What Changed?

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Nov 1, 2024
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Who says the Samaritan didn't act perfectly? I never referred to him. He's your example. I gave 2 examples where this was not the case. And that's the point. A rich man giving millions to feed the poor so that people will think highly of him did not give to the glory of God but the glory of self. His actions were still unacceptable before God even though his action appeared to be noble.
This was in reference to your earlier claim that an unregenerate man would please God. He would not because his actions are motivated by a self love and not a love towards God.
You said "Jesus not only performed every commandment perfectly outwardly, but inwardly as well. This is not true of the unregenerate ". The Samaritan was unregenerate who acted from the heart, and Christ commended his work
 

Cameron143

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Mar 1, 2022
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You said "Jesus not only performed every commandment perfectly outwardly, but inwardly as well. This is not true of the unregenerate ". The Samaritan was unregenerate who acted from the heart, and Christ commended his work
No he wasn't. Your own testimony concerning him shows that he was.
 

Rufus

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Feb 17, 2024
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So explain what imputed sin is
It works the same way as God imputing his elect's sins unto Christ.

1 Peter 2:24
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

NIV

Also see Rom 5:17-19.

Additionally, Christ's righteousness is imputed to the souls of all God's elect when they come to believe in Him. Their faith is credited to them as righteousness. Again...all these things happen by divine decree. This was God's plan and purpose for his Son and for the elect from eternity.

The imputation of sin unto Christ (and Adam's sin unto us) and Christ's righteousness unto us is a one time judicial act of God . Its not something that we experience. We don't experience Justification, but we do experience in time and space the Spirit's Sanctification of our souls, hearts and minds.
 

Rufus

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Feb 17, 2024
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You said "Jesus not only performed every commandment perfectly outwardly, but inwardly as well. This is not true of the unregenerate ". The Samaritan was unregenerate who acted from the heart, and Christ commended his work
You don't know that. That is your personal presupposition that you read into the passage. The fact that Jesus called the Samaritan "Good" instead of evil (the way Jesus often spoke of his generation) speaks to a believer, not an unbeliever. The Good Samaritan had the fourth kind of Good Soil (for a heart) that Jesus talked about in the Parable of the Four Soils (Mat 13:18-23). And the only way he could get that kind of heart is by God gifting that to him as promised in the New Covenant (Ezek 36:26-27).
 
Nov 1, 2024
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The imputation of sin unto Christ (and Adam's sin unto us) and Christ's righteousness unto us is a one time judicial act of God . Its not something that we experience. We don't experience Justification, but we do experience in time and space the Spirit's Sanctification of our souls, hearts and minds.
You have no evidence that Adam's sins were imputed to us. There was no covenant exchange and there is no explicit scriptural evidence. Furthermore it violates the Ezekiel verse I quoted that says sons are not responsible for their fathers' sins. Even in our unjust world it is considered unjust to punish sons for their fathers sins.
 
Nov 1, 2024
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You don't know that. That is your personal presupposition that you read into the passage. The fact that Jesus called the Samaritan "Good" instead of evil (the way Jesus often spoke of his generation) speaks to a believer, not an unbeliever. The Good Samaritan had the fourth kind of Good Soil (for a heart) that Jesus talked about in the Parable of the Four Soils (Mat 13:18-23). And the only way he could get that kind of heart is by God gifting that to him as promised in the New Covenant (Ezek 36:26-27).
OK define what regenerate means. I take it to mean circumcised in heart and having received the holy spirit.
 

Rufus

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Feb 17, 2024
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It is obvious that you don't have any scripture that says Adam's sin is imputed to anyone else, nor that Jesus' righteousness is imputed to anyone else. Through the disobedience of Adam, bringing sin and death into the world, many (not all) were made sinners. Those not yet at an age of accountability for deliberately choosing to do evil were not made sinners. If The were, then the scripture would say, "19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man all were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."

How are the many made sinners through the disobedience of Adam? The text does not say. Was it by Adam and Eve, having set off on a path of distrust toward God and trust toward satan, subsequently keeping on setting bad examples for many of their kids, and many of their kids badly training many of their kids? Maybe. Was it that bring in inevitable mortality to mankind through denial of access to the tree of life, humans were more pressured into taking moral shortcuts to avoiding the suffering and maximising the pleasure they would experience before death? Maybe. But it certainly does not say anywhere that they were made sinners by Adam's sin being imputed to them. That is your inference, but not the only possible inference.

You say, "If Adam's sin is not imputed to all his progeny then neither is the Last Adam's perfect obedience imputed to the "many" to make them righteous."
Nowhere are we told that Jesus' perfect obedience is imputed to anyone. When our sins are removed, we become righteous, clean in God's sight, just as clean as Jesus is in God's sight. We do not need to have Jesus' righteous behaviour imputed to us to become and remain righteous before God. Why did you change "many" to "all" regarding the sinner part of the equation in v. 19? There is no warrant for you to do that. You did it just to write your Doctrines of Grease into the biblical text.
Well...I have shown you the passages but I can't make you understand them. It's an analogical argument in Rom 5:12ff, as it is also in 1Cor 15. And it's crystal clear from the analogy that all of Adam's descendants were imputed his sin; and all of God's elect were imputed Christ's righteousness. It's an analogy of contrasts!

And I didn't change anything in any passage. You need to follow the closely worded parallels that are clearly being drawn between Adam (the type) and Christ (the antitype). I have really, really bad news for you: If you don't believe in your heart of hearts that your acceptance with God is totally dependent on Christ's righteousness being imputed to you, then you must believe that what makes you acceptable in God's eyes is your own righteousness. I would not want to be in your shoes come Judgment Day. What in the world do you think Peter meant 1Pet 2:24 when he wrote that "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree"? Believers' sins are also imputed to Christ and Christ's righteousness is imputed to all believers.

So...you have a huge decision to make. On the Day when you stand before your Maker, are you going to plead your own personal righteousness as qualifying you to enter God's kingdom, or are you going to plead an alien righteousness (a righteousness outside of yourself), which would be the righteousness of Christ?
 

Rufus

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Feb 17, 2024
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You have no evidence that Adam's sins were imputed to us. There was no covenant exchange and there is no explicit scriptural evidence. Furthermore it violates the Ezekiel verse I quoted that says sons are not responsible for their fathers' sins. Even in our unjust world it is considered unjust to punish sons for their fathers sins.
I provided three passages as evidence. I can explain it to you but I can't make you understand it. But I will tell you the same thing I just told PT. If you don't believe that it is totally on Christ's merit and his imputed righteousness that qualifies you to enter the kingdom of God, then this means you must be relying on your own righteousness to enter the kingdom. And since this appears to be the case with you, you are in an extremely precarious spiritual condition. It's either your own personal righteousness or Christ's imputed righteousness that puts you in good standing with God. It's one or the other. So...you're going to rely on your personal righteousness, are you?
 

Rufus

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Feb 17, 2024
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Yes, you provided verses, but they're not compelling at all
Well, friend, maybe it's time for you to hit the floor on your knees and cry out to God to show his truth to you. As stated a little while ago, when you stand before God, you will either plead Christ's righteousness or your own. And my bible tells me that no man is inherently righteous. So, that kind of puts you between a rock and very hard place.
 
Nov 1, 2024
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Well, friend, maybe it's time for you to hit the floor on your knees and cry out to God to show his truth to you. As stated a little while ago, when you stand before God, you will either plead Christ's righteousness or your own. And my bible tells me that no man is inherently righteous. So, that kind of puts you between a rock and very hard place.
Maybe you need to repent of your self-assuredness and playing fast and loose with the word of God
 

PaulThomson

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Oct 29, 2023
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Well...I have shown you the passages but I can't make you understand them. It's an analogical argument in Rom 5:12ff, as it is also in 1Cor 15. And it's crystal clear from the analogy that all of Adam's descendants were imputed his sin; and all of God's elect were imputed Christ's righteousness. It's an analogy of contrasts!

And I didn't change anything in any passage. You need to follow the closely worded parallels that are clearly being drawn between Adam (the type) and Christ (the antitype). I have really, really bad news for you: If you don't believe in your heart of hearts that your acceptance with God is totally dependent on Christ's righteousness being imputed to you, then you must believe that what makes you acceptable in God's eyes is your own righteousness. I would not want to be in your shoes come Judgment Day. What in the world do you think Peter meant 1Pet 2:24 when he wrote that "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree"? Believers' sins are also imputed to Christ and Christ's righteousness is imputed to all believers.

So...you have a huge decision to make. On the Day when you stand before your Maker, are you going to plead your own personal righteousness as qualifying you to enter God's kingdom, or are you going to plead an alien righteousness (a righteousness outside of yourself), which would be the righteousness of Christ?
If ALL my unrighteousness is taken away by the death of Christ, what is left to make me unrighteous in God's sight? I do not need imputed righteousness from someone else; and the Bible never talks about us receiving righteousness imputed from someone else. If it did, you could quote the biblical text.

It is not crystal clear from "Through one man's sin MANY were made sinners" that through one man's sin ALL were made sinners. Nor does scripture say anywhere that ALL were imputed with Christ's righteousness. Taking away sins is not imputing righteousness. God makes us righteous (justifies us) by taking away ALL that condemns us. When God gives us the Holy Spirit, He is not imputing righteousness to us. He is imparting righteousness to us, empowering us in our communion with the Holy Spirit to do righteousness by relying on the Holy Spirit's power.
 

Cameron143

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Mar 1, 2022
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Do you seriously think the Samaritan was born from above?
It's a made up story. It's told purposefully to have the Samaritan be the honorable one amongst the 3. Jesus specifically chose 2 supposed men of God to reveal the hearts of the Jews He was talking to.

So it's not really a story about whether one is regenerated or not. That's the problem with giving intention to a story where none exists. The story was designed to show the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of the day.
 
Nov 1, 2024
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It's a made up story. It's told purposefully to have the Samaritan be the honorable one amongst the 3. Jesus specifically chose 2 supposed men of God to reveal the hearts of the Jews He was talking to.

So it's not really a story about whether one is regenerated or not. That's the problem with giving intention to a story where none exists. The story was designed to show the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of the day.
But the story very well could be real. That's why it's so powerful. We've all seen this kind of thing in some form or another. So if today this happened in some capacity how would an unregenerate person know how to do the will of God? Where does that knowledge come from? It's certainly not coming from the flesh
 

Cameron143

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Mar 1, 2022
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But the story very well could be real. That's why it's so powerful. We've all seen this kind of thing in some form or another. So if today this happened in some capacity how would an unregenerate person know how to do the will of God? Where does that knowledge come from? It's certainly not coming from the flesh
The unregenerate man cares nothing about the will of God. He is at enmity with God. He cares only for himself. Everything he does, regardless of how outwardly noble, is done for his own self-interest.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
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I provided three passages as evidence. I can explain it to you but I can't make you understand it. But I will tell you the same thing I just told PT. If you don't believe that it is totally on Christ's merit and his imputed righteousness that qualifies you to enter the kingdom of God, then this means you must be relying on your own righteousness to enter the kingdom. And since this appears to be the case with you, you are in an extremely precarious spiritual condition. It's either your own personal righteousness or Christ's imputed righteousness that puts you in good standing with God. It's one or the other. So...you're going to rely on your personal righteousness, are you?
It is completely due to God's mercy, revealed in Christ Jesus when He set me free from shame and guilt for sins, that I am God's child with bold access into communion with Him. But He did not impute Jesus' righteous conduct to me to achieve that.

He place my sins on Christ, who took them away from me to purify my vessel, and who put His Holy Spirit in me to impart divine power and love that enanles me to will and do what pleases Him, and produces by faith ongoing victory over temptations to sin that I would otherwise tend to succumb to in the weakness of my flesh, despite the willingness of my spirit.
 

PaulThomson

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Oct 29, 2023
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The unregenerate man cares nothing about the will of God. He is at enmity with God. He cares only for himself. Everything he does, regardless of how outwardly noble, is done for his own self-interest.
Speak for yourself, friend. You can't speak for everyone. Your experience may not be the experience of others.