Spir Dynamics 1135-37 9/7/97, 241f 8/5/93; 1 Jn 5:16 11/22/81; Rom 12/13/77
A. Definition and Description.
1. 1 Jn 5:16, “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not face-to- face with death, he shall ask and He [God the Father] will give life to him who does not sin face-to-face with death. There is a sin face-to-face with death; I do not say that he should ask concerning this category.”
a. The literal meaning of the preposition PROS plus the accusative of relationship means “face-to-face with.” It can be translated idiomatically “the sin terminating with death.” The translation “unto death” is a meaningless translation.
b. You are not to pray for believers who are dying the sin terminating in death. You can pray for others as long as they have not committed the sin terminating in death. The sin terminating in death is the sin of not executing the spiritual life of the Church Age.
c. This does not open the door for you to malign or judge anyone. You have to see this sin being committed, which means you probably have to know the person intimately, e.g., husband and wife, friends, people in a church. The sin face-to-face with death is not related to gossip, maligning, or spreading of tales about the sins of others.
d. The sin face-to-face with death is a sin which is repeated many times and there is no rebound. God has never made a judgment of anyone that excludes the love of God. Therefore, God’s judgment of this person is always fair.
e. The sin face-to-face with death is maximum divine discipline from the integrity of God. It is the highest form of disgrace that can occur.
(1) Divine discipline results from the believer using his own volition to create his own failures in life after salvation.
(2) The sin face-to-face with death is described in Ps 7:14- 16, “Behold, he shall have labor pains of vanity [warning discipline] because he has become pregnant with frustration. Therefore, he has given birth to a life of deceit [intensive discipline]. He dug a grave [the sin face-to-face with death]. He explored it [the experience of warning and intensive discipline]. Therefore, he has fallen into the ditch which he himself has constructed. His frustration will return on his own head.” The sin face-to-face with death does not come all at once, but in segments.
f. Failure to use the rebound technique of 1 Jn 1:9 results in perpetual carnality.
2. 1 Jn 5:17, “All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not face-to-face with death.” There is no sin which causes death.
a. 1 Jn 5:16b means that while you are still dying, you can still sin. It is the sins that intensify the suffering in dying. This is a reference to sinning when you are in the death-shadowed valley (Ps 23:4). When you are going through the valley of death, there are certain sins that you can commit face-to-face with dying that are going to make the journey miserable: jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, self-pity, fear, worry, anxiety. All of these sins make dying miserable. There are those who sow to the wind and reap the tornado in the death-shadowed valley. The sin face-to-face with death is you creating for yourself your very own dying misery in the death-shadowed valley God has provided for you. This is fair, painful, and terminates in physical death. Sins committed while dying intensify the journey through the death-shadowed valley.
b. The divine initiative of eschatological grace challenges the believer to deploy the problem solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul, so that you can travel through your own death-shadowed valley with the most fantastic blessings, Phil 1:21; Ps 23:4. The training for the blessing or profit in dying comes from the daily function of the spiritual skills in your life. This is while 2 Tim 1:7 says, “For God has not given us a lifestyle of fear, but of power and of virtue-love and of sound judgment.”
3. Four categories of death exist.
a. Dying grace is given to mature or advancing believers. It is the greatest blessing of life because it is directly related to and is only exceeded by rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ, Ps 116:15; Phil 1:21.
b. Transfer to heaven apart from death, example, Enoch, Heb 11:5; Elijah, 2 Kg 2:11-12.
c. The sin face-to-face with death. This disciplinary death is given to believers who refuse to execute the spiritual life. Suicide occurs where the believer in the cosmic system takes his own life.
d. The exit-resurrection at the end of the Church Age.
4. The sin face-to-face with death is not a specific sin. It is the believer residing and functioning in the cosmic system. All his human good and sins add up to motivational evil toward self and functional evil toward others.
5. The sin face-to-face with death is maximum divine discipline, the most painful experience in life with no alleviation. It implies loss of reward and blessing and ashamedness at the judgment seat of Christ.
B. The Context for the Sin Face-to-Face With Death.
1. The context is the general doctrine of divine discipline. Divine discipline is the sum total of punitive measures by which God judges, corrects, and teaches the believer in time. Heb 12:5-6, “And so you yourselves have forgotten the principles of doctrine which teach you as a son. My son do not make light of discipline from the Lord, nor be fainting when you are punished by Him. For you see, `Whom the Lord loves He punishes and scourges with a whip every son whom He receives.’”
2. Divine discipline is confined to time, Rev 21:4.
3. Divine discipline results from the believer using his own volition to create his own failures, Ps 7:14-16.
4. Certain sins are worse as far as divine discipline is concerned, i.e., sins of the tongue that bring triple compound discipline, Mt 7:1-2. If you have personal love toward God, you have impersonal love toward man. So do not gossip, judge or malign others, Ps 64:7-8; Jas 4:11, 5:9.
5. For the believer in the cosmic system, there are three stages to the sin face-to-face with death.
a. The first stage of divine discipline is warning discipline, Rev 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone has heard My voice and he opens the door [rebound], I will enter face-to-face with him and dine with him [restoration to fellowship with God] and he with Me.”
b. The second stage of divine discipline is intensive discipline, Ps 32:1-5. Ps 118:17-18.
c. The third stage of divine discipline is the sin face-to-face with death, Rev 3:16, “Therefore, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold [unbeliever] nor hot [believer executing the spiritual life], I am about to vomit you out of My mouth.” Phil 3:18-19, “For many keep walking concerning whom I have communicated many times and now I keep on communicating even though weeping that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose termination is ruin, whose god is his emotion, whose fame is by means of dishonor, who keep on thinking about earthly things.”
6. There are two categories of suffering.
a. Suffering for discipline is a teaching aid unless you ignore it. This discipline is unbearable.
b. Suffering for blessing is bearable and accelerates your spiritual growth by helping you to apply doctrine to the situation.
C. Documentation for the Sin face-to-face with death.
1. In the Old Testament, Ps 118:17-18
. 2. In the New Testament, 1 Jn 5:16.
D. The sin face-to-face with death is related to the stages of reversionism.
1. The stages of reversionism are:
a. Reaction to Bible teaching or distraction from Bible teaching.
b. A frantic search for happiness.
c. Operation Boomerang.
d. Emotional revolt of the soul.
e. Locked in negative volition.
f. Blackout of the soul.
g. Scar tissue of the soul.
h. Reverse process reversionism.
2. The sin face-to-face means shame at the judgment seat of Christ with failure to receive your escrow blessings for eternity.
3. Maximum punitive action of dying the sin face-to-face with death does not imply that the believer will be miserable after death, because there is “no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain, no more pain” for all believers who are face-to-face with the Lord.
E. The sin face-to-face with death is related to the rejection of establishment truth, Jer 9:13-16.
F. Administration of the sin face-to-face with death does not imply loss of salvation, 2 Tim 2:11-13.
G. Case histories of believers who have faced the sin face-to-face with death.
1. Certain believers in Philippi, Phil 3:18-19.
2. Certain believers in the church at Laodicea, Rev 3:16.
3. King Saul, 1 Chr 10:13-14. This is occult reversionism resulting in the sin face-to-face with death.
4. 1 Cor 11:27-28, 30-31 describes participating in the communion service in a state of perpetual carnality resulting in the sin face-to-face with death. You have a choice between using the rebound technique or dying from divine discipline.
5. King Hezekiah had an evil foreign policy of going to Egypt for help, Isa 30:1-3. So God put him under the sentence of the sin which terminates with death, Isa 38. He rebounded and was given more time to live.
6. The case of the incestuous Corinthian, 1 Cor 5:1-10, who recovered, 2 Cor 7:8-11.
7. The case of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-10. Their life in perpetual carnality was manifest by lying to God.
8. The case of Hymenaeus and Alexander, 1 Tim 1:19-20, who also lived in perpetual carnality.
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© 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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