 |
 | 
might-be-don
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 830
| Posted 3/30/2004 7:10 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Originally posted by spenlake
...and has jurisdiction even over little babies. You describe one in which a God creates a world where His jurisdiction is limited ...
Main Entry: ju·ris·dic·tion
1 : the power, right, or authority to interpret and apply the law
Why would anyone think that God does not have "the power, right, or authority" to accomplish anything He desires? Certainly not the Calvinists, Arminians, or Open Theist.
Nothing we do, or can do, in any way could ever threaten God's jurisdiction. But everyday we are able to prevent His greatest desire, that none would perish.
Why the law? I think the simple answer is because of the hardness of our hearts. We need a hard stone tablet to grind our hearts to something that can be formed, but we know this is fruitless. God bids us everyday to trade our hard hearts ( bound to the law ) for a heart of flesh ( His grace in Jesus Christ ).
for freedom, don
"Life is a gift from God, but the years have weight in them."
Terry Scott Taylor | | Back to Top | | |
|
Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 3/30/2004 7:16 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
There must be something inside humans, after the Fall, that convicts us all of sin even before we actually commit one. It's the internal sin of a corrupted heart, by virtue (what an ironic word to use here) of having been a child of Adam. To say that it's possible for a human to not commit sin and therefore is actually able to get into heaven without Jesus' help, is blasphemous and totally goes against what Scripture teaches about humanity's need of a Savior.
Hello Tigress, you say sin entered the world after the fall. But Eve and Adam both sined before the fall. It was satan  then and it's satan today that tempts us with sin. It's our choice to listen to satan or to believe God.
Hearts and souls are not born sinful and tainted, it’s a slow process that this fallen world molds, conforms and shapes us into. A world controlled by the god of this age, the prince of darkness himself. It is a spiritual war that we are engaged in soon after birth, as angels of darkness survey new souls with evil spirits. It is by power of the Holy Spirit that we our protected here in this fallen world. Christians are to be transformed and reborn through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. The new Adam, Jesus is what we should model our lives after, to die to ourselves so He can reform and reshape us into His true image of holiness, if we so choose.
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness… the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Open your eyes of your imagination and see the heavens inhale as a new heart begins. Hear the first grasp for breath as the sound of an infant’s life begins. A new heart created in the image of the Triune Love of God, the commune relationship of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. It’s small heart gently beating in harmony, with the Triune heart of God. A heart so soft and pure with no stains of self, not soiled from the impurities of a fallen world, listen as the helpless cries begin.
Peace,
Mark | | Back to Top | | |
|
Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 3/30/2004 7:48 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by spenlake
In your analogy, if you have the power to intervene in your child's life to prevent evil, and you don't use it because you value their freewill, you would be sacrificing them to evil. For instance, you have a rebellious daughter that wishes to go to an all male party with drugs and liquor in her bikini. You have the power to intervene and prevent her, but you have allowed her this area in her life to exercise her freewill because you want her to freely choose to give up her rebellion. Because you want her to choose against her rebellion herself, you will not to use your power to prevent her going. She is brutally raped and killed. Have you, as a parent, sacrificed your daughter for the sake of her freewill by not using the power you had to prevent it?
Hey, let's be ridiculous.
When they're young, I exercise more control and training that lessens as they get older. Didn't your parents do this with you?
I would intervene if I could in such a situation as you posit but eventually they will move away from home and I will have to trust in the upbringing we gave them. What's the alternative? Locking them in the basement?
So you think that her going to the party was God's plan and there's consolation in that?
Her freedom caused her to do that stupid thing versus God's determining that she do that stupid thing. You'd rather God be the agent responsible for stupidity?
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade | | Back to Top | | |
|
Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 3/30/2004 8:05 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
Laika and Sparknheart,
Believe me, I want to believe what you are saying, but I still have another question. What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in all of this? It has been my understanding that once a person accepts Jesus, He gives her His Holy Spirit to regenerate her spirit and mind. In doing this, the Spirit empowers and enables her to resist temptation and sin, whereas before she was saved she was a slave of the devil.
You two are saying that even before a person has accepted Christ and gotten the Spirit, she has the power to resist temptation and sin. If she had the ability to save herself as you claim, then why is it even necessary for Christ to give us His Spirit?
The Spirit is at work in all of us, hounding after our conscience, He leads us to Jesus if we choose to fully open our hearts and let Him in. To suppress our moral conscience is to harden our hearts and to become in slaved to the devil. The spirit was at work in the likes of Gandhi, but his salvation is another debate... | | Back to Top | | |
|
Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 3/30/2004 8:14 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Laika
Hey, let's be ridiculous.
I would intervene if I could in such a situation as you posit but eventually they will move away from home and I will have to trust in the upbringing we gave them. What's the alternative? Locking them in the basement?
Oh no  , does this mean I better get home and un-duck tape my kids. | | Back to Top | | |
|
Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 3/30/2004 3:53 PM (GMT -6) | | 40 million posts to read and respond to! Just in this thread... I really do have to get some sleep sometime tonight, too.
quote:
so you are taking a universal view in I Cor. 15:22? All made dead by Adam, all made alive by Christ. If all are made dead by Adam (in sin) then all will be saved by Christ.
1CO 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
Yes, I think that is possible to say that from this verse. Not that all are saved, but that we may hope that all will be saved. Since I believe that God controls human hearts (Acts 13:48), and wants all to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4). I do think we need to take the verses that say some men may well be lost forever in the other hand, though, and not discount them. I'm not sure how to make a neat package of this, but I think we are given reason to hope that all will be saved.
quote:
The process produces the condition.
RO 3:12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.
There is a process, I agree. But more than a process, or Paul could not write "there is no one who does good, not even one." Not young people, not anyone. I requote myself!
"So they are blind, and yet still further blinded (Mt. 13:13-14), deaf, and yet they stop their ears (Ps. 58:4), dead, and yet still perishing (Eph. 2:1, 1 Cor. 1:18). Like people in the second death, who are dead spiritually, and yet they die further."
The cobra mentioned in Ps. 58:4 can't hear! It's impossible, they don't have ears. Yet the deaf still "stop their ears."
PS 58:3 Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies.
quote:
Have you heard infants telling lies? In order to "go astray", you have to start from a 'non-astray' position.
The NASB puts it a bit differently:
PS 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; these who speak lies go astray from birth.
They are estranged, yet they go astray, lost, and yet they lose themselves further. Even if I grant you this point, you have to say sin starts in the womb, that's still pretty original. But I think it starts from conception:
PS 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
quote:
Do you really have a staff of God in your hand?
Glad you visited my web page! And yes, the Psalmist is speaking figuratively when he called the wicked cobras. But not when he calls people wicked in the womb...
quote:
So, in order to be a sinner, someone has to have taken action(s) against God.
David says he was "sinful", not "a sinner", though. From the start. But he did get started sinning real early, too.
quote:
Show me an infant, skiing from their mother's womb, and I'll accept "original sin".
The Canaanites were put to death, men, women and children, when the "sin of the Amorites was full" (Gen. 15:16). How could this be commanded if they were not all wicked?
quote:
So why do you think God punishes people simply for having been born?
Being born is not a sin, certainly. But we are punished for sin that we cannot help doing. Paul doesn't back off from this:
RO 9:19 One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"
Paul addresses the question of God's justice by saying God has the right to do as he pleases with us. And then he ends by saying he may be pleased to have mercy on all of us:
RO 11:32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
quote:
And if a tree dies, that's proof that the tree had "original sin" as well?
No, but it is the result of sin entering the world. When people die, that is a penalty for Adam's sin, "in Adam all die."
quote:
(Calvinism says) People are held morally responsible due to mere birth.
God determines all and yet holds the robots morally responsible.
Evil and good both come from God yet we're supposed to differentiate between them.
No, we're responsible because of sin, inherited sin, and then sinning on top of that. Yes, God determines all and still holds men responsible:
ISA 10:5 "Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath!"
But I believe God does change people from sinning robots into responsible, growing-up children. And yes, good and evil are different, just because you plan to make salad with tomatoes and lettuce doesn't mean tomatoes and lettuce are not different. You may not enjoy tomatoes, either, but they're still good for you. Don't know about the lettuce, though (I'm doing the best I can  ).
quote:
Why would there be such a disconnect, then, between our common law (no one is morally culpable for something they have no power over) and the supposed law of God, posited by calvinists?
God says we are guilty, even when we don't mean to sin:
LEV 4:22 When a leader sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the commands of the Lord his God, he is guilty.
Sin involves a penalty, always, God does not just skip over a sin, no matter what the reason. Is God just to punish a sin a person couldn't help doing?
RO 3:5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us?
Part of this involves an assumption that God is only inflicting the penalty for sin. But we know that he bears it as well:
ISA 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities...
So God is not just decreeing that people sin, and then punishing them for it. He is also bearing that punishment, and I believe we are allowed to hope that he will take all sin away:
JN 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
quote:
We're not saving we're NOT slaves to sin or that we don't have a sinful nature. We're saying we developed that nature due to our choices.
Yes, we do, people are perishing (1 Cor. 1:18). But they are also dead:
COL 2:13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive.
No exceptions here, no one is rescued that is not dead already. There's no chance of that.
ISA 48:8 You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ear has not been open. Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth.
That's the bad news! But there's good news, too. Which I think everyone here agrees on...
1PE 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
Blessings,
Lee
==================================================
"Even now we seem to have dim glimpses into regions
from which we receive no word to bring away" (George MacDonald) | | Back to Top | | |
|
rossfadeinout
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428
| Posted 3/31/2004 10:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey Lee,
I haven't been around here lately, just popped on this thread. I hope to get to know a little more about you as the conversation goes on. But I had to comment on something you said in your last post. quote:
But I believe God does change people from sinning robots into responsible, growing-up children. And yes, good and evil are different, just because you plan to make salad with tomatoes and lettuce doesn't mean tomatoes and lettuce are not different. You may not enjoy tomatoes, either, but they're still good for you. Don't know about the lettuce, though (I'm doing the best I can ).
Let me see if I'm following. In the analogy you are comparing "good" and "evil" with "lettuce" and "tomatoes." If this is the case why does scripture say that God hates sin and evil, if it is just a different event. In the analogy both lettuce and tomatoes are good for you, just different. Does that mean both "good" and "evil" are really good? Sounds confusing to me....
Ross
"Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite." -Thomas Reid | | Back to Top | | |
|
Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 3/31/2004 3:10 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi Ross,
quote:
In the analogy you are comparing "good" and "evil" with "lettuce" and "tomatoes." If this is the case why does scripture say that God hates sin and evil, if it is just a different event. In the analogy both lettuce and tomatoes are good for you, just different. Does that mean both "good" and "evil" are really good?
That analogy of mine was not the best! I'll agree. What I was after here is that "God plans both good and evil" doesn't mean good and evil are the same. So the salad has both A and B, and A and B are nonetheless quite different. Even though I planned it.
Anyway!
No, I'm not saying that good and evil are both good...
ISA 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
But I would say that God plans evil for a good result. Now the question becomes, is God taking the course of "the end justifies the means?" I don't think so:
2CO 4:17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.
The difficulties (undoubtably sinful, in many instances) are producing a weight of glory, the afflictions are necessary, they are part of the process.
REV 5:12 In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain."
If Jesus had never endured the cross, at the hands of sinful man, we could not call him worthy in this way. It would be impossible. Thus the very route God takes, even involving sinful deeds, brings him glory, even the means are part of the end.
Blessings,
Lee
==================================================
"Even now we seem to have dim glimpses into regions
from which we receive no word to bring away" (George MacDonald) | | Back to Top | | |
|
di
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2002
Total Posts : 49
| Posted 4/14/2004 6:10 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
quote:
Originally posted by Laika
quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
You two are saying that even before a person has accepted Christ and gotten the Spirit, she has the power to resist temptation and sin. If she had the ability to save herself as you claim, then why is it even necessary for Christ to give us His Spirit?
We're not saving we're NOT slaves to sin or that we don't have a sinful nature. We're saying we developed that nature due to our choices. Choose a certain way enough and eventually it becomes a habit. Your habits eventually become your nature. You, yourself, are responsible for getting into this condition. God is not responsible for getting you into this condition. How to break free from this? Through salvation in Jesus and the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
Tigress, the next paycheck you get will be based upon your ability to dunk a basketball on a regulation basket (10 feet) with no aids of any kind. This should seem fair.
So you don't believe humans are born slaves to sin?
Laika, do you believe humans are born spiritually alive, without a sinful nature, and that upon our first sinful choice, we are then separated from God by our own sinful choice and our sinful nature begins to develop from that point on? I'm really trying to understand your point of view and wondering how you interpret Romans 5:12. 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Do you believe this to be physical death only, or spiritual, or both?
Thank you, di
di | | Back to Top | | |
|
Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 4/14/2004 7:38 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by di
Laika, do you believe humans are born spiritually alive, without a sinful nature, and that upon our first sinful choice, we are then separated from God by our own sinful choice and our sinful nature begins to develop from that point on? I'm really trying to understand your point of view and wondering how you interpret Romans 5:12. 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Do you believe this to be physical death only, or spiritual, or both?
I believe people are born morally neutral.
Romans 9:11 "for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad"
I believe Jesus was born morally neutral as well.
Hebrews 4:15 "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin."
Both us and Jesus were born morally neutral. He overcame temptation and didn't sin, thus He can be our High Priest. I NEED a High Priest who was in the same condition as me, yet never chose to sin.
Look at Romans 5:12
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:"
Sin entered where? All men? No, the world.
How did death spread to all men? "All have sinned."
Ephesians 2:8,9 "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"
It doesn't say "all are sinners", a condition, it says all have chosen to sin, volitional actions
Paul then parallels how sin entered the world with how righteousness entered the world:
Romans 5:18 "So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous."
How were the "many made sinners"? Automatically? Then "the many will be made righteous" automatically. OR
The many were made sinners because they chose to sin, the many will be made righteous because they choose Jesus' free gift of salvation.
I think Romans 5 shows how sin entered the world and was available. All but Jesus chose to sin. Likewise, salvation entered the world through Jesus and is available for all to choose.
The "all men sinned in Adam" idea came from the Latin Vulgate where they incorrectly inserted "eph ho" in the phrase:
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"
to make it:
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned in him"
So the "sinned in Adam" idea came from a bad translation. 
See Roger Forster's & Paul Marston's "God's Strategy in Human History".
But I do believe in a sinful nature. It's just that your choices, over time, become habits and your habits eventually become your nature. Which is why Jesus says to bring the children to him, before they are too set in their ways.
It's because the church accepted augustine's wacky ideas about inherited sin and that the very act of procreation was sinful and that even infants are sinners, that the church started baptizing infants around that time as well.
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade | | Back to Top | | |
|
Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 4/14/2004 9:03 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by spenlake
What we don't find in Paul's parallel is the "all men" being active choosers in either case.
"because all sinned" means.... "because all sinned". LOL, those are volitional actions.
quote:
In the first parallel we find the act of one "resulting to" all men.
In the first, "through one man, sin entered the world". It doesn't say "men", it says "the world".
Then, in contrast, Paul says death spread "all men" because "all sinned". Paul makes a distinction between what Adam brought about (sin entering the world) and what each of us bring about (our individual spiritual death through our individual choice to sin)
WORLD by one man, followed by all MEN by choice.
You need to read the words, spenlake. Parallel means both sides are the same! You're redefining "parallel". LOL
It's either both are automatically sinners and automatically righteous or
both are volitionally sinners and volitionally made righteous
That's how Paul parallels it.
So you're a universalist, spenlake?
You can't say one side of the parallel is different from the other side of the parallel. Look up "parallel", dood.
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade | | Back to Top | | |
|
di
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2002
Total Posts : 49
| Posted 4/14/2004 9:45 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Laika
quote:
Originally posted by di
Laika, do you believe humans are born spiritually alive, without a sinful nature, and that upon our first sinful choice, we are then separated from God by our own sinful choice and our sinful nature begins to develop from that point on? I'm really trying to understand your point of view and wondering how you interpret Romans 5:12. 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Do you believe this to be physical death only, or spiritual, or both?
I believe people are born morally neutral.
Romans 9:11 "for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad"
I believe Jesus was born morally neutral as well.
Hebrews 4:15 "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin."
Both us and Jesus were born morally neutral. He overcame temptation and didn't sin, thus He can be our High Priest. I NEED a High Priest who was in the same condition as me, yet never chose to sin.
Look at Romans 5:12
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:"
Sin entered where? All men? No, the world.
How did death spread to all men? "All have sinned."
Ephesians 2:8,9 "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"
It doesn't say "all are sinners", a condition, it says all have chosen to sin, volitional actions
Paul then parallels how sin entered the world with how righteousness entered the world:
Romans 5:18 "So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous."
How were the "many made sinners"? Automatically? Then "the many will be made righteous" automatically. OR
The many were made sinners because they chose to sin, the many will be made righteous because they choose Jesus' free gift of salvation.
I think Romans 5 shows how sin entered the world and was available. All but Jesus chose to sin. Likewise, salvation entered the world through Jesus and is available for all to choose.
The "all men sinned in Adam" idea came from the Latin Vulgate where they incorrectly inserted "eph ho" in the phrase:
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"
to make it:
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned in him"
So the "sinned in Adam" idea came from a bad translation.
See Roger Forster's & Paul Marston's "God's Strategy in Human History".
But I do believe in a sinful nature. It's just that your choices, over time, become habits and your habits eventually become your nature. Which is why Jesus says to bring the children to him, before they are too set in their ways.
It's because the church accepted augustine's wacky ideas about inherited sin and that the very act of procreation was sinful and that even infants are sinners, that the church started baptizing infants around that time as well.
Thank you Laika. Very helpful. I believe there is no problem holding to the above interpretation while also maintaining that we are born in a fallen, unregenerate state. Would you agree?
di
di | | Back to Top | | |
| 95 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 3 4 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 1:37 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|