I was looking at the verse John 5 'For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me; but if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?'

and I wondered: just which bit of Moses’ writings, which I take to mean the first five books of the Bible, was this referring to? ie which bit of those five books is about Jesus, specifically?

We know that Moses wrote the 10 commandments, the meaning of which is recounted in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Much of the rest of the four books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, in particular, recounts things Moses said to his people, and the doings of the Israelites under his leadership. The gist of what Moses said to the Israelites is reiterated by Jesus Christ in the Gospels. Someone else might remember specific verses in the Pentateuch or Torah in which Moses referred to Jesus Christ.

And this is one area where I think Islamic theology is superior to Christian theology. Muslims really do have a point - if we have an infallible book, we shouldn't ever translate it because changes would be inevitable. Christians just simply dismiss this issue by either never thinking about it or claiming that the tiny changes made by translations don't really matter - which I find to be a pretty disrespectful thing to say about something given to you by God.

In that case if the infallible book is originally written down on imperishable clay tablets or in stone, what you say is fair enough. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1948, were written on silver and copper scrolls, thus ensuring their longevity for 2200 years or more. And so their fidelity to the current text of the Hebrew Bible can be ascertained quite easily and translations checked. Judaism requires exact copies when transcribing their worn out parchment versions of the Torah to make new ones to read in Synagogue services, and to preach from. Those of the Jewish faith generally insist on a high standard of education for their children, and so they instruct their children in Hebrew, in preparation for bar mitzvahs at Sunday school, in addition to their formal education in the language commonly used around them.

Strange that, unlike Islam or even pre-Protestant Christianity in the Middle Ages, the Jews never seemed to have had any problem with scriptural translations for private use, and that even a Gentile like myself has a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, translated into English. The Septuagint, translating the Bible from Hebrew into Greek, was done at the behest of Ptolemy, the monarch of Egypt at the time. And the King James version of the Bible, also ordered by a monarch, referred back to the Hebrew Tanakh to translate from.

Unfortunately the Qu'ran, even in Arabic, is usually set down on ordinary paper and ink, just like the Bible, and is bound in similar fashion. I agree the printing press, and now the computer age has made it much easier for both Islam and Christianity to propagate copies of their holy books, in comparison to the hand-written volumes of the Middle Ages. And that thanks to William Caxton's printing press, then later photography, and now, scanners and computerisation, the continuing Jewish practice of handwriting the Torah onto a fresh scroll is not really necessary to preserve the absolute fidelity of religious texts.

But up until scanners and computers, even in transcribing documents and holy books in the same language, errors can still creep into copies, due to misreading of handwriting, or poor setting of typescript. So why is translation of an Arabic version copy of the original Qu'ran in a language familiar to their audience still a problem for Islamic clerics?

I think this demonstrates an enormous problem for Christianity. For example, let's say we're in the Middle Ages where almost everyone can't read. You live in a Christian village and are privileged enough to be literate and read the one copy of the Bible in your local Church, but you feel sorry for the many illiterate people around you. You want them to be able to read the Bible too! What would be the best course of action?

1) Educate all the peasants until they are all literate.

2) Translate the bible into their native "language". Make an illustrated version of the Bible entirely out of pictures and subject to your artistic interpretation, that way every peasant can "read" the Bible without getting an education.

Well, I hope you noticed people of the pre-Reformation like Erasmus, Luther, Wycliffe, Tyndale, Jan Huss, who was burned at the stake, or the English Lollards, as well as the later work of 19th century people like Lord Shaftesbury, or the founder of the British and Foreign Bible society who did exactly what you suggest about teaching people to be literate. I hope you also take a look at Notre Dame in Paris (France) and other places where painted screens of Bible stories were erected as part of the church fittings to teach the peasants and some of their less literate overlords about Jesus .

The main differences that Christianity has with Islam is that Christianity separates the roles of church and state, unlike Islam, and that Christianity, even at the beginning, did get very involved with education. Even before the Reformation it had some sort of trained clergy, thanks to the monasteries, and still does. Unlike Islam, where to my knowledge, clerics are not required to have qualifications of any sort. The methods in which Christianity and Islam spread were also different, as in the latter case Islam was spread by conquest.

And yes, that Islamic insistence on Arabic did create problems when others in Iran and elsewhere objected to the Arabicization of Islam. Apparently, Islam tolerated other religions like Christianity or Judaism, but refused to associate with either, preferring to treat them as inferior subjects of the conquerors, often building new towns and living quarters separate from others.

R.H.C.Davis (1972) in his History of Medieval Europe commented (p. 105) that 'the Germans, all adopted the religion of the empire they had conquered and (except in outlying provinces like Britain) its language, too. The Arabs not only retained theirs (language and religion), but imposed them on the peoples they had conquered.'

That is why Christians native to the Middle East were the only ones able to preserve the original Aramaic, Syriac and Assyrian languages used in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. I think the original Coptic language of Egypt died out. Others who converted to Islam were required to learn Arabic. To this day, Arabic is a required subject in any Islamic school, pesantren, or madrassah from Palestine to Pakistan and from Syria to Surabaya.

Muslims think that anyone who believes in more than one God (and they consider the Trinity as 3 Gods) is blasphemy. There are multitudes of verses that condemn anyone not of the Islamic faith.

If anyone desires a religion other than Islam never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost. (Surah 3:85)

If Muslims had the idea that Christian and Jewish people were acceptable under Allah's eyes, they have contradicted their beliefs in the most extreme fashion throughout the entire history of their religion.

We sort of noticed in the last decades or so.

I'm no expert on Islamic theology, but when I read that verse I get a different impression than you. The first thing I notice is that Sabaeans are listed next to Jews and Christians. Sabeans doesn't refer to the followers of a religion, but rather an ethnic group. So they might be referring to someone who has a Jewish or Christian background.

Exactly who are - or were - the Sabaeans? Where did they come from, what sort of language did they speak, and why were they not acceptable to Allah?

We know that Moses wrote the 10 commandments, the meaning of which is recounted in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Much of the rest... recounts things Moses said to his people, and the doings of the Israelites under his leadership. The gist of what Moses said to the Israelites is reiterated by Jesus Christ in the Gospels.

Thanks, Wagga, for looking through my question, and offering a line of enquiry, if not a complete knock-down answer.

I'm interested that you draw a distinction between what Moses wrote and what he said; I hadn't thought of that as a possible way to explore the meaning of the verses from John. I don't feel that I've sorted out what was meant yet, but I'll keep pondering.

and... tentative suggestion re: the Sabeans - aren't they the same as the Shebans - ie where the Queen of Sheba came from?

3) Realize that God has blessed you with the ability to read the Scriptures so that you may bring it to the other illiterate people, and realize that your desire that everyone else can read is simply that: a desire--fact is, given all the particular circumstances of the time, teaching everyone to read and giving everyone an "education" (whatever that meant at the time) just isn't that important and could ultimately cause more harm than good.

The problem I find with a "designated reader" is it adds yet another middleman between God's message and the peasant. The peasant is at the total mercy of the literate person to deliver the scriptures to him. This power was undoubtedly abused by multitudes of priests during the dark ages.

Think anthropologically. What we modern American humans consider valuable and important might not be what humans living in different conditions would consider valuable and important.

Well, that was kind of the point. Both situations have considerable drawbacks, since literacy was not exactly valued by sharecropping peasants. In the same way, knowledge of Greek and Hebrew in modern American society is not highly valued either.

Simply because God meant it for good does not make the act itself any less evil. You have failed to distinguished between the decrees of God (for history) and the commands of God.

So if God sets up history so that certain events will occur, those events are morally ambiguous, but if God orders a specific event to occur using language, then it's always good? God is ultimately causing the events to occur in both situations.

Yet in the Scriptures we encounter Christ by the Spirit. The inspiration of the Scriptures was in the writing of them, is in them by nature, and for the believer, even the reading of them is inspired, though our interpretation is fallible.

The mental image I got from this is a believer reading the Bible and expecting the Holy Spirit to ooze off the page like invisible mist and "bless" him somehow, even though he isn't sure what to learn from the Bible.

The question is whether you believe that God can inspire fallible human beings to write an infallible set of writings.

Unfortunately, the leap of faith has to go even further. I have to believe that God inspired fallible human beings to both write, copy by hand many times, translate, retranslate, rearrange, and prune an infallible set of writings.

All right, but in this case, you can't have meaningful discussions about Jesus and his teachings. Also, you are in disagreement with the majority of Bible scholars.

Perhaps I should elaborate more on my position. I don't think that Jesus was entirely a made-up character, but rather a man whose life story got warped and exaggerated in the Gospel records.

While there is a general consensus one the authorship of the letters of the New Testament, scholars still aren't sure who wrote the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all quite different from each other. John only shares 20% of its material with other gospels. Mark, the oldest (and shortest) Gospel, was penned a whole 40 years after Jesus's death. Only Matthew and Luke tell a story of Jesus's birth, and there are almost no details common to both of them. The only miracle of Jesus that appears in all 4 gospels is the feeding of the 5,000. The gospels can't agree on what Jesus's last words were or whether he was happy or sad at the moment of his death. Information about Judas's death is contradictory to information in Acts. Etc. etc.

and... tentative suggestion re: the Sabeans - aren't they the same as the Shebans - ie where the Queen of Sheba came from?

Becoming an instant expert through Wiki, we find this:

The confusion of Sabaeans and Sabians began with Marmaduke Pickthall's spelling mistake in his translation of the Qur'an.[citation needed] The word "Sabaeans" comes from a completely different root spelling, beginning with the Arabic letter "Sin" instead of the Arabic letter "Sad". The Sabaeans were in fact the people of ancient Saba in Yemen who have been discredited by scholars[who?] as to having any connection to the Sabians of the Qur'an except for their Ansar tribe, which practiced Qur'ānic Sabianism.[citation needed]

The Sabians were apparently a group that had adopted some of the monotheistic beliefs and Biblical traditions of both Jews and Christians, but no-one seems to really know what exactly they believed- apparently Muslim authorities themselves often disagreed whether they were Jews, Christians or acceptable as "People of the Book"

So if God sets up history so that certain events will occur, those events are morally ambiguous, but if God orders a specific event to occur using language, then it's always good? God is ultimately causing the events to occur in both situations.

Here is what I mean: if God uses a person's wrong actions to bring about good or to enact His plan, that doesn't justify those actions. The action is evil whether or not good comes of it.

God often brings His will to pass through secondary agents. That is, the plans of God are brought about, very often, by free and responsible human agents, who may very well be sinning and may justly be held accountable by God for their actions.

The mental image I got from this is a believer reading the Bible and expecting the Holy Spirit to ooze off the page like invisible mist and "bless" him somehow, even though he isn't sure what to learn from the Bible.

That's the problem with mental images. Of course we read carefully, but we should always be aware that Scripture is what it is, says what it says, and that we can't change it. Scripture is the word of God and is the means by which we encounter the Word Himself.

Unfortunately, the leap of faith has to go even further. I have to believe that God inspired fallible human beings to both write, copy by hand many times, translate, retranslate, rearrange, and prune an infallible set of writings.

Did I say anything about infallible translations? Did I say anything about lack of error in copying processes?

Yet even given all this, the level of accuracy and similarity in the Biblical manuscripts we have is remarkable, even leaving aside the massive numbers of manuscripts and fragments.

Perhaps I should elaborate more on my position. I don't think that Jesus was entirely a made-up character, but rather a man whose life story got warped and exaggerated in the Gospel records.

Ok, so tell me what Jesus was really like, since you obviously can see through all of the errors.

While there is a general consensus one the authorship of the letters of the New Testament, scholars still aren't sure who wrote the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all quite different from each other. John only shares 20% of its material with other gospels. Mark, the oldest (and shortest) Gospel, was penned a whole 40 years after Jesus's death. Only Matthew and Luke tell a story of Jesus's birth, and there are almost no details common to both of them. The only miracle of Jesus that appears in all 4 gospels is the feeding of the 5,000. The gospels can't agree on what Jesus's last words were or whether he was happy or sad at the moment of his death. Information about Judas's death is contradictory to information in Acts. Etc. etc.

But this is exactly what one would expect from four accounts written from different sources, gathered over a forty year period. Also keep in mind that the Gospels weren't necessarily written in chronological order and that the details don't necessarily contradict one another. Frankly, I'm surprised that you would bring up this tired argument. This is exactly the kind of thing that one would expect of firsthand accounts penned by theological editors. Were you perhaps expecting four completely consistent and unproblematic accounts? How plausible would that be?

Of course you also ignored the most significant miracle that all four Gospels agree on: the resurrection. I recommend N.T. Wright's excellent scholarly study on the subject.

TBG

TBG, and Minotaur.
in regaurds to the accuracy of the Bible translations down through history,
I have been reading "The Handwriting of God" by Grant R. Jeffrey.
He has a chapter reffering to the Dead Sea scrolls. He states, (page 240), "from Genesis to Deauteronomy, there were only 169 Hebrew letters that differed in the Dead Sea Scrolls text from the Biblical texts that were used by the King James Bible translators in 1611. Significantly, none of these 169 letter variations changed the meaning of a single word."
He goes further in accounting how the Masoretic scribes "copied the manuscript of genisis (which contains 76,064 Hebrew letters), he would literally count out the precise number of times each of the twenty-two in the Hebrew alphabet occured in the text. He would also make notations on the margin of the page to assure that no letters were added or taken away. If even one letter was missed or added improperly, the master scribe would destroy the imperfect copy,"
I have heard many attempts to refute the textual accuracy of the Bible compaired to the original text. I have yet to see any convincing proof of that accusation.

Deleted

I'm interested that you draw a distinction between what Moses wrote and what he said; I hadn't thought of that as a possible way to explore the meaning of the verses from John. I don't feel that I've sorted out what was meant yet, but I'll keep pondering.

I doubt it is the only way of looking at the problem. I'd say that because I am me. But I doubt that Jesus would have said it like that or any of his contemporaries. The 5 books of the Torah are called Mosaic, or the books of Moses, because he is the main leader of the Israelites in four of those books and Genesis is how the Israelites got to Egypt in the first place.

Listening to last Sunday's readings and sermon, I thought that Genesis 12: 1-8 for God's promises to Abraham, and Genesis 22, in which God wants Abraham to sacrifice Isaac the son of his old age, might be good starting candidates. The lamb caught in the thicket the minister repeatedly referred to was in itself a reference to Jesus Christ, the lamb who was sacrificed in Isaiah, for the sins of the world.

and... tentative suggestion re: the Sabeans - aren't they the same as the Shebans - ie where the Queen of Sheba came from?

Apparently not. Sheba, according to tradition, including in the Qu'ran, which says a lot about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, is either in Yemen or near Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia or Tigray. However, the Yemen is almost solidly Muslim these days, and except for Ethiopia, the same might be said of some of the other places.

The Sabians were apparently a group that had adopted some of the monotheistic beliefs and Biblical traditions of both Jews and Christians, but no-one seems to really know what exactly they believed- apparently Muslim authorities themselves often disagreed whether they were Jews, Christians or acceptable as "People of the Book"

Well, not quite, according to a book I am still trying to read and comprehend. Or at least you could be right about the Arabic sin vs sad symbols and the spelling. I think! This book, Assyrians: the continuous saga, by Frederick A Aprim (2004) informed me on pages 70-71, that "Sabaeans" is another name for the "Mandaeans" who lived in the Shat-al -Arab area of Southern Iraq and who had a special interest in mathematics and astronomy.

Since these Mandaeans or Sabaeans live in mud and straw huts, they might be recognisable as the Marsh Arabs demolished in recent memory by Saddam Hussein. Apparently they had the same dhimmi status as the Jews and Christian minorities during the Caliphate and later on. Though even the author of this book was not too sure what these people actually believed in, since they were neither Muslim nor Christian.

A new topic, for those who want to discuss a new topic...

What are everyone's thoughts on what it means to "clothe ourselves in humility"? Was it humble for Jesus to say "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light; no one comes to the Father but through me"? Is it humble for us to say that we are good at music, teaching, various sports, or whatever else we have talents in? Is it humble for us to see ourselves as valuable?

What could be considered the opposite of humility? Certainly, pride comes up, but what about shame? What about the idea that our worth is based only on how well we perform, and that if we perform well, we are valuable and deserve glory, but if we perform poorly, we are bad and wholly unlovable?

(Try not to answer all those questions individually; just give your own thoughts about the idea of humility.)

I read something in Mere Christianity that really gave me insight. "A truly humble person is not thinking of themselves and how they can be humble, but about those around them." [paraphrased because I only remember basic context, not the exact quote.]

That said, I think it's right to say that you do something, but obviously, not brag about your abilities. However, when the need arises, then you can say, "I've studied this and can assist in this matter." My mom often says that when the Bible says to think rightly of ourselves, it means not to be proud and on the flip side, not to feel so insecure and hate ourselves. I believe that ability is not defined by performance. If you do your best, God knows you did your best and if you understand that you did your best, you won't feel bad about whether or not you impressed others with your performance, whether in the arena of music, academics, competitions, etc. When someone starts seeing their value on how well they perform, they inevitably will hit a crippling roadblock sometime down the road and become increasingly insecure. That's just my take on it.

This is where I've always wondered about identity. I know, as Christians, our identity should not be in our talents whatever they may be, but in who God made us to be, as God's children... but I'd like to understand how this applies practically, because I've only heard the theory described where people still seem to think what they like, what they do, etc defines them... Like, I know one shouldn't make their hobbies or occupation their identity, meaning it shouldn't be them, but do such things contribute to who you are? I'm still on a see-saw in thinking about this, and woud like to hear what y'all have to say.

Humility is about seeing yourself rightly in relation to God and seeing others rightly in relationship to Him. It means showing charity in your dealings with others, being merciful because God has shown you mercy. And I would go so far as to say that humility is the kind of virtue that only a Christian can have: because only one who knows God and is in relationship with Him through Christ will be able to see herself rightly in that relationship.

TBG

Is it humble for us to say that we are good at music, teaching, various sports, or whatever else we have talents in? Is it humble for us to see ourselves as valuable?

What could be considered the opposite of humility? Certainly, pride comes up, but what about shame? What about the idea that our worth is based only on how well we perform, and that if we perform well, we are valuable and deserve glory, but if we perform poorly, we are bad and wholly unlovable?

I don't think that it is either humble or proud to say we are good at something. I'd agree it is bad to show off or to skite too much. But Jesus did say "let your light so shine among men that they can see your good works and glorify our Father in heaven". He also said something about not hiding one's light under a bushel. And then there was that parable about the talents. It all depends on whether it is the truth or not. If it isn't the truth, and I fail to do what I said I was good at doing, then I'm setting myself up for a lot of shame and embarrassment.

The thing is, if we are good at something, isn't it right to use our talents constructively, to use them to earn a living, or to help others? Furthermore, if we enjoy doing something we also get better at doing it. If we don't use our talents, we tend to get out of practice and then we do not do as well. I used to like cake decorating, and even did a course to learn how it is done. But I wasn't good enough to be employed as a cake decorator, I haven't iced any cakes for a good while now, and if anyone were to ask me, I'd have to say I couldn't do a good enough job.

What about trying to do something that isn't really one's forte, if we have a good reason for doing so? As I mentioned in the thread earlier, I was reading this book, Assyrians: the continuous saga, by Frederick A Aprim (2004). It was actually written in English, despite the author being a Syriac-speaking engineer and not a native English speaker. It shows in the style of writing.

But the author had something to say, about the ancient Assyrians, who are his ancestors.

It seems like Assyrians today might actually have names like Sargon, Semiramis, Astarte (Esther), Assur or others, but are usually members of a Christian minority native to Iraq, from the Mosul/Kirkuk area, or maybe Eastern Turkey, or bits of Syria and Iran. The rest of the world hardly believes they are the descendants of a people that made quite an impact on the world around 721 BC.

It seems that Mr Aprim would remind us that the Assyrians repented of their sinfulness when Jonah preached God's word, and so Nineveh was spared a little bit longer from its inevitable destruction in 612 BC. He pointed out that the Assyrians were the first people to adopt Christianity, and many have remained so, despite the advent of Islam in around 612 AD. He also suggests the pre-Christian Assyrians were already monotheistic, and that unlike their Middle Eastern neighbours they did not worship lots of gods.

He also would like us to know that the Assyrians were nowhere near as bloodthirsty as painted, that their fearsomeness was a strategy to deter people from revolting, and to keep the peace. It isn't as if other ancient peoples weren't equally as bloodthirsty, the author claims. Minotaur for Aslan would be interested to learn that Israel's kings, in particular, seemed to treat their own people very poorly, and with Biblical approval of Jehovah's prophets they were not only assassinated on a regular basis, but their whole families were executed as well. And Greek and Roman monarchs had just as ferocious reputations.

And Frederick A Aprim (Ephraim, in other words) points out that it was standard practice in the Ancient World, including in the Bible, to exaggerate numbers of troops etc, to play down defeats, or not admit them at all, and to glorify victories. Even the otherwise truthful Bible is not entirely immune from this sort of practice. It seems that inflated statistics sound more impressive. For example, the 10 lost tribes of Israel, deported in two lots, by Tiglath-Pileser III & Sargon II, weren't nearly as lost as might be thought - their Samaritan descendants still survive in Nablus, for one thing.

He suggests that the full answer to what happened to the 10 lost tribes of Israel subsequent to these deportations, might be found in the untranslated information of what is left of the Assurbanipal library, which Layard found in the ruins of Nineveh about 1900 AD. (Now why didn't I think of that? ). And Mr Aprim claims that some of the carvings etc in the Assyrian royal palaces show the Israelite women and children were treated well, being carted off in carts, rather than having to walk like the men.

What inspired this book? The idea that, the Assyrians, a still surviving nationality should be still unfairly accused all through the ages, to be the worst of the worst. Reputation can be a terrible thing.

Humility from my understanding is when you acknowledge who you really are and where your skills and abilities come from. Personally, I am very good at fooseball (table soccer) and I hardly ever practice. I am usually the one the people hold as the standard. They compare their skills to mine. It would be a false humility for me to say I'm not that good. But it would be arrogant of me to say I'm better than anyone else, only my shots are good, only my defense is good, etc. I acknowledge good saves and good shots against me. For me to say I'm not that good in attempt to be humble, is not only a false statement, but puts me in danger of being a shark.

I know a professional pool trick shot artist who uses his skills to preach the Gospel. He is a former shark who would hustle for money, and purposefully play himself down to draw people in. He actually had his life threatened as a result of this until God got a hold of him. Saying you are weaker than you are simply for the purpose of 'false modesty' is no better than saying you are better than you are (arrogance).

But you can say you are good and acknowledge where your skills come from. My fooseball skills come from fencing (hand-eye coordination and reflexes) and from a natural God-given ability for my body to memorize the motions it learns. This is how I am able to be so good without practicing. I'm honest with how good I am and I am honest about the origins of my skills. It really comes down to the heart. Stating a fact is not a problem. Doing so to hide your real skills (false modesty) or build a bigger image than you really merit (arrogance) is dangerous if not sinful. I hope I made that clear.

New topic!

I have a question about repentance. When people talk about repentance, they usually say it's not just about asking forgiveness. It's also about turning away from sin, and stopping doing what you're doing. A lot of people also say that if you're not truly repentant, you won't be forgiven.

So, here's the thing. If we, in the absolute literal sense of that statement, truly turned away from sin and "stopped doing what we were doing", then we wouldn't sin anymore. That's clearly not the case, as we all sin, usually multiple times throughout each and every day. So what exactly are the "specifications", if you will? What counts as true repentance and what doesn't?

And what do you do if you find out you aren't repentant, but don't seem to have the will/willpower to change that?

I know people who swear. Then they ask forgiveness. Then they end up doing it again. Sometimes they do it again, not just by accident when they stub their toe or something, but in regular conversation. Are they not forgiven?

Is it the wanting to stop that counts, even if you are unable to do so?

And what about sins we don't want to stop? Everyone has them, including Christians. Sins you just don't want to give up. Sins that you want to keep so badly that you can't even honestly, from the heart, ask God to help you stop doing them. What, then? Are we not forgiven for these? Do these get in the way of our being saved? Will they send us to Hell?

And what do you do about it?

~Riella

A cursory look over Romans reveals that we have an inbuilt sin nature (Original Sin) that cursed all of humanity when Adam and Eve decided to be god rather than let God be God. We have this sin nature from conception and separates us from being in fully community with Him. On our own we have no hope. When God redeems us it's a work in progress. He gives us His righteousness to clothe ourselves and the Holy Spirit to work in us, to guide, challenge and correct us; to help us become more like Christ. As Christians we still have the ability to sin and we are cursed by sin, it is in our very being but we have a new life - a fresh start. It's not an instantaneous process. The Holy Spirit works in us to help us grow and become more like Christ up until the day in which we meet Him face to face and are fully renewed, perfect and blameless because of Christ.

I'll leave the repentance question for someone more knowledgeable.