Cross Reference
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. . .how would you feel about your life? How 'bout living in not-so-open sin? Would you feel like everything was OK between you and Him?
ECT If God healed you while you were living in open sin . .
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Word based mystic
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do you want scriptural references or just psychological/personal guesswork?
Cross Reference
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Neither. Let me try this:
If you were a Christian living in adultery and found out you were terminally ill and asked for prayer and God healed you, would it not say to you it is OK to stay in your adulterous affair?
andyc
New member
The thing to ask is, why live in adultery in the first place?
Sin does give satan a foothold in your life, and it would suggest that the relationship with God is troubled somehow. I know how that feels like.
The error would be to assume that the terminal illness would be judgement from God, but if it was interpreted as that, condemnation would set in. The right thing to do would be to get out of the ungodly relationship, and then deal with the reason that led to it in the first place. Then get into faith in order to claim healing.
The problem with sin is that a true believer can't justify it, and so the remorse they feel is from self condemnation, and this steals confidence.
Word based mystic
New member
scripturally you see some healed by Jesus and followed him and others did not even go back to see Jesus after the healing.
I see the desire to ask for prayer as a (step) of repentance and acknowledging their fallen status. (in most cases)
I had one man that I was about to pray for ask me if we could trigger the time of back healing after he won his lawsuit and after he receives his disability status. LOL. No I didn't pray for him. and encouraged him to get his priorities in line. not loving mammon more than Gods involvement in his life.
so I personally seen both attitudes after a healing.
one of repentance and one of quickly going back to their sin.
But I also believe every bit of God's goodness and love puts another impact and drawing to the rebellious to draw them back to Him.
i don't see some of the commands to preach the gospel and heal the sick and cast out the demons as conditional on whether the sinner is willing to immediately repent.
many Jesus healed did not honor him afterwards.
Cross Reference
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Which, as a result, only increased their sin.
But, I am speaking of one who is already a Christian and should know better..
Word based mystic
New member
probably a sign that they are moving towards repentance that they come for prayer and healing.
if i knew they were in sin I would encourage repentance before prayer.
encountering Gods manifest glory or miracles brings one to a fuller understanding of Gods love no matter what a persons disposition is.
the encounter will make one more condemned if they continue to sin.
But may also be the drawing or straw that breaks the back of the sinner as he/she responds to Gods love by repenting to a physical healing.
so I would say (it could be either way)
it may harden them further in taking Gods grace and presence for granted
or it may draw them back to the lord quickly.
the 2 times i have been healed was humbling and acted as another affirmation of His love and helped me to resist future temptation because I remembered His reality and and power in my physical body.
if i knew they were in sin I would encourage repentance before prayer.
encountering Gods manifest glory or miracles brings one to a fuller understanding of Gods love no matter what a persons disposition is.
the encounter will make one more condemned if they continue to sin.
But may also be the drawing or straw that breaks the back of the sinner as he/she responds to Gods love by repenting to a physical healing.
so I would say (it could be either way)
it may harden them further in taking Gods grace and presence for granted
or it may draw them back to the lord quickly.
the 2 times i have been healed was humbling and acted as another affirmation of His love and helped me to resist future temptation because I remembered His reality and and power in my physical body.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
I can't speculate very well on an individual response, but scripture seems to make it clear that healing and forgiveness are contemporaneous for the believer.
Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
James 5:13-15
Distinct from healing as a sign (which is clearly what was happening when Christ healed), this shows that God's healing involves the whole man. If such a man is healed, one must assume he is cleared. And if he goes back into sin, I would venture to say that his spiritual state would be worse than it was before the healing (regardless of whether the affliction was directly related to his sin or not).
nikolai_42
Well-known member
To answer the OP (taking into consideration my first response on the thread), I would have to say that I hope I would feel pretty good - forgiven. Someone who is forgiven no longer carries around the weight of guilt and shame and all that goes with sin. But if I go back into sin...
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.
And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.
Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
Luke 11:24-26
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
2 Peter 2:20-22
nikolai_42
Well-known member
For clarification - I believe going back into sin that one has been delivered of is an awful place to be. I think there are Hebrews 6 connections there - but I stop short of saying that a man can lose his salvation because of it. I believe that if a man is truly "the planting of the Lord" then he will be saved. What his eternity will look like is something that is not as clear. If Jesus warned that it is better to cut off something that makes us sin than enter into eternity with that sin, then I have to believe that there are eternal ramifications - even for believers - that make it critical for the believer to stay as far from sin as he can.
Think about a leper who is healed (leprosy being a horrendous disease). Would he venture back into a leper colony knowing he could suffer the same things again? And if scripture likens sin to leprosy, why don't we treat it like that? There should be nothing in a believer that wants to go back into sin. If there is, I would say it should make him question whether or not he really knows the Lord. Not the sin itself, but the desire to sin. I think there is a difference between falling into sin and going into it with your eyes wide open.
EDIT : Even having said all that, I believe that a man's standing before God is not as simple as comparing it to a few verses. It is something that God knows and only He can fully judge. We see through a glass darkly and can only look at fruit that is shown in a life (and even that is only over time...not in an instant). And that's the way I read passages such as Hebrews 6:1-8 and I John 5:16-18
He would not allow one of His regenerate children to continue in adultery.
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Wrong again. The saints where healed while enemies.
Romans 5
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
Since virtually no one even knows what sin (hamartia and hamartiai articular and anarthrous, hamartano, or hamartema) IS, this question is fallacious and irrelevant.
Most professing Believers are living in many kinds of "open sin" as their alleged pristine Judeo-Christian ethic, so singling out some egregious area of action is a distraction from all sin and its source... false beliefs from hearing, thinking, choosing, feeling, desiring, saying, doing, and being according to a false logos.
This thread topic is self-righteousness, presuming only the depth of sin is sin. The propped-up false appearances of most alleged Believers is the height of sin while harboring all manner of sin in the heart.
Most professing Believers are living in many kinds of "open sin" as their alleged pristine Judeo-Christian ethic, so singling out some egregious area of action is a distraction from all sin and its source... false beliefs from hearing, thinking, choosing, feeling, desiring, saying, doing, and being according to a false logos.
This thread topic is self-righteousness, presuming only the depth of sin is sin. The propped-up false appearances of most alleged Believers is the height of sin while harboring all manner of sin in the heart.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
If abiding sin (to whatever degree and in whatever form - insidious or manifest) is presupposed in every believer, what are we to conclude about the ministry of the Holy Spirit ?
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Of sin, because they believe not on me;
Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
John 16:7-11
Do we conclude, then, that the only sin the Holy Spirit is after is that of unbelief? If you then say that that sin is at the root of all manifestations of sin (again - insidious or blatant), then should we interpret James 5:15 to refer to all sins of unbelief or the manifestations that characterize the underlying unbelief? Does the Holy Spirit not work to reveal this even in unbelievers?
life in Christ is not about feelings but about doing the right things...Christ always healed first and said go and sin no more afterward...everything is OK when we abide in Him and obey his word
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
Cross Reference
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By what means do you think He would use to prevent one, if he had allowed himself, lets say, to fall out love with his wife, fall in love and run off with the church organist? Many have, ya know and still function as mighty men of the cloth with people led to salvation in Christ.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
You assume such a person was ever regenerate...
You are making up situations. I'm talking from experience. The Eternal Father will not allow His regenerate child to remain in spiritual or physical adultery.