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But if it does what it wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are [certainly] not present. For St. John says, 1 John 3:9: Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, … and he cannot sin. And yet it is also the truth when the same St. John says, 1:8: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. [48]
The Satan does not inhabit or supervise the underworld – his sphere of activity is the human world – and is only to be thrown into the fire at the end of time. [87] He appears throughout the Old Testament not as God's enemy but as his minister, "a sort of Attorney-General with investigative and disciplinary powers", as in the Book of Job. [87]
The first three Gospels agree concerning the time to which they assign the temptation of Christ, so they are at one in ascribing the same general place to its occurrence, viz. "the desert", whereby they [probably] mean the Wilderness of Judea, where Jesus would be, as St. Mark says: "with beasts". [15]
The Hebrew Bible uses several words to describe sin. The standard noun for sin is ḥeṭ (verb: hata), meaning to "miss the mark" or "sin". [4] The word avon is often translated as "iniquity", i.e. a sin done out of moral failing. [5] The word pesha, or "trespass", means a sin done out of rebelliousness. [6]
Balaam and the Angel (1836) by Gustav Jäger.The angel in this incident is referred to as a "satan". [7]The Hebrew term śāṭān (Hebrew: שָׂטָן) is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary", [8] [9] and is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose". [10]
The forms of divination mentioned in Deuteronomy 17 are portrayed as being of foreign origin; this is the only part of the Hebrew Bible to make such a claim. [5] According to Ann Jeffers, the presence of laws forbidding necromancy proves that it was practiced throughout Israel's history.
Among early Christian writers, there existed differing viewpoints regarding the ethics of deception and dishonesty in certain circumstances. Some argued that lying and dissimulation could be justified for reasons such as saving souls, convincing reluctant candidates to accept ordination, or demonstrating humility by refraining from boasting about one's virtues.
He says there are expressly false statements in the Bible, but they are reported accurately. [76] He notes that "All the Bible does, for example in the case of Satan, is to report what Satan actually said. Whether what he said was true or false is another matter. Christ stated that the devil is a liar". [76]