Is Imperfection the same as Sin?

by jgnat 52 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Flash

  Flash, by example and by definition, I have concluded that sin and imperfection are NOT the same. Sin is worse, because it is a willful choice. For instance , a child can make a bed imperfectly, but the act is not sinful. That same child, having a screaming tantrum in the middle of the bedroom floor because HE DOES NOT WANT to make the bed, is far worse than imperfect. It is willfull rebellion.

  We are in agreement. Unless the childs parents laid a law on the child for his bed to be made 'perfect' no sin is made. The differance is in our ability to consistantly choose at all levals in all areas to live by law or not. As it is now, we cannot by nature, flawlessly adhere to law, God's or man's. If I were perfect and were learning to play the piano, I, because of my inexperaince will make mistakes in playing the music. I will be for a time, un-skilled and my playing will be imperfect.
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  Narkissos

  jgnat

  at least one stream of Christian thought, the Gnostics, attributed a heavenly perfection to Jesus. So strong were they on this doctrine, that they refused to believe he had an earthly (imperfect) body.

  This is "docetism", which is one very old "stream of Christian thought" indeed: Jesus' body is a mere appearance, along the line of Greek theophanies. Think of the story of Jesus walking on the sea (which is carefully avoided by the antidocetic Luke) for instance.

  Before full-fledged Gnosticism, this can be traced back to the development Wisdom tradition (Proverbs 1--9; Job 28) in Jewish Hellenistic idealism (Wisdom of Solomon; Philo), where the titles "Son of God" and "Logos" were eventually applied to this heavenly character. It is reflected in the formulation of Romans 8:3: "sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh".

  As the saying goes, in this perspective his hands are not dirty, for he has no hands...
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  Brummie

  missed this interesting thread so I'm jumping aboard without reading it all (which I will do as soon as I can).

  The question is one I had to confront when realising JWs were not the truth, it was a hard question too.

  I concluded that JWs have no concept of personal sin, it is all Adams fault, when talking to my JW parent (no longer a jW) she tended to view sin as the "mistakes" we make, I used to believe the same thing. The personal sin that seperates us from a holy God is not understood, thats why they dont understand repentance either. In the JWs eyes sin IS imperfection that can be cleaned away by becoming perfect in the new system, it will be done away with in the 1000years, which is why they truely do not understand what Christ did on calvery.

  Interestingly they give credit to the washing away of sin to the "Kingdom rule" of the 144000 + Jesus, therebye they wash underfoot the blood of Christ, which alone can and has paid the price for our sin