Featured Calvinist Confusion

It certainly is not because of you or me as we came into this world condemned already (Jn. 3:17). It is not due to violation of conscience because infants suffer death in the womb before they are conscious of having a conscience.

It is because of Adam as the representative of the human race within the confines of the Garden of Eden the area of testing humanity. It is because all of human nature actually existed and acted in one man - Adam - Rom. 5:12-19.

Paul says it is because of "one man" not "many" or any actions by all other men - Rom. 5:12-19.

 

No, what we need is a qualified substitute. A qualified substitute who is not a perfect lawkeeper cannot be a perfect life giver. Where there is no satisfaction of sin there is no life to give to anyone but only another deathgiver.

 

I agree with you here. Christ was righteous from birth without the law. However, his righteousness was not contrary to the Law or different than what the law demanded. Our righteousness is by impartation (new birth) and imputation (justification) and glorification not from the law but from Christ's own righteousness which is approved by the Law.

The law of God is merely an imperfect reflection of God's own moral nature in written form. It is imperfect because the letter of the law may be obeyed contrary to the spirit of the Law. Christ is the perfect manifestation of the moral nature of God which the law attempts to convey in written form.

The Law of God originates with God and therefore in principle must be harmonious with his own moral nature and thus a reflection in principle of his nature.

 

I want to make sure that I understand what you are saying here. Are you saying that Adam's transgression is merely an immoral standard that aids us ("shows us") in understanding our own depraved nature??

Are you saying our sin is conceived in us apart from an inherent sin nature received directly from Adam?

 

No middle ground here! We will just have to disagree.

 

It does, calling us natural men, of the flesh, spiritual dead in our sins and transgressions!

 

Is this a response to something I said? Please quote the source you are critiquing. If it is a response to what I say, please be more specific to what precise words that I said you are responding to?

 

Ok, since we have had strong disagreements in the past, I thought it best to start with these comments and tell you I appreciate your comments which I believe display a good attitude and jesture toward me as presented in the above words.

 

understood, trying to be a good dad is more important than any theological discussion.

This only causes me to ask further questions. Of course, I believe he is our representative in the garden test but not outside of the garden. Of course, I don't believe Adam's human nature changed to some kind of unhuman nature.

However, I very very very strongly believe the garden sin completely and humanly irreversably totally transformed his moral nature and all of his descendants moral nature. This change is due to spiritual separation between God's Spirit and our human spirit leaving it in a state "without God" and therefore without LIGHT, without LOVE, and without HOLINESS thus without spiritual LIFE as God IS light, IS love and IS holiness and therefore is the source of LIFE. To be without LIGHT is to dwell in spiritual DARKNESS. To be without LIFE is to be spiritually DEAD. To be without holiness is to be DEPRAVED and to be be without love is to be in a state of ENMITY toward God.

This is precisely the descriptions that Paul uses to describe those spiritually dead "without God" (Eph. 2:1; 11) in Ephesians 4:18-19

Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: {blindness: or, hardness }
19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

To be without God is be without light "darkened"
To be without God is to be without life "alienated from the life of God"
To be without God is to be without love "blindness (hardness) of their hearts...past feeling"
To be without God is to be without holiness "given themseles over...to work all uncleaness"

The new birth is the ONLY possible solution to reverse this moral condition of the fallen human nature as new birth is being brought into spiritual union with God and at that point in time when one is brought into to union with God they are brought into union with LIGHT and LIFE and LOVE and HOLINESS.

The prefallen Adam did not exist in this spiritual condition (darkness, dead, enmity and depravity). Post-fallen mankind do not exist in the prefallen Adam condition.

Death is "passed" from Adam to all of his posterity as death does not exist where sin does not exist and therefore this separated spiritual state of death, darkness, enmity and depravity is BEING SINFUL BY NATURE and what is "passed" from fallen Adam to everyone of his posterity is this SINFUL NATURE or CONDITION and the only possible solution for this problem is new birth alone.

 

This is exactly right. I am actually preaching on Romans 5:12-21 this Lord's Day, and nothing is more clear than that Adam was our Federal head; what he has done, we have done, in him. The punishment for his fall is also ours, in him (Romans 5:17-18). 'For in Adam, all die.....' If this is not so, we have no reason to believe that '.......in Christ all shall be made alive.'

Christ is also the Federal Head of all those whom the Father has given to Him. 'For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.' Not just forgiven, but made righteous. Christ's perfect righteousness and obedience to the Father's will are credited to those who are 'in Him' when they believe, and their sins are laid upon Christ who pays the penalty for them (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ's obedience to the Father was not just in His death, but 'unto death' (Philippians 2:8). He was our substitute not just in His death, but also in His life.

 

There seems to be a difference here:
Genesis 1:26. 'Then God said, "Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.'
Genesis 5:3. 'And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image......'