Importance of Original Sin

And again you simply misrepresent and pervert the Bible by continuing to take quotes out of context to try to shoehorn your dogma into what is actually written. It is dishonest and a perversion of Christianity.I already addressed the fact that the concept of Original Sin was based on little and that passage from Romans is one used; but Original Sine as marketed by today's snake oil salesmen is not something even Paul would recognize. In addition, Paul was simply factually wrong there, His position is NOT supported by any writings from the Old Testament that made it into any of the Canons.You can continue the perverted practice of quote mining but you will convince no one but the fools and deluded.

Catholic Scientist, as you can see I have now about three posters to reply to. I am limited.In this session I read carefully about half of your post. My initial reaction is that I am not above pushing my view. But I think in this case with the fall of man I am following the New Testament's teaching.Actually I think I am following the Old Testament teaching as well.Now above you say - Let's not be sloppy. I may be upholding Justification by Faith. But I am not ignoring Salvation "in His life".Let me illustrate with Paul's passage of Romans 5:10

quote:

---

" For if we being enemies, were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more we will be saved in His life, having been reconciled." (Rom. 5:10)

---

C'mon Catholic. Look at it carefully.1.) Having BEEN enemies of God ...2.) Being now RECONCILED to God [Justified, Absolved, Forgiven, Washed, Cleansed of sins, etc] through the death of Christ.3.) As to the PAST - reconciled - now with a right STANDING before God. There is something more to come. There is something MUCH MORE to come.4.) "Much more we will be SAVED [salvation] in His life" .Reconciled to God as a foundation. This to be followed by something "much more" . That is salvation in the whole sphere and realm of His resurrection life. Because He lives - because He can LIVE in the believer, there is to be a much more salvation in the realm of His life.So we may think of this full operation of God as in two parts.1.) A Judicial standing before God in reconciliation.2.) An "organic" salvation in the realm of Christ's resurrection divine life.Maybe your other comments I can address latter today. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The issue here to me is not "Christianity" but what the Bible teaches.
I don't know what the word "Christianity" means to some people.So "You're perverting Christianity!" is not a charge that I am that concerned about. I am not perverting the Bible.Now my motives have been commented on. Now its my turn to comment then on motives.The reason some of you guys HATE the teaching of an inherited sin nature is because of not appreciation how thorough a remedy God has for the problem in the Savior the Son of God.My theory is that it is the refusal to recognize the depths of man's problem which is because of the reluctance to believe in the Savior concerning man's problem.My theory is that with some of you skeptics it is not so much a complaint against so called "Original Sin". Its a hesitancy to embrace the Son of God.You don't like the Physician, so you want to deny the Diagnosis.This thread is unfortunately with a negative title - The IMPORTANCE of Original Sin. I think that is pretty negative actually.I would have prefered " The Importance of Being Constituted Righteous in the Savior Christ." But that's another matter.That's all the time I have this morning on this.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Again, you continue to post falsehoods and misrepresentations. That is dishonest.Why do you continue that practice?What I object to is your continued misrepresentation and perversion of what the Bible actually says.

For the record, some of us hate it because it's a corrupt and vile idea pedalled by charlatans to frighten the naive in order to recruit them into their nasty little organisations.

Sure you are. You're lying about it too.In Message 549, you said that Jeremiah 13:23 was about Original Sin. That is a perversion. It is about the behavior of the Jews in Babylonian Exile and has nothing to do with Original Sin. You spun the words to make it say what you want it to say, that is dishonest.We explain to you how it has nothing to do with Original Sin.Then, in Message 553, you go right back to it:

quote:

---

There relevance of Jeremiah 13:23 to the above passage from Paul is that men have a sinning nature so subjective to them that it is compared to the pigmentation of the Cushite's skin and the leopard's spots - totally intrinsic, thoroughly built in, part of their make up.

---

That is a lie. That is not what Jeremiah 13:23 is saying. Its talking about the behavior of the Jews in Babylonian exile.You should read the whole thing and not just quote mine for phrases that sound like what you want to talk about.You could use your exact same tactic to say that the Bible claims that there is no God. I mean, it says so right in Psalm 14:1

quote:

---

There is no God.

---

That's the exact same kind of argument you are making.

What Adam took into himself was the knowledge of good and evil. He didn't take in anything evil. He took in the wisdom to know the difference and the responsibility to behave accordingly.It is also important to note that Cain didn't eat the fruit. He didn't take in the same thing Adam did in the same way Adam did. He learned the difference between good and evil from his parents, like we all do, but he was still personally responsible for behaving accordingly, as we all are. It wasn't a "wrong food". It was a good food, knowledge, wisdom. It's no coincidence that the same people who promulgate the false doctrine of "the Fall" also promulgate the false doctrine of Original Sin. Those who think becoming more like God is a "fall" also denigrate knowledge. We can't change our "sinful nature", our ability to sin, any more than a leopard can change its spots. That is not the same as saying that sin is already in us. The tendency to sin is already in us. As God made clear to Cain, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." (Genesis 4:7) Sin is outside unless we do wrong (or fail to do right). No, I followed it. That was in the context of your messages that are not linked to mine. If you don't link your message to mine, I may not see that you're responding to me and no, I do not read sermons that are not addressed to me. But I do read your posts that are addressed to me.Don't use that as an excuse for not answering the question.You should be able to give a fairly simple direct answer as to why you consider yourself an angel and exempt from the judgement. If elaboration is necessary we can take it from there.

We've been discussing that remedy and I heartily endorse it. God told Cain that the remedy was to "do well" and Jesus taught that we are judged by how we treat the hungry, etc.You pervert that into how we treat jaywill. I don't "HATE" that. I find it comical.Everybody feed Saint Jaywill.

I agree with Tangle in this regard. I find the whole concept of original sin to be patently absurd. It is a vestigial concept of our more barbaric times, when children were ultimately responsible for the actions of their parents. One only need to read excerpts from the Code of Hammurabi to gauge where these notions originated. This example drives home the point relatively well:

quote:

---

228. If a builder build a house for some one and complete it, he shall give him a fee of two shekels in money for each sar of surface.

​

229. If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.

​

230. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death.

---

We have of course evolved beyond these archaic notions, but the concepts of the past still permeate in many of our religious teachings.

Yes, it is speaking specifically about the Jews in the Babylonian exile.
Do you think that the same truth does not hold true for mankind in general ?Verse 10 of the chapter says -

quote:

---

"This evil people, who refuse to hear My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart and go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, will be like this girdle which is good for nothing." (Jer. 13:10)

---

This well applies to people today of all nations. They make idols of different things - ideologies, cars, actors, entertainers, sports heroes, money, sex, themselves, etc.They also are stubborn and hate to have the word of God convict their conscience concerning anything. They deem themselves so perfect, you see, that they completely insulate their hearts from the word of God in the Bible.The Jews in the Babylonian captivity are only representative of the rest of us. As the one and only genuine theocratic nation, they served as representative to all the rest of us sinners. On the contrary. I leap for the opportunity to now read carefully through the whole chapter. You simply don't see how ISRAEL is representative of all the world in this regard.I agree that the Jews as "the flock of Jehovah [that] has been taken captive" (v.17) is the specific target of the divine utterance there. But that it well speaks to the rest of us, I suppose, is dependent upon your willingness to benefit from God's word there.Do you think you're somewhat better than the Jews in Babylon at that time?
I don't think I'm any better.Are you saying that we as Gentiles are not accustomed to doing evil also ?
The fallen nature in the Jews in Babylon is also the fallen nature in the Gentiles.The difference is that they were a genuine unique theocratic nation specifically gifted with the Law of God. That Yahweh calls to all the ends of the earth to look to Him for salvation is quite evident -

quote:

---

"Turn to Me and be saved, All the ends of the earth, For I am God and there is no one else.

​

I have sworn by Myself; A word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness and will not return, The EVERY knee shall bow to Me, and EVERY tongue shall swear.

​

It shall be said of Me, Only in Jehovah is there righteousness and strength." (Isaiah 45:22-24a)

---

God speaks to Israel. God also speaks to all the ends of the world.So the Jewish context argument is not sufficient grounds for me to reject Jeremiah 13:23 as relevant to ALL men as well.Look at verse 27.

quote:

---

Your adulteries and your neighings, the lewdness of your fornication upon hills, in the field, Your detestable things - I have seen. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long a time will you still not be clean ?

---

God convicts the Jews in the Babylonian captivity. What makes you think as Gentiles our fornications, lewdness, idols,adulteries, and detestable things are OK with God ? You attempt to castigate me for misapplying the Bible. Look at your own sloppiness!What does Psalm 14:1 SAY ?? Does it say there is no God ? No Catholic Scientist, it says -

quote:

---

"THE FOOL has said in his heart, There is no God." [my emphasis]

---

And you are precisely right that that could apply to any Jewish fool or any Gentile fool. Any boy, girl, man or woman who says in his heart "There is no God" is a fool. It is universal.This was not a good passage to prove your point. The very next phrase says that there is NONE WHO DOES GOOD. It backfires in your face. I could hardly have chosen another passage to depict the fallen nature of man.

quote:

---

They are corrupt; they commit abominable deeds;

​

There is none who does good.

---

How many are there that God sees doing good Catholic Scientist? - "NONE".

quote:

---

Jehovah looks down from the heaven upon the sons of men to see if there was ANYONE who had insight, who seeks after God.

​

They have ALL turned aside;
They are together perverse.
There is none who does good;
There is not even one. [my emphasis]

---

Now you may say that I am not fair to quote these passages in support of universal fallen sinful mankind. But these are precisely the verses that the Apostle Paul uses in Romans 3:9-20 a section of Romans dealing with God's condemnation upon the WHOLE WORLD.

quote:

---

"Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and ALL THE WORLD May fall under the judgment of God ... " (v.19)

---

You went exactly to the wrong passage to try to disprove the fallen Adamic nature of sin. This nature has placed the whole world under God's righteous judgment. Therefore we need a Savior in Jesus Christ.While I appreciate your drawing attention to context you miss the representative nature of the Jewish nation.The charge of liar is a slander. It is libelous. And the rest is miss-aimed and a bit sloppy. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This is not a good reason for me not to believe the Bible, love God, and be a follower of Jesus Christ.My conscience would inform me that this rationale is an excuse and exposes a double standard.Plenty of charlatans, exploiters, fear mongers pedal stuff to the naive in other areas of your life. I bet you do not have NOTHING to do with those things because of that.Besides, ONE - I look for POSITIVE examples of other disciples. I look for those who will HELP my faith rather than those who will HURT my faith.And TWO - It is not that Christ did not give His followers heads up that religious people can bring disrepute to the word of God and the Gospel.I am seated here at a turkey feast. I do not hunt for bones to choke on.

Did I touch a nerve?

Original sin is almost a description of evil. It's the idea that an individual is guilty of a crime simply by being born, it's a dispiccable idea totally unworthy of anything that calls itself a religion, much less one that is supposed to be founded on love.Here in the real world where we actually care for our fellow man, we have man made laws, based on real morality - we call it collective punishment and it's a crime. Collective punishment - Wikipedia

quote:

---

"And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shal surely die." (Genesis 2:16,17)

---

The nice sounding name - "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" ended up as God had warned - a tree of DEATH."But we had then this wonderful and responsible knowledge of good and evil. Wasn't that great ?"Man had the knowledge. Man had not the power to DO the good. Man had not the power to RESIST the evil.Varying degrees of men and women do heed their conscience. But ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God.The following chapter FOUR of Genesis traces the result of this element that has entered into man. Cain failed to restrict it and became the first murderer.He was devoured by Satan. He was eaten up by the sin nature. He was driven in an insane fit of religious jealousy to murder his brother Abel.The crouching "person" of sin ate him up.What Cain DID the New Testament says was done by the devil -

quote:

---

"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.

​

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

​

When he speaks the lie, he speaks it out of his own possessions; for he is a liar and the father of it." (John 8:44)

---

Genesis says that Cain murdered and Cain lied directly to God.
But Jesus Christ says that it was the Devil that was a murderer from the beginning. And Jesus says that it was the Devil who lied and is the father of lies.By this we can see that Cain became one with Satan.
In other words, he succumbed completely to that evil nature.
He had opportunity to at least RESTRICT that evil crouching satanic nature.
He failed to halt it, limit it, restrict it in any regard.
It ate him up and he, in union with Satan, murdered Abel and lied directly to God that he did not know where his brother was.And I repeat. God does not hold the sinner responsible for the sin nature that he has inherited. But God does hold him responsible for the sins that he commits. So the case with Cain. As long as he was a descendent of Adam he inherited that poison which the first man, Adam, took in. That is correct.The Old Testament ritual of circumcision, the cutting off of the foreskin of the flesh, is symbolic here.Something that God rejects is deeply embedded in the fallen nature. It cannot be improved. It cannot be reformed. It must be cut off.We have it through Adam's disobedience. But we are responsible for realizing our sins. We are responsible to restrict it though God knows that we cannot do so completely.Lastly we are responsible to repent of our sins and believe in the salvation God has sent in His Son. The Pharisees whom Jesus said their father was the devil, reacted to this Savior with a desire to murder Him.They too were being eaten up by that sin nature. It is a nature that wants to diametrically oppose God Himself. It really desires to murder God.How we need a salvation from this ! It was wrong food. Man went from innocence to guiltiness.Man went from having an everlasting life to DEATH.The human conscience WAS awakened. And a breaking system of sorts was activated to prevent some men from sliding down totally to degradation. But society as a whole degraded down as the years rolled on. That is the point of the story of the flood.And I am repeating a lot here. From here I will go on to show that Cain invented the first man-made religion. You see Satan does not just cause men to do bad things. Satan can cause man to do things which seemingly are "for" God.I intend to show that the REJECTION of Cain's offering reveals the imparted sinful NATURE. This is a nature that cannot please God. This is a nature that God will not accept. And this is a nature that requires the shedding of redemptive blood in God's salvation.Wait until we get into the acceptance of Abel's blood sacrifice of animals as compared to the rejected bloodless offering of Cain.Cain's murder was on the evil side of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Cain's inventing his own preferred way to worship God was on the good side of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.It is in the rejection of Cain's worship and the acceptance of Abel's worship that we see, among other things, that man was polluted with a sin nature which CANNOT please God.And the taking in of the fruit of the tree of knowledge underscores that man took this problem INTO his being. It is revealed in a way that all should be able to understand.God is wise. When David says in exasperated revelation that it was in sin that his mother conceived him, I believe that he is not speaking just for himself. He is speaking for all men.

quote:

---

" Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Psalm 51:5)

---

David was said to be a man after God's own heart. David had much awareness of God's way and God's righteousness.David also came face to face with how powerful the sin of lust was in him. In spite of his piety he had a huge failure. He stole a man's wife. He plotted to have it appear that the resultant baby was not his. And he arranged to have the true husband of the woman MURDERED.David came face to face with how DEEPLY he was flawed. In SIN did his mother conceive him. He was brought forth from the womb in iniquity ! He saw that he has a sinful nature, so deep, so subjective.David had many many righteous acts. Even in the end of the Bible Jesus is not ashamed to refer to Himself as the Root and Offspring of David.But King David's adultery and murder are recorded in the Bible in full candor. It underlines that man has a NATURE that is fallen. He has it from BIRTH. He was brought out of the human womb in iniquity. He has a fallen sin nature.Rather than argue with the Bible about this, it is better to look away to the Savior Jesus Christ. It is NOT as if it is a problem with NO solution. It is a problem that we should eventually see in order to appreciate what God has done in His full salvation in Jesus Christ.

From this point, from my part, I will begin to show that the rejection of Cain's self made religion is proof of the inherent sin nature.Here is the backround history. I encourage readers to read the rest of the verses beyond this on Cain, God's discipline and mercy upon him, and Cain's reactions. This is mainly in verses 10 through 15.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.