Originally posted by johnp.:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />This would be like putting only a tuna sandwich in front of you and telling you if you choose the roast beef, you will live. This is not the god I serve.
You keep on about choice don't you webdog? Your analogy is wrong.
DT 29:2 Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them:
Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. 3 With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those miraculous signs and great wonders. 4 But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear. 5 During the forty years that I led you through the desert, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. 6 You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the LORD your God.
This man did obey the law, and he was not saved when he left Jesus.
That is not true is it? A man can keep the law and go to Hell is unscriptural because God says, EZE 18:21 "But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die.
The only other way into Heaven. Be perfect and your past sins are forgotten with no blood paid.
22 None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live.
john. </font>[/QUOTE]It is abysmally ridiculous to believe that God would ever command a man to do that which it was impossible for him to do. Of course a man, whether he is saved or not, can obey the Law if he so chooses. A very good example of such a man was Saul of Tarsus.
Phil. 3:6. as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.
And of course the fact that it was possible for a man to obey God and His commandments raised the question in the minds of many regarding the doctrine of the atonement of Christ and related doctrines that teach that faith in Christ and His death on the cross is the only means of salvation. But we find the answer to this question in the Old Testament.
Between the time when Adam first sinned and the giving of the Law, people died even though sin is not imputed when there is no law forbidding it. Therefore, we know that something other than their personal behavior caused them to die. And in Rom. 5:12 Paul tells us what that was, they had sinned in Adam, and Paul then defends his teaching in the remainder of the chapter:
12. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
13. for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
15. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
16. The gift is not like
that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment
arose from one
transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift
arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.
17. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
18. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
19. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
20. The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
21. so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (NASB, 1995)
All men have sinned in Adam, and therefore even those who keep the Law need a savior, and the only Savior that God has provided is the Lord Jesus Christ!