Tha Fall of Man and the Law of Sin

[Esaias]

I was going to post a big, long dissertation on this, but things have been rather busy here lately so I am just going to make this quick and to the point, brethren.

When Adam sinned his human nature itself did not change, it was not imbedded with some kind of viral, inheritable, DNA-altering mutation called 'original sin' or' the sin principle'. There is not scripture that says or suggests that.

People use original sin or 'the sin nature' as an excuse for their sin. It makes God a liar. It destroys grace, and makes salvation of sinners a matter of justice instead of mercy. It turns sin into a disease, and sinners into poor, afflicted, helpless victims, when in reality sinners - you, me, all of us - are wanton, willful criminals.

Sin is crime - it is defined by Scripture as transgression of the law. There is no commandment forbidding humans to be born. There is no commandment forbidding humans to be born or conceived with human nature. Therefore, no one is born with a nature that causes them to be automatically damned to hell - which is what the doctrine of original sin demands.

People sin because they choose to sin. If not, then they must be FORCED to sin. You either choose to commit an act, or you were forced to it beyond your control. If sin is involuntary, then it cannot be CRIMINAL. And if it is involuntary, then it cannot produce GUILT deserving of PUNISHMENT. But sin is voluntary. Sin is criminal. Sin produces guilt. Sin deserves punishment. And therefore sinners are saved by GRACE - pardon, forgiveness, something they DO NOT DESERVE.

If God saved NOT A SINGLE HUMAN BEING, He would be perfectly just and righteous. Why? Because all of us have sinned, all of us are criminals, and if every criminal served their full sentence who would say the government was unjust? But God offers pardon, forgiveness, mercy.

Original sin makes sin a disease. "You poor sinner, it's your sin nature making you sin, you really can't help it!" Thus God would be unjust and EVIL if he did NOT save people.

A man has a son. The son lives in sin. The son never repents, never gets saved. The son dies. The father then secretly (or openly) blames God for not saving him. Why? Because the man believes sin is involuntary, like a disease, and God has the power to heal it, but chose not to.

Do you pray for sinners to be saved? DO you pray for them, as if they are poor hapless afflicted victims of sin? Or do you plead with God as a mother would plead with the Governor, to grant a pardon to her son convicted of murder?

There is no 'sin nature', such that humans are condemned to hell automatically because they have a human nature. There is no sin nature causing people to sin. Sin is transgression of the law. Repentance means to STOP SINNING, to put it bluntly.

Does God command people to obey him? If he does, then people have the ability to obey him. If people do not obey him, it is because they chose not to do what they OUGHT to have done, and thus are guilty and have NOTHING TO BLAME BUT THEMSELVES.

Original sin doctrine leads to the other false doctrine of 'progressive holiness', where Christians get holier and holier, and sin less and less, as they 'grow in grace'. But that is nonsense. A person cannot be 'partly holy' or 'partly right'. Either one is holy, or not. The bible speaks the same way. One is commanded to love god with all you got. Anything less is SIN. Sin = death, because sin is crime punishable by death.

Another false doctrine is the 'we get fully holy when we die'. No, when you die, you will forever remain exactly in the moral condition you were in upon your death. He that is holy, let him be holy still... he that is unholy, let him be unholy still... Death does not make you holy. Only God's grace by FAITH makes a man holy.

Holiness is separation to God. It is separation from sin, as well. Can you be partially separated to God, but partially separated to sin and self? No, for no man can serve two masters. End of story, so saith the Lord.

I will post more later, Lord willing.

[Livelystone]

Originally Posted by Esaias

I was going to post a big, long dissertation on this, but things have been rather busy here lately so I am just going to make this quick and to the point, brethren.


I will post more later, Lord willing.

Actually you have already said enough to realize that you are not giving credit to the fact that the word “sin” is not just a verb and a transgression of the law as you have put it, but is also used in the Bible as a noun that defines it as a principality a.k.a. a life-giving force albeit it is one unto death (because of the commandment of God "thou shall surely die").

As with most denominations folks here have a hard time understanding that the "law of sin"spoken of by Paul as something "living within his members" has absolutely nothing to do with the law of God that was given to Moses.

As a principality it is part of the makeup of the spirit and soul of man that Paul called “the law of sin” that lived within his members. To see when this “law of sin” that works in us in the same manner that the law of gravity works on physical matter was introduced into the spiritual makeup of every person, go take a look at the curse God gave just before Adam and Eve got the boot from the garden. (Genesis 3:14)

Before the curse snakes already crawled on their belly but snakes do not eat dust. However, dust is what makes up our physical bodies that Adam and Eve "in us" (the same as "in Adam all men die") are the source of life within all mankind, and who are as the Bible says "the two became one flesh”. This is when the “serpent seed” that would always be at enmity with the “seed of the woman” got its start in mankind. Fast-forward to when Satan led Jesus up onto the mountain top to view all the kingdoms of the world that Satan said were "delivered unto him" (Luke 4:6) and consider how and when this happened back at the time of the curse.

It should be quite obvious to any reader that there is no mountaintop where all the physical kingdoms of the world can be viewed from at any one time. Therefore, what Satan was pointing out to Jesus were the spiritual kingdoms of man that are made up of the spirit and soul of every living person given to him in the curse to “upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life”: By ruling overs the spiritual kingdoms that make up the spirit and soul of all natural born mankind, Satan has become the "prince of this world" who had Jesus crucified.

Because Satan is the prince of this world he is able through his "law of sin" in people that is what Paul called "the messenger of Satan in his flesh," to rule over the mind and physical bodies of all persons from the beginning of their natural lives, This is why Jesus says we must be born again from above so through His spirit (seed) in us we can be free from Satan's "law of sin" in us. On the other hand because Jesus was not born with this law of sin in him is why when Satan led the people to take Jesus captive to be crucified Jesus said “here comes the Prince of this world who hath nothing in me”.

Anyone who goes to the opinions of man for knowledge concerning things that are written in the Bible and of God have made a classic error. If you want to learn about God and his plan for man the person needs to keep their studies limited between Genesis 1 and Revelations 22. Because most of us are not language experts or have much knowledge of the languages used in the original manuscripts, quite obviously some assistance is needed that can be found in lexicons as well as the 1828 Webster dictionary that gives us a better understanding of the English words used at the time the first English Bibles were being made. One of the worst things that has ever happened to any of the denominations attempting to serve God has been the introduction of study Bibles.

For that matter no one should ever be able to take on a lofty titles such as apostle, pastor, prophet, etc. etc. without a witness of God working signs and wonders through them. This was the defining difference of those who legally carried the titles during biblical days versus those who were chosen by man such as Mathis was chosen by the remaining apostles but we never hear from him again. However when God chose a replacement for Judas we have the most prolific writer of the New Testament.

Blessings to you

Doug

[Esaias]

Doug, sin is a 'principle' in that all sins flow from the heart. As such it must be a principle. But that is not the same as 'sin nature' or 'original sin' residing in an embedded sense in human nature itself.

Jesus said no man can serve two masters. Therefore, if one is sinning, one is serving sin, not God. An evil tree does not bring forth good fruit, nor can a good tree bring forth evil fruit. A heart that has chosen to disobey God's Great Commandment of LOVE is a heart serving sin. Thus, all choices and actions flowing from that heart are tainted, are selfish, are sinful.

But again, that does nothing to prove or show any 'inbred sin nature' or 'original sin' or that human anture itself is 'sinful and automatically and a priori exposes the person to wrath and judgement' which is the doctrine of original sin according to the Augustinian view and Arminian view.

The Federal view of original sin does not hold to such an idea, and in fact proponents of the Federal view of original sin regularly refute such ideas as a matter of course.

But then again, the Augustinian, Arminian, and Calvinist (Federal) views of original sin are in error to begin with.

[Livelystone]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Doug, sin is a 'principle' in that all sins flow from the heart. As such it must be a principle. But that is not the same as 'sin nature' or 'original sin' residing in an embedded sense in human nature itself.

Jesus said no man can serve two masters. Therefore, if one is sinning, one is serving sin, not God. An evil tree does not bring forth good fruit, nor can a good tree bring forth evil fruit. A heart that has chosen to disobey God's Great Commandment of LOVE is a heart serving sin. Thus, all choices and actions flowing from that heart are tainted, are selfish, are sinful.

But again, that does nothing to prove or show any 'inbred sin nature' or 'original sin' or that human anture itself is 'sinful and automatically and a priori exposes the person to wrath and judgement' which is the doctrine of original sin according to the Augustinian view and Arminian view.

The Federal view of original sin does not hold to such an idea, and in fact proponents of the Federal view of original sin regularly refute such ideas as a matter of course.

But then again, the Augustinian, Arminian, and Calvinist (Federal) views of original sin are in error to begin with.

Using a good lexicon we see that the word “sin” is also a “principality” that defines it as a life-giving force. The reason why it is a life-giving force is because it is part of the makeup of the spirit of man that is the life source within all mankind.

For the same reason Paul spoke of “the law of sin” as something that defined the continuous presence of this principality “living within his members” that were spirit and soul within him from the time of his natural conception and birth. The "law of sin" being spoken of in Romans 7:23 has absolutely nothing to do with the law of God given to Moses.

You are correct in saying that we cannot serve 2 masters at one time because either Christ in us who works through the law of faith in us, is the ruling spirit within our heart, or the “messenger of Satan” that Paul spoke of as a thorn in his flesh that has been part of the makeup of the spirit of man ever since the curse following the sin of Adam and Eve, is what (who) is ruling our heart.

Take a look at the parable of the unclean spirit leaving a man that is recorded in Matthew 12 and Luke 11 (if my memory serves me correctly) where it speaks of the unclean spirit of darkness being displaced from the heart of a man by the Spirit of truth that is light. However when the unclean spirit (Adam) travels to the dry places” that are nothing more than the dust of the earth that makes up our physical flesh, it unites with his wicked friends that make up the soul (Eve) who are united as "one flesh" retake the heart of the unsuspecting Christian leaving them worse off than they were before. Hopefully this sheds light on why Paul says “in Adam all men die” that is something that happens before a person physically dies.

For the record and for understanding where I'm coming from I do not care one bit (saying it very kindly) what any one person, council, denomination, church etc. etc. have to say about the Bible and God's plan for man. If I was to follow anyone of them I would look and sound just like them the same way they sound just like the church they worship.

It is probably a good time for a thread to be started that deals with the different aspects of death. and how the differnt forms of the word are used in the Bible for defining either physical death or spiritual death while one is still alive.

As long as we continue this dialogue of exchanging viewpoints you and I can get along just fine.

Blessings to you and to yours

Doug