Now, the third option is to see God granting life to the petitioner, to the petitioner, instead of the sinning brother, which also makes some grammatical sense in the Greek, so, in other words, he, the petitioner, should ask and he, God, will grant life to him, the petitioner, which is what maybe the LSB is trying to say, for him, as in the petitioner, with reference to his praying for those who sin not to death, so all of these sound a little bit awkward in a way, they're just not very straightforward, and this third one is probably the least likely, because the context shows that it should be the sinning brother for whom intercession is made, and who receives life, rather than the petitioner, the petitioner would be assumed to possess life already, or he would not be making, he could not be making a request which God would hear, at least that's how this understanding goes, and this comes from the notes on the Net Bible, which I also recommend, it's very helpful for Bible study, I don't always agree with their notes, but they have helpful comments a lot of times, but they also ignore, the commentators of the Net Bible, they ignore another issue in this, in this verse, because if the sinner is a true Christian brother, then wouldn't he have life already, as well, if he's a true brother, doesn't he have life, so in what sense are we now talking about life, that's the other challenge to this verse, is it talking about physical life, or eternal life, because it says a brother sinning, so then how, who is the brother then, so this shows, I hope more clearly, the, that each interpretation is difficult, and it has, and it's awkward, it has its challenges, but in general, the second option seems the most, the most, make, seems to make the most sense, that is, that the, that, that is, that he, the petitioner, should ask, and he, God, will grant life to the sinning brother, him, so it's each referring to a different person there, and so, so that's what we are, this is some of the stuff that we're, the issues that we are faced with in this passage, those are the things we need to ask ourselves, is it a true brother, is it a professing brother, a hypocritical brother, what is it about, physical life, eternal life, etc., now, in order to try to dive in further into this passage, I want us to consider the four major views, there are four major views of this text, but there are two that make, that seem to make the most sense, biblically, in light of the whole, so I want to read verses 16 through 17 once again, so that we can start working through the different understandings of it, verse 16, if anyone sees his brother sinning, a sin, not leading to death, or not unto death, he shall ask, and he will give life to him, to those who sin not leading to death, there is a sin leading to death, I do not say that he should make a request for this, all unrighteousness is a sin, and there is a sin not leading to death, so I forgot to mention that in the last part of verse 16, I do not say that he should make requests for this, I think it's pretty clear that it's referring to the petitioner, the one who is doing the intercessory prayer, on behalf of the the sinning brother, so now I want to introduce the four different interpretations, and kind of dismiss the two that are least likely, least consistent, and then compare and contrast the two that are most likely, okay, now the first one is, goes, understands this to mean that a believer commits both sins, both the sin unto death, and the sin not unto death, but the believer that sins unto death apostatizes, so he falls away, now this view may be in keeping with some Armenian traditions, who hold to free will, and even to some Lutheran traditions, because they believe that you can lose your salvation when you stop believing, so the problem with this understanding is that it denies God's preservation of all true believers, such that a genuine believer can fall away and lose his salvation, and his eternal life, and the security that he once had, and that just doesn't make any sense, right, how can you lose eternal life, if life is eternal and you have it when you believe, how can you lose that, right, and so the Apostle contradicts this very view in this letter, if we turn back to 1st John 2 verse 19, we will see very clearly what he, a particular sin that fits this description, that seems to fit this description of the sin, not that leads to death, or to apostasy, in 1st John 2 19, we see the God -breathed Apostle saying, they went out from us, they the Antichrist, they went out from us, but they were not really of us, for if they were of us, they would have what, they would have stayed with us, but they went out, so that it would be manifested, made obvious, that they are not, they all are not of us, but you, you beloved, you believers, true believers, have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know, you know, and you can know, what is like, like 1st John 5 13 says, these things I have written to you, who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know, that you have eternal life, now, not later, not know it, and then lose it, that doesn't make sense, that's completely contradicting, what the Word is teaching us, here and in several other places, right, numerous other places, so this view is pretty easy to dismiss, we can even, and a lot of these verses are very powerful memory verses, that help us to give us that peace of mind, and rest in our, rest in Christ, and in union with Christ, and in our assurance with Christ, like Psalm 97 10, you who love the Lord, hate evil, he, Yahweh, preserves the souls of his saints, he preserves them, he delivers them out of the hand of the wicked, so how is it that God preserves the saints, and yet, you can still lose your eternal life, makes no sense, no sense, it's contradictory, so let's discard that one, now, the second interpretation is an unbeliever, or a professing Christian, that commits both sins, the sinning unto death, and the sinning not unto death, okay, so how does this one play out, God may give the unbeliever, whose sins not unto death, eternal life in the future, but the unbeliever, whose sins unto death, will experience eternal death, will experience eternal death, so then, a sin not leading to death, is any sin, except the sin that leads to death, and the sin that leads to death, would be apostasy, specifically, like the false teachers of first John, who had rejected the true teaching about who Christ is, and what Christ did, and therefore, they left, because they were not really of us, they were not true believers, now, what about that, is there any problems with that, now, one, one interesting problem there, is that, it seems to suggest that, every sinner, who does not apostatize, he was never a Christian, or claimed to be a Christian, will become saved, if you pray for him, he'll give, God will give life to him, so that, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, off the bat, right there, the other issue, is that, it may have, it may have some merit, in the sense that, the brother can refer to either true believer, or a professing believer, a false believer, because John does this in the previous chapters, so if we go back again, to first John chapter 2, we will see that God, I mean, that God, through the Apostle, refers to brother, in both senses, right, so in first John chapter 2, verse 9, we see that the Apostle writes, the one who says, he is in the light, and yet hates his brother, yet hates his brother, is in darkness, until now, so he is talking about somebody, who's claiming to be a Christian, but hates his brother, and verse 11, chapter 2, verse 11, but now, but the one who hates his brother, is in the darkness, and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes, so that's an even clearer statement, showing that brother can refer to a professing, or a pseudo brother, a false brother, a hypocrite, or a Antichrist, or a false professor, now first John 3 15, similarly says, everyone who hates his brother, is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him, whoa, okay, so this is, this is seems to be more connected to the passage now, no murderer has eternal life abiding in him, by this we know, we have known love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers, but whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him, our love beloved, we should love, we should love our neighbor, but especially the household of faith, especially the household of God, like Galatians tells us, and when we fail to do, to love our brother, with even very basic things, then that's revealing something about the individual, and his state of salvation, or not, or lack thereof, so that's now, okay, what else, what else, what else is there to consider here, because if you'll notice, if you draw out the implications of what this means, you'll, there, you will find a big problem with this understanding, because there's an, it's making an unbiblical distinction of sins that unbelievers commit, such that every sin is not unto death, even in unbelievers, and the only sin that leads to death in unbelievers is apostasy, so it's like, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, doesn't scripture say that the wages of sin is death, sin in general, not a subset of sins, or a specific sin, or a sin to death, the wages of sin is death, any sin, all sin is death, any and all unforgiven sin is punishable by eternal death, that is, right, because it says, even in Revelation, liars, adulterers, fornicators, none of these will inherit the lake of fire, none of them, those sinners, so that doesn't make any sense at all, biblically, not only that, but whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles in one single point, he becomes guilty of how much of it, all of it, the whole law, you break one, you break them all, and this is specifically talking about unbelievers, but we have to remember, when it comes to unbelievers, their sin makes them guilty, and punishable by death, unless they are given the grace of repentance, and faith in Christ, and again, if there's two unbiblical types of sin here, in unbelievers, and then it creates two unbiblical categories, or types of sinners, as well, those who sin unto eternal death, by apostatizing, and those who sin, but not unto internal death, because they did not apostatize, so they never claimed to be a Christian, it's almost better off, you're almost better off, if you don't ever call yourself a Christian, you sin not unto death, so where do they end up, do they go to purgatory, or somewhere else, where do they go, and this starts sounding a lot like what I referred from the Roman Catholic Church, right, it's starting to sound more like their view, their mortal sin, and their venial sin, and their purgatory, invincible ignorance, virtuous pagans, right, it started, it starts to sound more like their view, and that, and the whole host, host of problems at that, you can draw out from there, so again, this is, this is really not a very, this is just not a consistently biblical view, now the third view, now we're getting into more, more likely understanding territory, okay, the third view is a believer, the believers commit both the sins unto death, and the sins not unto death, and God may discipline the believers sinning unto death with physical death, so death there means physical, he basically, he judges him like he did Ananias and Sapphira, they were judged in their sin, and they, they, God judged them, and, and killed them, and, excuse me, or the sin itself may lead to physical death, so, you know, like suicide, or something like that, where you, your sin leads to your eventual demise, or death, which can also serve as God's discipline, or, or chastisement, because there are still consequences to sin, even as believers, so that view has a little bit more weight, it seems to make a little more sense, and it's a little bit tighter, seems to account for more of what the passage is saying, and what the scriptures are teaching us as a whole, but is that necessarily what it says, that's what we have to be careful, logically speaking, not to say this is necessarily the view when it may not be warranted by the text, just like we read in the confession that says, now you should not pray for, you are forbidden from praying for those who sin unto death, when that's not what it says, right?