"Your response relies heavily on historical deflections and a fundamental misunderstanding of Biblical covenants. Let’s look directly at where your arguments collapse under the weight of Scripture:
1. The Federal Headship of Adam vs. Ezekiel 18
You attempt to use Ezekiel 18 to deny original guilt and total depravity from birth. In doing so, you confuse individual civil justice under the Mosaic Law with Federal Headship under the Covenant of Works. Ezekiel 18 teaches that an earthly judge should not execute a son for his father’s crimes. It does not erase the legal ruin of the human race in Adam.
If your interpretation of Ezekiel 18 were correct, you would have to throw out the entire fifth chapter of Romans. Paul completely shuts down your theory in Romans 5:12-19:
- “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” (v. 12)
- “Through the offence of one many be dead.” (v. 15)
- “The judgment was by one to condemnation.” (v. 16)
- “By one man's disobedience many were made sinners.” (v. 19)
2. The Distortion of Psalm 51:5
Your attempt to twist Psalm 51:5 into a statement about David’s mother or the 'culture' he lived in is completely unscriptural. David does not blame his environment. He is performing deep self-examination, tracing his wicked actions back to his very origin. He confesses: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” The pollution was in his very substance from conception. Job asks the same rhetorical question: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one” (Job 14:4). An unclean nature can only produce an unclean infant.
3. The 'Augustine' Diversion
Blaming Augustine, Gnosticism, or Martin Luther is a classic smoke screen used when the text of Scripture becomes too heavy to carry. I do not stand on Augustine; I stand on the plain declarations of the Word of God.
- It was not Augustine, but Jeremiah who said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer 17:9).
- It was not Augustine, but Paul who stated that the natural man “cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14), and that the carnal mind “is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom 8:7).
- It was not Augustine, but Jesus Christ Himself who declared, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (John 6:44).
4. The Rich Young Ruler and the Verdict of 'Impossible'
Finally, you bring up the Rich Young Ruler to claim that surrendering to Christ is 'not really impossible' for the natural man. You could not have picked a worse example to support your case.
When the Rich Young Ruler walked away in his total inability, the disciples asked, “Who then can be saved?” Look closely at Jesus’ direct answer to them: “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matt 19:26).
You claim it was possible for the man; Jesus explicitly stated it was impossible for man. The natural man will always choose his idols over Christ because he is a slave to his corrupt nature, until and unless God sovereignly replaces his heart of stone with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26).
The Gospel is indeed the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1:16), but Scripture is uniform: only those who are sovereignly quickened from spiritual death will ever believe (Eph 2:1-5, Acts 13:48). You are fighting against the plain words of Christ."
