Outline:

Preface

I.         Brief Overview

II.        God’s mandates

III.       Things which we are NOT commanded to do

IV.       The mechanics

V.        Synonyms for being out of fellowship and for the restoration of fellowship

VI.       Parallel passages

VII.      Rebound in the Old Testament

VIII.     The results of rebound

IX.       Rebound is not victory over sin or carnality

X.        Rebound, like salvation, must be a grace operation

XI.       God coaxes us toward rebound

XII.      False views of Rebound

XIII.     False teachings about rebound

XIV.     Failure to rebound

XV.      What rebound will not do

XVI.     Being out of fellowship does not cancel God’s logistical grace in our lives

XVII.    Being in fellowship is the only way to produce divine good

XVIII.   Objections to Rebound

Addendum

The Exegesis of 1John 1:4–10

Case History: David's sin with Bathsheba

False Systems of Spirituality

Bibliography

Preface:         Churches teach a lot of things, but when it comes to mechanics, this is where the local church generally falls down on the job. Your minister might ask you to stand up and tell the person behind you that you love them; they might ask you to come forward at the end of a service to rededicate your life to Christ; you might have a group surround you while you lean your head back, let your mind go blank, and you are encouraged to make noises until you get the Holy Spirit and start speaking in tongues. The problem with these mechanics is, they are not found in the Bible—not by example and not by doctrine.

However, the most important mechanic for the new believer is either never taught or distorted greatly by emotionalism and/or legalism. What is important is, how are you filled with the Spirit and how do you quench the Spirit? How do you get into fellowship and how do you get out of fellowship? How do you walk in the light and how do you walk in darkness? If you cannot answer these questions quickly and with a simple mechanic, then you ought to reevaluate your Christian life and your growth. If being in or out of fellowship has profound meaning in the New Testament epistles; if being filled with the Spirit or avoiding quenching the Spirit is important, then why don’t you know how do to these things?

Let me explain a mechanic: it is simply what you do to achieve a result. For instance, let’s say that kicking a piece of furniture got you out of fellowship, the act of kicking would be a mechanic. Let’s say that the Bible told you that, looking over your left shoulder and shouting “Hooyah” got you back into fellowship; then the act of looking over your left shoulder and shouting “Hooyah” is a mechanic.

We were all saved by grace. We believed in Jesus Christ and God put us into Christ; God gave us eternal life; God imputed Christ’s righteousness to us (these are 3 of the 40 things which God does for us at the moment of salvation). If this has gone to a person who has not believed in Jesus Christ, then what I have written here is not for you. You need the gospel (good news). The gospel is, you are separated from God because you have sinned, because you have Adam’s imputed sin, and because you have a sin nature. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins on the cross, and when you believe in Him, these 3 barriers are removed and you are saved forever and you have an eternal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, a relationship which cannot be broken, nullified, or destroyed by you, by any person you know, or even by angels. That part of the Christian life takes only a few seconds.

The correct mechanic in order to be saved is putting faith in Jesus Christ. You may have gone to some evangelistic meeting; you may have raised your hand in a church service; you may have gotten baptized, you may have joined a church. All of these things are mechanics. However, the only mechanic which saves you is faith in Jesus Christ. For a very long list of verses about salvation, see http://kukis.org/salvation/Salvation.htm

Just as there are a plethora of false mechanics out there when it comes to being saved, there are a plethora of false mechanics out there when it comes to being filled with the Spirit. Since we were saved by grace, one might reasonably suppose our Christian life to consist of grace actions (or grace mechanics).

The church I go to calls the mechanic to be filled with the Spirit, to restore fellowship with God rebound. You quench the Spirit, you rebound, and you are filled with the Spirit. You get out of fellowship and you rebound, and you are back in fellowship. It is simply a word which describes the grace mechanics; like the word Trinity, it is not found in the Bible, but it stands for an accurate, Biblical doctrine.

I should note that I will cover this doctrine in only a few pages (16); and the bulk of this is addendum (over 40 pages).

I.         Brief overview: Christians do a lot of goofy things in order to fix, spice up or enhance their spiritual lives. They will gather with a group of believers who want them to get the ghost and who apply psychological pressure for them to do so. They might assume various positions, lean their heads back, and make noises, hoping to get some sort of experience. The pastor may amble on by, touch their forehead, and, bam!, they are slain in the Spirit. These mechanics are never proffered by Scripture. However, after a few people read through the book of Acts, they have attempted to duplicate what they read there, and usually by doing things which have no Biblical basis. There are others who do more innocuous things, like, they raise their hands in a church service or they walk forward in some kind of a rededication event at their church. Again, these mechanics are never found in Scripture. No one walks forward, no one raises their hand, no one leans their head back and starts making noise, hoping there will be some kind of experience which approximates that of those in that particular church. The Bible does offer one very specific (and easy) mechanic: If we acknowledge our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1John 1:9). That is what this rebound is all about.

II.        God’s mandates: throughout the New Testament, there are a number of mandates which God lays out through the human authors of Scripture. As I list these commands, bear in mind, God does not command us to do something without giving us the mechanics or the ability to obey His command. Furthermore, the method should be grace; we were saved by grace, so we ought to live by grace.

           1.        And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18).

           2.        And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). Similar to this, we have 1Thess. 5:19: Do not quench the Spirit.

           3.        But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25).

           4.        These are all commands. In the Greek, they are in the imperative mood, which means, that God, through Paul, was giving us an order. So, obviously, there is something or some things which we need to do which are related to God the Holy Spirit. Somewhere, in the Bible, we should be able to find the mechanics.

           5.        This is the second most discouraging topic to talk to Christians about. Ask a Christian who has been going to a Bible-believing church about the Holy Spirit, about quenching, grieving, walking by or being filled with the Holy Spirit, and most of the time, you will get a blank stare, or a list of things that we ought to do which are not found in the Bible. However, before I go into any explanation here, let me cover things which the Bible does not command us to do:

III.       Things which we are NOT commanded to do:

           1.        We are never commanded to be indwelt by the Spirit: By the Holy Spirit Who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you (1Tim. 1:14).

           2.        To be baptized by the Holy Spirit. For by means of one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit (1Cor. 12:13).

           3.        To somehow go out and get the Spirit. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us (1John 3:24b). By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit (1John 4:13). Like the writers of the epistles, John wrote to believers. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, Who gives His Holy Spirit to you (1Tim. 4:8). Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? (1Cor. 6:19a; see also 1Cor. 3:16). And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee (2Cor. 1:21–22). Bear in mind, in these last few verses, Paul is writing to the most carnal group of believers in the New Testament: the Corinthians; yet, they all clearly have the Holy Spirit.

           4.        See also Rom. 5:5 8:9–11 1Cor. 2:12 12:7 2Cor. 5:5 Gal. 3:2 4:6 Eph. 2:28 James 4:5 1Peter 4:14. The short explanation is, we do not have to do something in order to get God’s Spirit.

           5.        It is important to note that, once we get out of the book of Acts, there is not a single reference to some set of steps that we must follow in order to somehow get the Holy Spirit. In the book of Acts, there is never a set of steps given by which various believers got the Holy Spirit; simply that, during that time period, there were certain groups of believers who did not get the Holy Spirit at salvation (these are believers who were saved prior to the ascension of Jesus Christ). In the epistles, which is where Church Age doctrine is to be found, at no time does Paul, John, James or Peter say, “Look, you have this really pathetic group of believers in your church and I think what they are lacking is the Holy Spirit; so, here is how you can get the Spirit...” Jesus, when discussing the various churches in Revelation also makes no such command. The most carnal believers in the New Testament—the Corinthians—are said to have God the Holy Spirit, they are said to be baptized by the Spirit, and they are said to have their spiritual gifts. However, possession of the Spirit obviously does not guarantee that a person is going to live some sort of victorious Christian life.

           6.        It is important to note that there are mechanics in the New Testament, but that none of these mechanics include walking down an aisle, raising one’s hand, or doing odd things in order to get the Spirit.

IV.       The mechanics: when God gives us a command, then we should expect that He will give us clear mechanics in order to fulfill this command. What follows is a brief exegetical study of 1John 1:4–10. At the end of this doctrine, I will exegete this passage word-by-word, so that there is no confusion about the meaning of this passage (the Complete Exegesis of 1John 1:4–10).

           1.        1John 1:4: And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. John says we are writing these things; there were several Apostles who regularly kept in touch with congregations which they helped to found or taught at some point. The purpose here was to complete our joy, which would reasonably be the joy of those who write and those who read these letters (epistles).

           2.        1John 1:5: This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. It is important to recognize that there are absolutes, and Christians do recognize these absolutes, for the most part, as they apply to others. However, absolutes apply to believers as well. We will either be in the light or in darkness; we will not wander around in the twilight.

           3.        1John 1:6: If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. John amplifies the concept of absolutes: You cannot claim to have fellowship with God while walking in darkness. So, the topic of this particular chapter is, walking in the light versus walking in darkness; having fellowship with God or not having fellowship with Him.

           4.        1John 1:7: But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. Here, walking in the light is closely identified with having fellowship with one another. Notice that all this talk about fellowship is all related to being cleansed from all sin.

           5.        1John 1:8: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Here, sin is found in the singular, and it is often used this way to refer to the sin nature. If we claim to now lack the sin nature for any reason, we have deceived ourselves.

           6.        1John 1:9: If we cite [acknowledge, name, confess] our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is the mechanic; this is what we call rebound. All believers sin. I have a cousin who used to send me web-linked articles about this or that believer who sinned, thinking that, somehow, this would destroy my faith because not only did some Christian sin, but he sinned big and, oh my gosh, it was in the news. To any Christian who is not self-deceived (v. 8), we know we have a sin nature and we know that we sin. Now, since this is the thrust of this doctrine, let me go through this mechanic phrase by phrase.

                       1)        If we cite [acknowledge, name, confess] our sins,... The Greek word found here is used when you cite a fact in a court case. You may or may not be emotional—that is not really important—but you cite whatever sins you have committed. For some, this might be once or twice a day; for others, it might be once or twice every few minutes. We sin, we name our sin to God (not to a priest, not to some other person), and those are the grace mechanics. Note, there is no work here. We do not have to drum up some kind of an emotional state in order to rebound. We simply name our sins. We might be happy about what we just did; we might be mortified by what we just did; however, this is a grace mechanic—we name our sin or sins to God. What follows in this verse is what God does as a result of naming our sins to Him.

                       2)        ...He is faithful... The word faithful means that God does this each and every time. You may think that you have discovered some sin too great even for God to forgive, but that is not what is written here. Every time we name our sins to God, He will do the same thing. This could launch us into a whole new topic—Gd’s faithfulness—but there are promises which God makes in the Bible, there are things that He says that He will do, and we can depend upon these words because, God is faithful.

                       3)        ...and just to forgive us our sins... God’s character is perfect. He is perfect justice and perfect righteousness. At best, as unbelievers, we have relative righteousness. We are able to find someone else that most people can agree is much worse than we are. God, however, is perfect justice and perfect righteousness, and everything that He does must comport with His own righteousness and justice. God cannot just say, “What the hell, I like Charlie Brown, so I am going to forgive him for his sins.” God must act in accordance with His perfect character, and His justice is perfect and His righteousness is perfect. Therefore, when He forgives us our sins, He does so within the confines of His justice. All of our sins, past present and future, were poured out on Jesus Christ at the cross, and He took the penalty for these sins. God is therefore just to forgive us the sins that we have committed, because these sins have been paid for. However, what is occurring here is different from salvation. At salvation, we are forgiven all of our sins—past, present, and future—and given Christ’s righteousness (2 of the 40 things which God does for us at salvation). However, all of us remain alive and on this earth after God saves us. Our relationship with God comes to us in 3 parts: (1) phase I: salvation—we believe in Jesus Christ and we are saved; (2) phase II: our life on this earth; and (3) phase III, eternity—what happens to us after death. Most of the Bible is all about phase II, our life on this earth after salvation. At the moment of salvation, we are both given God the Holy Spirit and we are filled with God the Holy Spirit (2 of the 40 things that we receive at salvation). The first time that we sin, we quench the Spirit; we lose our fellowship with God; we begin to walk in darkness. For most believers, this occurs approximately 47.5 seconds after we are saved. We get back into fellowship by naming that sin (or sins) to God.

                       4)        ...and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. As a new believer (and even as an old believer), we do not know about each and every sin that we can commit. All of us do things which are sin, but we do not recognize these things as sin. When we name to God the sins that we know, those sins are forgiven but, also, all of our sins are forgiven. He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. We may commit 3 known sins and 28 unknown sins over the space of say, 30 minutes, and we decide, I might as well get back into fellowship. We name the 3 known sins which we committed; God temporally forgives us for committing these sins, but then He also cleanses us from all unrighteousness, which includes the 28 unknown sins which we committed. A common unknown sin which people commit is guilt; they feel guilty about doing this or that. Once we name our sins, no matter how horrendous they were and no matter how much we shocked ourselves by our own debauchery, those sins are forgiven—and if we begin to feel guilty about having committed those sins, then we need to tell God “I feel guilty” and He forgives us that sin as well. However, for most believers, guilt is not recognized as a sin, so they do not confess it. However, God cleanses us from all unrighteousness, including each and every sin that we do not know is a sin.

           7.        1John 1:10: If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. The final verse in this chapter makes it clear that, everyone sins. No person believes in Jesus Christ and then they never commit another sin. Those of us who claim to lead sinless lives make God out to be a liar and His word (doctrine) is not in us.

V.        Synonyms for being out of fellowship and for the restoration of fellowship:

           1.        Walking in the light: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin (1John 1:7). Walking in light as opposed to walking in darkness, could also refer to salvation (John 11:10) or to spiritual growth (Eph. 5:8).

           2.        Walking in the Spirit: By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit(Rom. 8:3b–4).

           3.        Being in the Spirit: Eph. 6:18a (praying at all times in the Spirit). In fact, this is a little tricky: when we believe in Jesus Christ, 1 of the 40 things we receive at this moment is God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit is in us. However, when the Bible speaks of us being in the Spirit, this refers to temporal fellowship with God.

           4.        Being in fellowship with other believers and with Jesus Christ. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth (1John 1:6). See also 2Cor. 13:14.

           5.        Drinking the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner. This is being out of fellowship. The Corinthians were urged to judge themselves so that they would not be judged (which is rebound) 1Cor. 11:27–31

           6.        Yield (in the aorist tense) (Rom. 6:13, 12:1)

           7.        Lay aside every weight (Heb. 12:1)

           8.        Be in subjection to the Father (Heb. 12:9)

           9.        Lift up the hands that hang down (Heb. 12:12)

           10.      Make straight paths (Matt. 3:3; Heb. 12:13)

           11.      Arise from the dead (Eph. 5:14)

           12.      Put off the old man (Eph. 4:22)

           13.      Acknowledge your iniquity (Jer. 3:13).

VI.       Parallel passages. One of the greatest problems which I have seen in Christian doctrine is, someone finds a passage, interprets that passage in a particular way, and then elevates this passage above every other. Rebound is probably the single most important mechanic found in Scripture (after believing in Jesus Christ for salvation, of course); therefore, it is reasonable that we should expect to find it elsewhere in the Bible.

           1.        Jesus illustrates rebound to Peter, and this is often lost in the English translation. Washing the entire body refers to salvation; washing the feet only refers to the restoration of temporal fellowship. Jesus was going to wash Peter’s feet, which, of course, Peter refused. Then Jesus told him, “If I don’t wash your feet, then you have no part with Me.” Then Peter, always misreading the situation, asked the Lord to wash him completely, and Jesus tells him that he has been completely washed already. John 13:5–11

           2.        “Remain [stay, abide] in Me” is a mandate (imperative mood) spoken by Jesus Christ to the Apostles, and this is related to the production of divine good in John 15:1–7.

           3.        One of the man problems in the Corinthian church was their practice of communion. The problem was, many of them were out of fellowship when taking communion, and, as a result, some became ill and some even died (divine discipline and the sin unto death). Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves correctly, we will not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world (1Cor. 11:27–32). Although, it is important for us to be in fellowship as often as possible, it is particularly important when taking communion. When we are out of fellowship, we are subject to divine discipline, which, for the Corinthians so impacted them that, some died. Paul urged each person to examine himself and to judge himself correctly (i.e., name whatever sins we have committed). If God needs to judge us for these sins, the result would be discipline.

           4.        Lifting holy hands in 1Tim. 2:8. It is not the physical gesture which is being emphasized here, but the lack of mental attitude and verbal sins (without anger and without quarreling).

           5.        In many cases, rebound is combined with spiritual growth (which occurs through the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ). Even some of the passages which are offered here are synonyms for being in fellowship and growing by means of the Spirit and grace. An example of this is Eph. 4:17–24: Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the vacuum of their minds. The word translated vacuum (also rendered futility, moral depravity, vanity) is the technical term mataiotês (ματαιότης). Paul is speaking to believers in this epistle, and obviously to believers who were walking as Gentiles did. Paul uses the word gentile to refer to a heathen unbeliever. When a person rejects Jesus Christ as Savior, their minds will suck in human viewpoint (that is the vacuum) and they will behave in depraved ways (walking as Gentiles). This means that they will operate in systems which are contrary to God’s plan for the human race. Because Paul is speaking to believers, this means that believers can also vacuum in human viewpoint and they can live in such a way as to be indistinguishable from unbelievers. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. As a believer’s soul goes negative, it rejects the truth and pulls in human viewpoint. This covers the soul in darkness so that such a person become alienated from the life of God, which means both being in fellowship and having a productive life. Paul is speaking of believers here, and this is actually very technical here. They have become callous [scar tissue buildup on the soul] and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity [they act like unbelievers]. But that is not the way you learned Christ—assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self [to put off your old self means to lay aside your sin nature; this is they synonym for rebound], which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires [this is spiritual growth through being in fellowship and learning doctrine, which will certainly have an effect on your actions], and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Being renewed in the spirit of your minds means to both be back in fellowship, but to experience spiritual growth as well.

           6.        David spoke of being out of fellowship and being sick because of sinning against God. Psalm 41:3–4

           7.        In a passage which we will cover in more depth, David committed adultery, he had the woman’s husband killed, and then, in a later psalm, said to God, “Against You and You only have I sinned.” See Psalm 51:1–4

           8.        Laying aside every weight. Heb. 12:1: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [we are in the midst of the Angelic Conflict], let us also lay aside every weight [rebound], and sin which clings so closely [through rebound, we lay aside the sin nature, which clings so closely], and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. The final phrase is off point for our topic of rebound, but we are given a specific amount of time on this earth, and this refers to the time constraints.

           9.        The Jews were under the Law of God, but we are under the law of the Spirit of life (which is the principle of rebound).

                       1)        The Law handed down through Moses was much more than the Ten Commandments. The Law of Moses can be broken down into 3 parts:

                                   (1)       Codex #1: The moral law, which includes the Ten Commandments.

                                   (2)       Codex #2: A complete Christology in shadow form. Jesus Christ and His death on the cross is taught over and over again in the Law of Moses, from the Feast Days to the sacrifices offered up by the priests; the priesthood itself, the Tabernacle and the articles of furniture all spoke of Jesus Christ to come. God the Holy Spirit communicated the gospel through these various things to the people of Israel (and those who came to Israel) and they were saved through faith in Jehovah Elohim.

                                   (3)       Codex #3: The social law. Given the time and place of Israel, and the social mores of that day, God delineated laws to govern Israel and the relationships between the people of Israel to one another and to those around them.

                       2)        We are no longer under the Law of Moses. Rom. 7:6 Gal. 2:19 3:13

                       3)        We are under a new law, which includes rebound, and the principles of which are laid out in Rom. 7:14–25 and 8:1–14

                                   (1)       The basic principle of the continued indwelling of the old sin nature and its conflict with the Holy Spirit is laid out in Rom. 7:14–26: What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Paul has already explained that we have been released from the Law of Moses, but this does not means that the Law itself was wrong or weak. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! The Law revealed to Paul that he was a sinner. It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. All believers have the indwelling of the sin nature. In fact, it is inherent in every cell of our being. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Sin in the singular often refers to the sin nature. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being [this is the human spirit], but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. The Holy Spirit within us controls us or our sin nature controls us. As long as we are in this body of sin, we will be subject to this inner conflict.

                                   (2)       Paul deals with this subject matter in a very large context, which is our relationship to the Law of God. He is explaining that we are not under the Law of Moses, but we are under a different law, which begins with rebound, which restores the filling of the Holy Spirit. Rom. 8:1–14: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. The Law of Moses condemns us. If we are under the Law of Moses, then we sin and we are deserving of death. We are now under the law of the Spirit of life, which means that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone—the foundation of our faith—and then we operate in the Christian life by means of God the Holy Spirit. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh [this is salvation by faith in Christ], in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit [this is being in fellowship as opposed to being our of fellowship]. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. When you are filled with the Spirit, you operate in one way; when you are controlled by the sin nature, you operate in a different way. From the outside, we may not be able to easily judge what is occurring, as believers whose sin nature has a trend toward asceticism, can appear to be very religious when out of fellowship. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh [the person controlled by the sin nature] is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot [you cannot, in any way, do that which is divine good when controlled by your sin nature; the best you can do is to act moral and/or religious]. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him [you are either a believer or an unbeliever; you have the Holy Spirit or you do not]. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you [this is living by means of the Spirit]. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Being led by the Spirit of God is another synonym for being in fellowship, for being filled with the Spirit, for walking in the light.

           10.      Eph. 5:14b: Arise, sleeping ones and stand up out of the dead ones, and Christ will shine on you. The context of this passage is fellowship (v. 11) and not unbelievers believing in Christ and being raised from the dead. When we are out of fellowship, it is as if we are sleeping or as if we were dead, as we have no function in the spiritual life.

           11.      Eph. 5:18 (Prov. 23:31): And "do not be drunk with wine," in which is debauchery, but be filled by the Spirit. In the same context is this passage, where we are exhorted to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The mechanics are not given, just the principle. The mention of being drunk with wine simply sets up a contrast between being controlled by wine or being controlled by the Holy Spirit.

VII.      Rebound in the Old Testament:

           1.        In the topic above, I have covered some specific Old Testament passages which deal with rebound.

           2.        Trespass offerings in the Old Testament were about known sins; sin offerings were about unknown (or unrecognized) sins. Lev. 4–5

           3.        The bronze laver taught rebound (Ex. 30:18-21 38:8).

                       1)        The bronze laver was a large bronze basin designed to hold water for the priests to wash their hands and feet. It was made of bronze hand mirrors which had been melted down.

                       2)        The normal function of a hand mirror is to look at oneself.

                       3)        In passages which teach by means of types, bronze portrays judgment.

                       4)        Thus the bronze hand mirrors pictures the self examination aspect of Rebound; in order to confess our sins, we must examine ourselves to determine which, if any, sins we have committed.

                       5)        In actual practice, the Word of God is the mirror through which we are able to correctly examine ourselves.

           4.        Rebound was also taught through the daily trimming of the wicks on the golden lampstand (Ex. 30:7).

                       1)        The lampstand symbolized the Word of God which gives the spiritual light necessary for us to please God (compare PSALM 119:105).

                       2)        When the wicks were trimmed, they were cleaned.

                       3)        The cleaning of the wicks on the lampstand pictured our cleansing through rebound (as it relates to our understanding the Word of God.

                                   (1)       We must be filled with God the Holy Spirit in order to correctly understand and appreciate Bible doctrine.

                                   (2)       The lampstand portrayed the light of the Word of God.

                                   (3)       Rebound is the technique whereby we are filled with God the Holy Spirit.

           5.        National rebound is taught in Lev. 26 and Daniel 9.

VIII.     The results of rebound:

           1.        You recover the filling of the Holy Spirit.

           2.        Your fellowship with God and other believers is restored.

           3.        There is the resumption of your spiritual life.

           4.        Rebound may or may not remove any ongoing divine discipline.

                       1)        There are times when we sin that God does not discipline us before or after we rebound.

                       2)        In some cases, God brings divine discipline upon us to move us toward rebound.

                       3)        If we rebound, and this divine discipline continues, then it continues for our blessing.

                       4)        There are also natural results of sin which can continue, even if we are back in fellowship.

                                   (1)       We might, for instance, gossip about Charlie Brown and his bad taste in shoes; and then, realizing that this is wrong, rebound. However, if this gets back to Charlie Brown, he may feel resentment and act upon it.

                                   (2)       When you break the law, you can name this sin to God and be forgiven, but you may still be arrested and serve a sentence for breaking this law.

                                   (3)       There are sins which build up scar tissue on our souls which make it easier to commit the same sin again. One common example is drug use—if we never use drugs, then our level of temptation is going to be nil. However, for some, if we use drugs, then the temptation to use them again is stronger. A common example of this is alcoholism—some people take themselves to a point with alcohol so that they cannot even have one drink, or it sets them off.

                                   (4)       Sexual sins, such as homosexual acts or adultery, can be more easily avoided if never done in the first place (this is assuming either of these to be among one’s proclivities in the first place).

IX.       Rebound is not victory over sin or carnality, but recovery from same. Obviously, if we sin 15 seconds later (and some of us will), we do not have victory over that sin or group of sins.

X.        Rebound, like salvation, must be a grace operation; that is, there are no works involved or allowed.

           1.        Salvation is faith alone in Christ alone. When Jesus was asked “What should we do, in order to do the works of God?” He answered, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” John 6:28–29. There are many passages of Scripture which tell us that no works are involved in salvation; one of them is Rom. 4:2–8: For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but they are owed to him. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin." (also Gen. 15:6 Psalm 32:1–2).

           2.        This is a logical conclusion when it comes to rebound. If, when we are unbelievers, can only come to God through faith, without any works; then logically, when we are temporally out of fellowship, we also have nothing to offer God in that state. Guilt, regret, penance, and promises logically have no place in restoring our fellowship with God. That means that there is something we can do, some work which we can perform, from a state of carnality, which impresses God so much that He just has to forgive us. God saves us on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross; God forgives us in time on he basis of Christ’s death on the cross; it is not logical for works to be excluded from salvation but not from rebound.

           3.        The key in salvation is faith, in and of itself, has no merit. The merit is what we have faith in. Every person has faith; about 90% of everything that we know is based upon faith. Even those things which we determine rationally and/or empirically have some basis in faith. A scientist knows that, when we add Hydrochloric acid to Sodium Hydroxide, we get salt water. This experiment has been performed over and over again millions of times in science classrooms all over the world; and every teacher expects the same result, because he believes that we live in an ordered universe, and universe which obeys a set of laws.

           4.        In rebound, there is also no credit or merit which we can take in the process. We simply name our sins and God forgives all of our sins, including the ones we did not know were sins. Our forgiveness in time is based upon what our Lord did for us on the cross; it is not based upon our promises, penance, or emotion.

XI.       God coaxes us toward rebound:

           1.        When we sin, and get out of fellowship, God gives us warning discipline.

           2.        God allows natural results to play out, which are not necessarily discipline, but can be just as harsh.

           3.        If a person does not rebound, this discipline is intensified. Heb. 12:5–6 (Prov. 3:11–12): And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? We are disciplined because we are sons of God. "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline [the principle and act of discipline] of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines [warning discipline] the one he loves, and chastises [intensive discipline] every son whom he receives."

                       1)        Allow me a tangent here: we may not like discipline very much when it is happening (that is sort of the point of discipline); but, to draw an analogy, I was spanked several times as a child. At the time, I did not care for it too much. However, in retrospect, knowing my proclivities as a child, I probably did not receive a tenth of the discipline which I deserved.

                       2)        When my parents disciplined me, it was for my good, because simply talking to me did not always work (did it ever?), being the hard-headed child that I was.

                       3)        Therefore, in retrospect, I appreciate the discipline that I received, understanding full-well that it was meant for my benefit, and that it was difficult for my parents to do.

                       4)        Similarly, knowing this, and knowing God’s character, the writer of Hebrews tells us not to despise the act or principle of divine discipline, as God does this for our benefit. Since God is always just and fair, we know that discipline from Him will not be arbitrary or abusive. God’s discipline is a manifestation of His love for us as sons, even while in a state of carnality.

           4.        There are a lot of believers, when under maximum discipline for being out of fellowship, who, even not knowing this doctrine, try a number of things, including naming their sins to God.

                       1)        I have listed these things already: walking down an aisle in a rededication call, crying out to God in pain; and, somewhere along the line, this same believer might actually name these sins to God.

                       2)        The Colonel makes a big deal out of the fact that faith does not play a significant part here. That is, the believer who confesses his sins does not have to also trust God to forgive him his sins. God will forgive these sins if they are named to Him. Some believers, when under strong discipline, almost instinctively name their sins to God. They may not necessarily be thinking of 1John 1:9—and they may not even know that verse—but, when they name their sins to God, even without the expectation (faith) that this will result in their forgiveness, God still forgives them.

                       3)        Forgiveness of sins must be a result of grace. A believer may do a half-dozen things, and also name his sins to God. As long as rebound is not done specifically in conjunction with these other things—which are works—a person is forgiven. Bear in mind, as I have pointed out several times: salvation is a grace operation and rebound is a grace operation. As an unbeliever, there is nothing meritorious that we bring to the table. We are forgiven on the basis of what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us, never because of some good thing we have done or plan to do. Rebound is similarly a grace operation. When we are out of fellowship, there is no good thing which we can do which impresses God enough to restore fellowship to us. The naming of our sins to Him is a nonmeritorious act which is what we do on our ends to gain fellowship with Him; what God has done on His end is all of the work to secure our temporal fellowship with Him (our Lord’s death on the cross).

                       4)        FInally, what about a Catholic going to a priest and confessing his sins to the priest? We have several problems here, even if we are dealing with a saved Catholic (some Catholics are undoubtedly saved—those who place their trust in Jesus Christ alone rather than place their trust in the precepts of their church). There are several problems here.

                                   (1)       There is no specialized priesthood in the Church Age. In the Old Testament, a priest represented the man-ward side of Jesus Christ, and a priest in the Old Testament represented man to God. Now that Jesus Christ has come, we do not need someone else to perform His function as our mediator. We are all priests in the Church Age and we represent ourselves directly to God.

                                   (2)       Some form of penance is often proscribed by the priest. So, God is not forgiving you your sins because of what Christ did on the cross; He is forgiving your sins because of something that you will do to earn forgiveness of sins. That means, your sins are not temporally forgiven and you remain out of fellowship.

           5.        Finally, if we remain out of fellowship, the end result is the sin unto death. This helps to explain a lot of things:

                       1)        There are a number of believers who never rebound, and God takes them out of this life tragically, while people ask, “Why did Charlie Brown have to die so young?” However, this does not mean that all believers taken at a young age are dying the sin unto death. Sometimes, this is their testimony to the world, part of what God have saved them to do.

                       2)        There are also those who seem to live for a long time.

                                   (1)       Some of them are not believers, and therefore not subject to God’s discipline. A person can go to a Christian church and not be saved. It’s happened.

                                   (2)       God keeps some believers around to trip up other believers and to test and to discipline other believers. Many of the problems which I have had in the past were with people I am pretty sure were believers in Jesus Christ.

XII.      False views of Rebound:

           1.        Rebound is a license to sin.

                       1)        This is the main objection of legalism to rebound that state if simple confession of sins effects forgiveness by God, then there is no reason not to sin. See Rom. 3:8

                       2)        That some believers will so abuse the doctrine in no way detracts from its validity. Rom. 6:1,15

                       3)        A believer must deny the lusts of the sin nature if he/she is to make the maturity adjustment to the justice of God as we are commanded to do. 1Pet. 2:11

                       4)        John's stated purpose in writing is that we may not sin, but he teaches that rebound is the answer to sin. 1John 2:1-2

                       5)        Rebound is a license to serve God.

                       6)        The very fact that rebound is not effective if the sin of unforgiveness towards others remains present denotes that it is not a license to sin.

           2.        Confession is not the sole requirement for forgiveness (bear in mind that we are still under the heading, false views of rebound).

                       1)        This is generally espoused by those that want you to feel bad for your sins.

                       2)        They confuse the terms of confession and repent (change of mind) with the concept of penitence or overt expression of feeling sorry.

                       3)        The question in their subjective view must become, "How sorry is sorry enough???"

                       4)        You may or may not feel bad about your failure, but the issue is not how you feel, it is a legal issue about the just demands of God that sins be judged.

           3.        Rebound eliminates divine discipline.

                       1)        This view is popular among those that do not want to accept any consequences for their personal sinning.

                       2)        Their argument is that since Jesus has already been judged for this sin, then God will not judge me if I confess it.

                       3)        They confuse the legal issues with the family issue.

                                   (1)       In a normal family children disobey their parents.

                                   (2)       Their parents forgive their indiscretions, but they may or may not employ discipline as they see fit. Heb. 12:9-10

                                   (3)       They are still functioning members of the family in good standing, albeit sometimes under discipline.

                       4)        King David is a case history that rebound does not eliminate divine discipline. 2Sam. 11–12 Psalm 51

           4.        You must confess your sins to others.

                       1)        This is taught by the Catholic church among others that have developed a non-Biblical hierarchy of priests, etc.

                       2)        They teach the vomit that the priest must intercede for the believer in order for the believer to gain God's forgiveness.

                       3)        This is an affront to the fact that all believers are priests. 1Peter 2:4-5 Rev.1:4-6

                       4)        Others take legitimate verses out of context and distort them to mean things they do not mean in terms of public confession.

                                   (1)       There is a legitimate place for public confession. Jam.5:16; Mat.18:15-17

                                   (2)       In general, the confession is only to be as public as the transgression.

XIII.     False teachings about rebound:

           1.        You need to tell God you are sorry for your sins. The problems with this approach are as follows:

                       1)        How sorry do you have to be?

                       2)        How can you be forgiven for sins that you can't remember, since you can never be sorry for those sins?

                       3)        How can you be sorry for sins that you don't realize are sins when you commit them?

                       4)        How do you measure sorrow, to know if you are sorry enough?

                       5)        How do you know you are forgiven if you can't be sure you are sorry enough?

                       6)        If you commit that sin again, were you really sorry last time you confessed it and said you were?

           2.        Ask God to forgive you. Problems with this approach is the Bible tells us that forgiveness is the faithful and the just response of God to our confession. It is instant and sure. We do not need to ask God to forgive us, and we insult Him by doing so, since God has already promised to forgive us if we merely confess our sins to Him. He doesn't require that we cry, beg, crawl, or in some other way grovel for forgiveness.

           3.        Promise God and yourself to turn away from that sin. Problems with this approach are as follows:

                       1)        How can you KNOW that you will not commit that sin again, especially if you have repeatedly done so in the past?

                       2)        If you promise God that you won't commit a sin again but then do, you've now lied to God, to yourself, and have added even more sin and guilt to yourself.

           4.        Another false teaching is, if you sin against another person, then you need to go to that person, confess your sin to them, and ask them to forgive you Problems with this approach:

                       1)        The Bible tells us that sin is against God alone, as David's confession shows in Psalms 51:3-4.

                       2)        It's not always possible to straighten things out on your own, so leave it to God to handle the other people and circumstances involved.

                       3)        By going to others, you may inadvertently lead them to set in motion a chain of mental attitude sins: hatred, bitterness, gossip, judging, unforgiveness.

           5.        Summary: there is no Biblical requirements that we do these things. Forgiveness is a free gift of God by grace. If we feel sorry about our sins when we confess them, that's fine, but God doesn't require it or base His forgiveness of us on it. If we commit that sin again, we need to confess it again, to restore the filling of the Spirit and our fellowship with God. We need to confess our sins as soon as we are aware we have committed them, as often as we remember or think about it.

XIV.     Failure to rebound will have serious consequences in our spiritual lives, both now and in eternity. This is because we are out of fellowship with God through unconfessed sin:

           1.        We are carnal, not spiritual, having lost the filling of the Holy Spirit and returning control of our lives to our old sin nature (1 Cor. 3:1-3 1 John 1:8,10).

           2.        As carnal believers, we can not please god by anything we do (Romans 8:8).

           3.        Our Prayers are not heard by God, no matter how "sincere" they may be (Psalm 66:18-19; Eph. 6:18; Jude 1:20).

           4.        We will lose many rewards in eternity. The good deeds we perform are human good done through our own power and not by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible calls such works "wood, hay, and stubble" that will be burned at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Only good deeds done while controlled by the Holy Spirit will survive and be rewarded by God as Divine Good (1Cor. 3:11-15 2 Cor. 5:10 Eph. 6:7-8 2John 1:8 Rev. 11:18, 22:12).

           5.        Bible doctrine does not renew our minds, nor can it conform us to the image of christ. The control of the Holy Spirit is essential to learning the Word of God. Without the Holy Spirit, the Bible can only be learned academically, and will soon be forgotten like other academic subjects, with no permanent change to our souls (1Cor. 2 2Cor. 3:18 Rom. 12:1-2 Col. 3:16 Eph. 3:16 5:18 1Pet. 2:2-3 1Tim. 4:15 2Tim. 2:15).

           6.        God will continually discipline us, even ultimately unto death, until such time as we confess our sins and return to fellowship with Him (1Cor. 11:28-32 Heb. 12:5-11 1John 5:16-17).

           7.        Physical weakness, illness, and death can result from regular participation in the Communion table by any believers in carnality. The Bible tells us to examine ourselves before taking part in the Communion table (1Cor. 11:28-32).

XV.      What rebound will not do:

           1.        Rebound is not the same as spiritual growth.

           2.        You can rebound regularly and not grow spiritually.

           3.        You can rebound regularly and still develop scar tissue on your soul.

           4.        Rebound, in and of itself, will not remove scar tissue which has already accumulated on your soul.

           5.        Rebound is absolutely necessary for spiritual growth and for the removal of scar tissue, but rebound is not spiritual growth. It is the first step in these two areas.

           6.        As Peter tells us, believers grow in grace and in knowledge (of Bible doctrine).

                       1)        Grace refers to the grace apparatus for perception.

                       2)        Knowledge refers to learning Bible doctrine, believing Bible doctrine, and living by the Word of God.

           7.        You remove scar tissue of the soul and you grow spiritual by the inhale and exhale of Bible doctrine. The inhale is taking in doctrine and the exhale is your thinking and your application of doctrine to life. In between is the believing the doctrine which you are taught.

XVI.     Being out of fellowship does not cancel God’s logistical grace in our lives.

           1.        We can approach this logically: if God just cast us out to the 4 winds every time we sinned, Satan (or his demon minions) would destroy us. Jesus warned Peter that Satan desired to sift him like wheat.

           2.        We can approach this Biblically. When Elijah the prophet is fleeing from Ahab, he gets out of fellowship in his fear and lack of trust in God. He even says a number of things which are downright silly. However, Jehovah, in a Christophany, guided Elijah to food and water. God provided Elijah with sustenance, even though he was out of fellowship.

XVII.    Being in fellowship is the only way to produce divine good:

           1.        In the upper room discourse, Jesus explains Church Age doctrine to the Apostles (see the Doctrine of Dispensations).

           2.        He explains that the key to producing divine good is to abide in Him in John 15:1–8.

           3.        "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Removing a branch means the sin unto death; pruning a branch means that God takes care of those producing divine good (which can include momentum testing and evidence testing ). Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. The Apostles are believers in Jesus Christ and in fellowship. Abide in Me, and I in you. Abide means to remain and it can refer to a state or condition. It is in the aorist active imperative, meaning that this will occur at various points of time and this is a mandate from Jesus Christ. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. You must remain in Jesus Christ in order to produce fruit; this means, you must be in fellowship with Him. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. You cannot produce divine good apart from abiding in Jesus Christ. If anyone does not abide in Me he is thrown away like a branch and withers [the sin unto death; notice that Jesus taught by repetition]; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Being in fellowship also results in a very productive prayer life. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples. God is glorified when we produce divine good. John 15:1–8

XVIII.   Objections to Rebound

           1.        “Rebound is a license to sin.”

                       1)        Anything can be abused, including God’s grace. However, the believer is under God’s care, observation and discipline. God does not let us get away with anything, although He is much more gracious to us than we can imagine.

                       2)        Rebound is a license to serve God.

           2.        “I have been a believer for 30 years and I have never used rebound.”

                       1)        Most believers in Jesus Christ, no matter how poorly they have been taught, use rebound now and again—usually after they have been out of fellowship for awhile, and commit a couple of heinous sins and shock themselves.

                       2)        It is legitimately frustrating to be involved in a plethora of Christian works, and then realizing that you may have been wasting much of your time. However, a legalist who has suppressed sin as much as possible is better off for not having sinned; they are not better off, however, if they reject rebound.

           3.        “Rebound is too easy.”

                       1)        This is a typical legalistic position.

                       2)        Believers and unbelievers hate grace. We are brought up to believe that we earn what we have; we are brought up to be good. When God simply gives us something without working for it, it goes against how we have been brought up.

                       3)        Rebound, like salvation, is easy for us. We cannot earn or deserve anything from God. There is nothing meritorious that we can do as an unbeliever to impress God enough to save us; and there is nothing meritorious that we can do while out of fellowship which impresses God so much as to restore our fellowship.

                       4)        Rebound, like salvation, is based upon what Christ did for us on the cross. It is free to us, but it was not free to Him.

           4.        Believers tend to reject rebound for two reasons:

                       1)        They have not been using rebound regularly, so this calls into question their Christian lives. As already stated, many believers use rebound, not even realizing that it is a Biblical mechanic.

                       2)        Many believers tend to be legalistic—especially about other believers. I have had other believers who have sinned against me, and I must admit, I don’t like the idea that they can just confess that sin and it is taken care of. I would much rather that God kick their butts around the block for the next few months, and to let me watch. However, if they name their sins to God, they are forgiven. It applies to me and it applies to them. And so that you don’t walk around with a lot of bitterness toward other believers who have wronged you: I have been cheated by believers to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars; however, God has also blessed me financially far more than I ever could have imagined. My point being, you do not have to worry about God’s justice, what another believer does to you, and will you get your proper revenge. What you do need to do is, if you’re mad or upset, then get back into fellowship by rebound. Then let God sort the rest out. God knows all the facts and He has all of the resources. And just so there is no misunderstanding, no matter how someone else has sinned against you, you must forgive them (Matt. 6:15 Mark 11:26). This does not mean that you track them down, list all of the sins they committed against you and forgive them one by one. You simply name whatever mental attitude sins that you are carrying around against them, and put the matter in God’s capable hands.

Addendum

The origin of the term rebound. R. B. Thieme Jr.’s ministry emphasized a number of things: the importance of the study of the Word of God, the importance of the mechanics of the Christian life; and Bob developed a unique vocabulary which helped to classify, explain or clarify certain Christian doctrines and mechanics. Bob likened the Christian life to a basketball game; some shots go into the basket, but others miss, and the key to making the shot is catching the ball off the rim or backboard, and rebounding the shot. The ability to rebound is the difference between being a winner or a loser in the Christian life. This particular book, and Bob’s more lengthy explanation for this term, is found at: http://www.rbthieme.org/Rebound_and_Keep_Moving!.pdf (p. 7). This is, by the way, a 56 page online publication, which goes into this subject in even greater detail than I have. This particular publication also goes into much greater detail about the sin nature, the lust pattern of the soul, the classifications of sin, chain-sinning, etc. I primarily wanted to cover the mechanics.

There is an excellent list of this and other terms on this website:

http://www.lakeeriebiblechurch.org/Glossary/GlossaryofTerms.pdf

Another set of terms may be found at:

http://www.bibledoctrinechurch.org/?subpages/GLOSSARY.shtml

The Exegesis of 1John 1:4–10:

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                          And these things we write to you, that you may rejoice and your joy may be full. I am using the Rheims New Testament, which is a Catholic translation from the Latin. The actual Latin may be slightly different.

Murdock’s Syriac Peshito      And these things we write to you, that our joy in you may be complete.

Literal Greek                          And these we are writing [even] we, that the joy of ours might be filled.

Significant differences:           The Vulgate adds a few additional words, which do not affect the meaning of this verse.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       We are writing to tell you these things, because this makes us truly happy.

The Message                         Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!

New Century Version             We write this to you so we may be full of joy. Some Greek copies read "so you may be full of joy."

New Living Testament           We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy. Or so that our joy may be complete; some manuscripts read your joy.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

Easy English Bible                 We are writing so that together we may be completely happy.

God’s Word™                         We are writing this so that we can be completely filled with joy.

New International Version      .

The Scriptures 1998              And we write this to you in order that your joy might be complete.

Williams                                 ...and now we write these things to you to make our joy complete.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

The Amplified Bible                And we are now writing these things to you so that our joy [in seeing you included] may be full [and your joy (many ancient manuscripts read your joy) may be complete].

A Conservative Version         And we write these things to you, so that our joy may be made full.

English Standard Version      And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

New King James Version       And these things we write to you that your [NU-Text and M-Text read our] joy may be full.

WEB                                      And we write these things to you, that our joy may be fulfilled.

Young's Literal Translation     ...and these things we write to you, that your joy may be full.

What is the gist of this verse? .

Translation: We write these things so that our joy might be made complete. John writes this near the end of his life. It is possible that God brought John to the Isle of Patmos, where he was banished to, in order to complete his writings. By this time, Paul, James and Peter had all written epistles and these epistles were circulating throughout the churches; and the authority of these men had been clearly established. John is either using the word we to indicate himself along with other Apostles; or he is dictating to a secretary, who is not named, or he is simply using the editorial we. Given that John sticks with the 1^st person plural throughout 1John 1, but switches to the 1^st person singular in chapter 2, makes me think that John is going over a familiar doctrine which he and the other Apostles had taught many times. Another, even more likely explanation is, throughout this first chapter, John speaks of things which are true of him and his readers. He stays with the 1^st person plural throughout this chapter simply to be consistent.

This final explanation also helps to explain the phrase our joy. It is unlikely that John is hanging out with a plethora of believers where he is writing. If he is writing from the Isle of Patmos, it is unclear if there are any other believers with authority with him. However, if we understand his continual use of the 1^st person plural to refer to himself and to his audience, then what he is about to explain affects the happiness of both John and his readers.

What John is writing covers a great deal more than simply rebound. He speaks of being an eyewitness to the Word of Life (Jesus Christ) in the first two verses, and he speaks of having fellowship with same in v. 3. So, the idea is, John’s readers receive joy when learning the Bible doctrine which he is teaching in this epistle. John himself receives joy in the function of his spiritual gift (Apostleship) and by helping to bring joy to the recipients of this letter.

The Bible speaks of joy and happiness quite often. Now, a man might sleep around, and even father a few children while doing so. During the act of sleeping around, this man experiences some pleasure and some stimulation. However, after the fact, when it is over, he is not particularly happy or joyous. In fact, I had a roommate at one time, who shared the fact that, once he was done, he could hardly wait for the woman to leave. If such a one fathers some children in these casual relationships, he is not going to develop much of a relationship with them. Even if he does, there is going to be bitterness between himself and the woman (or women) involved. So, he has pleasure, he is stimulated, and, at some point, it comes to an end. People get drunk or use drugs, and, for a certain amount of time, they enjoy a little pleasure and stimulation; but, this comes to an end. Furthermore, each time the pleasure is pursued, it is often not quite as fun as the first time. There is often this law of diminishing returns with drunkenness or with getting high.

The Bible, on the other hand, speaks of joy and happiness which is longer lasting. If you marry a woman that you love, not only is there going to be pleasurable sex, but it will bring you closer together. Prior to sex, you have developed a bond and a commitment to one another, and the sex has more meaning beyond simple gratification. When you wake up the next day, and your wife is next to you, that is a good experience. You are glad that she is there. When you have children, this is a shared experience of happiness which continues for a long time.

I know one guy who spent much of his life chasing after pleasure, but, at some point, did get married. He had mellowed out somewhat in marriage, and seemed to like it alright. And then they had kids. Suddenly, this aspect of marriage was even more fun; he could enjoy his children for long periods of time. God is not against happiness and God did not set up a variety of laws and mandates in order to keep us from having fun; God sets up these boundaries that, when we stay within the boundaries, our joy is fulfilled.

Sports, for some, provide great entertainment. However, there are a set of rules, and we like to see the rules applied equally to both teams and to all team members. If during a play in a football game, the quarterback ran out of bounds, into the stands, eluding those who pursued him, and then made his way across the goal line, we would not be very happy to see this scored as a valid touchdown. If the quarterback, on the 4^th down, suddenly jumped into a monster truck and drove to the goal line, we might get a little less enthusiastic about the game. If the locals carried guns and shot the players of the opposing team, there would be less enjoyment in the game for the spectator. The key to enjoying a sporting event is, there are specific rules that the players must adhere to. In fact, in this past year, the uproar in the sport world has been various players using enhancement drugs to increase their size, strength and coordination. Most people are none too happy about this, and few have any idea as to how to record their accomplishments in the record books now.

My point in this is, there are rules and boundaries—all of which God is fully aware—and He knows what is going to make our lives more joyful and more fulfilling. The Apostle John conveys some of these rules to us, with the intent that our joy might be fulfilled.

Before I proceed to the next verse, let me point out the Christians today have become sloppy in their thinking and casual in their actions. God has a protocol system designed for us, and the intent is, that our joy might be fulfilled.

God’s protocol plan is a rigid, long-established code and procedure, prescribing complete deference to superior rank and authority, followed by strict adherence to due order and precedence, coupled with precisely correct procedure. A lot of believers do not like this, but they may not realize why they don’t like it. It is in our nature to be against God, so we may read something like this and think, well, that’s just legalism. It actually has nothing to do with legalism; but it does have to do with God’s procedures, which He has clearly outlined in His Word and it has to do with authority orientation, something which we believers often lack. John, in this chapter, is going to give us some precisely correct procedure which all believers need to adhere to. You may or may not like it, but that says something about you, not about John.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                          And this is the declaration which we have heard from him and declare unto you: That God is light and in him there is no darkness. Since I am not looking at the Latin directly, it is unclear whether the final two words of the Greek are not found in the Latin or perhaps the translators simply left them out.

Murdock’s Syriac Peshito      And this is the announcement, which we have heard from him and declare to you, that God is light, and no darkness at all is in him..

Literal Greek                          And is this the message which we have heard from [the ultimate source of] Him and we announce to you that the God light is and darkness not is in Him not is none.

Significant differences:           None.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       Jesus told us that God is light and doesn't have any darkness in him. Now we are telling you.

The Message                         This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there's not a trace of darkness in him.

New Living Testament           This is the message we heard from Jesus [literally, from him] and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

Complete Apostles’ Bible      And this is the message which we have heard from Him and we announce to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

Easy English Bible                 Jesus Christ gave us a message and this is the message: God is good and clean like light. There is nothing dark about him.

God’s Word™                         This is the message we heard from Christ and are reporting to you: God is light, and there isn't any darkness in him.

New International Version      .

Weymouth                              This is the Message which we have heard from the Lord Jesus and now deliver to you--God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness.

Williams                                 And this is the message that we have heard from Him and now announce to you: God is light, and there is no darkness at all in Him.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

The Amplified Bible                And this is the message [Vincent’s Word Studies: the message of promise] which we have heard from Him and now are reporting to you: God is Light, and there is no darkness in Him at all [literal translation: no, not in any way].

LTHB                                     And this is the message which we have heard from Him, and we proclaim to you: God is light, and no darkness is in Him, none!.

MKJV                                     And this is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

Young's Updated LT              And this is the message that we have heard from Him, and announce to you, that God is light, and [there] is no darkness in Him at all.

What is the gist of this verse? .

Translation: And this is the message which we have heard from Him, [which message] we communicate to you, that God is light and [there] is no darkness in Him; [there is] no [darkness in Him]—none. John is emphatic in this point, using 3 negatives at the end of this verse. Therefore, we ought to determine what he is so emphatic about. The positive side is, God is light. The word light (φς) is also used to mean perfection, truth; a dispenser of truth; splendor, glory; purity. God being associated with light is a fascinating thing for an old religious guy from the 1^st century to say. Today, we know that light contains all of the colors, and that when light is put upon an object, that object will absorb some colors and the colors which it reflects is the color we see. We don’t see the light, per se, but the light reveals the colors of the object the light shines upon.

The crux of the Angelic Conflict is the indivisible, consistent essence of God. Is God really just and righteous, without sacrificing His essence of love? When you shine God’s light upon any person or situation, different things are reflected. We do not see all that God is in each and every circumstance. Sometimes, it is His justice and righteousness that we see reflected; sometimes, we see His love reflected (God is also eternal life, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, but we won’t deal with His entire essence here). Now, interestingly enough, sometimes His light reveals a number of His attributes, although we may not recognize all of them. For instance, when God calls for the death of this or that group of people in the Old Testament, we may perceive a vengeful God, even though this actually reflects His justice, righteousness and love. For instance, today, there are a significant number of Muslims whose hatred is so great that, they would sacrifice the lives of their own sons and daughters in order to make a political statement. We are not talking about a handful of people here, we are talking about possibly millions of Muslims whose lives are consumed by outrage and hatred. On their television stations, they broadcast hatred and violence, intentionally making these things palatable for their own children in cartoons and children’s entertainment. God’s love, justice and righteousness would be revealed if he wiped these types out. When this happens, some of us might view it as a tragedy or as some act of inhumanity; however, such an act will reveal God’s love for the rest of the human race.

Application: God requires the execution of certain types of criminals, and He does this out of love. We may only see the justice and righteousness here, but execution of criminals not only acts as a deterrent, but guarantees beyond a shadow of a doubt that the executed criminal will never commit another crime.

Back to the topic at hand: Since God is light, and because there is no darkness—none whatsoever—in Him, then there are no half-way measures. God does not approve of things which are just pretty good. God does not even have contact with people or actions which are mostly good or even overwhelmingly good. In Him is no darkness; none whatsoever. Zero. Zilch. I don’t know about you, but I don’t measure up to this. Well, as a matter of fact, I do know about you—you don’t measure up to this either.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                          If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.

Murdock’s Syriac Peshito      And if we say that we have fellowship with him, and we walk in the darkness, we are liars, and walk not in the truth.

Literal Greek                          If we say that fellowship we have with Him and in the darkness we walk, we lie and we do not the truth.

Significant differences:           None. Murdock renders the verb from the Hebrew as to be and a predicate nominative. I don’t know if the Peshito reads that way. There is no apparent difference in meaning, however.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       If we say that we share in life with God and keep on living in the dark, we are lying and are not living by the truth.

The Message                         If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we're obviously lying through our teeth--we're not living what we claim.

New Life Version                    If we say we are joined together with Him but live in darkness, we are telling a lie. We are not living the truth.

New Living Testament           So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

Complete Apostles’ Bible      If we claim that we have fellowship with Him, and we are walking in the darkness, we are lying, and are not practicing the truth.

Easy English Bible                 Now, someone may say that he is united to God. But he may still do things that do not please God. Then what he says is not true. He is living as if he were in the dark. What he does shows that he does not want to obey God's rules.

God’s Word™                         If we say, "We have a relationship with God" and yet live in the dark, we're lying. We aren't being truthful.

NIRV                                      Suppose we say that we share life with God but still walk in the darkness. Then we are lying. We are not living by the truth.

New International Version      If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

The Amplified Bible                [So] if we say we are partakers together and enjoy fellowship with Him when we live and move and are walking about in darkness, we are [both] speaking falsely and do not live and practice the Truth [which the Gospel presents].

LTHB                                     If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and we walk in darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth.

WEB                                      If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and don't tell the truth.

Young’s Updated LT             If we may say—“we have fellowship with Him,” and in the darkness may walk—we lie, and do not the truth;...

What is the gist of this verse? .

Translation: If we say that we have fellowship [or, close, personal interaction] with Him and [yet] we walk in darkness [ignorance, ungodliness], [then] we are lying and we are not practicing truth. We continue with the theme of absolutes. In the previous verse, God is light and in Him in no darkness—none; so we cannot claim to have a close, personal relationship with Him if we walk in darkness. At this point, you have to be clear as to what John is saying: he is not talking about sinless perfection throughout your entire life; but he is speaking of sinless perfection for periods of your life. Now, this is no time to work up some concept of active self righteousness, and try to organize your life so that everyone else can see what a self righteous prig you are. Sinless perfection is not a facade and it is not an act. It is something which we achieve for limited periods of time: sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for a few minutes, and sometimes for several hours (as long as we are not interacting with people).

We first introduce in this verse, the concept of fellowship with God (Who is the closest masculine singular noun to the pronoun Him). This refers to an intimate, close personal relationship or interaction with God. Again, this is not the time to try to figure out what looks really holy and then imitate that. I once went to a church where the pastor and his wife had strong personalities, and several of the females of the church practiced the vocal mannerisms and vocabulary of the wife. At the church where I go, Berachah, when R. B. Thieme Jr. was the pastor, there were rumors that some people attempted to imitate his gruff, military personality. I did not meet any of these people, but guaranteed, had Bob run into one of these people thinking that imitating him was some sort of a spiritual breakthrough, he would have said, “Now what kind of a jackass are you?” Well, actually, he wouldn’t; but he would have doubled up on teaching that personality transformation and icon imitation are not valid methods of spirituality. At best, they represent ignorance of the Christian life; at worst, such actions can indicate some form of psychosis or identity dissociation. Or, the Apostle John would call it, walking in darkness.

The word darkness is used metaphorically here, and we find metaphorical uses of words throughout Scripture. Interpreting the Bible literally does not mean that we hold to the literal rendering of each and every word. When recounting my visit to the church of spirituality by imitation, I might have said to someone, “And I could not believe it; all these women in the church were talking exactly like the pastor’s wife.” Now, in fact, I saw it with my own eyes, and I did believe it; but I say I could not believe it to emphatically point out their goofiness. And, if I said those words to most people with an IQ over room temperature, they would understand that I am speaking in hyperbole and not being literal about not being able to believe what I saw, as if it were some sort of grand hallucination. We speak this way all the time. We get caught up in rush hour traffic and there is an accident, and we walk through the door of our home, hours later, and say, “I thought I would never get home!” Hell, if we thought that, we would have pulled over and pitched a tent, rented a room, lived in our car. The Bible is written by normal men. They use figures of speech. Bullinger wrote a great 1000 page book about all of the figures of speech which are found in the Bible. There is nothing mysterious about these figures of speech; you do not need to learn some secret handshake to get into a secret classroom to learn these figures of speech; they are just words used in such a way that we know instinctively not to take them literally. This is one of the reasons we learn under a pastor-teacher and this is one of the reasons a pastor-teacher ought to have some familiarity with the original languages. When we come to a passage which refers to walking in darkness, that we do not think that a person is literally walking around outside after dark without a flashlight. In fact, John is not even referring to literally walking around, even though that is the literal meaning of this verb. Peripateô refers to conducting one’s life; it refers to what we do day-in and day-out; it is a chunk out of our lives.

So, what John is saying is, we are conducting our lives in spiritual darkness. You cannot lay claim to having an intimate relationship with God and, at the same time, conduct your life in spiritual darkness. The verses which follow will more carefully define what it means to walk in darkness, but to give you a basic preview, God is perfect and as long as we are perfect, we enjoy fellowship with Him. We lose this perfection by sin (which could be anything, even something which is not observable, like a moment of doubt, fear or anger). Suddenly, we are walking in darkness. This doesn’t mean that we have become drug dealers and we drive around shooting people. There does not have to be this great transformation of life. In Him is no darkness; none. John is speaking in absolutes: we walk in darkness or we walk in light; God is light, and there is no darkness in Him. We cannot claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness; when we do that, we are lying and not living the truth.

As we will find out, the key to all of this is sin and the confession of sin. If John simply stopped writing at this point, we might be uncertain as to exactly what he was trying to tell us. However, he continues to explain himself in this epistle, so that we will fully understand what he is saying to us.

It is important to note that we have several absolutes in this passage, both stated and implied: walking in the light vs. walking in darkness; having fellowship with God vs. not having fellowship with God; fellowship with other believers vs. not having fellowship with other believers; telling the truth and living the truth vs. lying and not practicing the truth; being cleansed from sin vs. not being cleansed from sin. Although this passage does not mention being filled with the Holy Spirit (nor does it mention quenching the Spirit), given all of these absolutes, it makes little sense to walk in the light and to have fellowship with God, and, at the same time, not being filled with the Spirit. It makes little sense to say that we are lying and walking in darkness, and yet, filled with the Holy Spirit.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                          But if we walk in the light, as he also is in the light, we have fellowship one with another: And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. I quote from the Rheims New Testament, which is a Catholic translation from the Latin. The actual Latin may be slightly different.

Murdock’s Syriac Peshito      But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all our sins. This is a Literal Translation from the Syriac Peshito Version made by James Murdock made in 1852.

Literal Greek                          But if in the light we walk, as He [even] He is in the light, fellowship we have with one another and the blood of Jesus of the Son of Him cleanses us from all sin.

Significant differences:           None, except the Murdock puts sin in the plural at the end. My own English version of the Peshitta has sin in the singular as well, which indicates to me that Murdock was simply putting his own spin on the translation.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       But if we live in the light, as God does, we share in life with each other. And the blood of his Son Jesus washes all our sins away.

Good News Bible (TEV)         But if we live in the light—-just as he is in the light—-then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin.

The Message                         But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God's Son, purges all our sin.

New Life Version                    If we live in the light as He is in the light, we share what we have in God with each other. And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, makes our lives clean from all sin.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

Bible in Basic English             But if we are walking in the light, as he is in the light, we are all united with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son makes us clean from all sin.

Easy English Bible                 But when we do right things, it is like living in the light. God is always in the light. (He always does what is good and right.) When we live like this we are really united together. The death of Jesus, the Son of God makes us clean. He removes sin from us and he makes us clean in front of God.

God’s Word™                         But if we live in the light in the same way that God is in the light, we have a relationship with each other. And the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from every sin.

NIRV                                      But suppose we walk in the light, just as he is in the light. Then we share life with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his Son, makes us pure from all sin.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

The Amplified Bible                But if we [really] are living and walking in the Light, as He [Himself] is in the Light, we have [true, unbroken] fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses (removes) us from all sin and guilt [keeps us cleansed from sin in all its forms and manifestations].

LTHB                                     But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of His Son Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

Young’s Updated LT             And if in the light we may walk, as He is in the light—we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from every sin.

What is the gist of this verse? .

Translation: However, if we walk in the light, just as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Again, we observe the absolute of walking in the light, just as He is in the light. Having fellowship with one another refers to legitimate interaction, free from sin. Let me see if I can explain this: you are interacting with someone, but you want something from them: you want their business, you want some of their money, you want them to agree with you on this or that topic, you want to have sex with them, and much of your conversation is manipulation to get them to give you whatever you want. That is not fellowship. You hand out your real estate card to people you just meet; that is not fellowship. You ask a gal out on a date, but you have no real interest in her thoughts; that is not fellowship. You take someone out for drinks in order to get them to hire your firm; that is not fellowship. Fellowship with another person means, you do not have any mental attitude sins toward them (you are not envious, mad, plotting revenge) and you do not want something from them.

Application: Let’s just take this a step further. You are on a job interview. Isn’t it legitimate to manipulate them into hiring you? No. You state the facts. You are relaxed. You don’t have to lie; you don’t have to beef up your resume, you do not have to be someone whom you are not. This doesn’t mean that you cannot be enthusiastic, this does not mean that you cannot state your good points, and this does not mean that you cannot want the job; but, you do not sin in order to get the job. You are honest and you put this in the Lord’s hands.

Back to the focus of this verse: walking in the light indicates absolute purity. Now, you and I both know that, in the past hour or two, we probably sinned. That is not purity. Between the time that we became believers in Jesus Christ and now, we have not been pure. So, how do we achieve that status? That is what this chapter is all about. That is how we can walk in the light; and it is how we can have fellowship with one another. John, although he has not yet stated the mechanics, states the principle: ...the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all (guilt from) sin.

Let’s deal with the word sin. Unfortunately, it is becoming rapidly an old world term, and, in our society, we have associated sin with judgment, and there are many in our society who know one thing out of the Bible: it is wrong to judge; it is wrong to pass judgment on someone. And they will hang on to that like a terrier will hang on to his favorite toy. In this ongoing election (I write this in 2007), I have seen commentators bring up religious issues and ask things like, “Well, I don’t believe in Jesus; am I going to hell? Is God going ot send me to hell?” They are trying to set up the other person to either violate society’s rules or to violate the doctrines of your own faith, which they already know. If you tell them, “Yes, you are going to spend eternity in hell” then, all of a sudden, you are mean, judgmental, narrow-minded, a religious bigot, and intolerant...societal norms carefully set up by Satan to denigrate God’s plan.

Sin does not always refer to the actual transgression which we commit; sin can also refer to the sin nature which we all have; and it can refer to the guilt from violating God’s laws. In fact, very often when we find sin in the singular, it does not refer to a particular act of sin, but to a related concept, as we have here—the guilt for sin. When we are saved, we are forgiven of all of our sins, past, present and future. So, after salvation, does this mean that we can go out and sin to our heart’s delight? Of course not! (I am stealing a few lines from the book of Romans). God has a just system in place to deal with these things. For the unbeliever, faith in Christ results in eternal salvation and the forgiveness of all sin—past, present and future. However, once we become believers in Jesus Christ, then we face the issue of sin every single day—for some of us, every single minute. Now, can God just simply ignore sin, because He has forgiven us for these sins? That would be incompatible with His essence. Therefore, we have a system in time, for believers, by which we can deal with sin. It is at this point where people go awry. You commit a sin, and you need to feel just how bad it was. We do not have a clue as to how awful and ugly sin is; and we will never feel as badly as sin would reasonably require. Furthermore, that is a system of works, and for the person who is an unbeliever or for the person who is not in fellowship, a system of works is incompatible with grace. Just like the unbeliever cannot become a Christian through a system of works; the believer who is out of fellowship cannot get back into fellowship via a system of works. You may commit a sin and you feel terrible about it. I’ve done things in my past—way back in my past—and when I think about those things, I feel badly about them. However, those sins were all forgiven, and, by feeling badly about them, I am out of fellowship if I feel guilty, and I have to get back into fellowship (which is what this chapter is all about). Whatever is not of faith is sin.

Bear in mind, Satan’s plan works on several levels: he wants to keep men from being saved, and will do everything in his power to blind us to the gospel. He will do everything in his power to affect the doctrine of churches, so that salvation becomes a 2 or 3 or 4 or 10 step process. He will continually try to make you think that works are required in order to be saved; or to convince you that you have been just too bad to be saved; or convicne you that such a thing is not important (remember the Who song, with the lyrics “I don’t need to be forgiven, yeah yeah yeah yeah”). Satan does not just stop there. After we are saved, he does everything that he can do to impede our progress and to keep us out of fellowship.

This doctrine of rebound is simple, straightforward, and the basis for all Christian service and fellowship (with God and with man). Why is it not the first thing taught in every single church? For the new believer, this is the first thing that they need to learn. However, if you grab the nearest believer who has been going to church for 20 years, and ask him “How do you get out of fellowship and how do you get back into fellowship?” you are going to get the weirdest answers you have ever heard. Furthermore, when you explain rebound to a person who has been a believer for 10 years, many times they will reject it. Why? Because they have not been using this method regularly; because they don’t want to take in the clear teaching of the Word of God.

Let me go off on another tangent. When I first heard the Word of God being taught, and taught carefully and correctly, my interest was piqued. Now, the person I was listening to, R. B. Thieme Jr., pissed me off; I didn’t like him; I didn’t want to agree with him; but, I had to admit that what he was saying made sense and comported well with Scripture. Idiot that I was, I figured, all I need to do is turn other believers onto verse by verse, categorical teaching, and they will react like I did. They may not like the man, but they are certainly going to embrace the teaching, which was more than 3 points, a poem and a closing prayer. Wrong. I learned over and over again, the last thing that believers want after salvation is the Word of God taught carefully.

The same thing is true of doctrines like rebound. Believers will hear such doctrines and reject them out of hand, simply because, Satan (actually, his minions) do everything they can to throw believers off their game from the very beginning.

John uses extremely simple Greek. He rarely gets fancy. Even though he may have a general theme or point which he is trying to get across, and does so over several verses, he does not, like Paul, carry a carefully crafted, logical argument for a dozen verses. John is going to simply lay it out for us: Now, there will be some interpretation involved, as he will use the same word to mean slightly different things at time. Here, for instance, John uses the word sin to actually mean the guilt for sin. In v. 8, he will use this same word to refer to the old sin nature. In v. 9, he will use the same word in the plural to refer to transgressions which we have committed against God. However, the context is generally quite clear. Now, even if you want to go against the work of Zodhiates or Balz and Schneider or Thayer, which each expert in the field of Greek points out that this same word can refer to a number of different but related meanings; and even if you want to say, “A sin is a sin is a sin.” That’s fine. You want to be hard-headed, I have not problem with that. The mechanics will be the same: name your sins to God and God temporally forgives you (you have already been forgiven eternally for your sins). When I explain this verse and this passage, I simply endeavor to lay out some of the nuances of the Greek which have been recognized for hundreds of years by a multitude of scholars.

There is a clause found in many contracts called severable clauses. What this means is, let’s say one clause of your contract is found to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable; this does not nullify the entire contract, just that one clause. Along the same lines, you may occasionally come across something that you do not like, like the idea that the same word can mean sin, guilt for sin, sin nature. That’s fine. Just set that thought aside and go back to it later when you come to your senses. Meanwhile, you can proceed, being willing to take in what God wants us to know in this epistle. You can hold onto the notion a sin is a sin is a sin for as long as you need to, and still understand what John is saying here: when we walk in darkness, when we are out of fellowship, and when we have sinned, the way to get back into fellowship, the way to walk in the light, and the way to have that sin forgiven is, to name it to God. That is what rebound is and that is where John is taking us in this chapter.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                          If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. I quote from the Rheims New Testament, which is a Catholic translation from the Latin. The actual Latin may be slightly different.

Murdock’s Syriac Peshito      And if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. This is a Literal Translation from the Syriac Peshito Version made by James Murdock made in 1852.

Literal Greek                          If we say that sin we have not, ourselves we lead astray and the truth is not in us.

Significant differences:           None.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       If we say that we have not sinned, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth isn't in our hearts.

Good News Bible (TEV)         If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us.

The Message                         If we claim that we're free of sin, we're only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense.

NET Bible®                             If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

New Life Version                    If we say that we have no sin, we lie to ourselves and the truth is not in us.

New Living Testament           If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

Bible in Basic English             If we say that we have no sin, we are false to ourselves and there is nothing true in us.

Easy English Bible                 We may say that we never do wrong things. But then, we are making a mistake. We may really believe that we never sin. Then we do not understand that God's words are true.

God’s Word™                         If we say, "We aren't sinful" we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

NIRV                                      Suppose we claim we are without sin. Then we are fooling ourselves. The truth is not in us.

New International Version      If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

The Scriptures 1998              If we say that we have no sin, we are misleading ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Weymouth                              If we claim to be already free from sin, we lead ourselves astray and the truth has no place in our hearts.

Williams                                 If we claim "We are already free from sin," we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in our hearts.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

The Amplified Bible                If we say we have no sin [refusing to admit that we are sinners], we delude and lead ourselves astray, and the Truth [which the Gospel presents] is not in us [does not dwell in our hearts].

LTHB                                     If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Young’s Updated LT             If we may say—“we have not sin,” we lead ourselves astray, and the truth is not in us.

What is the gist of this verse? .

Translation: If we say that we have no sin, [then] we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Notice that we have the same word sin in this verse, but it is used in a slightly different way. It is in the singular accusative, meaning that it is the object for the verb. However, we do not have the verb to do, to practice; we have instead the very common verb to have (with the negative). So, in this case, sin is treated as a possession rather than as something that we do. For this reason, sin here refers to the sin nature, sometimes call the old sin nature. The sin nature is something which we possess. Our sin nature tempts us to sin and to perform acts of human good. This does not mean that we are at the mercy of our sin natures; but simply that it is an enemy within. In the 1950's and 1960's, we have Communists within the state department, in very high level jobs. These were not simply Communist sympathizers or armchair Communists, but real Communists who saw our democracy and free enterprise economy as evil, and as something which needed to be brought down. Having these Communists within our state department did not automatically mean that the United States would be toppled by Communism; but, things did occur and secrets were given out, which were detrimental to us. The sin nature acts in much the same way. The sin nature seeks to betray us. The sin nature seeks to lure us into doing wrong; the sin nature seeks to justify all that we do. The sin nature also has an area of strength from which human good is produced.

What John is about to do is to explain how we can walk in the light; he is going to tell us how we can enjoy fellowship with His Son and with one another. However, he has to dispense with a false doctrine which had apparently been making the rounds in Christian circles: the idea that, after salvation, someone no longer sins because they no longer have a sin nature. The reasoning might be, if we really believe in Jesus Christ, then we will not sin; and God will cleanse us completely of sin, which includes our sin nature. There is no Biblical basis for this. The best examples are the Corinthians, who are probably the most carnal of all the churches that Paul wrote to, and yet he called them sanctified and indicated that they had been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. However, in 1Cor. 11, Paul also speaks of the Corinthians getting out of fellowship and needing to judge themselves (1Cor. 11:31). If these are sanctified believers with the Holy Spirit, then it should be obvious that they possess sin natures, given all the things which they do.

So, in preparation for teaching the rebound technique, John points out that, If we say we do not possess a sin nature, then we are simply deceiving ourselves (or leading ourselves astray) and that the truth (Bible doctrine) is not in us. Therefore, you cannot object to the mechanic of rebound on the basis that, you no longer have a sin nature after salvation.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                          If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity. I quote from the Rheims New Testament, which is a Catholic translation from the Latin. The actual Latin may be slightly different.

Murdock’s Syriac Peshito      But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all our iniquity. This is a Literal Translation from the Syriac Peshito Version made by James Murdock made in 1852.

Literal Greek                          If we acknowledge the sins of ours faithful He is and just that He sent away for us sins and He made clean from all guile.

Significant differences: 

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       But if we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away.

Good News Bible (TEV)         But if we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do what is right: he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing.

The Message                         On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won”t let us down; he”ll be true to himself. He”ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.

NET Bible®                             But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness..

New Century Version             But if we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins, because we can trust God to do what is right. He will cleanse us from all the wrongs we have done.

New Life Version                    If we tell Him our sins, He is faithful and we can depend on Him to forgive us of our sins. He will make our lives clean from all sin.

New Living Testament           But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

Bible in Basic English             If we say openly that we have done wrong, he is upright and true to his word, giving us forgiveness of sins and making us clean from all evil.

Easy English Bible                 But if we tell God about our sins then he will forgive us. He will take away from us all our sins. God is true and fair. So, he will do what he promised. And he will do what is right.

God’s Word™                         God is faithful and reliable. If we confess our sins, he forgives them and cleanses us from everything we've done wrong.

NIRV                                      But God is faithful and fair. If we admit that we have sinned, he will forgive us our sins. He will forgive every wrong thing we have done. He will make us pure..

NIV – UK                                If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Williams                                 If we confess our sins, He is to be depended on, since He is just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from every wrong.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

The Amplified Bible                If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just (true to His own nature and promises) and will forgive our sins [dismiss our lawlessness] and [continuously] cleanse us from all unrighteousness [everything not in conformity to His will in purpose, thought, and action].

A Conservative Version         If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous so that he will forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from every unrighteousness.

MKJV                                     If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Thieme                                   If we name our sins He is faith [He always does it—never gets exasperated] and absolute righteousness to forgive us the sins we name and to purify us from all wrongdoing.

Young's Updated LT              If we may confess our sins, He is steadfast and righteous that He may forgive us the sins, and may cleanse us from every unrighteousness.

What is the gist of this verse? .

Translation: If we acknowledge our sins, He is faithful and just so that He forgives us [our] sins and He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. This verse should jump right out at you. 1John 1:6, 8, 10 all begin with, “If we say...” We have another speaking verb, so to speak, but it means something else entirely. The key word here is the first verb, which is homologeô (ὁμολογέω) [pronounced hoh-moh-loh-GEH-oh]. Although I have given the definition above, let me give a summary of the doctrine of this word:

Homologeô is in the present active subjunctive. The present tense is the iterative present, where we name our sins on a regular basis. It does not occur once, but many times, and, from a distance, for some people, it may even seem to be a continuous process. The active voice means that this is something which we must do ourselves. These are grace mechanics, but mechanics which require our volition. The subjunctive mood means, maybe we will and maybe we won’t. This goes along with the 3^rd class condition for a conditional, which is the condition of options—maybe we will and maybe we won’t.

What we are to name or acknowledge or to agree to are our sins. This word is in the plural, so the implication is, we may commit several sins before rebounding. David’s case history will be an example of just how far a believer can go and just how far he can sink. In David’s case, if he were ruling over the United States, the Senate would demand that he resign from office.

Then John tells us about God: He is faithful (dependable, trustworthy) and just (righteous, faultless, perfect). When John tells us that God is faithful and dependable and trustworthy, it means that we may claim this promise here and depend upon Him each and every time to do the same thing. Believers and unbelievers at this point both rise up and revolt and say, “No no no, there is just so much we can do. If we keep sinning, God is going to stop forgiving us.” Not true. Here, we are told that God can be depended upon to do what He promises to do, and that is to forgive us of our sins, no matter what they are, no matter how horrendous they might be, no matter how many times we commit them, no matter how much we are shocked and no matter how much those we know are shocked. This is grace, and it makes religious believers grind their teeth and it makes unbelievers angry. We’ll come back to this.

The second thing we are told about God is, He is righteous; He is just. God is perfect justice and righteousness; and He cannot act outside of these characteristics. We can. There are people who witness a long-time friend of theirs commit some crime (even a murder), and they will forgive them and even not tell anyone about it. There is no reason for the forgiveness other than a personal association with the criminal. However, God can forgive us, and He can forgive us for whatever we do, and He can maintain His righteousness and justice while doing so. Why? Because Jesus Christ died for every sin that we have committed and for every sin that we will commit. God, in eternity past, before we existed and before our ancestors existed, knew each and every sin that we would commit; and, in time, He poured these sins out on Jesus Christ and He judged these sins in Christ, subjecting Jesus Christ to the greatest pain that any human being could be subjected to. In fact, on the cross, when our Lord was judged for our sins, no one will ever come close to feeling the pain which He felt, including those who spend eternity in the Lake of Fire. He took upon His Own body on the cross the sins of all mankind and paid the penalty for all of these sins. Therefore, since these sins are paid for, God can forgive us for committing them. God can forgive us and yet remain righteous and just.

We might run up a debt, so high, that we cannot ever imagine paying this debt off. Our creditors may be calling on the phone day and night demanding payment: and then, Donald Trump comes along and he pays off the debt entirely, and even puts a few million dollars aside for us. At this point, we are debt free. Everything we owe and then some has been paid off. Salvation is similar to this—in fact, throughout the Bible, we have accounting terms used to describe what has happened to us. Our sins were imputed to Jesus Christ on the cross and His righteousness is imputed to us. In this way, God’s justice and righteousness is satisfied.

This is why God can be depended upon to forgive us our sins each and every time, even if this is some sin which we have committed 5000 times. If you are legalistic, you are grinding your teeth right now. You don’t like the idea of some Christian sinning; and, even more of a concern to you, you may not like that some Christian you know might sin, he might enjoy it, and then rebound, and he is in fellowship and you are not, because of your sorry mental attitude (several of those who teach the doctrine of rebound use the parable of the prodigal son to illustrate rebound; and, at the very end, the good son is out of fellowship, pissed off because the bad son is not just cut a break, but lavished with attention).

Here’s the deal: there is a lot more to the Christian life than avoidance of sin. Now, you, or even some unbeliever, can spend your life avoiding sin as much as possible, and, for that reason, you are going to have a better life. Some Blacks who were ner-do-wells become Muslims; some directionless druggie joins Scientology, and, in both cases, their lives become noticeably better. The Black Muslim is exercising self-control and responsibility; the druggie is no longer using drugs, and their lives are better because of this. However, this is not the Christian way of life. Avoiding sin, is not spirituality. Stay with me on this. Spirituality is being filled with the Holy Spirit. Spirituality is being in fellowship with God and with other believers. Spirituality is walking in the light. Spirituality is lifting up the hands that hang down (from exhaustion). You are going to sin, no matter what. If you name your sins to God—if you rebound—then you are back in fellowship and you are spiritual and your life has some impact. If all you do is try to avoid sinning, and you do not name your sins to God, then you stay out of fellowship the first time that you sin.

Let me break it down for you: Charlie Brown, over his lifetime, commits 50,000,000 sins, and he rebounds, say, 40,000,000 times (sometimes he had to rebound 2 or 3 sins; sometimes there were unknown sins). Let’s say that you commit only 50,000 sins over your lifetime, but you do not rebound. Who has the victorious Christian life? Charlie Brown does, not you. Let’s bump this up a notch: let’s say that among Charlie Brown’s sins, he commits adultery, he murders several people, he gets involved in the Satanic cult, but, at various points in time, he rebounds and he spends some time in fellowship. Let’s say that you only feel guilty, sometimes you get angry at someone, and, now and again, you gossip, telling it like it is. If you do not rebound and if Charlie Brown rebounds, his spiritual life is superior to yours. Our prisons are filled with people who are believers in Jesus Christ, who have named their sins to God, and who will spend the rest of their lives in prison—some to be executed. These people can have a greater testimony and a greater ministry than you can ever hope to have, if they regularly name their sins to God and if you choose not to.

Now, so that you don’t just get all a-twitter, are there consequences for sin? Of course there are! Don’t be an idiot. Someone who commits a variety of sins and then rebounds is not completely off the hook. You don’t get to murder your nagging wife, rebound, and figure that is the end of it. God forgives you, but, there may be legal repercussions. You don’t get