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OK, that was pretty funny.

(Not too long after, IT DID!)

 

Lazarus was a believer long before before he died, there is no basis for distorting his resuscitation into a picture of salvation. A better example is Adam in the garden after he sinned and partook of the forbidden fruit. When God called to fallen Adam, was he capable of a response? Yes. If your view were valid, Adam would have died with the fruit between his teeth, the Lord would have found his dead body on the ground in the garden and then regenerated him so he could respond and believe. Wouldn't that have affirmed the Reformed position beyond all doubt?

But it didn't happen that way. Think about it.

 

Lazarus' resuscitation is in no way a picture of salvation, as even a cursory inspection of the context will reveal. I invite you to read John 11 again.

Please explain how fallen and spiritually dead Adam was able to respond to God's call in the garden. THAT is a picture of response to saving grace by someone "dead in trespasses and sins."

 

May I cordially suggest you spend some time contemplating Lucifer and the third of the angelic hosts who followed him in sin.

 

An imaginative scenario, but again: why wasn't Adam dead on the garden floor after his sin, unable to see, hear, etc.? There is simply no biblical foundation for your characterization. Please see Ezekiel 33:12-20. Is God inconsistent?

 

I respectfully recommend thinking more Bible and less fiction. "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).

 

What I think about is that Adam and Eve hid in the presence of God and would not come out until God called them out. God did all the work of reconciling Adam and Eve because God is gracious. Adam and Eve had nothing to offer. They receive no glory on their part. God receives all glory.

Do you have any other examples of man's great choices?

 

It is an example of man's total inability to make himself alive when he is dead in his trespasses and sins.

 

Yet, you created a fictional story as your example...

Was Israel chosen by God? Your verse is great for the Christian called to holiness. It is irrelevant to the Philistine who worships Dagon.

 

It's a spiritual analogy pertaining to our heartfelt relationship with God.
If it were physical, Adam would have died, bodily, the day he disobeyed.

Instead, the death was spiritual ( relationally ) towards the Lord and His ways.

Respectfully, I disagree.
Please see Romans 1:18-32, Romans 3:10-18, Ephesians 2:1 and anything that refers to believers as having once been "dead in trespasses and sins".

Man is "dead" until the Lord makes him or her alive.

Inconsistent in what way?
Under the Law of Moses, He was always consistent...and even then He was gracious and slow to anger with His chosen nation of Israel under that covenant;

As He is with all who are under His covenants, whether it is one of Law, or of grace.

 

I am just a glass-half-full sort of guy.
If I am going to speculate on the unknowable, I prefer to think about how many times Adam and Eve passed "THE TREE" and demonstrated obedience to God before their one, inevitable, stumble that changed everything. Their greatest sin was not disobedience, it was being incapable of perfection ... thus making Adam and Eve a living "Ebeneezer" that mankind needs a Savior and the Love of God is infinitely more powerful than our sin.

 

I see that the context of this passage is continued from Deuteronomy 29:1, in which Moses reminded the children of Israel of their obligations under the covenant that they had agreed upon when Moses led them up out of Egypt and into the wilderness.
In other words, Deuteronomy 30:19-20 is not spoken to, nor does it even apply to, all men everywhere...
It was and is only directed at the Lord's chosen nation of Israel and those "strangers" ( Gentiles ) that had joined themselves to the nation.

For example:

" I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, [that] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
20 that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, [and] that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he [is] thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." ( Deuteronomy 30:19-20 ).

Following the context and the pronouns, Moses is laying before Israel the promises of the covenant...
Not all men.
He is telling them that if they obey the Lord, they shall dwell in the land which God promised to their fathers and experience blessings;
If they don't, then they shall experience cursings.


Why you apparently see this passage as describing the Lord's attitude towards anyone outside a covenant relationship with Him, I do not know, sir, and can only speculate that perhaps you missed where the Scriptures developed this back in Deuteronomy 29.

Good morning to you.

 

Lazarus is not a picture of man "dead in trespasses and sins." He represents "Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies" - Jesus said so (John 11:25-26).

 

You have not addressed Adam's response to God's call in the garden while "dead in trespasses and sins."

 

Adam was spiritually dead in the garden at the point he ate the fruit, and not physically dead. We agree on this point. Adam, spiritually dead, responded to God's call in the garden. Your argument seems to conflate a spiritually dead person's inability with that of a physically dead person.They are obviously not the same.

Again, Ezekiel 33: God conditions physical life and death on the choice by His people to obey or disobey after salvation, but you seem to reject the notion that He also conditions spiritual life and death on human choice at the point of salvation. How are God's people "a light to the Gentiles" for salvation if God's dealings with His own people are not a picture of His character and grace toward all?

 

Thanks Dave. I am fully aware of the context. As noted in #75, God's dealings with Israel were a picture for all nations: their physical life and death, prosperity and judgment, based on their choice for faith and obedience or the alternative. I invite you to point out any other means of evangelism by God's people in the Old Testament. If the basis of God's dealings with them do not represent His dealings with all, then what good is their example to the Gentiles?

 

Sorry, my previous reply was a bit cryptic. What I'm getting at is this: if God created the angels and Adam perfect, I see only one explanation for their fall. The flaw is not in their nature, created perfect by God, but in their own free choice. The Bible clearly shows that a perfect creature can freely choose to sin; we have three individuals and a third of the angels as examples of this. I think there is a message here about the existence of free will. If sin does not originate in choice there is only one other place it can come from, and that is God Himself. I don't know about you, but I don't see that latter alternative suggested anywhere in Scripture.

 

I agree.
He responded to God's call... but instead of seeking forgiveness and reconciliation ( owning up to his sin ), he turned around and blamed Eve.
That tells me that hardness of heart was already setting in, and that "deadness" had become a reality.

I appreciate your comment and viewpoint, but again, I have to disagree.
From my perspective I'm not conflating anything.

Spiritual "deadness" ( as opposed to physical deadness ) is a total lack of desire towards God, and especially His ways.
Righteousness, or obeying the Lord, is not a natural thing to us as men...
It has become unnatural ( Romans 1:18-32 ).

While we can of course hear God's words, a person that is "dead" towards God refuses to hearken to, or listen with the desire to obey, His every word.
John 8:43-47 comes to my mind.

Yes, I do reject the notion that He conditions spiritual life and spiritual death ( we're already dead unless Christ makes us alive ) on human choice.
Romans 3:10-18, Psalms 10, Psalms 14, John 3:19-20 and several other places state in no uncertain terms that mankind does not seek Him and in fact we already have a bias against Him and His ways.

In addition, the new birth is not a product of our will, as John 1:13 and James 1:18 state.
Also, eternal life is characterized in Scripture as a gift ( Romans 6:23 ) and is a result of God's unmerited favor to a person;
Not a product of merit.

Therefore, we as men cannot and will not ever merit, or purchase God's favor by an act of our will.

Because they are a light to those Gentiles that God has saved.

 

God says we are dead in trespasses and sins. God says that God makes us alive with Christ. The analogy of Lazarus as an allegory is legitimate, just as Paul's allegory of Hagar and Sarah is legitimate.