Misunderstood Text of Scripture

By Rev. Asa Mahan

Conclusion

Such, undeniably, are the necessary fruits and immutable tendencies of the doctrine of the continued conscious sinfulness of all believers in this life. In no sense or form does it tend to "magnify the law or make it honourable." It does, on the other hand, immutably tend to perpetuate sin in the heart and life, to strengthen the power of every evil principle within us, to sear the conscience to a sense of sin, to deaden the fervour of all religious duty, to render all-powerful "the law of sin which is in the members," on the one hand, and, on the other, to hang weights upon our faith in the availability of God's revealed power to save, in the efficacy of the revealed provisions and promises of grace, of Christ's Intercessory Prayer, and of the power of the Spirit. All who read their Bibles under the influence of this doctrine read it with a veil before their minds, a veil which hides from their hearts God's truth in its divinest forms. Soon, we believe, that veil will be taken away, and then will believers, "with open face, behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."