95
Theses
On the Doctrine of Indulgence in Sin
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Out of love for the truth and desire to bring it to light, I, Lucan “Luke” Chartier, will be present for discussion of the following propositions at the Creation 7th Day Adventist Church. We request that those who are unable to be present and discuss with us orally, may do so by letter or email.
1. Jesus Christ came into the world that we may be saved from our sins, not in our sins.
2. It is written that we are saved from our sins, not merely the penalty of our sins – Therefore it is not only the punishment of hellfire that we are saved from in the cross, but sin in actuality and truth.
3. Jesus did not fail in His mission to save us from sin – We are saved from it fully and in every facet.
4. To be saved from sin cannot mean that we fall into sin repeatedly and are forgiven for it repeatedly, for this would not be salvation from sin, but in it.
5. To be saved from sin must mean that we are saved from committing sin, and that perfectly, and always.
6. If Christ did not fully take our sins from us, we cannot fully take His righteousness from Him, and thus we cannot enter Heaven.
7. Salvation is not based upon what relative ratio of good works to bad works a man has; for this would be salvation by works, and not faith.
8. Salvation is not based upon an earnest effort to do well while failing once in a while – for this would be salvation by works, the effort being the work required.
9. When it is written “The Just shall live by faith”, it does not refer to a kind of faith that is in word only, without proper fruits – for this manner of faith is called dead by the apostle James, and is had by the devils themselves.
10. True faith always has works corresponding to it – If the faith is good, the works will be good. If there is no faith, the fruits will be corrupt.
11. Christians are given the faith of Jesus, and must indeed be saved by accepting this faith, for to have salvation by our own faith would be to have it by our own merits and abilities – in other words, by our own works.
12. To be saved is to have the faith of Jesus, and to have the faith of Jesus is to have the works of Jesus – who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.
13. There are only those who bear good fruits and those who bear bad fruits – therefore, there are only those with faith, and those without.
14. To be saved is to have the faith of Jesus, and thus the works of Jesus, and those without fail and without exception. To have a work or fruit otherwise shows we are of the “bad tree”.
15. When the Holy Spirit united with Mary, it brought forth a sinless life – That of Jesus, divinity partaking of humanity.
16. When the Holy Spirit unites with the believer, it brings forth a sinless life – That of Jesus within us, humanity partaking of divinity.
17. On the cross, Christ defeated Satan and sin once and for all eternity, on behalf of every human being. If humans are then bound to sin inevitably, the cross was a failure.
18. It does not meet the argument to say that we lose our connection with Christ on occasion, because it is not the believer dwelling in Christ by their strength that brings salvation – It is Christ dwelling in the believer by His strength.
19. To be born again is to take part in the birth aforementioned, a union with the Holy Spirit that brings forth a sinless life. If then a Christian commits known sin, it shows clearly that they have not been born again.
20. In the New Birth, the Holy Spirit is the seed, and it is incorruptible according to the Scriptures. If then the seed be incorruptible, the tree, branches, and fruit which spring from it shall likewise be incorruptible.
21. When God commanded us to keep the ten commandments in letter and in spirit, He did not command us to do something impossible, nor has He ever.
22. When Jesus commanded the lame man to take up his bed and walk, the man was made whole. When Jesus commanded the same man to go and sin no more, the man was likewise made whole.
23. The commission to “Go and sin no more” is applicable not only to that man, but to every man, in every age.
24. When the believer is redeemed and washed in the blood of Christ, it is not God that changes, as though the Christian still is a sinner but is seen as righteous, but it is in fact the sinner that changes, and thus becomes a saint.
25. To be washed in the blood of the lamb means to be cleansed - and that fully - from sin and it’s defilement, within and without. It does not mean we are given a cloak for our sins.
26. When the Scriptures state that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” it does not refer to a nominal (in name only) cleansing, but a true one – And that from ALL unrighteousness.
27. When Paul tells us that Christ died unto sin once, and that we are to likewise, or in the same manner, reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, he rules out the possibility that a Christian “dying daily” means dying to sin every day, in that he commits sin every day and must die to it anew.
28. The Scriptures state we can do all things through Christ who gives us the strength. This must therefore include ceasing to sin.
29. This ceasing to sin is not a place attained in the walk of a Christian gradually – it is, according to 1 John, the very starting point.
30. If God hates sin, and has all power, why would He not give His children power to overcome it?
31. To repent of a sin and later commit it again does not constitute true repentance, but is instead a false repentance, designed by the devil to quiet the conscience until the next time it is committed.
32. We will not commit sin in heaven.
33. If God will grant us the power to stop sinning in heaven, why would He not do so now?
34. The only difference between the present time and the heavenly kingdom is the presence of Satan and sinners. If we cannot cease to sin until heaven, then God’s power cannot be exercised in the presence of Satan and sinners, and Satan’s power is greater than God’s.
35. The argument that the flesh is weak is invalid, because a Christian does not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit – and that without fail.
36. No man can serve two masters; to be brought in bondage by a sin is to be brought into captivity by it, and to serve it as a master.
37. It is written that Christ has bought us with a price; that He has freed us from serving sin. Thus to commit sin is to serve sin, and to serve Christ is to cease from serving sin.
38. When the Scriptures say, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”, it refers to liberty in it’s fullest – the freedom to choose. If a Christian cannot choose freely to always obey, and accomplish such, they do not have liberty, and do not have the Spirit of the Lord.
39. No adulterer, drunkard, liar, thief, fornicator, and in short, sinner, shall be admitted entrance into the Heavenly City.
40. If God were to change the heart and mind of men arbitrarily at the point of entrance, He would do so for all of His creation, and not just those who chose to let Him do so (While at other times choosing to disobey).
41. This passage does not say that no one shall be such once inside the Holy City, but that none shall enter in while in this state.
42. We must cease to sin now, before hoping to approach the gates of Heaven.
43. Scripture states that a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. A man who professes to serve Christ and yet chooses to serve Satan by sinning on occasion, then repenting, then sinning again, is the worst kind of double minded and unstable man.
44. An unstable man is one that Christ states has built his house upon sand, and not upon the Rock. To be built upon the Rock is to be stable – to not waver between sin and righteousness.
45. Whatever we ask, believing, we will receive - when it is in accordance with God’s will. God’s will is that we cease to sin; therefore, asking, we will receive it.
46. When Adam sinned, all humanity inherited his fallen nature at birth. Thus, “All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.” This verse does not say all do sin, or all will sin, but all have sinned.
47. When Christ, the second Adam, resisted sin, all humanity inherited His unfallen nature at rebirth. Thus all need not sin, and may come up to the standard of the glory of God.
48. To say that man cannot cease to sin with Divine help is to say that either Christ had an advantage that the rest of humanity did not have, or that He sinned.
49. To say that Christ had an advantage that the rest of humanity did not have is to say that His sacrifice was not pure – that He did not overcome as any man could, but “cheated”, and gave us an impossible example.
50. To say we cannot cease to sin is to say that God commands us to do something He does not enable us to do, and then will punish us for His own failure to give us the ability to do it.
51. To say this is to echo the claim of Satan himself.
52. Adam and Eve fell for eating of the forbidden fruit only once. It did not require an oft-repeated rebellion for them to be excluded from Paradise.
53. It does not require an oft-repeated rebellion to exclude us from Paradise, even under Christ’s grace, for rebellion is the rejection of grace.
54. Grace is not a license to commit sin, or to be excused from it on occasion. It is the means by which we may be forgiven for past sins, and kept from future ones.
55. Grace is not a promise of forgiveness for sins we willfully commit in the future.
56. When the Scriptures state, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, and cannot sin, because he is born of God, and His Seed remaineth in him” it means that very thing, without addition, subtraction, or alteration.
57. The seed remaining in us does not mean it remains in us sometimes, or goes away from time to time, or that we cast it out from time to time – It means as it says, that it does not depart.
58. This seed is the very reason given that a Christian cannot and will not commit known sin. Therefore, as it remains, it is apparent that the sinless life of a Christian remains with it as the fruit thereof.
59. If all that is required for salvation is a confession with the mouth without works unto righteousness, the devil himself may be saved – for he comes as an angel of light, confessing Jesus as lord, and he believes – he knows Jesus is lord.
60. For the Apostles to have written that “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin”, they had to have been either deceived, liars, not born of God, or not committing sin.
61. The animal sacrifices in the Old Testament were types, or shadows, of Christ’s sacrifice. They had no power to take away sin, and needed to be offered yearly as the people sinned.
62. The reason Christ’s sacrifice did away with the animal sacrifices was that it had more power – It took away sin, and thus needed to be offered only once, as the people no longer sin.
63. It does not meet the argument to say that the fallen nature of humanity causes us to sin, because the fallen nature dies at conversion, and we are told that we thus partake of the Divine nature.
64. To partake of the Divine nature is to naturally do what divinity does – As a dog with the nature of a dog acts and speaks as a dog, so a man with the nature of Jesus acts and speaks as Jesus.
65. To say that a man is a sinner for saying he does not sin is to say that God has a law that cannot be kept, for the very keeping of it in profession is it’s breaking.
66. To “forgive” means to treat one as though they had never trespassed. To forgive for sin does not mean the individual sin alone, but sin as a whole – to be treated, and returned to a state, as though we had never sinned.
67. Sin cannot abide in the presence of God; therefore, a Christian with sin in them cannot abide in the presence of God, be it in earth or in Heaven.
68. Likewise, Christ cannot abide in the heart of a man who has sin in his heart – One is either a sinner or a Christian, with no in-between.
69. For a man to fall into sin, Christ, whose grip never fails, must not be holding him up to begin with.
70. For a man to pull away from Christ shows that he does not have Christ abiding within him, as Scripture states the seed remains, but that he is rather following Him from afar.
71. When it is written that Christ came to destroy sin, the works of the devil who sinneth from the beginning, it does not mean “push back” or “subdue” but “destroy” in fact and in truth.
72. This “destruction” is not one from which sin revives itself, but is a total destruction, and destruction in every sense of the word.
73. Love is the fulfilling of the law. If a man loves his brother, he will not lie to him, steal from him, etc. In short, he will not sin against him.
74. God is love. Therefore, to sin is to not know God, nor to have God within.
75. To have God within is requisite to gaining entrance to heaven – For Jesus taught that to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, one must be born of the Spirit.
76. To cease to sin is not a requirement as of works, but is rather the natural result and evidence of a man having the Spirit of God within him.
77. This result is not due in any part to the man in whom it takes place, but fully due to God who causes it to take place in the heart. Therefore the work is perfect and without flaw, as God is perfect and without flaw.
78. To say that we have Christ within us while sinning is to say that Christ is the minister of sin; that He sins within us.
79. To walk as Christ walked means to do as He did and speak as He did in every particular.
80. Only by walking as Christ walked can we be an example of Him to the world – a sinner cannot be an example of righteousness.
81. When Christ said “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” He meant for the entire life of the believer to be in accordance with the character of God.
82. The Scriptures were not given for our condemnation, but for our edification, that we might claim the things promised to us within them. Furthermore, Christ said that He came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
83. To say that Christ commanded us to do something impossible, then, or that He gave us an unattainable ideal, is to say that He is a liar, and that He indeed did come into the world to condemn it; for to be given a commandment or instruction and to then break it is to be condemned by it.
84. Scripture declares that the weakness of God is greater than the strength of men. To say that we are too weak to cease sinning is to say that the weakness of man is greater than the strength of God.
85. By grace, the ten commandments may be viewed as promises, not rules. “When you are converted, thou shalt not lie” and on through the other nine – and this without exception or fail.
86. The fruit of the Spirit is a singular (fruit) and not plural (fruits). To show one or two traits is not evidence of the Spirit – those with the Spirit will constantly show forth love, kindness, meekness, longsuffering, and all others without fail.
87. The Spirit is given as a free gift to those who ask, and this in It’s fullness – We are not given a little here and there, but are given the Spirit, and It’s full fruit, immediately.
88. The New Birth is given as a free gift to those who ask, and this in it’s fullness – We are not given to leave off sinning a little at a time, but to leave it all, immediately, and forever.
89. Truly accepting Christ is to accept the opposite of sin, and thus to exclude sin forever.
90. Christ is able and willing to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before His Father. It is not then our work to make ourselves better, but rather to rest in Him, and allow Him to do so, trusting and proclaiming that it is true.
91. To die to self means to take the attitude of “Not my will but thine be done” in all matters, great and small, in all aspects of life, and in all decisions.
92. This death is a one-time event, and the crucifixion of self is done by Christ – Therefore it is perfect, and without flaw.
93. To be made new means to be remade in the image and reflection of Christ, by Christ, and through Christ. Therefore, this too is perfect, and without flaw.
94. To be a Christian means to both die to self by Christ’s hand, to be made anew by Christ’s hand, and to be kept forever from sin by Christ’s hand – All of which is perfect, without flaw, and without pride, as it is Christ’s work in us.
95. This is a free gift, and ours upon both asking and receiving it as our own.