Intro

This blog gains its name from the book Steele's Answers published in 1912. It began as an effort to blog through that book, posting each of the Questions and Answers in the book in the order in which they appeared. I started this on Dec. 10, 2011. I completed blogging from that book on July 11, 2015. Along the way, I began to also post snippets from Dr. Steele's other writings — and from some other holiness writers of his times. Since then, I have begun adding material from his Bible commentaries. I also re-blog many of the old posts.

Monday, January 27, 2014

"To Have Sin" (1 John 1:8)

QUESTION: In I John 1:8, "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," is John speaking of Christians or of the unregenerate?

ANSWER: Of persons called Gnostics, who believed that their bodies only were defiled by sin, and that their souls were perfectly pure, having no need of the blood of Christ and of the new birth. The phrase "to have sin" is John's strongest expression of such a transgression of the law as entails guilt. If all Christians are guilty, the profession of justification by anybody on the earth is a sad mistake, and Paul's declaration, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are to Christ Jesus" is a stupendous falsehood.

Steele's Answers, pp. 98, 99.

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