hey all...looking to perhaps spark some discussion and thought...
most north american christians are taught from a very young age that the holy spirit convicts us of sin and is that little voice inside us that tells us right from wrong.
i would like to raise some questions concerning that and what i have come to believe through much prayer, debate/discussion and study over the past couple years is a MAJOR misunderstanding of scripture.
many christians will point to the following passage from john 16 as an argument that the holy spirit will convict us of sin...
"Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned." John 16:5-11
until relatively recently...the past couple years...i too would have done the same. until i had my eyes opened to something...lets take a look at this and break it down. the passage does indeed say that the holy spirit (counselor) will convict the WORLD of guilt in regard to sin, righteousness and judgement. left at that a logical conclusion would be that the holy spirit is here to convict all people of their sins...the writer goes on however to specify exactly what he is talking about.
in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me....in otherwords the holy spirit was coming to convict the WORLD of the sin of unbelief - NOT coming to convict christians of their day-to-day sins. the holy spirit is intended to be our helper, our guide, our comforter, our counselor etc...not our convictor. the holy spirit is there to help us reach god...to help us draw closer to god on a daily basis by showing us his goodness....it is the goodness of god that leads men to repentance...not the conviction of the holy spirit. i have not yet found a passage that states beyond doubt that the holy spirit will convict us as christians of sins in our lives. as previously stated though i am looking to spark some discussion, so please share if you happen to disagree and have scriptures you feel contradict what i am saying....i have a lot more i could say and im sure some of that will come out in discussion :)
now...as a further thought - you will recall earlier i made reference to that little voice inside us that says this is right or this is wrong...many christians mistakenly believe that is the holy spirit.
that is called our conscience and it has been present in man since adam and even ate from the TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL...the bible says that after eating from the tree they knew right from wrong. sound familiar? it was at that point that man was given their conscience....not to be confused with the holy spirit.
anyway, its late. i have much much more i could say...pages and pages...but i will sign off for now. please share your thoughts! i look forward to some stimulating discussion!
dear joe, i appreciate your question.. as i am one of the folks who tells folks the HOLY SPIRIT will convict them of sin. so you did make me have to look for scripture for what i already believe in my heart.. lets take a look at john 16:13
john 16:13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
in this verse we see that when the SPIRIT of truth has come HE will guide you into all truth..so i say to anyone do you believe that HE will guide you into all truth? , then dont you think HE will also guide or convict you of the truth when you are in sin and doin wrong as well ..
GOD livin inside of you dont wanna be livin in sin as that goes totally against what HE stands for. dont ya recon HE would give you a nudge in the right direction?
we are also convicted by the HOLY SPIRIT when we read the word of GOD.. if youre doin summin that aint right that verse will speak to you and reach out and convict you..
we are also convicted by the HOLY SPIRIT when we are bein preached to ..now i recon folks can harden their hearts so much by livin in sin they may not pay attention to it anymore.
now you take someone that is convicted in the belief of JESUS CHRIST and they become saved.. what is it that makes those life altering changes occur in them afterwards? their concience or the HOLY SPIRIT convictin em and makein them wanna make those life altering changes? you know what i believe its all the HOLY SPIRIT.. those kind of changes can only come from GOD. thats why testimonies are such a powerful tool used by GOD as the ones who went through those major changes can attest to it was only the conviction of the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD workin through them and convictin em to make them changes.. amen.. now there may be some folks who wanna lay the glory on their own concience ,their man concience made em change. i say ..lay glory to where glory is deserved. THATS ALL GLORY BE TO GOD !! and not man.. there aint nothin good in man cept GOD.
1 corinthians 1:31 that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord."
do ya really think its your flesh thats workin in you to perfect you? or do you know its the HOLY SPIRIT workin in you..as we can see here in galatians 3:2-3
galatians3:2-3 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?- 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
conviction leads to repentance.
2 corinthians 7:10-11 10 For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. 11 For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.
id say godly sorrow doesnt come from ones conscience.. but yet from GOD. as in the HOLY SPIRIT causein you grief.. conviction.
First off let me say well said again cattle, I agree with you completely. Proudly, I don't know how you feel about the Trinity, but for me they are all parts of the same entity. Just as Jesus Christ was the visible image of our invisible God, so the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God dwelling within us. Guiding, comforting and yes convicting us of our sins in order to keep us on the right path. To me, when I say the Holy Spirit, I am also saying God, I do not believe for an instant that you can seperate any one of the three. So in essence you are in part correct, when you speak of one you also speak of the other two. Where we tend to get into trouble is when we get too hung up on legalism, details and trying with our puny mortal brains to explain the things of God. That is where I think faith comes into play.
thanks for your thoughts both of you - im going to address the "question" regarding the trinity first of all...i ABSOLUTELY believe in the triune oneness of god (father, son and holy spirit). they are three separate and distinct beings, and yet one. i dont believe that our human mind can nor ever will be able to fully comprehend that...or many of the wonders of god...like you said, that is where faith comes into play. so i agree with you wholeheartedly on that. i also believe however that even though we cant and i believe wont ever understand fully all the things of god, we should still continually seek to grow in knowledge of him and his ways.
also, i cant say that i dont see where you are coming from cattle....that is the same school of thought that i was from for many years....so believe me i understand. let me throw a few more things out there for some further discussion...
1) in looking at the passages you referenced, i didn't see one mention of the holy spirit convicting christians of their day-to-day sins. i have studied this fairly extensively as i mentioned previously and have not found one verse explicitly stating that the holy spirit will come to christians and convict them of their sins on a day to day basis. this is not to say that we dont have a conscience or an inner voice that tells us right from wrong. i believe our conscience is something god uses in us, in spite of the fact that it is a result of the fall. all we have to do is look at the garden of eden, which is where adam and eve first gained the knowledge of good and evil (conscience) through their act of disobedience in eating from the tree. despite god's command to them not to eat from the tree, i fully believe that he can use all aspects of that for our greater good (jer 29:11, romans 8:28 etc...) and that we can still be blessed inspite of it....
2) i would like to specifically look at a couple of the passages you mentioned. first of all the galatians one from chapter 2 that you referenced. if we look at the passage (and the surrounding verses, and context and the people to whom the book was written as well as the issues they were working through at the time) i believe we find that they galatian church at the time had strayed from living in the grace of god (which may seem unrelated, but it actually makes all the difference - see earlier topics posted by myself regarding grace vs. law) through his spirit and reverted back to a works (or law) based message of salvation. heres the thing. it is impossible to live under a mixture of grace and law - the law is there to point out our sin, to show us our need of god and to bring us to the end of ourselves, until we realize that we cant do it on our own and finally surrender to god. the law is designed in such a way that no man can attain to it...now if god is good why would he give us a law that he knows we can never live up to and not give us another way?
the other way of course is jesus, and his death on the cross - by coming to earth and giving up his life for the salvation of mankind he fulfilled and abolished the law - making it possible for us to approach the throne of god by grace - through nothing we can do..."for it is by grace you have been saved, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of god not by works so that no man can boast".
the bible tells us that when jesus died on the cross and rose again he opened the way for us to have unrestricted access to god again. we are taught and scripture confirms that when we repent and are saved through the blood of jesus that blood covers our sins. past present and future sins are forgiven, washed away, covered in the blood of jesus, separated from us as far as the east is from the west. this work also was accomplished by jesus on the cross - now, if the holy spirit were to come to us and convict us of our daily sins - that have already been forgiven, covered, separated from us for now and all time - doesnt it seem like that would be sort of a slap in the face to jesus and what he did on the cross for us? why would god send jesus to pay the price for our sins, and freely forgive us for them all past present and future, and then send the holy spirit to remind us of them as we go about our lives? just a thought....
if we look at titus two and romans two (as a couple of examples) they tell us that it is the grace and goodness of god that bring repentance and salvation....not conviction of the holy spirit.
i think we can agree that god wants good things for us and that he is the best father imaginable right?! well now, what sounds like a better way
1) holding our sins up for us as proof of our failures and reminding us of them and holding them up for us as examples of what not to do (roughly what it means to convict someone of something)
- or -
2) simply showing us his unconditional grace, love and goodness and drawing us into himself and through that experience of undeserved grace and favor and through growing closer to god sanctification comes, as well as repentance and a desire on our part to leave those sins behind. as we get closer to god and grow more like him our sinful nature diminishes and we desire to be more and more like him.
personally the second one sounds more like the god i have come to know....
now about that last passage you were referencing. the one from 2 corinthians 7....if we look at the passage in context, we can see that the sorrow paul was talking about was sorrow that he himself had caused them in a previous letter...he could be referring to one of several things that he called them out on in first corinthians, or in another letter....and that they became sorrowful in the way god intended. i believe he is talking about believers and leaders in the church holding each other accountable and not allowing fellow believers to backslide or "go the way of the world" unnoticed and without holding them accountable. now of course on the part of the corinthians they also had a choice to get offended or to take action on their part to correct the behaviour paul was referencing. it would appear that they were properly repentant (sorrowful...sorry for their actions) and took the necessary steps with god's help to correct their misdeeds.
well now. its getting late and ive been at this for a while lol...so i better be heading to bed. looking forward to hearing what you have to say in response.
please understand that i am not trying to be antagonistic or start a fight or anything...simply looking to have some good discussion and hopefully set some people thinking and studying the word for themselves :)
If I may share my humble opinion I agree with Cattleman for the most part. I think that the holy spirit does convict us of sin, most certainly in fact, and this conviction calls for repentance. However I also believe that you have a point when you argue that the holy spirit is not the same thing as the human conscience. There is, I believe, a distinct difference between the two, if I may illustrate.
Our conscience is profoundly effected by our culture and our upbringing, my conscience tells me that it is wrong to use the f word in conversation. However this is a cultural more, not a moral law. Our culture finds this word offensive and so we are taught not to use it, however in other cultures the word is not seen as particularly offensive and the word is used freely.
Another example is that in the culture I was raised in it is extremely impolite to 'invite yourself' or request an invitation to a get together (even something as simple as seeing a movie). This would be seen as akin to crashing a wedding or funeral. Now obviously there is nothing morally wrong with inviting yourself to a movie that friends are seeing, however my conscience tells me that this is wrong and I should not do it.
if we look at titus two and romans two (as a couple of examples) they tell us that it is the grace and goodness of god that bring repentance and salvation....not conviction of the holy spirit.
mine here
see joe it seems we forgot a very important couple of verses that were used at the start of this discussion..
john 16:8-11 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; 11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
look at verses 8 and 9 in particular.. HE who is the HOLY SPIRIT will convict the world of sin, righteousness,and judgement... of sin because they do not believe in ME.
so see we know that it is GOD who draws the unsaved to JESUS.. and it is by way of the HOLY SPIRIT who convicts them of their sin and leads them to salvation..
john 6:44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
also it is paul speakin to the corinthians but his words were inspired by GOD ,from GOD since all scripture was given by insperation from GOD. so GOD is the ONE that did make them feel godly sorrow..
i still stand by my last post on this.
i also believe salvation is by grace and not of works..
and joe its easy to see that you are just discussing what you have come to believe here.. no worries ..
i think we could discuss this till kingdom come and neither of us would change our opinion. agree to disagree?! lol...
i would like to say as a final point if you will that i do agree with you in referencing the verses from john 16 - and saying that it is the holy spirit who those verses are talking about...i would like to emphasize a couple of things in closing.
it does say that the holy spirit will convict the world of sin...of sin, because they do not believe in me. now obviously there are different interpretations to that, but i have come to believe that that means exactly what it says and nothing more. the holy spirit will convict the world of the sin of unbelief....nothing more.
if anyone wishes to discuss this further i am happy to.....also, to all who have participated in this, and anyone who reads it and chooses to participate down the road, i would like to encourage you to check out the teaching of joseph prince. it was his teaching that at first sparked my attention and offended me quite severely actually lol...so severely that i could not ignore it and had to study it for myself...upon doing so i soon found myself engrossed and just about unable to spend time on anything else! i would spend whole days studying the subject and writing and what-not...which lead me to a complete about-face in many of my beliefs and caused me to over time come to agree with everything he has to say...when at first i vehemently opposed...to the point of having (very) heated debates with my pastor...many times lol.
anyway, i hope if nothing else i have managed to challenge you to get into the word a bit and think!...'cause if we are not doing that on a regular basis we are not growing!...:)
First of all let me just congratulate everyone here on a very interesting and stimulating discussion.
I have never heard about this distinction before and also I have never heard before about the origin of human conscience as a result of the 'eating' from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which does sound plausible.
Now as to your claim that it is NOT the Holy Spirit that convicts a believer of individual sins - I have to disagree at this point.
One thing I have to say is that is my own experience that it is indeed the Holy Spirit that convicts. If it were my own mind, or conscience then I would get the credit for recognizing my own sin but "it is God who works in you both to will and to act" (Phil 2:13). So, therefore, whatever it is that is causing conviction it is GOD and not myself- and this means the Holy Spirit.
Second, you drew a distinction between God upholding our sins to us to repent of versus God revealing His goodness to us. This is not an Either/Or paradox here. BOTH occur simultaneously. We repent BECAUSE of His goodness and it is His goodness to reveal sin. So this is a false dichotomy. We are called to be holy and this requires continual purification in mind and heart - precisely why we were given the Holy Spirit.
Third, the conviction of the Holy Spirit mentioned in John 16 can only be for believers because the Holy Spirit only communicates with believers. It is not for the "world" as you say. "My sheep hear my voice" Christ said and in 1 Jo 4:6 it is said "We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us". Although this does not specifically refer to the H.S., it is implied since those who are of God are temples of the Holy Spirit and Christ spoke only as the Holy Spirit led him.
So, in summary, I do not find your distinction helpful nor scriptual nor philsophically sound but in the end the strongest proof to me is my own personal relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, it is an interesting and thought-provoking concept and this is a good thing.
