Total Depravity

[Carbon]

It's obvious you lost track of things friend.

If Adam didn't sin, they would have never been removed from the garden. They would have had the Tree of Life and would not have experienced physical death. But since he did sin, he died both physically and spiritually.

@JIM

Why you cant see this is beyond me.

 

[makesends]

@JIM

Why you cant see this is beyond me.

Like most debate sites, the format here is not conducive to keeping track of past postings in continuing conversations. There is another format, but it is conducive to of the cuff responses, and if one doesn't respond within minutes, the past postings have long since scrolled off the page. That format is also one where pretty much once per ten minutes someone is accused of "wall of text".

So we do the best we can with this format. But, yeah, I wish there was a better way to keep track.

This does, though, have the effect that past irrelevancies and inanities tend to fade off into the distance.

 

[JIM]

It is not my interpretation JIM. It is the scriptures interpreting the scriptures. It is the only way of getting at the truth. The battle cry of the Reformation. "Sola scriptura!"

But not "sola @Arial.

 

[JIM]

@JIM

Why you cant see this is beyond me.

There is and never was any such thing as physical immortality. Why you can't see that physical death is integral to creation is beyond me.

 

[Carbon]

Carbon said:
It's obvious you lost track of things friend.

If Adam didn't sin, they would have never been removed from the garden. They would have had the Tree of Life and would not have experienced physical death. But since he did sin, he died both physically and spiritually.

@JIM

Why you cant see this is beyond me.

@JIM , here is just a little more to help you understand what happened there.

A lot has happened because of his sin.

And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3.

Can you see the physical death @JIM ?

You see, the physical body is snatched away in death. Does not scripture not also teach that death is at work in us (2 Cor 4:11-12)?

And yes, death signifies spiritual death as well. This cannot be denied. The death of the immortal soul is the departure of the Holy Spirit from it. As Paul teaches in Eph 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. See the total inability?
And as Paul teaches, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins Eph 2:1.
Joe, I hope you agree that the dead can do nothing. Absolutely nothing, especially to save themselves.

Until the soul is made alive by the Holy Spirit, it has no feeling, that is it neither understands truth nor loves righteousness. All death does is bring forth worms of impure and abominable thoughts.

 

[Carbon]

There is and never was any such thing as physical immortality. Why you can't see that physical death is integral to creation is beyond me.

You're just avoiding it now, aren't you?

 

[Arial]

But not "sola @Arial.

There is no "Sola Arial" and no one has so much as implied that their was. What does this have to do with the discussion?

Post #89

Let's all take a deep breath and calm down. Remember whose name we bear and how what we do and say reflects on that name. Take a moment to ask that He would lead us in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Listen to the counsel of the Holy Spirit in His word and submit to His sanctifying work in us, when our flesh desires to run ahead of Him.

Thank you.

 

[JIM]

@JIM , here is just a little more to help you understand what happened there.

A lot has happened because of his sin.

And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3.

Can you see the physical death @JIM ?

Yes, I can see the physical death. But the fact is that if God would have let Adam and Eve remain in the Garden, they would have had access to the fruit of the tree of life and would not have died physically. And that in spite of the fact that he had sinned. Therefore sin does not cause physical death. Physical death is intrinsic to the creation. The tree of life was there to keep the created natural physical death from occurring.

You see, the physical body is snatched away in death. Does not scripture not also teach that death is at work in us (2 Cor 4:11-12)?

That is part of a passage wherein Paul is speaking of himself and the apostles there specifically in chapter four. Go back and read the entire chapter in context.

And yes, death signifies spiritual death as well. This cannot be denied. The death of the immortal soul is the departure of the Holy Spirit from it. As Paul teaches in Eph 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. See the total inability?

No, there is no total inability there. They chose to harden their own heart. It was their choice to do so. It was a choice.

And as Paul teaches, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins Eph 2:1.
Joe, I hope you agree that the dead can do nothing. Absolutely nothing, especially to save themselves.

There is absolutely nothing about spiritual death that precludes physical functioning and activity -- NOTHING.

Now I agree that no one can do anything to save themselves, but there is nothing keeping them from asking God to save them.

Until the soul is made alive by the Holy Spirit, it has no feeling, that is it neither understands truth nor loves righteousness. All death does is bring forth worms of impure and abominable thoughts.

That is a purely false construct in accordance with the false doctrine of total depravity.

 

[JIM]

Let's all take a deep breath and calm down. Remember whose name we bear and how what we do and say reflects on that name. Take a moment to ask that He would lead us in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Listen to the counsel of the Holy Spirit in His word and submit to His sanctifying work in us, when our flesh desires to run ahead of Him.

Thank you.

Oh would that you indeed take your own admonition!!

 

[Arial]

There is and never was any such thing as physical immortality. Why you can't see that physical death is integral to creation is beyond me.

Physical death is not integral to creation. Adam and Eve were created mortal: able to die but not of necessity dying. Just as they were not created corrupt, but able to be corrupted. The result of the corruption is mortality.

Now juxtapose that with the goal of the end of redemption and we see the whole purpose of the fall.

1 Cor 15 lays it out step by step in vv 12-58 but I will quote a couple of portions illustrating directly what I say above.

51-57 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last Trumper. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the imortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting." The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

42-43 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.

Rev 21:3-4 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

 

[JIM]

Physical death is not integral to creation. Adam and Eve were created mortal: able to die but not of necessity dying. Just as they were not created corrupt, but able to be corrupted. The result of the corruption is mortality.

Read that again and make sure that is what you intended before I comment on it.

 

[Arial]

Read that again and make sure that is what you intended before I comment on it.

I have no problem with what I said.

 

[Carbon]

Yes, I can see the physical death. But the fact is that if God would have let Adam and Eve remain in the Garden, they would have had access to the fruit of the tree of life and would not have died physically. And that in spite of the fact that he had sinned. Therefore sin does not cause physical death. Physical death is intrinsic to the creation. The tree of life was there to keep the created natural physical death from occurring.

So, you believe if Adam did not sin, he would have died anyway?

 

[makesends]

Of course you would trivialize the word for "all" simply to make it comply with your own view of things. And yet the precise meaning of the word is the critical aspect of the interpretation. In your soteriology, it is mandatory that the word "all" does not really mean the same throughout the sentence.

You didn't even read what I said. You certainly didn't understand it. The use of the verse I proffered agrees that that "All" means "all" there. The point is that the force of the argument is not that all will be saved, but that there are none that are saved by any other means.

As I have stated elsewhere, it is not possible to prove any interpretation to be the correct one. The Bible was not given as proof of anything. It was given as a basis for coming to faith in God. If God wanted to give proof of His written revelation, He could certainly have done that such that there could be no disagreement of its content. But in that case, the need for faith would disappear completely.

So, no exegesis.

 

[makesends]

There is and never was any such thing as physical immortality. Why you can't see that physical death is integral to creation is beyond me.

What makes you think that the system we have now is the same as it has always been? If they commonly lived many hundreds of years, AFTER the fall, what makes you think they would die naturally before the fall? What makes you think they even aged? We really can only conjecture on the matter.

Like I tell Atheists, when they start mocking such things, "Logically, IF God is God, then none of this you are mocking is impossible."

 

[Carbon]

What makes you think that the system we have now is the same as it has always been? If they commonly lived many hundreds of years, AFTER the fall, what makes you think they would die naturally before the fall? What makes you think they even aged? We really can only conjecture on the matter.

Personally, because I lean towards old earth, I believe outside the Garden life aged, and died. In the Garden, it was paradise, A picture shadow/type of heaven, where there was no time and aging or death.

But forget I said all that, thats not what the thread is about.

 

[JIM]

So, you believe if Adam did not sin, he would have died anyway?

He would not have died even though he was mortal; but he would not have died only because he would have had access to the fruit of the Tree of Life. As I have said, so often, nothing physically changed with Adam when he sinned and was ejected from the Garden. He spiritually died and his relationship with God was diminished, but not destroyed, damaged but not ended.

 

[JIM]

You didn't even read what I said. You certainly didn't understand it. The use of the verse I proffered agrees that that "All" means "all" there. The point is that the force of the argument is not that all will be saved, but that there are none that are saved by any other means.

Yes, I read it and I understood it. I simply disagreed with it. The effect due to Adam was on the unborn or just born child. The "as - so" construction of the sentence demands then that the effect due to Jesus was also on the unborn or just born child. It is not about the effect due to Jesus on the sins they committed.

So, no exegesis.

Do you have some special definition of the word "exegesis" so that when you explain a text, it is exegesis, but when I explain a text, it is not? Sorry, but as the saying goes, "That dog don't hunt"!

 

[JIM]

I have no problem with what I said.

Then what do you think was the reason for the Tree of Life?

 

[ElectedbyHim]

It kept any of posterity out of the Garden. But then, no one would have been any better at not sinning than was Adam; no one would have lasted very long in the Garden anyway.

I will reiterate what I have said here a couple of times, Romans 5:12-19 says, against what so many claim, that the effect of Jesus' obedience negated any such effect as original sin that Adam's disobedience might have had. Consider verse 18.

(KJV)Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

Let A be "the offence of one judgment" and let B be "the righteousness of one ". Then verse 18 reads

(KJV)Therefore as by A came upon all men to condemnation; even so by B the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

I think there is no doubt that in reading that, one would have to conclude that the effect of B is upon the very same group as the effect of A. And since it is generally interpreted that the "all men" effected by A is indeed the whole of mankind, then that is the same group as the "all men" effected by B. There is no rational analysis, other than a misguided preconceived view of things, that would change the group designated all men in the first half of that sentence to some other group designated all men in the second half. It must be talking about the same group, the same all men.

And since the effect of A is taken to be the condition of the spirit of a person at conception (or birth if you prefer), the effect of B must be taken to be also the condition of the spirit of a person at conception. This has nothing to do with anything that the person does after birth. It is dealing strictly with the condition at conception.

Those who profess the soteriology of the Reformed Theology like tout and spout the Doctrines of Grace the subject of the OP. And from my view, they ignore the very first doctrine of Grace that God gives to each and every human being. That of Original Grace. Every child comes into this world as a child of God. He loses that position when he commits his first sin.

Having lost that position, his only hope then is to be born again, to be REborn.

What did Paul say? He said, " I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died . the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me."

And I would here remind you that Romans 5:12 does not say that death spread to all men because of Adam. It says, "death spread to all men because all sinned--". And here death is spiritual death.

I could continue with a lot more, but I won't bother now.
".

Every child comes into this world as a child of God. He loses that position when he commits his first sin.

What is your Biblical support for this statement?