by their obedience.

God dwelled with the Israelites, first in the Tabernacle, then in the Temple, despite the sinful ways in which they grieved Him for many centuries. In fact, it's not until Ezekiel 9 before God finally departs from the Temple, and it's not until the end of Jeremiah's prophecy that God states there was no remedy for His people except that the Temple be utterly destroyed by the Babylonians.

It is therefore conceivable that God and sin can cohabit in a person. Just as the Temple made with hands was oft defiled when God continued to live there, it is also possible that the Temple made without hands can remain defiled, or become defiled again, whilst God dwells therein.

The temple was first sanctified by blood before the Lord ever filled the temple.

The Laodiceans were called a church by Christ but were backslidden to the core. Simply receiving the Spirit as a historical experience is no guarantee that anyone so endowed is or will be saved, in the end, even though that historical experience baptized someone into the Body.

In fact, five of the seven churches in Asia Minor had serious sins accruing to their accounts. Thyatira held the doctrine of Jezebel, and yet, they were called a "church" to which the Spirit spoke.

The churches where being warned of their present lost position with God. They where lost if they continued their course. That doesn’t sound like cohabitation with sin to me.

We cannot therefore prove that just because someone received the Holy Spirit, that that always and automatically means, that person is fully and truly rescued from the consequences of their sin debt.

We can’t say that someone who has been baptized is truly rescued from the consequences of their sin debt, but they must stay the course. I don’t believe in eternal security.

The truth is, the sin debt must be done away with, and in baptism, the body of sins is destroyed (Romans 6:3-6 with Colossians 2:11). Without that destruction of that corpus of unrighteousness, the person so indebted will be answerable for their transgressions.

This is why the antitype to the Flood, baptism, saves us (1 Peter 3:21).

The sin debt is done away with by the blood of Jesus. Baptism doesn’t put away the filth of the flesh, but is the answer of good conscious toward God.