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, - Romans 8:3 (ESV)
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every
one--to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
-- Isaiah 53:6 (ESV)
What Vallotton does to the parable of the lost sheep here is sinful. The point of the parable was the LOST sheep, not the 99. This is a parable about salvation, not sinless perfection. Nowhere does the text suggest that the 99 are sinless. The point is they are found (saved). So, the normal Christian life is not a struggle with the flesh? Paul seemed to feel differently:
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, 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. -- Romans 7:21-25 (ESV)
The flesh serves the law of sin beloved. the spirit gives life but the flesh profits nothing. We must understand this false teaching within the construct of the belief system Vallotton operates under. In Bethel theology, we are little gods. We can speak things into existence and creation. We can teach the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We believe every evil thought that pops into our head is a word straight from God. We believe God wants us rich beyond measure. We believe we are royalty over this world. We believe we are supposed to rule this world as kings. Penitent sinners bowing humbly before God? That's for suckers. So sinless perfection is a given within such a corrupt paradigm. Vallotton continues:
"In summary: You can't sin by mistake. There's a difference between a mistake and a sin. The only way you can sin is to know that what you're doing is wrong and do it anyway. Sin is knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway. Sin is a heart issue, so a mistake and a sin aren't the same things. I can back my car up and run over somebody and kill them by accident. There would be extreme grief, painful consequences and a mess to clean up but I wouldn't have to answer to God on it. This example is different from a situation where I see someone I hate walking on the sidewalk and decide to run over them and break their foot. In that case, I would have to answer to God on my actions. The depth of the damage does not determine whether I sinned or not. My heart and intentions do. So can you go a whole day without sinning? Absolutely. It's likely you can't go a whole week without making a mistake, though, as they happen unintentionally. Both sins and mistakes leave a mess to clean up, but you only have to answer to God for the sin." -- Kris Vallotton
It seems Kris Vallotton is parsing words to the extreme to excuse sinful behavior. So, let us think this through rationally and biblically. If we commit a sin but are not aware of it, is it a sin? Are we liable for it? The answer is yes. The example he gives falls short because the taking of life innocently was not considered sin to begin with. Let's use a more coherent example. Everyone would agree that preaching or prophesying falsely is a sin. It is an egregious sin because you affect not only yourself but others who hear you. You misrepresent God. Now, not all false teachers or prophets know they are false. Many honestly believe in what they do, say and teach. Joel Osteen is a false as the day is long but most would have no issue in believing his intentions are not malicious. As opposed to someone like Kenneth Copeland, Mike Murdock or Benny Hinn, who we just know are charlatans; fully aware they are hucksters. So does Joel Osteen know he is sinning? In this example, he does not. That hardly means his false teaching is merely a mistake that he will not answer to God for. Look at the people who stand before Christ in judgment in Matthew 7. They are all apparently well churched. They seem surprised and aghast at discovering that their beliefs were in vain. In other words, they did not know that they were following a false gospel and believed in a false christ. Does Jesus laugh it off and say don't worry about it? No. He says away from me you who practice lawlessness. This parsing is commonplace in false teaching where sins are often passed off as mere mistakes to avoid having to deal with the stickier matters of repentance and judgment. The fact is that theology grounded in the truth of God's wrath does not sell a lot of books of sell out church events. Telling people to not worry about sin? Yeah, that will sell every time because it is just what people want to hear -- eternal life without temporal change or eternal consequence.
"Why does it matter? In 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV) Paul says that we are a "new creation"--not just a new spirit, but an entirely new being. Our very nature has been completely transformed. We have been changed from those who were hostile toward God, into saints who love Jesus with their entire being--spirit, soul and body! In fact, God has done so much to set us up for a holy life that if (not when) we sin, we actually need an advocate to help plead our case. Thus, after we have confessed our sins, the second way we can deceive ourselves is by saying that we know God while continuing to practice sin. And one of the best ways to do this is to embrace the belief that we are still sinners by nature. If we believe we are sinners, we will continue to sin." -- Kris Vallotton
