Figured I'd throw this topic out here for discussion. I find this to be a difficult passage to fully comprehend.
1Jo 5:16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
1Jo 5:17 All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
I don't know if the "sin unto death" spoken of here is blaspheme of the Holy Spirit, or if it's referring to Jewish Law, or if there is a distinction being shown as to levels of sin. I'm kind of leaning toward a distiction between violations of the Jewish laws pertaining to incest, idolatry, breach of the sabbath and such.
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
In my mho the sin unto death is when a christian continues in sin without repenting..an example is in Acts 5:1-10 where Ananias and his wife Sapphira were struck dead for lying to God..
"1But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
2And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
3But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
4Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
5And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.
6And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.
7And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
8And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
9Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.
10Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband."
1 John 5:16-17,
"If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it."
if you will notice he says if any man sees his brother sin, so he is talking about a saved man..
__________________
wayne
"There's room at the cross for you."
4: For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Dangerous ground to know the Lord, the actually lose faith.
"It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. . .To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit MAY BE SAVED in the day of the Lord Jesus." 1 Corinthians 5:1,5
I am wondering if this verse gives us an answer. And I am thinking that this practice may have been used not just for fornication but perhaps any serious sin that an indivual continued in.
Just chiming in to say I really don't have any concrete answers here. I did look into a commentary but I feel in this particuliar selection of scripture that the commentator as myself would be leaning heavily on opinion rather than fact. Have a great day Mac,
C7
In summary though...Christ blood is potent enough to wash all of our sins away.
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the bloodof Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
[/b]
1John5:16[/b]
[/b]
16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death. [/b]
NASU[/b]
1. What does this verse talk about?
A. Does this refer to believers or unbelievers?
B. Is it the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
C. Does it refer to a particular sin or kind of sin?
D. How are we to handle ourselves in this type of situation?
2. Does this verse refer to those who are believers or unbelievers?
Through a simple word study and keeping this verse in context with the rest of the chapter we can find without a doubt that this verse refers to a believer. In verse 16 we see the word "śbrother"ť used. You could take this for what it says and say; yes the writer is referring to a brother in Christ. There are skeptics who might question this and say it is in reference to a sibling or someone of the same race. We will take it a little deeper and back up our initial thought.
The word "śbrother"ť, Strong"™s number 80, adelphos (ad-el-fos"™)
a fellow-believer, united to another by the bond of affection; so most frequently of Christians, constituting as it were but a single family: Matt 23:8; John 21:23; Acts 6:3 (Lachmann omits); 9:30; 11:1; Gal 1:2; 1 Cor 5:11; Phil 1:14, etc.; in courteous address, Rom 1:13; 7:1; 1 Cor 1:10; 1 John 2:7, the Textus Receptus, and often elsewhere; yet in the phraseology of John it has reference to the new life unto which men are begotten again by the efficiency of a common father, even God: 1 John 2:9 ff; 3:10,14; etc., compare 1 John 5:1.
(from Thayer's Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)
Thayer calls this brother "śa fellow-believer"ť and also refers to 1John5:1. Here we find that John is writing to believers. If you are still in doubt of this fact after reading the vs. 1-12, then continue on to vs.13 where he clearly states that he is writing to those who believe in the Son of God. So from the definitions that we read and more importantly the context of the scripture we know that vs. 16 when he says "śbrother"ť is in reference to a brother in Christ.
3. Does this verse refer to the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and what is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
A. Matt 12:22-31; The Pharisees said that Jesus cast out demons by the power of Beelzebul. In doing so they are saying that the Holy Spirit of God was the doing the work for or by the power of the devil, and that the Holy Spirit was not of God but of Satan.
B. Mark3:22-30, Luke 12:10, these also speak on the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and the fate that would be guaranteed to a person who committed such a sin.
C. By looking at these accounts we can draw some very simple conclusions.
a. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit was done by the Scribes and the Pharisees.
b. They were unbelievers.
c. They didn"™t view Jesus as the Messiah.
D. We can see that a believer cannot commit Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. If you are a believer you wouldn"™t say that the Holy Spirit is from Satan, because you know that He came from God and is God. Furthermore this sin can no longer be committed because we are not in the miraculous age. Since we don"™t see the Holy Spirit working miracles, we cannot say that he is from Satan; this doesn"™t mean that Holy Spirit is no working just not in the miraculous way that He did back then. 1Cor13:8-10
We can eliminate the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit as being the topic of our study seeing that our verse is referring to a believer.
4. Does this verse refer to a particular sin, or kind sin?
This is where we will spend the majority of our time. We will look at what constitutes sin not leading to death, and sin leading to death. We will also notice what causes these differences, i.e. is it because of the severity of the sin. We will start once again with a word study on the word sin.
[/b]
NT:266
hamartia (ham-ar-tee'-ah)
a failing to hit the mark
hamartia pros thanaton, 1 John 5:16 (an offence of such gravity that a Christian lapses from the state of zooee[life] received from Christ into the state of thanatos[death][/b] (compare thanatos, 2) in which he was before he became united to Christ by faith;[/b] compare LĂĽcke, DeWette (especially Westcott, at the passage)).
(from Thayer's Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)
Commit/sin (commit a sin/sin a sin)
NT:264
hamartano (ham-ar-tan'-o);
a. absolutely: Matt 27:4; John 5:14; 8:11; 9:2 f; 1 John 1:10; 2:1; 3:6,8 f; 5:18; Rom 2:12; 3:23; 5:12,14,16; 6:15; 1 Cor 7:28,36; 15:34; Eph 4:26; 1 Tim 5:20; Titus 3:11; Heb 3:17; 10:26 (hekousioos); (2 Peter 2:4); of the violation of civil laws, which Christians regard as also the transgression of divine law[/b], 1 Peter 2:20.
b. hamartanein hamartian to commit (literally, sin) a sin[/b], 1 John 5:16 (megaleen hamartian, Ex 32:30 f.
(from Thayer's Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)\
Sin absolutely such as the case of Judas; Matt 27:3-5
From this we can see that when a believer sins they are taken out of this state of spiritual life and put back into a state of spiritual death. What we find is that when we sin we lose our salvation. That is why John urges us to ask God to grant spiritual life back to this brother. Then at the end of this verse John says, regarding those who sin unto death. We are not to make request for them. He is kind of vague on this point and it can be confusing. The scriptures can clear this up in Matt 18:15-18. There we find the manner that we are to conduct ourselves if a brother sins. We are given a step by step example to follow. If we apply this to our verse then it clears up any misunderstanding that we might have from just reading John"™s letter alone. In order to clear this up even more we must find out what the difference is between sin leading to death and sin not leading to death.
What is the difference between sin not leading to and sin leading to death? In our study there is nothing that makes reference to any particular sin. Nothing is pointed out as saying this sin here is one that will lead to death, and we have ruled out blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. So what is the difference? We know all sin leads to death; Romans 6:16&23; James 1:15. We also know that all have sinned and fallen short; Romans 3:23
Now that we know that all sin, no matter what, leads to death. How can there be a sin that doesn"™t lead to death. If you continue reading in Romans 3:24 we find that our justification is a gift of God"™s grace through redemption in Christ Jesus. Even though all sin leads to death the grace of God will wash away those sins as long as we strive to do better and continually ask for forgiveness.
Both the sin not leading to death and the sin leading to death are committed by a believer. The only thing that we can find to be different about the two is the attitude of the person. In the case of the sin not leading to death, this believer has turned back to sin. When they are confronted about their sin, Matt 18:15-18, they have a true repentance and turn their life back to God.
The believer who commits sin leading to death has the opposite attitude. One commentator refers to their attitude as "śwholly unrepentant"ť. Another way to look at it is after following the steps in Matt 18:15-18 this believer chooses to continue living in sin, which will lead not only to spiritual death, but if they never give their life back to God they will physically die, just as a course of nature, and their soul will be eternally lost. Heb6:4-6, 10:26-31; and 2Peter2:20-22. We can see now why John tells us not to pray for those have sinned unto death, to be granted life. This is because they have totally rejected God"™s way. This doesn"™t mean that we shouldn"™t pray for them to come back to the knowledge of the truth.
Let"™s look at some examples of these two cases. In Revelation 2:21-22 Jesus, speaking of Jezebel, gave her time to repent but she didn"™t want to repent. He also says that those who commit adultery with her will be thrown into great tribulation unless they repent. In Revelation 2:5 the church at Ephesus is told that they have fallen and unless they repent there lampstand will be removed. With both of these cases we see that if they repent they can live once again with God, but if not they will be cast away.
Now the best example that I have found to show sin leading to death is Judas Iscariot. Matt 26:14-16, 20-25, 47-50, 27:3-5 [/b]also found in (Mark14, Luke22& John13&18). I would like to focus on Matt 27:3-5, starting in verse 3 where speaking of Judas it says "śhe felt remorse"ť in the KJV it says "śrepented himself"ť. The word that is used here is remorse or regret, but doesn"™t mean repentance. The word remorse is defined by Strong"™s #3338 to regret, Metamellomai (Met-am-el"™-lom-ahee). In Acts 2:38 we can find the word repent, meaning to turn ones life around, Strong"™s #3340 Metanoeo (Met-an-o-eh"™-o). These two words are close but not the same. Thayer gives us a good understanding of the difference between these two words. Thayer"™s complete:[/b]
NT:3338
metamelomai;
(Synonyms: metamelomai, metanoeoo: The distinctions so often laid down between these words, to the effect that the former expresses a merely emotional change the latter a change of choice, the former has reference to particulars the latter to the entire life, the former signifies nothing but regret even though amounting to remorse, the latter that reversal of moral purpose known as repentance -- seem hardly to be sustained by usage. But that metanoeoo is the fuller and nobler term, expressive of moral action and issues, is indicated not only by its derivation, but by the greater frequency of its use, by the fact that it is often employed in the imperative (metamelomai never), and by its construction with apo, ek (compare hee eis Theon metanoia, Acts 20:21).
(from Thayer's Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)
We can see that remorse is just feeling bad, where repent is feeling bad but then making the change to good. From this we can find that Judas only felt bad about what he had done, but he never made the necessary changes, he never repented. Instead he went and hanged himself, Matt 27:5. Looking at this, we can see that Judas sinned unto death physically and if we look in Acts 1:15-25 we find because of his actions he condemned his soul to Hell.
We find this in verse 25, where it says "śJudas turned aside to go to his own place"ť. [/b]Through a study of the phrase "śhis own place"ť we find;
His own[/b] idios (id'-ee-os);[/b]
Acts 1:18-25
25 to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs." (from New International Version)
NT:2398
eis ton topon ton idion, to the abode after death assigned by God to one according to his deeds,[/b] Acts 1:25
(from Thayer's Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)
Place[/b]
topos (top'-os)[/i][/b]
NT:5117
the abode assigned by God to one after death wherein to receive his merited portion of bliss or of misery[/b]: (ho idios tinos (tinos), universally, Ignatius (circa 110 A.D.) ad Magnes. 5, 1 (compare ho aioonios topos, Tobit 3:6 (circa 200 B.C.?))); applied to Gehenna,[/b] Acts 1:25 (see idios, 1 c.);
(from Thayer's Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 2000 by Biblesoft)
The decision that Judas made to just feel bad and then take his own life caused him to spend eternity in Gehenna hell, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. If he would have let his remorse lead him to repentance then our brother would have been once again given life/salvation.
[/b]
[/b]Our conclusion is that sin unto death can only be committed by a believer. One who has had salvation, but has given it up in order to return to a life of sin. It is an attitude of not giving your life back to God, not caring what the consequences are, completely unrepentant. The only difference between sin unto death and sin not unto death is the attitude, not because one sin is worse than the other. We must always look to God for our strength, and get ride of our pride.
The "śsin unto death"ť is deliberate, willful, continuous, unrepentant sin. God, in His grace, allows His children to sin without immediately punishing them. However, there comes a point when God will no longer allow a believer to continue in unrepentant sin. When this point is reached, God sometimes decides to punish a Christian, even to the point of taking his or her life.
__________________
Jesus said, "he who stands firm to the end will be saved" Mark 13:13.
Live Life in such a way that those who do not know Christ will come to know Him because they know you
Sin unto death
