Did God Cause the Fall?

[Drew]

1 Corin 15: 21: is a declaration to us of God’s beginning of man seeing we are all dead in Adam to his final conclusion when all will be made in Christ; as well as how God plans to do it; each in their own order. Clearly it is written, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

True, but remember what you were claiming was supported by 1 Corinthians 15. It was this (I bolded the important part):

It takes God's spirit to quicken us out of that death state; before we can hear or see anything spirtual.

There is nothing anywhere in 1 Corinthians 15 that supports such a belief - you have to read it in. I challenge you to show me anything from 1 Corinthians 15 that denies the ability of a human to "freely" respond to an offered gift of grace.

 

[Drew]

Sure they do in the natural… but I never said in the natural realm; I said they do not "hear, see, touch, and feel" God or spiritual things; they reject all things of God.

OK, fair enough. I do not agree with your assessment of what the Bible is saying about human freedom, but at least you acknowledge that people who are "spirtually" dead are not totally dead in every dimension of their existence.

 

[Drew]

The word freewill or choice are not found anywhere in the NT when it comes to someone freely choosing his own salvation. The word freewill is not even found in the Bible except for the Freewill Offering in the OT; which has nothing to do with salvation even as an example. God saves us by His grace, the and only then can carnal man have faith to believe in God and be saved.

This is not a valid argument as has already been shown in detail. I do think that you are on much better ground with your appeal to Romans 3 - I will have to think about that and get back to you.

But the "freewill is not mentioned in the Bible" argument does not work for precisely the reason that it is eminently plausible that "free will" is implicitly bundled into other concepts, as I have argued at some detail. We know that modern westerners implicitly believe in free will when they use words like "choose" in relation to people (as in Fred "chose" Coke over Pepsi), yet would never use the term "choose" to describe the actions of a rock - no one would ever say "that rock chose to roll down the hill". Clearly, the westerner ascribes a degree of self-determining free will to the person that he does not to the rock.

That does not mean that free will exists, but that is not the point. The point is that the absence of explicit assertions of free will in the Bible is of almost no value in determining whether men have some free will.

 

[Drew]

A dead man cannot hear, see, touch, feel, etc. That is especially true of a spiritual dead man.

How can this be true. As I sit in this office eating my lunch, I am surrounded by unbelievers - people who are spiritually dead. And yet they clearly "hear, see, touch, and feel".



1. We agree that all men are born into slavery to sin...

Those are mere words, you have a much weaker concept of "slavery."

Indeed I do. I fully grant that I think the "slavery" we are under is not as "bad", in the sense of damaging all of our faculties, as you seem to think it is. Obviously we each have to make a Biblical case for our respective views.

 

[Benoni]

Spin.

Yes you dismiss the verse, you have dismiss the verse twenty different ways with no merit. I really do not care if you believe this translation is a distortion; I disagree. You’re spinning the real issue here. If Adam sinned on his own merit prove it; show me in God’s Word not your assumption. Mean while all we have is our spin to say to the contrary.

Embarrass, why would I be embarrassed by God’s Spirit? So are you saying God’s Spirit should not lead you; when was the last time God’s Spirit reveals anything new to you, or old? So what you truly are saying is you do not believe God’s spirit is leading you?

Is your faith totally based on religious scholars which do not cut the mustard when it comes to the Bible; sure they have their place; but they are not the truth Jesus is?

Can you prove to me which scholars we can trust, which one are not bias like yourself?

You cannot not receive anything outside your religious made box; truth must be controlled and protect just like the Catholic Church during the dark ages.

God is dead to you, and has nothing new to say to you now.

God’s has given us His Spiritual Word and His Holy Spirit of truth to reveal the truth to our spirit. But you are closed to God’s Spirit’s leading because you believe in religious man made scholars; it is no wonder we disagree; you fight to defend your bias; I seek ask and knock and have spiritual ears to hear; you have only religious ears and hear no new revelation.

God gives us the Spirit of truth because God’s Word declares all men are liars and God desires us to trust God not men; that is the last thing a religious man like your self would ever trust the very spirit of God with in you.

How many times to you dismis a verse why; because you follow religious scholars of scripture not God's Word.

Sorry friend, I dont dismiss the verses you present, I dismiss YOUR distortion of what they SAY.

No where in the Bible dose it say we are suppose to follow, carnal religious scholars of scripture.

Please
Dont embarass yourself.
You USE a bible provided to you BY our scholars of whatever sort.
Its pretty funny to hear you rail against them all while USING the product of their work

[quote:28r75m0s] There is only one source of truth in God's Spiritual Word and that is God's Spirit of truth; that religious scholars of scripture also reject because they have their human, logical brain and religion just like the Jews and just like the Pope.

You mean like whomever translated that perverse version you are using that no other version I can find even remotely resembles in Romans 8:20 ?

-run on irrelevance snipped-

Please get back to the topic...


.[/quote:28r75m0s]

 

[follower of Christ]

Indeed I do. I fully grant that I think the "slavery" we are under is not as "bad", in the sense of damaging all of our faculties, as you seem to think it is. Obviously we each have to make a Biblical case for our respective views.

A very reasonable view considering Pauls words to the Romans...

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or obedience to righteousness?
Romans 6

We present OURSELVES as slaves to obey. It is not forced upon us as slaves of men are.

 

[Benoni]

.

I am sorry there is a valid argument but let me go a little deeper. I do not believe that the Bible anywhere teaches that man is a has freewill. That teaching is a figment of the imagination of the harlot church system. In fact, the Bible teaches the exact opposite. It tells us, "It is NOT of him that WILLETH or of him that runneth, but of GOD that showeth mercy" (Rom. 9:16). The biggest lie that ever was told in human language is that all men are born free. They are not born free. Be honest! Ask, Is that child free who is born in the slums; the child of a harlot and a whoremonger; a child without a name, who grows up with the brand of shame upon his brow from the beginning; who grows up amidst vice, and never knows virtue until it is steeped in vice? Is such a child a FREE MORAL AGENT, free to act intelligently, as he chooses, upon all moral questions?

Is that child free who grows up amidst falsehood, and never knows what truth is until it is steeped in lies; that never knows what honesty is until it is steeped in crime? Is that child born free? Is that child free who is born in a communist land and in a godless home; who is told by its government and taught by its teachers that there is no God in heaven, and never knows even a verse of Scripture until it is steeped in unbelief and infidelity? Is that child born free? It is a sham, a delusion, and a snare to say it. It is not true. None of us have freedom of choice but we are not really speaking of man freedom to choose.

The preachers claim that when God made man in the first place, He endowed him with freedom of will, the ability to accept God's love or reject it, to keep God's laws or break them, and that the decision here and now is a final choice. But our Lord says, "No man can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him" (Jn. 6:44). A little observation will show that man's freedom has very narrow limits. One is able to wish or desire or purpose as he pleases, but when he comes to carry out his wish or desire or purpose, he finds that he faces a problem.

One is not free in the physical realm. Just let him try to jump off the Earth and land on Mars, for example.

One is not free in the social realm.

Not every man can marry the woman he wishes.

One is not free in the economic realm. Not every person who dreams of being a millionaire can become one, no matter how hard he tries.

One is not free in the moral and spiritual realm. He may desire with all his being to rid the world of drunkenness and vice, of greed and hate and war, but who has yet accomplished that? Many are not able to free even themselves from a little weed called tobacco!

Life neither begins or ends by choice and free will. Consider the matter of your own physical birth. What did you have to do with it; were not consulted in the matter; you were absolutely passive in it; you had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

You did not have a choice as to where or when you would be born. You had no choice as to what kind of a home or family you would be born into. Would you like to have black hair, or blond hair, or perhaps no hair at all?

Would you like to have brown eyes or blue?

Would you like to have white skin, or black, or would green, or red, or yellow suit you better?

And where would you like to live? In Miami, or Hong Kong, or Siberia, or maybe in the Congo?"

Nothing of the sort! You were not even consulted. The sovereign Lord God of heaven and earth brought you into existence and ordained your path without so much a how-do-you-feel-about-it. And you had no choice as to how you would be born, in what condition or state of being.

The Psalmist declared, "Behold, I was brought forth in a state of iniquity; my mother was sinful who conceived me and 1, too, am sinful" (Ps. 51:5, Amplified).

Well did the apostle Paul write . ..... by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned ... for by one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (Rom. 5:12,19).

If any man had brought himself into being, then we can conceive of the possibility of his having something to say about his condition and destiny. But mankind had absolutely nothing whatever to do with his coming into this world. It was the choice of God.

God chose to bring this creature into existence because He had a definite plan for him in His creative purposes in the whole universe. It was God who formed man of the dust of the ground.

It was God who breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

It was God who placed man in the Garden of Eden.

It was God who planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the Garden.

It was God who gave the law that man should neither touch this tree nor eat of it. And it was God who made the serpent and put him in the Garden and sent him along one beautiful day to tempt the man.

It was GOD!

So if you are going to assume Adam was free, or assume we are free to choose then you better back it up with more then your assumption or teaching based on who knows what?

The word freewill or choice are not found anywhere in the NT when it comes to someone freely choosing his own salvation. The word freewill is not even found in the Bible except for the Freewill Offering in the OT; which has nothing to do with salvation even as an example. God saves us by His grace, the and only then can carnal man have faith to believe in God and be saved.

This is not a valid argument as has already been shown in detail. I do think that you are on much better ground with your appeal to Romans 3 - I will have to think about that and get back to you.

But the "freewill is not mentioned in the Bible" argument does not work for precisely the reason that it is eminently plausible that "free will" is implicitly bundled into other concepts, as I have argued at some detail. We know that modern westerners implicitly believe in free will when they use words like "choose" in relation to people (as in Fred "chose" Coke over Pepsi), yet would never use the term "choose" to describe the actions of a rock - no one would ever say "that rock chose to roll down the hill". Clearly, the westerner ascribes a degree of self-determining free will to the person that he does not to the rock.

That does not mean that free will exists, but that is not the point. The point is that the absence of explicit assertions of free will in the Bible is of almost no value in determining whether men have some free will.

 

[mondar]

A dead man cannot hear, see, touch, feel, etc. That is especially true of a spiritual dead man.

How can this be true. As I sit in this office eating my lunch, I am surrounded by unbelievers - people who are spiritually dead. And yet they clearly "hear, see, touch, and feel".



1. We agree that all men are born into slavery to sin...

Those are mere words, you have a much weaker concept of "slavery."

Indeed I do. I fully grant that I think the "slavery" we are under is not as "bad", in the sense of damaging all of our faculties, as you seem to think it is. Obviously we each have to make a Biblical case for our respective views.

Heh

When I said "you have a much weaker view of "slavery" I was comparing you to Benoni. On the other hand, when you say that your view is weaker then mine, that is also obviously true.

If you asking for a biblical defense of my view of slavery, I happily will do so.
Romans 6:20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
The passage begins with the concept that in the atonement we "died to sin" (vs 2--NIV), and we were "baptized into Christ Jesus.... into his death" (vs 3), and the "old man" (vs 6---kjv) was crucified with Christ.

Paul then concludes that we are in complete slavery to sin (verse 17 & 20). The concept of slavery is of course that sin is our master. Why do we then make the decisions we do? Why are we rebel sinners? Sin is our master. We are in bondage to sin, we do the will of sin. Righteousness has no control over us (see verse 20).

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God...
Of course once we are freed from the slavery we can please God with our faith. Can the person who is a slave of sin suddenly please God with faith?
Romans 8:8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
When you look at Hebrews 11:6 and Romans 8:7-8, you can see that the nature of man is totally depraved and sin permeates all aspects of mans nature. So much that we are the slave of sin and cannot do anything to please God....

Until God regenerates a person, this is his nature. After regeneration, after the new birth, after being born again, then the slavery of sin is destroyed. There is no more "old man" but a "new man" who can please God with faith, and of course also please God with works.

So then all this is true...
Romans 3:11
11there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
No one seeks God... God seeks them by drawing them through regeneration which leads to faith.
We are then made children of God, not by our own will....
John 1:13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And of course the good old statement in John 6:44 which has long been ignored.
44 No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day.

Back to Romans 6... No where does the chapter begin to suggest we are slaves to sin by our own choice. In fact near the end of the Chapter it says...
22 But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life.
We do not choose to become servants of God and then we are made free from sin. That would be closer to your concept of our slavery, but that is not what the text says. We are made free from sin (sin nature) and then in this freedom, we have a new master. We are now slaves of God, or slaves of righteousness.

Let me say this about Romans 6 to other readers....
The many exortations to practice righteousness in Romans 6 are based upon a concept of legal slavery. We are no longer legally slaves of sin. This does not mean that our old master (sin nature) is dead... the thing that is dead is the legal right of our sin nature to control us. Sin has no more right to enslave us. The issue of the chapter is emancipation from the slavery of sin.

Its like in the USA before the civil war.... the black man was a legal slave. After Lincoln emancipated the slave, where did the black man go to work? Some went to the north, some went right back to the plantation and became employees (share croppers) of the old master. This is what we do when we live under the power of our sin nature. We are serving the old master, sin. So then, the legal right of our sin nature is dead, but the sin nature itself is not dead.

This of course means that before Christ frees us legally from sin, we do not have the ability or the desire to live under righteousness, or to live under Christ. We cannot have faith. We are so enslaved to sin that we are continual rebels, setting up our own standards of righteousness apart from God. Until Christ acts first and breaks the power of sin, we are slaves of sin.

When unregenerate, we served Lord Sin with gusto. After regeneration, we love our Lord Jesus Christ, but the old master still interferes.

Drew, I know your concept of slavery is far weaker. You see us more as a merchant who chooses the service of sin then a slave that is in bondage to sin. Nevertheless, the word in Romans 6 is not "service" but "slave." Of course I am aware that some english translations use the word "serve, or service" but the greek word is doulos. It speaks of something far more then mere service, it speaks of slavery.

 

[Benoni]

Problem is with carnal man he cannot choose until God first draws him quickens him; for as I showed you all man is dead in trustpasses and sin and has no freewdom to choose until God quicken us.

Indeed I do. I fully grant that I think the "slavery" we are under is not as "bad", in the sense of damaging all of our faculties, as you seem to think it is. Obviously we each have to make a Biblical case for our respective views.

A very reasonable view considering Pauls words to the Romans...

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or obedience to righteousness?
Romans 6

We present OURSELVES as slaves to obey. It is not forced upon us as slaves of men are.

 

[Benoni]

Awesome


Those are mere words, you have a much weaker concept of "slavery."[/quote]

Indeed I do. I fully grant that I think the "slavery" we are under is not as "bad", in the sense of damaging all of our faculties, as you seem to think it is. Obviously we each have to make a Biblical case for our respective views.

Heh

When I said "you have a much weaker view of "slavery" I was comparing you to Benoni. On the other hand, when you say that your view is weaker then mine, that is also obviously true.

If you asking for a biblical defense of my view of slavery, I happily will do so.
Romans 6:20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
The passage begins with the concept that in the atonement we "died to sin" (vs 2--NIV), and we were "baptized into Christ Jesus.... into his death" (vs 3), and the "old man" (vs 6---kjv) was crucified with Christ.

Paul then concludes that we are in complete slavery to sin (verse 17 & 20). The concept of slavery is of course that sin is our master. Why do we then make the decisions we do? Why are we rebel sinners? Sin is our master. We are in bondage to sin, we do the will of sin. Righteousness has no control over us (see verse 20).

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God...
Of course once we are freed from the slavery we can please God with our faith. Can the person who is a slave of sin suddenly please God with faith?
Romans 8:8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
When you look at Hebrews 11:6 and Romans 8:7-8, you can see that the nature of man is totally depraved and sin permeates all aspects of mans nature. So much that we are the slave of sin and cannot do anything to please God....

Until God regenerates a person, this is his nature. After regeneration, after the new birth, after being born again, then the slavery of sin is destroyed. There is no more "old man" but a "new man" who can please God with faith, and of course also please God with works.

So then all this is true...
Romans 3:11
11there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
No one seeks God... God seeks them by drawing them through regeneration which leads to faith.
We are then made children of God, not by our own will....
John 1:13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And of course the good old statement in John 6:44 which has long been ignored.
44 No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day.

Back to Romans 6... No where does the chapter begin to suggest we are slaves to sin by our own choice. In fact near the end of the Chapter it says...
22 But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life.
We do not choose to become servants of God and then we are made free from sin. That would be closer to your concept of our slavery, but that is not what the text says. We are made free from sin (sin nature) and then in this freedom, we have a new master. We are now slaves of God, or slaves of righteousness.

Let me say this about Romans 6 to other readers....
The many exortations to practice righteousness in Romans 6 are based upon a concept of legal slavery. We are no longer legally slaves of sin. This does not mean that our old master (sin nature) is dead... the thing that is dead is the legal right of our sin nature to control us. Sin has no more right to enslave us. The issue of the chapter is emancipation from the slavery of sin.

Its like in the USA before the civil war.... the black man was a legal slave. After Lincoln emancipated the slave, where did the black man go to work? Some went to the north, some went right back to the plantation and became employees (share croppers) of the old master. This is what we do when we live under the power of our sin nature. We are serving the old master, sin. So then, the legal right of our sin nature is dead, but the sin nature itself is not dead.

This of course means that before Christ frees us legally from sin, we do not have the ability or the desire to live under righteousness, or to live under Christ. We cannot have faith. We are so enslaved to sin that we are continual rebels, setting up our own standards of righteousness apart from God. Until Christ acts first and breaks the power of sin, we are slaves of sin.

When unregenerate, we served Lord Sin with gusto. After regeneration, we love our Lord Jesus Christ, but the old master still interferes.

Drew, I know your concept of slavery is far weaker. You see us more as a merchant who chooses the service of sin then a slave that is in bondage to sin. Nevertheless, the word in Romans 6 is not "service" but "slave." Of course I am aware that some english translations use the word "serve, or service" but the greek word is doulos. It speaks of something far more then mere service, it speaks of slavery.[/quote]

 

[Drew]

I do not believe that the Bible anywhere teaches that man is a has freewill. That teaching is a figment of the imagination of the harlot church system. In fact, the Bible teaches the exact opposite. It tells us, "It is NOT of him that WILLETH or of him that runneth, but of GOD that showeth mercy" (Rom. 9:16).

The argument of Romans 9 does indeed appeal to God's sovereignty. I suggest that you are implicitly committed to one "end" of a spectrum of otherwise legitimate conceptualizations of "sovereignty". In Romans 9, Paul is making an historical and covenantal argument - showing how God has sovereignly used Israel for His redemptive purposes. This does not require us to understand God as "controlling all the strings of every human person". His argument works just as well with a sovereignty where God controls just enough of human history to achieve his ends.

 

[Drew]

Drew, I know your concept of slavery is far weaker. You see us more as a merchant who chooses the service of sin then a slave that is in bondage to sin.

I am not accusing intentional misrepresention, but this is nowhere near an accurate reflection of what I have written. I have been crystal clear that we in no sense "choose to be in service to sin". I have repeatedly affirmed the opposite - that we we are born enslaved to sin - so I am troubled that you think I hold a view other than the one I have repeatedly, and I thought clearly, asserted.

The appropriate analogy to understand my position is the baby born hopelessly addicted to crack cocaine. Let's assume that doctors need to give the baby some cocaine or he will die. Now fast forward to when the child is 16. At this age, the child, though still hopelessly addicted to crack, has the intellectual capacity to realize his predicament.

And now for the important part. Let's say that the doctors develop a cure - an injection that will free the boy from crack addiction. The child can "freely" choose to accept the cure and thus be cured. I trust this clarifies my position (with the analogy hopefully not requiring explanation).

 

[follower of Christ]

.I am sorry there is a valid argument but let me go a little deeper.

Every time you go deeper its into error.

I do not believe that the Bible anywhere teaches that man is a has freewill.

And you are free to believe whatever you wish, but scripture proves you wrong.

That teaching is a figment of the imagination of the harlot church system.

So, now you are deeming MOST here as being the harlot ?

In fact, the Bible teaches the exact opposite.

Uh, no, it doesnt.
You simply look away when the facts prove you wrong.

None of us have freedom of choice but we are not really speaking of man freedom to choose.

Complete nonsense.
YOU CHOOSE today to waste your time pushing your error on this forum
WE CHOOSE today to refute you.
NO one is forcing either of us...it is by our FREE WILL that we are here and doing what we are doing.
To say otherwise is to say that your god is here arguing vainly with himself thru us
Does your god like to waste his time with such frivolity ?

READERS SEE >>> Scriptural support provided by FoC:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=476086#p476086
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475968
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475969
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475970

.

 

[follower of Christ]

You did not have a choice as to where or when you would be born. You had no choice as to what kind of a home or family you would be born into. Would you like to have black hair, or blond hair, or perhaps no hair at all?

Would you like to have brown eyes or blue?

Would you like to have white skin, or black, or would green, or red, or yellow suit you better?

And where would you like to live? In Miami, or Hong Kong, or Siberia, or maybe in the Congo?

Such astounding nonsense.
Im utterly amazed that you can even continue here with this absurdity.

SOME THINGS WE HAVE NO OPTION OFFERED TO US.....and in THOSE things we have NO choice.
Where you are born, who your parents are DO NOT OFFER ANY OPTIONS to the person.

What we eat for breakfast...IF we eat at all....what color shirt to wear....whether to call in sick today... THESE ARE OPTIONS...CHOICES that man CAN make.

Good grief guy, at least start giving some REAL arguments here. This is pathetic.

READERS SEE >>> Scriptural support provided by FoC:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=476086#p476086
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475968
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475969
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475970

 

[follower of Christ]

It was God who breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

It was God who placed man in the Garden of Eden.

It was God who planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the Garden.

It was God who gave the law that man should neither touch this tree nor eat of it. And it was God who made the serpent and put him in the Garden and sent him along one beautiful day to tempt the man.

It was GOD!

And it was GOD who gave man the instruction to not eat of the tree who also gave him the CHOICE to obey or disobey !

READERS SEE >>> Scriptural support provided by FoC:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=476086#p476086
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475968
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475969
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475970

 

[follower of Christ]

Romans 6:20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
The passage begins with the concept that in the atonement we "died to sin" (vs 2--NIV), and we were "baptized into Christ Jesus.... into his death" (vs 3), and the "old man" (vs 6---kjv) was crucified with Christ.

Wonderful.
And did you happen to miss the fact that Paul ALSO shows that we PRESENT ourselves as slaves ?

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or obedience to righteousness?

We arent captures like animals and forced into it....we WILLINGLY offer it.
The sinner WILLINGLY gives himself as a slave to sin...he is a slave to it because he WANTS it.
The Christian WILLINGLY gives himself as slave to God because he WANTS that position.

The only difference is that the sinner cannot change his position without God drawing him because we are separated from God and ONLY God can initiate that relationship.

 

[follower of Christ]

Problem is with carnal man he cannot choose until God first draws him quickens him;

We've covered this ad nauseum, benoni....anything NEW to add here...or are we destined to keep grinding these same worn out gears because you cannot be mature enough to just admit that you were in error ?

Man is separated FROM God BECAUSE Adam sinned (any of us would have sooner or later).
ONLY God can initiate that relationship so that man can return to fellowship with Him.
We ALL know this point here. So why do you keep running back to it as tho youre making some new point that someone is disagreeing with ?

READERS SEE >>> Scriptural support provided by FoC:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=476086#p476086
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475968
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475969
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39238&p=475968#p475970

.

 

[follower of Christ]

Awesome

 

[follower of Christ]

The argument of Romans 9 does indeed appeal to God's sovereignty. I suggest that you are implicitly committed to one "end" of a spectrum of otherwise legitimate conceptualizations of "sovereignty". In Romans 9, Paul is making an historical and covenantal argument - showing how God has sovereignly used Israel for His redemptive purposes. This does not require us to understand God as "controlling all the strings of every human person". His argument works just as well with a sovereignty where God controls just enough of human history to achieve his ends.

ABSOLUTELY !
This should be put in a sticky somewhere so EVERYONE can see it

 

[follower of Christ]

>>MANS FREE WILL <<

The 'free will' offering was mentioned a time or two in this thread, so I got to looking to see if this word was presented in any context other than an offering

H5071
נדב×â€
nedâbâh
BDB Definition:
1) voluntariness, free-will offering
1a) voluntariness
1b) freewill, voluntary, offering
Part of Speech: noun feminine
A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number: from H5068
Same Word by TWOT Number: 1299a

Oddly there are verses that contain it that show it relating to God....and some also to MAN outside of offerings..

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.
(Psalms 110:3 KJV)

"People shall be WILLING".
Same root word "nedâbâh" that is used for free will offerings in many other verses.
Apparently even OUTSIDE of offerings the word IS USED concerning man.
And what is interesting in the passage above is how the word is used and what the verse says.

A Psalm of David. The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.
(Psalms 110:1-3 KJV)

Just as PAUL shows in Romans 6, we willingly SUBMIT ourselves....
His people WILLINGLY subject themselves to His rule. They dont have to be forced as some falsely preach here.

The word is also used here in reference to GOD whom we KNOW has free will....

I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.
(Hosea 14:4 KJV)

In the SAME manner that GOD FREELY loves them MAN can FREELY be willing to subject himself to Gods rule...