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Sin – False View

Sin – False View

  • BIBLE (Correct): Sin is lawlessness, the transgression of God’s law.
    • “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness,” (1 John 3:4).
       
  • Christian Science: Sin is not real.
    • Sin is not understanding and behaving according to Divine Law of God and the law of our being.
    • “A sinner is not reformed merely by assuring him that he cannot be a sinner because there is no sin. To put down the claim of sin, you must detect it, remove the mask, point out the illusion, and thus get the victory over sin and so prove its unreality,” (S&H 447).
    • “When Christ changes a belief of sin or of sickness into a better belief, then belief melts into spiritual understanding, and sin, disease, and death disappear,” (S&H, p. 442).
    • “Sin, sickness, and death are to be classified as effects of error. Christ came to destroy the belief of sin,” (S&H, p. 473).
    • “The belief in sin–its pleasure, pain, or power–must suffer, until it is self-destroyed,” (S&H p. 32).
    • “But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts,” (S&H, p. 497).
       
  • LDS – Mormonism: In Mormonism, sin is breaking God’s law. “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law,” (1 John 3:4, Joseph Smith Translation).  However, consider the following . . .
  • “Some acts, like murder, are crimes because they are inherently wrong. Other acts, like operating without a license, are crimes only because they are legally prohibited. Under these distinctions, the act that produced the Fall was not a sin–inherently wrong–but a transgression–wrong because it was formally prohibited,” (Dallin Oaks, “The Great Plan of Happiness,” Ensign [Conference Edition], November 1993, p. 73).
    • “Only through the Savior’s grace and mercy can we become clean from sin so that we can live with God again. This is possible through exercising faith in Jesus Christ, repenting, being baptized, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end,” (Preach My Gospel, 2004, p. 51).
    • “There is a distinction between sin and transgression. Sin is usually used to refer to a willful, deliberate, knowing transgression of God’s law . . . ” (BYU Professor Richard O. Cowan, The Doctrine and Covenants, Our Modern Scripture, pp. 64-65).
    • “One of the most fallacious doctrines originated by Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone by the grace of God; that belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation,” (Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 206. See also The Book of Mormon Student Manual Religion 121 and 122, 1996, p. 36).

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