Jer.29, Rom 3

[Elin]

Romans 3:11 is a general statement speaking about wicked people. It is not a statement about the righteous.

Paul is reflecting on the sentiment found in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53.
He is not making a doctrinal statement that there are categorically no people whatsoever who understand or who seek God.

That is precisely what he is saying of all the unregenerate, and is using Ps 14 and 53 as his basis.

You uphold birth depravity and therefore believe that sinners are lost due to a birth defect as opposed to
anything they could truly be held accountable for.

They are held truly accountable for the sin of Adam in Ro 8:12-21,
unless the Word of God is a liar.

We have different measures of Truth.

In your mind a new born baby is unregenerate and wicked and would therefore fall into the category of "there is none."

Yep, it was put in my mind by the NT Word of God, which I believe, and with which I agree.

Sorry you don't.

You also believe that salvation is a result of "Irresistible Grace" which serves to offset the birth depravity. Your theology is contradictory because you'll teach that the rebellion never actually ceases

Don't know where you got your information, but it is 101% bull.

and thus the offsetting is only ever partial, just enough to accept the legal transaction you believe in, ie. Jesus obedience credited to your account.

You have me mixed up with someone else.

To sum your theology up. Confess your inability and depravity, trust in Jesus and wait on God. It's a very clever way to dress up Satan's first like of "ye shall not surely die" by adding "ye cannot obey God,"

Now that's a real bastardization of the gospel.

Boy, the Holy Spirit is just drippin' off you.

I think I'm gonna' need a bath. . .

 

[homwardbound]

let me add these verses.

Gen 6:5,8
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

the KJV translates favor as 'grace'.

does that clear things up, or muddy them?

When one believes and God knows who these are; God makes us one with God, too simple for the carnal nature and only can be understood in Spirit and truth from Father by Son, in the resurrected Christ

 

[Skinski7]

Elin,


I stated, "You also believe that salvation is a result of "Irresistible Grace" which serves to offset the birth depravity. Your theology is contradictory because you'll teach that the rebellion never actually ceases."

Yet you stated that you don't believe that.

I am under the impression that you believe in "Irresistible Grace" or in other words "grace that cannot be resisted."

I am also under the impression that you believe in "birth depravity" whereby "sin is natural" for the sinner. Thus in your view sinners sin because they are born that way. Thus it is "Irresistible Grace" which serves to offset this "birth depravity" so a sin is "enabled" to turn to God. You don't believe that?

I am also under the impression that you believe that the Romans 7 wretch is the present Christian walk and that Christian's sin in thought, word and deed everyday. Thus in your view the sin never stops until the flesh dies (due to depravity being connected to the flesh body). So you don't believe that?

Well what do you believe then? Please elaborate.

I also said this...

"and thus the offsetting is only ever partial, just enough to accept the legal transaction you believe in, ie. Jesus obedience credited to your account."

To which you replied that I have you confused with someone else.

Yet I am under the impression that you believe that the "righteousness of Christ" (ie. Jesus obedient track record" is credited to the believers account. Thus "transferred foreign righteousness" combined with "sinning in thought, word and deed everyday" means that the offsetting of total depravity means that the offsetting is partial.

Please elaborate where I have your doctrine pictured wrong.

You don't believe in Total Depravity (and therefore total inability to obey God)?

You don't believe that God pretends you have the "righteousness of Jesus" when you manifestly don't?

Clear it up for me please.

 

[Elin]

Elin,

I stated, "You also believe that
salvation is a result of "Irresistible Grace"which serves
to offset the birth depravity.

Salvation is the result of rebirth from spiritual death (no Holy Spirit life in one's spirit--the "birth depravity") to eternal life.

Your theology is contradictory because you'll teach that
the rebellion never actually ceases."

Yet you stated that you don't believe that.

Seems you know more about my "theology" than I do.

Without requiring you to define this "rebellion," I will simply offer an illustration.
The prodigal son, who rebelled from his father and left home, came to his senses and returned.
He was no longer in rebellion.
Does that mean he never displeased his father in anything he did ever again? No.
Do the times he failed to please his father after returning home constitute rebellion? No.

Failure to always obey is not rebellion.

I am under the impression that you believe in "Irresistible Grace" or in other words
"grace that cannot be resisted."

Gosh. . .where do I start?
Let me start with the question, "Where did you get your impressions?"

Your "irresistible grace" is the new birth.
The spiritual new birth cannot be resisted anymore than natural birth can be resisted.
We have nothing to do with either of them, we are totally acted upon.

I am also under the impression that you believe in "birth depravity" whereby
"sin is natural" for the sinner. Thus in your view
sinners sin because they are born that way. Thus it is "Irresistible Grace" which serves to offset this "birth depravity" so a sin is
"enabled" to turn to God. You don't believe that?

Sin is natural for man because he is born with an unregenerate spirit, no Holy Spirit life in his spirit.
His disposition is toward sin.

When he is born again into eternal life of and by the Holy Spirit, he is no longer depraved and powerless to please God.
He has a new disposition, which is toward God, as well as the power of the Holy Spirit working within to transform him.

I am also under the impression that you believe that
the Romans 7 wretch is the present Christian walk

It would be without Jesus Christ, if we were left to walk it out on our own,
but we are not left to walk it out on our own.

and that Christian's sin in thought, word and deed everyday. Thus in your view the sin never stops until the flesh dies (due to depravity being connected to the flesh body). So you don't believe that?

Well what do you believe then? Please elaborate.

I also said this...

"and thus the offsetting is only ever partial, just enough to accept the legal transaction you believe in, ie.
Jesus obedience credited to your account."

To which you replied that I have you confused with someone else.

Yet I am under the impression that you believe that
the "righteousness of Christ" (ie. Jesus obedient track record"
is credited to the believers account. Thus "transferred foreign righteousness" combined with "sinning in thought, word and deed everyday" means that the offsetting of total depravity means that the offsetting is partial.

Righteousness/justification is a declaration of "not quilty" by God because of faith in Jesus Christ,
which removes God's wrath on our guilt at the final judgment.

It is a positional standing before God, not a state of sinlessness.
Those who are given this gift of righteousness remain guilt free even when they fail,
because this righteousness is based on faith, not on sinlessness.

Please elaborate where I have your doctrine pictured wrong.
You don't believe in
Total Depravity (and therefore total inability to obey God)?

I believe in the total depravity of unregenerate man, not regenerate man.

You don't believe that God pretends
you have the "righteousness of Jesus" when you manifestly don't?

I believe that God declares me "not guilty" (righteous) because of faith in Jesus Christ,
which does not mean that I am sinless.

 

[Elin]

.
And that brings us back to the OP.

Jeremiah 29:13
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Romans 3:11
there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.

your thoughts on this dichotomy?

Romans 3:11 is a general statement speaking about wicked people. It is not a statement about the righteous.

Paul is reflecting on the sentiment found in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53.

He is not making a doctrinal statement that there are categorically no people whatsoever
who understand or who seek God.

That is precisely what he is saying of all the unregenerate, and is using Ps 14 and 53 as his basis.

"The sinful (unregenerate) mind is hostile to God (rebellious).
It does not submit to God's law (insubordinate),
nor can it do so (spiritually powerless).
Those controlled by the sinful (unregenerate) nature cannot please God." (Ro 8:7-8)

 

[Mark51]

The portion of the apostle Paul letter that was written to the Christian congregation in ancient Rome, he was making quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures that were all written under inspiration more than 450 years before the writing of his letter about the year 56 C.E. For example, Paul quotes from Isaiah 59:7-20. This indicates that the situation was already quite bad away back there in his day, not only with reference to mankind in general, but especially with regard to those who claimed to be the people of Jehovah God, namely, the Jews, or Israelites. Well, then, today, more than 19 centuries after Paul wrote such things to the Christian congregation in the imperial capital of Rome. Similar moral and religious condition of the world still permeates-including Christendom.

According to the source of its name, Christendom ought to be imitating Christ Jesus and living up to his teachings. The nations that make up Christendom ought to know how to do this. Among such so-called Christian nations Bibles, and particularly copies of the “New Testament,” circulate by the hundreds of millions in all the known languages of their realm. Most of their inhabitants know how to read those inspired Scriptures so as to learn how to be a Christian. Since Christendom identifies herself with Christ and claims to be his congregation, her failure to follow the example of Christ brands her as a hypocrite. Her social, moral, religious state is like that of the once “chosen people” of Jehovah God in the days of the prophet Isaiah 800 years before Christianity came upon the earthly scene.

Really, Christendom’s sorry state parallels that of Israel in Isaiah’s day, for she claims to have replaced Israel as the chosen people of God. So, as we read certain chapters of Isaiah’s prophecy, we can have in mind their larger application to Christendom.

 

[Elin]

The portion of the apostle Paul letter that was written to the Christian congregation in ancient Rome, he was making quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures that were all written under inspiration more than 450 years before the writing of his letter about the year 56 C.E. For example, Paul quotes from Isaiah 59:7-20. This indicates that the situation was already quite bad away back there in his day, not only with reference to mankind in general, but especially with regard to those who claimed to be the people of Jehovah God, namely, the Jews, or Israelites. Well, then, today, more than 19 centuries after Paul wrote such things to the Christian congregation in the imperial capital of Rome. Similar moral and religious condition of the world still permeates-including Christendom.

According to the source of its name, Christendom ought to be imitating Christ Jesus and living up to his teachings. The nations that make up Christendom ought to know how to do this. Among such so-called Christian nations Bibles, and particularly copies of the “New Testament,” circulate by the hundreds of millions in all the known languages of their realm. Most of their inhabitants know how to read those inspired Scriptures so as to learn how to be a Christian. Since
Christendom identifies herself with Christ and claims to be his congregation, her
failure to follow the example of Christ brands her as a hypocrite. Her social, moral, religious state is like that of the once “chosen people” of Jehovah God in the days of the prophet Isaiah 800 years before Christianity came upon the earthly scene.

Really, Christendom’s sorry state parallels that of Israel in Isaiah’s day, for she claims to have replaced Israel as the chosen people of God. So, as we read certain chapters of Isaiah’s prophecy, we can have in mind their larger application to Christendom.

Don't confuse the born again with "Christendom," nor
the possessors (of saving faith) with the professors (professing faith).

 

[BradC]

Jesus came to seek and save that which is lost. The plan of God ordains many things to seek out the heart of the sinner. There is nothing in the heart of a man from birth that is inclined or has the ability to seek after God, but when a man comes in contact with the plan of God, that plan and the details of that plan begins to 'jump start' his heart to seek after the one who has all power, all knowledge and is everywhere present. This is part of the mystery of God that brings the sinner's heart to a place of calling out after and upon God. When these things happen in the heart it is time to seek the Lord while He can be found and when the sinner seeks the Lord with all his heart he will find the Lord to be merciful and gracious and full of compassion.