@ Reuben J,
I get what you’re saying and I appreciate the response. I wouldn’t say they are incapable of sinning because that in my mind implies they can’t sin. Instead they can but chose not to because they have elevated themselves to a spiritual level or impeccable state as manualman pointed where they are highly concious of sin and therefore do not sin. I know it’s splitting hairs but wanted to add that for clarity.
I guess the question which comes to mind is how can one be sure they are following their prophet in right conduct without any doubt or hesitation of falling into sin?
if a prophet commits sins or makes mistakes then how can we be sure we’re not following him into sin? and how long does God wait before correcting that sin. is it immediate, does He wait a day, a month, a year? and how many people would fall into sin before God corrects it?
It seems counter intuitive and so I like to believe we’re capable of learning the value of repentance and the prophet’s are capable of teaching us that value without falling into sin themselves.
Yet, again I am speaking from Christianity perspective. Thanks for the clarification on the first paragraph. I mistook you when you used the word ‘infallible’ and tried to figure what you meant. That seems to be perfectly reasonable to me – they can sin but choose not to. In reality however, often times we are at a cross road and when it comes to this, very often we make that right choice and do not sin. But it is true also that it is not always a matter of choice but that we sin because it is out of our control.
We do not make justification for the various types of sin which when committed put us in confrontation with God. Sins ranging from merely wrong thought (example: rebel against God’s word, lust, murderous anger or coveting) to the actual action in committing them (example: disobedient to God, adultery, murder, or stealing). Thus it is nearly impossible for humans, prophets included, not to sin at one time or another in their lives.
As for the role of the prophets, they were to proclaim God’s message or spoke on behalf of God. You got good point there, for how could the people knew what to believe if the prophets’ way of life showed otherwise? This is of course a problem. From the Bible however, there were always occasions, always there were certain people who did not believe the prophets regardless of their impeccable way of lives. Elijah challenged them to perform miracles and John the Baptist was beheaded and these two prophets were some of the most impeccable of them.
Thus it is important to take the prophets’ word which usually was proclaimed in the name of God and not what they did if they fell into sin. Jesus made that clearer, do not follow what they do but follow their teaching for they are occupying the seat of Moses. This was when he referred to the hypocritical Pharisees, the teachers of the law
