Once saved, is sin ok?

[Skinski7]

A child of God does not practice sin, is a new creature, but is not sinless. If this state were possible in the flesh, for those other than our Lord Jesus, there'd have been no need for His atonement work, to satisfy the justice required of our Holy God:

Here we see the example of a two part fallacy. The first part "we cannot be sinless...in the flesh" again is rooted in the Gnostic teaching that the flesh itself is the cause of sin. Sin is redefined from being a "moral issue" to being one of a "material issue." That is the first part of this persons fallacy.

The second part is how he connects the first part as necessitating the second part. It is a false syllogism.

Jesus did not die to satisfy a "justice requirement" like these people believe. That doctrine was invented by a man called Anselm in the 11th Century. Here is a little history...

The satisfaction view of the atonement is a theory in Christian theology about the meaning and effect of the death of Jesus Christ and has been traditionally taught in Western Christianity, specifically in the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed circles. Theologically and historically, the word "satisfaction" does not mean gratification as in common usage, but rather "to make restitution": mending what has been broken, paying back what was taken. Since one of God's characteristics is justice, affronts to that justice must be atoned for.[SUP][1][/SUP] It is thus connected with the legal concept of balancing out an injustice. Drawing primarily from the works of Anselm of Canterbury, the satisfaction theory teaches that Christ suffered as a substitute on behalf of humankind satisfying the demands of God's honor by his infinite merit. Anselm regarded his satisfaction view of the atonement as a distinct improvement over the older ransom theory of the atonement, which he saw as inadequate. Anselm's theory was a precursor to the refinements of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin which introduced the idea of punishment to meet the demands of divine justice.

Satisfaction theory of atonement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bible does not teach any such thing about the death of Christ. Rather the Bible teaches...

Tit 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Jesus died to redeem us from all iniquity and make us pure. Jesus did not die to satisfy justice. If justice were to be satisfied then God would send us all to hell. In lieu of that God offers mercy upon those who will return to favour by the means of Jesus Christ. The word redeem means "to set free from bondage by payment of a ransom." Jesus BOUGHT US unto Himself. We had all sold ourselves into condemnation through sinning and aligned ourselves with Satan's kingdom, Jesus purchases us from Satan's kingdom via being our kinsman who offers to redeem the inheritance of the bride through marriage.

Jesus obeyed God unto death and obtained an inheritance. Jesus did what all other men have failed to do.

Heb 1:4 Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

Judgement was handed over to Christ and we have the opportunities to inherit salvation through Him.

Heb 1:14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

Jesus overcame the world and tasted death for all men...

Heb 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

And we are sanctified or set apart from all evil THROUGH Jesus when we suffer WITH Him...

Heb 2:10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Heb 2:11 For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,

1Pe 4:1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;
1Pe 4:2 That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.

Jesus showed us the way, the way to be set free from sin. We are begotten THROUGH Him via the new birth unto obedience (ie. we walk according to the will fo God)...

1Pe 1:2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
1Pe 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
1Pe 1:4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
1Pe 1:5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

...with pure hearts having been born again through submitting ourselves to the power of God in which we are raised up...

1Pe 1:22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
1Pe 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

...and very importantly, we are ENJOINED INTO COVENANT with God by the blood...

Heb 9:15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
Heb 9:16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
Heb 9:17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.
Heb 9:18 Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood.
Heb 9:19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,
Heb 9:20 Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.

The death of Christ has NOTHING to do with satisfying justice like people think. It has everything to do with providing a means by which a rebellious people can be reconciled to God IF they forsake their rebellion.

So going back to the fallacy. People believe that the death of Christ serves the purpose of COVERING OVER the ONGOING SINFULNESS wrought by people being entrapped in a FLESH BODY. Nothing could be further from the truth.

So when a statement like this is made...

we can't wash ourselves clean in this flesh, period, by any means.

...it is a pure fallacy because the washing we cannot do is of our PAST SINS because we are guilty. Those are the sins that have to be cleansed by the blood of Christ. We CAN wash ourselves of PRESENT SIN through godly sorrow and repentance. That is why the Bible says...

Isa 1:16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
Isa 1:17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Isa 1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

and

Jas 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

It is in so doing that we can do this...

Heb 10:22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

...in which our PAST SINS and GUILTY CONSCIENCE is WASHED AWAY.

This belief that the "flesh itself is sinful" handicaps people from ever cleansing their hearts because they are deceived into believing that they CANNOT DO IT. If Satan can convince you that you cannot cleanse yourself of wickedness through repentance and faith then you will never do what you perceive as impossible and in doing that the kingdom of God is SHUT to you. This is why Jesus called the Pharisees vipers, because not only would they not approach God in the right manner, they prevented others from doing so, JUST LIKE YOUR PASTORS AND RELIGIOUS TEACHERS TODAY.

We move on...

I defy one of you to say you've not had a hateful or lustful thought, even many times, since being saved; actually, have any complete control over your thoughts now, which our Lord stated are the same as murder or adultery, for instance.

This person cannot even conceive the possibility of possessing a pure heart. Their mind is closed to such an idea and due to that they will lose their soul unless they wake up. That is such a tragedy.

Jesus said...

Mat 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Yet people cry, "NO, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE, NONE CAN BE PURE."

Jesus spoke of inward purity on the Sermon on the Mount and how it is necessary in order to enter the kingdom and people cry, "NO WE CANNOT BE PURE, WE ARE ALWAYS SINNING."

Now part of the problem is that people view "mistakes" (ie. doing wrong ignorantly) in the same context as "rebellion" and this error easily serves to reinforce the notion that "none can be pure" because in their mind they associate "purity with sinless perfection." That is why they often oppose those who preach that "sinning stops" with accusations of "sinless perfection." It is pure unreasoned fallacy.

Another aspect is that people view "temptation as equal to sin" when temptation is not sin. Temptation is natural, sin is unnatural. We are to resist temptation and the devil will flee every single time.

The Bible reads...

1Co 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

Yet if one claims to always take the way of escape they will be accused of lying because the notion of "flesh necessitating sin" opposes it. It is yet another example of religious dogma superseding the plain words of scripture.

And the last bit...

There isn't even enough OT law written, to cover all our sin, which sin is ALL things that fall short of holy, Godly perfection. We will not put on the incorruptible until the first resurrection. Read Romans 7, the predicament of the corruptible flesh very clear, versus walking in faith, in the Spirit, with Christ.

The perfection God requires is simply purity of heart, not some perfection of never making a mistake due to lack of knowledge, ongoing growth addresses that. The issue that concerns God is our hearts. It is our hearts that must be clean.

The wretch of Romans 7 is a man convicted in mind, who knows the law, who is addicted to sin. He finds no power through the law to set him free from his wretched state. Paul was teaching that it is through the law (or knowledge of right doing) that sin can kill and that right knowledge (or the law) cannot redeem one from such a dead state. We are set free from the law of sin and death, not via the law, but via the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ. That is why there is no condemnation upon those who are IN Jesus Christ, being in Christ means one is walking according to the Spirit and is no longer sinning unto death. All past sins have been washed away and we walk in purity of heart in a right relationship to God submitted to His will. He chastises us to teach us the right way when we err, but as far as rebellion to God, there is none for we have crucified the old man with Christ in the baptism of repentance and therefore we no longer serve sin, rather we are servants of righteousness.

That is what the Bible teaches. Be like a Berean and dig deep and see if these things are true.

 

[Skinski7]

Go argue with Paul as he wrote almost half of the N.T. Exactly how much did you or the guys you quote write?

Ignatious whom I quoted was PERSONALLY TAUGHT by Paul.

I din't contradict Paul in anything I wrote. It is false teachers who take snippets of Paul and quote them out of context to support their gnostic theological suppositions. This is why it is IMPOSSIBLE to find in early church writings a single person using Romans 7 as an example of the present Christian struggle. They all taught it as an example of a Jew under the law prior to being saved.

If I am wrong and there is someone who used it as an example of the present Christian like is commonly done today then I would like to see it. I have looked.

A Christian is saved from the bondage of sin, we are not saved and then still left in bondage like all the Gnostic Christian's today believe.

 

[Angela53510]

We have free will, we choose, it's a gift of choice, why would God make people love Him, real love is out of choice, it's like making your daughter be with a man in marriage, this is not love, a women should have the choice to love who she wants, as we have the choice to love God/Jesus and the commandments, or worship before the calf. Did Moses give them a choice .. Or command them to worship God? They all have a choice, as do we.

Please quote me book, chapter and verse that has the words "free will." Not in my Bible, nor the Greek, nor even the Hebrew. Just another false doctrine floating around that needs to be refuted over and over!

More likely a self determination quote from the Enlightenment.

 

[Skinski7]

What is interesting is that modern theologians logically must paint the early church as heretics because they did not teach the doctrines that are taught today. It's not even close.

The Christianity of the first couple of hundred years after the Apostles is a completely different religion to the Christianity taught commonly today. Don't believe it? Just read the Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 1. It is translated into English for all of us so we have no excuse to be ignorant of these things, no excuse at all.

That is another elephant in the living room.

I am always curious as to the level of cognitive dissonance that must go on in a seminary students mind when they read the early (pre-Augustine) Christian writings. I suppose any curiosity must be erased simply due to the persuasiveness of peers and the aura of respectability of the learned theologians who surround them. To go against the grain is just inconceivable so even the birth of such a notion is quelled in the mind without much consideration at all.

 

[1still_waters]

Please quote me book, chapter and verse that has the words "free will." Not in my Bible, nor the Greek, nor even the Hebrew. Just another false doctrine floating around that needs to be refuted over and over!

More likely a self determination quote from the Enlightenment.

Yup..

John 1
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were [i]born, not of [j]blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

 

[Angela53510]

Skinski, I am not quoting your ridiculously long posts which never tell the truth.

I will say, that the doctrine of election is NOT gnosticism.

Gnosticism

1. (Other Non-Christian Religions) a religious movement characterized by a belief in gnosis, through which the spiritual element in man could be released from its bondage in matter: regarded as a heresy by the Christian Church

the beliefs and practices of pre-Christian and early Christian sects, condemned by the church, especially the conviction that matter is evil and that knowledge is more important than faith, and the practice of esoteric mysticism. —Gnostic, n., adj.

the doctrines of any of various dualistic sects among the Jews and the early Christians who claimed possession of superior spiritual knowledge, explained the creation of the world in an emanational manner, and condemned matteras evil. — Gnostic, n., adj.

There is nothing in the doctrine of the sovereignty of God that promotes gnosticism. In fact, our hope still remains the resurrection of the body.

"We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." Romans 6:4

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised." 1 Cor. 15:12-32
​

 

[Skinski7]

Please quote me book, chapter and verse that has the words "free will." Not in my Bible, nor the Greek, nor even the Hebrew. Just another false doctrine floating around that needs to be refuted over and over!

More likely a self determination quote from the Enlightenment.

In denying free will it is very easy to deny personal responsibility. "My will if not free therefore I cannot choose, therefore I am not responsible for my actions because I did not choose them." That is fatalism and comes right out of Gnosticism.

The early Church refuted that too...

Chapter XLIII.—Responsibility asserted.
But lest some suppose, from what has been said by us, that we say that whatever happens, happens by a fatal necessity, because it is foretold as known beforehand, this too we explain. We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, and chastisements, and good rewards, are rendered according to the merit of each man’s actions. Since if it be not so, but all things happen by fate, neither is anything at all in our own power. For if it be fated that this man, e.g., be good, and this other evil, neither is the former meritorious nor the latter to be blamed. And again, unless the human race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions, of whatever kind they be. But that it is by free choice they both walk uprightly and stumble, we thus demonstrate. We see the same man making a transition to opposite things. Now, if it had been fated that he were to be either good or bad, he could never have been capable of both the opposites, nor of so many transitions. But not even would some be good and others bad, since we thus make fate the cause of evil, and exhibit her as acting in opposition to herself; or that which has been already stated would seem to be true, that neither virtue nor vice is anything, but that things are only reckoned good or evil by opinion; which, as the true word shows, is the greatest impiety and wickedness. But this we assert is inevitable fate, that they who choose the good have worthy rewards, and they who choose the opposite have their merited awards. For not like other things, as trees and quadrupeds, which cannot act by choice, did God make man; for neither would he be worthy of reward or praise did he not of himself choose the good, but were created for this end;nor, if he were evil, would he be worthy of punishment, not being evil of himself, but being able to be nothing else than what he was made.

Justin Martyr (page 274)
holybooks.lichtenbergpress.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/Ante-Nicene-Fathers-Vol-1.pdf

 

[Brainfreeze]

Yup..

John 1
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,13 who were [i]born, not of [j]blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

How do we receive anything without the will to do so? To them that did, (choice) He gave the right to become children of God

 

[Skinski7]

Skinski, I am not quoting your ridiculously long posts which never tell the truth.

I will say, that the doctrine of election is NOT gnosticism.

The Unconditional Election doctrine of Calvinism comes right out of Gnosticism.

It is what Augustine taught in his document on Predestination and that is where Calvin got it from. It is historical fact which anyone can look up if they wish.

Just "claiming" that I am not telling the truth is just your assertion. I can quote the exact references because I have delved into it to see if such things were true.

The early church was utterly opposed to most of the modern teachings, and these modern teachings were not associated with Christianity back then but with Gnosticism.

You have to believe that Ireneaus, Justin Martyr, Ignatius, Polycarp (two of which whom were actually students of the apostles themselves) were heretics.

 

[Brainfreeze]

Skinski, I am not quoting your ridiculously long posts which never tell the truth.

I wil"We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." Romans 6:4

​

Why would we might, do something if it's destined.. We have will, I don't know how people see this any different after reading the same scriptures..

 

[Skinski7]

Here is what Irenaeus wrote...

For He who makes the chaff and He who makes the wheat are not different persons, but one and the same, who judges them, that is, separates them. But the wheat and the chaff, being inanimate and irrational, have been made such by nature. But man, being endowed with reason, and in this respect like to God, having been made free in his will, and with power over himself, is himself the cause to himself, that sometimes he becomes wheat, and sometimes chaff. Wherefore also he shall be justly condemned, because, having been created a rational being, he lost the true rationality, and living irrationally, opposed the righteousness of God, giving himself over to every earthly spirit, and serving all lusts; as says the prophet, “Man, being in honour, did not understand: he was assimilated to senseless beasts, and made like to
them.”

Irenaeus, (page 777)
holybooks.lichtenbergpress.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/Ante-Nicene-Fathers-Vol-1.pdf


It wasn't until Augustine in the Fourth Century when free will was subverted with the inability doctrine of Original Sin. It took 400 years until free will was thrown out the window. Then it took another 1100 years until they took it to the next level of Total Depravity because even Augustine did not teach that.

These modern teachers have to accuse the early church of being the biggest charlatans on earth, these early people who were generally martyred for their faith, who walked in holiness, blameless, abstaining from sin, who preached purity of heart. The modern teachers have to view those people as liars and deceivers while they uphold their truth of ongoing impurity, ongoing sin, cloaks for sin, never doing the right thing, always being wretched, but just "trust" in Jesus while you keep sinning everyday.

How people can so easily buy into it I will honestly never know, especially with the massive increase of knowledge today where the writings of the early church are so freely accessible and we can trace the history of how Christian doctrine has been perverted.

I suppose people just love their sin and refuse to give it up. What else could it be?

 

[JesusIsAll]

Amen!!!!!!!!


Thank you. Thank you.. thank you ...

Yes when we are weak ..He is strong.

You're welcome. You're welcome... you're welcome... 'n Amen!!!!!!! (Feelin' 'speshullee weak. Need ta' do sum wurks. Time fer one 'o them Kosher dills!)

 

[Angelique]

You're welcome. You're welcome... you're welcome... 'n Amen!!!!!!! (Feelin' 'speshullee weak. Need ta' do sum wurks. Time fer one 'o them Kosher dills!)

Ima guna start a JesusIsAll stalker support group!! We already got a crossnote stalker support group..lol. you two are wonderful. .im blessed to spent time reading your posts.

Instead of brownies .. we guna serve kosher dills at yours lol.. HaHaHa.

Truly God is all.

 

[JesusIsAll]

Ima guna start a JesusIsAll stalker support group!! We already got a crossnote stalker support group..lol. you two are wonderful. .im blessed to spent time reading your posts.

Instead of brownies .. we guna serve kosher dills at yours lol.. HaHaHa.

Truly God is all.

Thank you kindly, but I'd think reading my posts more like doing penance. I could use a mental health support group, at least that's what everybody says, which I don't really mind: can't be held responsible for my actions.

Could you make those Kosher dill brownies? (But don't take out a patent, not likely the sort of accident that resulted in the Reese's peanut butter cup.)

 

[Angela53510]

What can be said, Skinski, is that the Bible does not in any way support free will. And what also can be said, is just because I believe in eternal security, does not mean that I did not come from a background of being in Arminian churches. I never felt comfortable in my faith, especially when I realized that what I was being taught in church did not correspond to the Bible.

And it certainly does not mean that your silly straw man of "loving my sin" is in any way truth. I repent daily of my sin. God has helped me, delivered me and changed me. I do not have the same gross sins in my life as when I was first saved over 34 years ago. God continues to work in my heart and life and has helped me to trust God totally for all things in my life.

God is changing me and transforming me. And he has also changed my theology from a works based faith, to faith which is totally based on the work of God! And that transformation has given me confidence, both in my personal life, my marriage and in ministry to preach the gospel, to care for the sick, and to stand against sin!

 

[Brainfreeze]

What can be said, Skinski, is that the Bible does not in any way support free will. And what also can be said, is just because I believe in eternal security, does not mean that I did not come from a background of being in Arminian churches. I never felt comfortable in my faith, especially when I realized that what I was being taught in church did not correspond to the Bible.

And it certainly does not mean that your silly straw man of "loving my sin" is in any way truth. I repent daily of my sin. God has helped me, delivered me and changed me. I do not have the same gross sins in my life as when I was first saved over 34 years ago. God continues to work in my heart and life and has helped me to trust God totally for all things in my life.

God is changing me and transforming me. And he has also changed my theology from a works based faith, to faith which is totally based on the work of God! And that transformation has given me confidence, both in my personal life, my marriage and in ministry to preach the gospel, to care for the sick, and to stand against sin!

No, your just being hard headed, Y'all are complementing yourselves in vain, and not listening to what anyone has to say, or the Word of God for that matter, it's on the individual anyway, good thing "the few of you can't dictate what Gods words mean". It's what they mean to you, at least for me, I know better in my heart, I can't just go on with the ways of the world, as my friend Jimbone said in another thread, " being saved and still deliberately sin, is just a smack in Gods face ". Do we like sin, or like God? We can't serve two masters, either we will love one and hate the other... Just the way it is.

 

[Cassian]

What can be said, Skinski, is that the Bible does not in any way support free will. And what also can be said, is just because I believe in eternal security, does not mean that I did not come from a background of being in Arminian churches. I never felt comfortable in my faith, especially when I realized that what I was being taught in church did not correspond to the Bible.

And it certainly does not mean that your silly straw man of "loving my sin" is in any way truth. I repent daily of my sin. God has helped me, delivered me and changed me. I do not have the same gross sins in my life as when I was first saved over 34 years ago. God continues to work in my heart and life and has helped me to trust God totally for all things in my life.

God is changing me and transforming me. And he has also changed my theology from a works based faith, to faith which is totally based on the work of God! And that transformation has given me confidence, both in my personal life, my marriage and in ministry to preach the gospel, to care for the sick, and to stand against sin!

I can only assume that you do not understand what is meant by "free will" as used and understood in scripture. Also, the only alternative is that man does not which of necessity means predestination. By virtue of the fact that you are even on this thread proves you at least do not believe in predestination since anything you might say has no bearing on anyone else because their actions are all predetermined already as well.

Just so you know, "free will" means that man was created a rational being whereby he is facilitated to be able to make choices. All men are endowed with the ability to reason, to formulate a rationality between choices. What man cannot do is create the choices.

It would be difficult to not find the concept of "free will" in at least every chapter in scripture. Yet, the concept of predestination as it has been developed from pagan ideas and couched in Christianity by Calvin, who is the first to employ it in a practicing theology. Augustine may have written about it, but was never believed, or employed in any faith until Calvin.
As it is described today, by those who supposedly hold to such a foundational theory, it is quite watered down and has become a pseudo-predestination.

 

[Skinski7]

What can be said, Skinski, is that the Bible does not in any way support free will. And what also can be said, is just because I believe in eternal security, does not mean that I did not come from a background of being in Arminian churches. I never felt comfortable in my faith, especially when I realized that what I was being taught in church did not correspond to the Bible.

The Arminian churches are just as in error as the Calvinist churches. Both Calvinism and Arminianism are premised on the doctrine of inability, ie. born a sinner. Both teach a saved in sins message the difference being that the Arminians teach that the sin is meant to stop at some stage through a second work of grace.

All you have done is jump from one error into another.

Common sense demands free will be true if God is to be just. It is very obvious that if one cannot CHOOSE then one cannot be responsible. You have to throw human reason out the window and be "unreasonable" in order to cling to a dogmatic position which contradicts self evident reality..

God is not an unreasonable God. God holds people accountable for wrong doing because they could have chosen to do otherwise. Sin cannot be sin without a choice to do otherwise and likewise virtue cannot be virtue without the choice to do otherwise. A robot programmed to kill people is not any more sinful than a robot programmed to feed someone. I honestly don't know how to make it any simpler than that. If you cannot reason through that then there is no possible way you can approach the Bible with any sort of reason at all.

God gave us our minds for a reason. Yes the carnal mind cannot be subject to God but that is because a carnally minded person is given over to their natural passions and is thus operating in a state of irrationality, they are being unreasonable. That is why we have to repent and become reasonable as we reason together with God and yield to the actual reality of things.

You can speak about "changes in your life" all you want and how "God is changing you" but that is all nonsense if you perceive yourself as a robot. You're no better off than an automaton that falls off the production line programmed to do a specific task who is then "changed" later on because a new program is loaded into the computer. That automaton is not responsible for its actions and neither are you if you are a human automaton.

The early church clearly upheld free will. It is clear as day all through their writings. It is right there for anyone to see.

You position is that the early church was wrong and that you are right. That is arrogance, and to dress it up in a false humility because "oh I have no power of my own" and "all glory to God who does it all" is foolishness.

There is no pride or self righteousness in yielding once self to God through the free exercise of the will, none at all. Yet people like you hold such a thing in disdain and instead teach irresponsibility.

Yes God changes is, yet this change is through grace THROUGH faith which is where we YIELD OURSELVES FREELY to God's leading.

Your dogmatic religion perverts the simplicity of the truth.

Where the Bible teaches "forsake evil and turn to God," you are opposed to such a teaching because you believe "we don't have free will to do such a thing." How you can honestly sit there and hold to that position is really beyond me.

We have Ninveh in the Bible as an example of repentance where the sin was forsaken BEFORE pardon was granted. An example as clear as day, the people feared God, ceased from their evil, and cried out for mercy. A very simple teaching.

Jesus used that example as an example for repentance. yet you cannot teach such a thing because you believe in this "we cannot forsake our evil unless God makes us stop." So therefore you have a religion where a child molester can come to God and confess their crimes get saved and then go out the next day and rape more babies, all the the while waiting for God to change them. There isn't really any point for me to say anything more to you, except perhaps as an example for others, because you refuse to use your intelligence and reason things through.



Cain had a choice...

Gen 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

 

[thecreationtutor]

Eternal Salvation - God's Grace
Eternal Assurance - God's Promise
Eternal Security - God's Power

There is a whole book in the Bible about how to know your saved, the question is - am I one of His own, God keeps his own by His power

 

[Brainfreeze]

Gen 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

Very good, what you've been saying skinski, I agree it's in the Bible, if they want to deny they have choice, and just blame it all on God, it's up to them to do so, God tells them otherwise in the scripture, even the ones they bring up in defense to the truth. Anything else is just a another false doctrine.