How LHT is trying to 'White-Wash' its History

Hi Joyking, i re-read your blogpost and it is a bit clear that you are being unfair in your argumentation and trying to tilt the balance on Living Holy and Transformed group's (LHT) favor.

I. "If sin was their primary goal i should have experienced quarrels, discord, heinous acts, & greed that can easily be spotted in many churches around."

Could you say that the carnal actions (sins) that you decry in many churches, you did observed them while they were doing their 'Church services'? I bet not. During church services people act and react religiously and present the best aspect of themselves. If you really believe that what you saw in a 'Church service' is a true reflection of people personal lives then I am afraid you give too much credit to human nature than you should. Go even to Jehovah Witness religious services, you will see peace, harmony and friendliness that you saw at 'Good New Missions'. And I bet even the churches infighting you mentioned are not seen nor occurring during their religious services. You can not prove moral uprightness of your movement by simply considering religious services that is designed to exactly look the way they want you to see it. You can't possibly know what is going on behind closed doors. Don't be naive about human nature.

II. "If the message Paul delivered caused people to wonder the same thing today’s people wonder when they hear the message of Grace, shouldn’t that show them people who advocate that message are on Paul’s side relaying the message entrusted to him by Jesus Christ himself?"

This is an excellent question, remain to be seen if the assumption are correct. Is St. Paul teaching on grace similar to LHT message on grace? Let's analyze it.

St. Paul (Bible)	Joyking (LHT)
Rom 6:1, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?"	People often ask “Then should we continue in sin since all have been forgiven?“

It is clear from both quotations above that the reason those questions were asked were different in purposes. For St. Paul's audience in the first century, it was about the abundance of grace that came after the Mosaic law, while for LHT it is about their claim that all sins have been forgiven and now no more forgiveness is required. These are two different reactions. 

ST. PAUL:

The context of the epistle of Romans give the context on St. Paul question which is totally different from the question asked by Joyking. The verses that preceded Romans 6:1 says, "But the Law entered so that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,"- Romans 5:20. Here, St. Paul is explaining the reason why more grace were given to humanity, and his conclusion is because there were much sin in the world. It is a bit like saying this neighborhood had a lot of electrical power failures (Darkness) that is why we were given much more power generators (Lights) to power up the night. In risk of being misunderstood, one should add, please do not cause more electrical failures (Darkness) in order to cause us to provide even more generators (Light). It is a bit the same logic St. Paul is using.

After presenting the origin of sin in human history (Darkness), he presented the arrival of the solution which is God's grace (Light) through the person of Jesus Christ. That is why were read, "so that as sin has reigned to death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." - Romans 5:21. In fear of being misunderstood, St. Paul quickly clarify that even though divine Grace (Light) was a divine response to our sinful life (Dark), we shouldn't justify living sinful lives in order to see more grace coming our way. St. Paul makes a correlation between Sin and Grace, but reject the causal link between Sin and Grace. Sin doesn't cause Grace, even though the presence of Grace is correlated with the existence of sin. As it has been known in intellectual circle, correlation is not causation.

But this is not what LHT says and I hope no longer says even though there is some evidence that the wrong views that they used to espouse is not completely removed from their ever changing and morphing theologies.

JOYKING:

The context of Joyking statement, (a LHT proponent of the 'new grace' message), is about people legitimately asking them, if ALL sins (past, present, future) have already been forgiven as he claims, then the spiritual condition of someone who 'sin' and the one who doesn't 'sin' are the same. Then what would be the value of choosing one lifestyle over the other lifestyle since we are the same in the end anyhow? This is a legitimate question regardless of LHT side stepping this questions each time they have the opportunity to do so instead of dealing with that legitimate concern. Because if my moral and spiritual status is the same regardless of what i do, sinful or not, then there is no legitimate reason to choose one way of living over any other way of living. This is unfortunately not far from an Atheistic way of 'relativizing' morality. 

Case in point. A LHT lady who had at least the sense to recognize the problem tried to point out that there were a difference between a Christian who has sinned and a christian who has not sinned. She explains:

Does a young girl who sins against her father become a cast out of the family? No. A Godly father will forgive his children unconditionally. However, a good relationship between the child and the father can not be achieved unless they are in good terms. This is when the child confesses her mistakes to her father and apologizes. 

 She continues in her LHT typical rational, trying to obfuscate the obvious tension between LHT belief and Biblical scriptures:

Since Jesus died to pay the penalty for all of our sins, why we we still need to confess then?

 Her answer is nothing new since it has been the answers offered by the Christian community for as long as I can remember.

The same thing that happens when a child sins against her father is an analogy of what happens when we sin too. Our fellowship with God is hindered until we confess our sins. When we confess our sins to God, the fellowship is restored. 

The only way out she could find is to come back to what Christians have been saying all along. But she can't explain why confess a sin that has already been forgiven which is a sheer contradiction and an illogical thing to do if you think about it. The reason sins are confessed is for one purpose only, it is for forgiveness: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." - 1 John 1:9. 

The biblical logic is clear:  "We confess, He forgive". One action cause the other, that is why the verse start with an "IF" conditional. Action (Confess), Promise (Forgiveness). The LHT lady must have sensed that, when she read this verse for it was the verse that caused her to write that blog post in the first place, but she couldn't satisfactorily reach a reasonable, biblical conclusion while holding to her LHT non biblical views that all sins of humanity have already been forgiven and no longer need forgiveness. Joyking in the comment section of that same article by the the LHT Lady comes to her rescue by downplaying the value of confession. Here is what he says:

either u confess or not you will inherit the Kingdom of God through Faith alone in Christ… yet its always good to confess(Admit) your wrongdoing to God & if u find it convenient say “Sorry” as well to restore the sense of comfortable fellowship to yourself when you approach God to talk to him for any other reason.

It is clear that Joyking, I assume it is an LHT view he represents, do not see confession as St. John presented it, 'Confess - be forgiven'. Actually, he believes that confessing is always a good thing to do in order to restore a sense of comfort to one'self. Unlike the young lady who is trying to restore the fellowship between a child and her father, Joyking interrupts her thinking. 'No, not to you and God', he might have exclaimed. 'It is for your own comfort. For yourself. God doesn't care anymore for He has already forgiven all your sins that you will ever do', he is matter of fact telling her. 

WHY PEOPLE KEEP ASKING

No wonder people keep asking them if grace means we have an open door to do anything we want as long as it doesn't disturb our mental 'comfort'. Joyking regards Confessing as a modern day self therapy. Apparently, not all LHT members are aware of that yet, for some are still trying to humble themselves to God in order to receive forgiveness of theirs sins as the bible teaches and restore their fellowship. "No consequences can ever come from your sins, for after all you have been forgiven", they try to reassure themselves. Hence flying against all biblical admonishment about sins in the holy scriptures. St. Paul takes great pain to correct Joyking almost 2000 years in advance that, 'Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor abusers, nor homosexuals,' -1 Corinthians 6:9. It makes one wonders why would Joyking who think that he is thinking in the same line of reasoning as the apostle Paul would clearly and explicitely contradict St. Paul with a statement such as this: 'either u confess or not you will inherit the Kingdom of God through Faith alone in Christ'. So much for 'Living Holy'.

This is exactly why people are asking you those questions. Are you promoting sins? Or to better rephrase it, are you promoting the view that there is no consequences to any sins Christians might do? St. Paul answers to that was crystal clear then and it is crystal clear now, 'Do not deceive yourselves ... those who practice sins will not inherit the Kingdom of God' unlike what LHT and all those 'new grace' movement are saying. 

So Joyking, please stop trying so hard to 'White-wash' your anti-biblical doctrinal history. It is clear your movement (LHT) has made a progress though since 2012, at least you now admit the existence of sins which you denied with all strength and might then, and you now can conceive of a 'good' reason for confessing sins; which was the subject of ceaseless debate then. That's already a start. However, you still have a long way to go through in integrating all biblical truths to your LHT doctrinal arsenal which I fear is still lacking.

In all good conscious you shouldn't compare what St. Paul was saying and what LHT and its 'New grace' movement are saying. It is totally different as day and night.

Let us echo St. Paul's admonishment,

 "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under Law, but under grace? Let it not be!" Romans 6:15.