Didn't Jesus say to people that they have been forgiven, and to go and sin no more? Are you saying he didn't actually expect they could? Like saying, go and levitate yourself, or something he knew they could not do? Why would he say that, if he didn't think they could
Yes, but at this point we are not sinless, even Paul talked about how he did those things which he did not want to do. Our sin will be completely taken away when the Messiah returns, when we are given an incorruptible body. However all the particulars of that work out, at some point we will no longer sin.
I think you have it upside down. Plus, you are missing the surrounding verses with these citations which will affirm what I am saying. We don't sin because we break the rules. Breaking the rules is the result of sin, or falling short of the mark to begin with. If you were not out of balance to begin with, you would not fall over. It's not the falling over that makes you unbalanced, or out of true.
Where do you find that breaking the rules is different than sinning? What is falling short of the mark in your opinion? To what point can you break these rules before it becomes sin?
With that in mind, we need to add back in Ro. 3:20 a, to preface b.
Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
In other words, the law is what you measure your actions against your standing or falling. It's not by performing it, you are made righteous. Because even if you follow the letter of the law, yet on the inside you are unbalanced, out of true, even your "good works" are stained by sin. They are as "filthy rags", because they are not coming from a place of love and truth. They are not coming from God as the source.
I never said I thought we justified ourselves by the works of the law. I believe salvation is a free gift, but we are still called to walk in righteousness; not to earn right standing with God, but to do those things which please him. I understand that it is through Yeshua that our heart is cleansed, but just because one keeps the Torah doesn't mean they are trying to earn salvation. If Yeshua came to save us from sin, why would we continue walking in sin? Did the definition of sin change?
Therefore, the next verses conclude,
21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
In other words, it is the transformation of your person, becoming filled with Divine Love, that your actions do not sin. "Love works no ill,"
Romans 13:10. Meaning, if you love, you will not be capable of sin. "Go and sin no more," is basically say, "walk in love, and you will sin no more".
So are you saying you believe that if you have love you won't sin? How does that fit with Yeshua turning people away from the kingdom of heaven because they were "workers of iniquity" i.e. anomia=lawlessness? In the same breath, Paul goes on to say this:
Romans 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.
Now
1 John 3:4, you cited. Let's read that in context:
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact,
sin is lawlessness.
5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
As you can see, what I have said is very much biblically supported. "No one who lives in him keeps on sinning". Why? Because Christ in them is Divine Love. and "love works no ill". That's why.
Right, if we are in him we are not to walk in sin. He came to redeem us from our sins, therefore because of his righteousness in us, we should turn away from said sins. Again though, what is sin? If we have his righteousness in us, does that make it right for us to do those things God has laid out as sin?
Again, you are coming at this backwards, or upside down. That greatest commandment affirms exactly what I am saying about God within as the source of all external actions, as opposed to us in our egos trying to be "good", with human effort, trying to conform to rules viewed as external to us.
The first commandment is to love God with your entire being. The reason for this is because it makes us filled with God's Love. Without that Love, we are not capable of seeing the other through the eyes of that Love. The second commandment to love your neighbor as yourself is dependent upon that. If we are self absorbed, we are not able to love another as an extension of ourselves. All our actions are dependent upon connection with that Source of Divine Love, which is God.
And how do you love God? It's not just a feeling.
You don't connect to that by obeying a bunch of rules, but your heart is full of jeouslies, desires, resentments, angers, etc. You can follow those to a T, yet still have the heart impure. If you want to truly love your neighbor as yourself, you have to get the ego out of the way trying to gain for itself. And that is why the first commandment is to love God, not with your works, but with your mind, your heart, your intention, and everything in full surrender.
Nothing that comes from that, originates in the ego. It comes by setting the ego aside as the primary focus, even when it sneakily hides behind supposedly righteous works. And when that happens, there is no need to follow the rule book or the law to "obey God's will". You live it instead. You are it. That is the point of all of it, and what I believe that Jesus intended to teach, but few could understand, being conditioned to think it's something you do, rather than are.
When it says the law is written on the tablets of the heart, this is what that means. It originates from within you, not from a book of laws external to you which you make an effort to follow. That is what "saved" really means. You are free from the source of sin, or lawlessness.
Following the Torah is not just about a bunch of rules, it is very much about a relationship with God. True, keeping the Torah in and of itself does not cleanse your heart, it never has, it does no good to just walk through the actions. That's why throughout the tanach YHWH says he does not delight in their outward appearance of righteousness when their heart is not true to him (for example, Isaiah 1:10-17).
Keeping the Torah has nothing to do with ego (or shouldn't), it is not about doing it for yourself to make yourself better. It is simply doing what he asks us to do, things that he says are life and blessing. If you think that righteousness comes from within, will that righteousness look different from what he says is righteous in his word? "Being" righteous instead of doing righteously? If you "are" righteous, you would be walking in righteousness, and YHWH tells us what righteousness is.