Born a Sinner?

PackerBacker:

Amen, brother. What an excellent post.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PackerBacker:
Whenever these questions come up on this sight I notice guys like Chris offer a biblical answer usually based on God’s sovereignty and elective choice. While those responses tend to be viewed as cold hearted and result in feathers being ruffled, they are biblically based instead of emotionally based. As point blank or cold as they my sound, they have more biblical basis than a position coming mostly from speculation or emotion.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is never my intent to be or sound cold-hearted or unloving. If that is what is projected, I am not doing a good pastoral job of presenting truth. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." 1 Cor. 13:1 (ESV)

May it be known that I present the truth in love of the brethren and love for the truth. Sometimes the truth is a stumbling block, and it must be. But at no time do I intend to offend.

Ephes. 4:15 (ESV)
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

 

An important fact that all have failed to look at in that we are all guilty of Adam's sin, is how it is passed down to all of us. It is in our blood. This is most important in understanding Jesus. Any farmer can tell you that if you want to breed cattle, you pick the best cow to provide the body, then you find the best bull to provide the bloodline. Mary was the provider of the body of Jesus. God was the provider of the bloodline. Jesus had no earthly father so he could not be guilty of Adam's sin regardless. Only being innocent from birth (and conception) could give him the ability to be our innocent sacrifice. Therefore, by seeing this fact you must see that we are guilty from conception regardless what you may wish to think. If we were not, then Christ did not need to get a new bloodline outside of the human race.

[ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: Jaco ]

[ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: Jaco ]

 

If we sin because of a sinful nature, which we were born with,then how are we guilty?We sin because we have no choice but to sin.This doesn't paint a very holy/just and fair picture of God.Adam and Eve and even the Devil did not have a sin nature to begin with and they sinned because of a free willed choice.We sin because we choose to, not because God loaded the dice against us and then blamed us for it.

 

fcs25, The scripture tells us that Satan was a liar from the beginning. (John 8:44) Mankind has been in trouble ever since Adam sinned. We are destined to die because of sin entering the human race. Still when we are children we are in a state of innocence, and though there is no direct statement that all children go to heaven, David did say of his own child, "I can't bring the child back to me, but I can go to the child." (My paraphrase) When we are old enough to know right from wrong, the important decision is to accept Christ. That is how we defeat the punishment of Adam's sin which is death, and gives us salvation from hell for unbelief, which is the unforgivable sin. God is not unjust. He has made a way for us to be saved in spite of our selves and there is nothing we have to do to receive it other than believe that Jesus payed the penalty.

[ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: Jaco ]

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jaco:
[QB]An important fact that all have failed to look at in that we are all guilty of Adam's sin, is how it is passed down to all of us. It is in our blood. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Jaco:

This is not true. Can you provide Scripture references for this? Sin is in our nature - heart, mind and spirit, not in our corpusles. Adam's sin is imputed to us - added to our debt ledger by God - and the whole creation is cursed.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Adam’s sin (Gen. 3:1–6) consisted in his yielding to the assaults of temptation and eating the forbidden fruit. It involved in it, (1) the sin of unbelief, virtually making God a liar; and (2) the guilt of disobedience to a positive command. By this sin he became an apostate from God, a rebel in arms against his Creator. He lost the favour of God and communion with him; his whole nature became depraved, and he incurred the penalty involved in the covenant of works.
Original sin. “Our first parents being the root of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature were conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation.” Adam was constituted by God the federal head and representative of all his posterity, as he was also their natural head, and therefore when he fell they fell with him (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:22–45). His probation was their probation, and his fall their fall. Because of Adam’s first sin all his posterity came into the world in a state of sin and condemnation, i.e., (1) a state of moral corruption, and (2) of guilt, as having judicially imputed to them the guilt of Adam’s first sin. (Easton's) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jaco:
Still when we are children we are in a state of innocence, <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This too, is unscriptural. Where does it say in Scripture that children are anything other than born sinners? The passage about David and his child is too often used to prove infant salvation; it more than likely means that David will go to the grave as did his child.

The explicit scriptural evidence of the imputed sin of Adam to all his progeny is overwhelming when compared to the implicit inferences of infant salvation.

That does not mean I hold to infant damnation, however. I fully agree with the WCF on this:

"Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit,[12] who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth:[13] so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.[14]

12. Gen. 17:7; Luke 1:15; 18:15-16; Acts 2:39; John 3:3, 5; I John 5:12
13. John 3:8
14. John 16:7-8; I John 5:12; Acts 4:12"

 

I see that Adam and Eve were in a state of innocency before they came of the knowledge of sin, so by that I say we are innocent from sinning until we come of the age of knowledge. Adam's guilt is passed down from generation to generation, but a child is still innocent. Now, one can say, well, God hated Esau before he was born, and that is true. But why did He hate Esau? Because He knew what Esau was going to become. Now if He had allowed Esau to die before he came of age to turn from God, God could not have made that statement for us to consider, now could he? Esau had to be allowed to live past the age of innocency for the statement to be true. How many children are listed in the Bible as dying because they were evil? You can bring up those of other nations God commanded to be killed with their parents, but that still doesn't show anything beyond keeping them from growing up to become evil, as they would have. Now as far as the blood goes, what is the only physical attribute that we have that Jesus did not? A human bloodline. If the bloodline is not it, then you tell me, why did he get His bloodline from God, instead of man, and why is that important?

 

One other statement I wish to add is that I can find scripture agreeing that we are born in sin, or conceived in sin, but none that says we are conceived sinners. There is a difference.
Rom 9:11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth

[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Jaco ]

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jaco:
I can find scripture agreeing that we are born in sin, or conceived in sin, but none that says we are conceived sinners. There is a difference
[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Jaco ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ok, I'm game. What's the difference as you see it? Please break each one of those three catagories down, when you get a chance. It will help me better understand where your coming from. Thanks

 

Boarders,
This is a hot topic and I know I am coming into this thread in the middle of the flow, but may I suggest a few things.
When ever I have dealt w/ this subject matter, or any subject matter that may be considered *hard line*, I always go with that
which we know. What is it that we are able to touch, reach out and grab from holy writ. For instance:
In regards to mans natural state. Is man "totally depraved?".
Scripture is clear in defining the state of all men: Romans ch 3........."All have sinned". *ALL* There is not one person born without the sin of Adam on his plate. Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
1 Cor 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Someone mentioned David, Ps 51:5, "born in iniquity.
Another mentioned that if there is *no law* then there is no (responsibility) to sin. Anotherwards, one is not held responsible to sin until one is enlightened or the law revealed to that person. This cannot be true as everyone will be judged, even those without the *literal* la. scripture states that nature reveals the character of Gods law and that *they will be without excuse*, according to this premise.

Romans 3 addresses this issue. The Jews had the law and the gentiles did not.
Rom 3:9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
Rom 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

Many more scripturs can be applied here. Also, the most important element in this facet of biblical truth is the elective decree of God. God elects and saves whenever Hde wills. He saves children (even) in the womb (as in the case of John the baptist and Jeremiah). He also leaves children in their sin. One would like to believe God saves all children. How can one hold fast to this truth? The elective decree does not support this notion. Rom 9:15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Rom 9:16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
Rom 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Rom 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
Rom 9:22 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

There is more biblical support rendered to the fact that *all have sinned* than all children are saved, hence this is what we must hold to. Sola scriptura. The idea being that all men are on their way to Hell and unless God saves via grace and mercy, they perish, deservingly.

In HIS grip,
Scott Bushey

"Great art thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is thy
power, and infinite is thy wisdom."
Augustine, Confessions 1:1