The Memory Text is:

Some interesting questions are also asked in the Sabbath Afternoon section, namely:

1 - If works can’t save us, why bother with them at all?

2 - Why not just keep on sinning?

This week's lesson is supposed to answer the above questions.

Dont bother with them. Spend time together with Jesus, who is busy helping the least of His brethren, and you will end up helping Him.
Because to keeping on sinning is equal to rejecting Jesus (where sin is actively and knowingly doing that which is sin).

Very good answers.

If our focus is on Jesus and His love for us, and, if in return we love Him, then we will have no desire to sin, which is the result of our love for Him.

Amen! However, how do people discern the difference between being tempted to sin and actually being guilty of sinning? How do they know when they are experiencing "righteousness and true holiness" in the sight of God?

Because this is pleasing to God.



Because the essence of sin is selfishness, and selfishness is contrary to everything God is about. If one wishes to live for self, then what is one having to do with God?

These questions seem like having the idea of "I'd like to keep on sinning, and not do good works, but if I did so, I'd be lost." That is, there's a selfish presumption to the question. These aren't questions we should be asking.

We should be asking questions like:

1.What is God really like?
2.What are His principles?
3.What does He want me to do?

When we become convinced that God is good, and His principles are good, the last question becomes particularly important.



(btw, Daryl, I realize you're not asking these questions as questions you are personally asking, but as theoretical questions someone might ask).

In Romans 6 Paul does not describe believers abiding in Jesus, partaking of the divine nature and all the while sinning either ignorantly, unwittingly, or willfully. Instead, he describes them as perfecting holiness unto the honor and glory of God. They are growing in grace from glory to glory (as opposed to sinning less and less), maturing moment by moment in the fruits of the Spirit more and more unto the perfect day. According to Paul, this is the righteous result and reality of abiding in Jesus. Post-conversion sinning is not dealt with in this passage. It is, of course, dealt with elsewhere in the Bible.

I found interesting what Anders Nygren says in his Commentary on Romans, p. 263:

Alejandro Bullon, a South American pastor famous for his lectures and books about righteousness by faith, commenting on this week's lesson, said:



This is so true. I've never had any victory before I believed Christ loved me. It was when I believed that He loved me that I started to love Him. And when you love Christ, sin eventually becomes disgusting. That's why Ellen White says:



That's how bad habits are overcome, that's how sin is abandoned. In order to be dead to sin, you must be alive to God (Rom. 6:11).

In other words, we love Him because He first loved us, resulting in our wanting to please Him.