What Changed?

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,474
455
83
My heart is "deceitfully wicked and self-deceived" because God miraculously saved me and gave me ears to hear, and eyes to see and new heart with which I'm able to believe the Gospel? I'm the wicked one for believing that salvation is 100% of God's power (effectual grace) that brought me and brings all men to His Son to be saved? But you're the enlightened one who believes the New Covenant is bilateral and men must willingly entire into the covenant relationship with God so that he can save them? Salvation is a partnership relationship. Man does his part, God fulfills his end of the bargain?

If I were you, I'd be very concerned about your spiritual state because the majority of professing Christians have the same carnal, worldly view of the Gospel and the New Covenant that you do. It's in fallen man's DNA to believe that he contributes something toward his own salvation so that he can boast in something other or in something that's in addition to the Cross of Christ. Fallen mankind has this wicked proclivity in his heart to believe that he did something to help God part the "Red Sea" so that he could escape from the jaws of certain, eternal death and pass over to life. The evil heart of the Natural Man cannot bear the thought that God deserves and, indeed, demands 100% of the glory for salvation. They want to be like their spiritual father and get piece of God's glory.
Gratefully, I am not you. I don't need to read all kinds of self-contradictory ideas into scripture to make it a revelation acceptable to my self-deceived human understanding. I can read it as it stands and find portrayed in it an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient,ho;ly, wise, loving, merciful God worthy of trust and worship. The god you think you see portrayed in scripture appears to be a narcissistic monster. Fortunately, I don't see Him there.
 

Cameron143

Well-known member
Mar 1, 2022
19,218
6,610
113
62
Sin definitely changes the immaterial aspects of men. But those immaterial changes occur AFTER they sin, not before they sin.
So when someone is born they are spiritually neutral?
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,474
455
83
You have it wrong. Man cannot NOT sin. There's two negatives here. And you do know what that means, right? Only God cannot sin.
He cannot NOT sin is ambiguous. You realise that, right? Which meaning do you mean? Which meaning do you not mean?
 

Rufus

Well-known member
Feb 17, 2024
2,438
264
83
Sin definitely changes the immaterial aspects of men. But those immaterial changes occur AFTER they sin, not before they sin.
You have it all backwards! Men sin because they ARE sinners by nature. The natural world teaches us this truth. The leopard does not become a leopard after it received its spots, nor does the Ethiopian become and Ethiopian after he received his black skin. Both were what they were at the moment of conception guaranteeing what their physical attributes would be. Likewise with sinners. This is why scripture teaches that there's no one under the sun who doesn't sin. Man cannot not sin because he's a sinner by nature.
 

Rufus

Well-known member
Feb 17, 2024
2,438
264
83
He cannot NOT sin is ambiguous. You realise that, right? Which meaning do you mean? Which meaning do you not mean?
It's not ambiguous at all. God cannot sin. Is that ambiguous? What's ambiguous about being unable to do otherwise than? Or what's ambiguous about "cannot help but"?
 

Rufus

Well-known member
Feb 17, 2024
2,438
264
83
Gratefully, I am not you. I don't need to read all kinds of self-contradictory ideas into scripture to make it a revelation acceptable to my self-deceived human understanding. I can read it as it stands and find portrayed in it an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient,ho;ly, wise, loving, merciful God worthy of trust and worship. The god you think you see portrayed in scripture appears to be a narcissistic monster. Fortunately, I don't see Him there.
So...the God who mercifully rescued the helpless enslaved Israelites in Egypt is a "narcissistic monster"? How so?
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,474
455
83
It's not ambiguous at all. God cannot sin. Is that ambiguous? What's ambiguous about being unable to do otherwise than? Or what's ambiguous about "cannot help but"?
If you cannot see two possible meanings of "Man after the fall of Adam and Eve cannot NOT sin," you should probably not be teaching the Bible from English translations.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,474
455
83
So...the God who mercifully rescued the helpless enslaved Israelites in Egypt is a "narcissistic monster"? How so?
I don't believe the God who mercifully rescued the helpless enslaved Israelites in Egypt is a "narcissistic monster". I do think the god you imagine whose primary concern is His own glory and who decrees all things whatsoever comes to pass, both good and evil, for the primary express purpose of getting glory., that god would be a narcissistic monster.
 

Rufus

Well-known member
Feb 17, 2024
2,438
264
83
If you cannot see two possible meanings of "Man after the fall of Adam and Eve cannot NOT sin," you should probably not be teaching the Bible from English translations.
Pray tell: What do you think are the two possible meanings?

AND....since God cannot sin, does this also have two possible meanings?

P.S. I can support both premises from the bible, albeit those lousy, misleading, deceptive English translations. :rolleyes:
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,474
455
83
how can spiritually dead be spiritually neutral?
Where does the Bible mention "spiritually dead"? Where does the Bible say children are conceived spiritually dead.

If anything, Romans 7 indicates that the child is born alive (spiritually?), and dies (spiritually) when the law comes.... "When the law came, sin lived again and I died."
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,474
455
83
Pray tell: What do you think are the two possible meanings?

AND....since God cannot sin, does this also have two possible meanings?

P.S. I can support both premises from the bible, albeit those lousy, misleading, deceptive English translations. :rolleyes:
"Cannot" does not means "can not."
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,474
455
83
You have it all backwards! Men sin because they ARE sinners by nature. The natural world teaches us this truth. The leopard does not become a leopard after it received its spots, nor does the Ethiopian become and Ethiopian after he received his black skin. Both were what they were at the moment of conception guaranteeing what their physical attributes would be. Likewise with sinners. This is why scripture teaches that there's no one under the sun who doesn't sin. Man cannot not sin because he's a sinner by nature.
Jer 13:18 Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities shall come down, even the crown of your glory.

19 The cities of the south shall be shut up, and none shall open them: Judah shall be carried away captive all of it, it shall be wholly carried away captive.

20 Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north: where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?

21 What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee? for thou hast taught them to be captains, and as chief over thee: shall not sorrows take thee, as a woman in travail?

22 And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare.

23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

24 Therefore will I scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.

25 This is thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me, saith the Lord; because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.

The king and queen have habituated themselves by repetition to rebel against God. There is no indication in this text that the way they became habitual rebels was by birth as habitual rebels. God is asking a rhetorical question, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or a leopard his spots? Yes they can, but very few do so. The Jews knew about bleach and dye. Even so, very few Ethiopians do change, and very few leopards lose their spots; and it is highly unlikely that the king and queen will suddenly change their habit ingrained over years. It is possible, but unlikely, at this point. But if the occasional Ethiopian can and the occasional leopard can, so can the king and queen. "Then you MAY ALSO do good."
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
3,474
455
83
How does sin get into someone?
When we yield to outside pressures of the world and the devil, i.e. the environment of sin we are conceived and born in, and transgress what our conscience understands to be "the law". Then the sin lying crouching at the door is allowed in.
 

Cameron143

Well-known member
Mar 1, 2022
19,218
6,610
113
62
When we yield to outside pressures of the world and the devil, i.e. the environment of sin we are conceived and born in, and transgress what our conscience understands to be "the law". Then the sin lying crouching at the door is allowed in.
You believe that's what happened to Adam?
 

Everlasting-Grace

Well-known member
Dec 18, 2021
5,945
1,872
113
Where does the Bible mention "spiritually dead"? Where does the Bible say children are conceived spiritually dead.

If anything, Romans 7 indicates that the child is born alive (spiritually?), and dies (spiritually) when the law comes.... "When the law came, sin lived again and I died."
In adam all die, In christ shall all be made alive

so tell me, If babies are born physically alive,m What kind of death do you sup[pose they are born in.

And your wrong about that.. Paul is trying to show how the law condemns, it did not save.