I’ve been struggling with 1 John. It’s a tough book. John exhorts us to love, and in fact to use love as a test of salvation. If a person is truly saved, he will show love. If a person does not show love but professes to be a Christian, he may not have accepted Christ in the first place.
Another test of salvation is whether a person practices righteousness or evil. A person saved cannot keep on sinning; indeed if she does, was she ever saved?
These points in 1 John taken out of context could argue for sinless perfection. Once saved, we should not sin. Ever. Didn’t even Jesus tell the woman with the issue of blood “Go, and sin no more?” Is that even possible? It must be, if Jesus commanded it.
However, it is by grace we are saved, and I don’t know anyone professing to be a follower of Jesus that has lived a life of sinless perfection. I don’t believe that John is teaching sinless perfection, but he is boldly teaching us that our salvation must produce the character of God.
1 John chapter 1 convinces me that he is not teaching sinless perfection by twice establishing the fact that we, as believers, sin. First, he says “if anyone claims to be without sin, he deceives himself and the truth is not in him.” Again, he says “if anyone says he does not sin, he makes God a liar.” In short, if you say you are sinless, you are a liar, and that makes you a sinner. John also says “I teach these things so you will not sin, but if you do, we have the Righteous One, Jesus, to speak for us.”
The important thing is, when we accept Christ, we shed our nature of sin, even if we sometimes still fall. But if a so-called believer keeps practicing sin, or continues habitually in sin, it calls into question whether that person was ever saved.
What a conundrum.
What about spiritual strongholds? In my own life I continually deal with lust. Sometimes I give myself over to it, and sometimes for periods long enough to be considered “practicing sin.” Does it mean I have never been saved? I don’t think so. It’s easy to forget that we’re in a spiritual war, against the enemy AND against our own flesh. The word says we will always battle against the flesh. It says the heart is deceitful above all things. John encourages us that even when our own hearts condemn us, God knows us, and He is greater than our hearts.
What about the back-slider? I think Paul addresses it in 1 Corinthians 3. There are those who, when all is said and done, will themselves be saved, but will suffer loss because their works were turned to ashes in the fire of judgment. I have been in a back-sliding state before, and I have no doubt those works will not pass the test.
But I know that I know, I have the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, a deposit of Heaven. I just hope there are some works that WILL pass the test–I don’t want to drag around a bag of ashes from all the wood, hay, and stubble I used to build my foundation.