Jehovah's Witnesses Straight Talk - Forum/Blog

1Pet.1:22 Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth through the Spirit in sincere brotherly affection, love one another from the heart fervently.

Can we as a Christian's purify our souls? Will, lets be honest here, if you are a legal minded Christian's you are going to say yes! But if your born again by God's Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ, the key word here, “Spirit” overlooked by most Christian's in this verse, it will be no! Simply, because in context to all the holy writings we are told unequivocally we cannot put away the filth of our flesh, we can however, request God by “faith” for a clean conscience.

1 Peter 3:21 This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you--not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We are purified not by works of our flesh, but rather through the blood of Christ Jesus. Let us not confuse fiction with truth. Christ removed are judgment so we can stand before God, but how? He completed the law, which judges us a sinner. He did not remove sin from our flesh, as many try to obtain too by meeting a commandment of God perfectly in their flesh. Fulfilling the law, with his perfect righteous life, abolishing our judgment. In other words, keeping it simple, God removed the law that we break each day so He can deal with us as though we have no sin, for breaking it.

1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Our having no sin we keep his commandments, because only a sinless person keeps the commandments. Now we have eternal life, why? Because we are made a part of eternal life, which is, we are made a part of Christ Jesus body as member therein. He is eternal life, the tree of life for us. Being therefor grafted into Christ our life, we receive the life of the tree cleansing us from all dead works. The sanctification Peter speak to above come too us by the life of the tree, Christ Jesus, by “Spirit”. Hence, we cannot purify ourselves without the life of Christ given too us by what? Good works, works of law, or faith?

John.15:1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
15:2 Every branch in me that doesn't bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
15:3 You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

It is only in this truth of undeserved kindness that we can love each other
fervently from our hearts, otherwise our love will be human, not of God Holy Spirit in comparing ourselves, and competing with each other by works of law as to who is cleaner or more purified by obedience to rules and laws of religion.

John.12:3 For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think reasonably, as God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith. 12:4 For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members don't have the same function, 12:5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

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