your comment should be seen by everyone
"You are TOO knee-jerk about Calvinism. Don't go to extremes. Protect whatever is God's before worrying about man regarding truth, love, and His relationship with us. That is the Calvinist paradigm"
ECT Is fallen man "totally depraved"?
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your comment should be seen by everyone
"You are TOO knee-jerk about Calvinism. Don't go to extremes. Protect whatever is God's before worrying about man regarding truth, love, and His relationship with us. That is the Calvinist paradigm"
nikolai_42
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The question is not about whether the will is free or bound (though that is related) but rather is it inclined. The soul bound in his sin is not there naturally wanting nothing to do with it (but stuck because he is not free to walk away from it) but because he wants to hold on to it. To (properly) seek after God requires the work of God in the heart. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light:
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
nikolai_42
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Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
I John 4:10
We love him, because he first loved us.
I John 4:19
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Spoken to Christians by someone who had abandoned his life to God. How about a scripture verse from the OT?
WonderfulLordJesus
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Romans 3
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Cross Reference
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How can it be inclined if it is not free to be so?
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Plenty were righteous. Plenty are righteous who never heard of Jesus Christ. Perhaps you need to investigate the "as it is written" part.
nikolai_42
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As far as I can tell, it's as free as the hardened addict is to walk away from his addiction. He may not like the consequences of his addiction, but he sure loves the indulgence itself.
WonderfulLordJesus
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God draws all men, who do not seek God. Without the work of Jesus Christ and His Spirit, all men would be damned, for lack of any righteousness of their own, as God demands. Simple truth. Man is literally damnable depraved, without Christ. That's pretty depraved.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
Why? John is writing in the past tense. This is about what Christ did for those who were yet sinners. It isn't about men who made themselves presentable before God to be loved.
Who had the righteous position after Adam fell? Man or God? Who was the one suffering the results of sin? Man or God? Who needed to be reinstated? Man or God? In cases of offense, upon who is it incumbent to seek reconciliation? The offender or the offended? The entire OT is a picture of man's inclination, willingness and ability to bring himself to reconciliation with God. Even Job realized just how much he didn't understand. Isaiah was called even while he had unclean lips and when he saw the Lord, his declaration was one that showed the natural sinfulness that every man had and that kept them from pleasing the Lord. The remnant was kept by God. The Abrahams, Davids and Daniels were not laying any claim to their own righteousness (not righteously, anyway). Certainly David's sin should be a testimony to that.
At the end of the day, even those that came to Him cannot claim their own righteousness. That's one of the reasons they are called righteous.
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15:6
If you want an OT testimony to man's depravity, what's wrong with the verse in Jeremiah I quoted above? And to show that the finding of the Lord is not determined by man's will, what of Isaiah :
I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.
I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;
Isaiah 65:1-2
Romans 9:30 and Romans 10:20 are not out of place here.
WonderfulLordJesus
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Man, absent Christ, our Lord characterized as dead. Man not born of the Holy Spirit is dead in trespasses and sin. Again, God has to seek and save the lost who don't seek Him, seek the lost and spiritually blind, spiritually dead in sin. You're just a rotten spiritual corpse, without Christ. The general characterization of unregenerate man in Matthew 23 of our Lord applies to all sinners, not just Pharisees. If you look at the world around you, if you read any history or news, the world is a tad depraved, just maybe? Man's self righteousness cannot spare him from hell. That's pretty depraved, none righteous, no not one. Not one. The Bible means what it says, regardless people having a problem with this.
Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
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Now you are talking about man overcoming his flesh __ which what God is after from him.
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nikolai_42
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So did the OT saints not need to do that? They just needed to be saved? Wrapped up in redemption is overcoming the world.
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Ephesians 2:1-3