Sinless Christians?

[Anima_Christi]

For the past couple days, a controversial traveling preacher from a group called “Soulwinners Ministries International” has been coming onto my college campus to preach and is causing quite a stir! Besides shouting Bible verses and condemning random passerbys to hell, he has been claiming that true Christians do not and cannot sin–at all. To support this claim, he cites this passage from 1 John, chapter 3:

Whosoever abideth in him, sinneth not; and whosoever sinneth, hath not seen him, nor known him. Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doth justice is just, even as he is just. He that committeth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God, committeth not sin: for his seed abideth in him, and he can not sin, because he is born of God.

(Of course the preacher wasn’t using the Douay-Rheims, he was using the King James )

Obviously Christians can and do sin even after they have been washed of original sin in baptism. How does one explain what this passage from 1 John really means and give scriptural evidence that Christians can still commit sin? Someone in the crowd pointed out to the preacher an example of Peter sinning and asked, “So was Peter not a Christian!?”, to which the preacher said, “Not at the time!”

Here is the ministry’s website with clips of him preaching at college campuses:
soul-winners.org/Content%202.htm

Here is where they make their case that true Christians can’t sin:
soul-winners.org/can%20i%20live%20without%20sin%202.htm

 

[rr1213]

So this preacher goes through life without ever sinning? Brothers and sisters, iIf we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, we are forgiven. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Paul talks about having two natures and how the two natures are warring within himself…wretched man that he is. I think that this preacher’s teachings are a good example of looking at only one part of scripture to the exclusion of others.