Norman Giesler: Why I am not a 5 Point Calvinist parts 5 - 7

http://www.youtube.com/user/AMomentOfTruth123

Norman Geisler: Why I am not a 5 Point Calvinist parts 3 - 4

http://www.youtube.com/user/AMomentOfTruth123

Norman Geisler: Why I am not a 5 point Calvinist parts 1 and 2

http://www.youtube.com/user/AMomentOfTruth123

Control and true freedom

Control and freedom are interesting topics in themselves. If one is in control is he free or reacting to what is happening around them to maintain that control? If one is a servant or slave, there is a sense of freedom from the responsibility of higher things others are controlling so one is free to pursue other thoughts, wants or desires. Yet, that person is still not "free" as they are subservient to the lord, master, or boss.

I do not believe we are at the mercy of others control, yet see this tension that holds these things in place. In a way, I see that we may be a slave to one thing, then free to others, yet also then become a slave to that other thing. Being free to me is more than the fulfillment of my want or desires. I see it as sort of surrender. I may be a surrender to something far superior than one's self that works hand in hand with trusting this superior "Being" which I believe has a person's best interest in mind.

To surrender one self to pursue this best seems a means of freedom to me that leads to higher freedom. It brings the ability to love in spite of hate, to give in spite of need, or to forgive when wronged. It is bringing one's self as not at the mercy or whim of one who wants to harm or does not have a person's best interest in mind.

Great quotes: Walter Martin versus Ken Silva

I find it interesting that I am called a heretic when I state that Adam was created "innocent". Many have attacked me over this over the years. Yet, tonight I was skimming through a book by Walter Martin who states:

“…Adam was created innocent, and God put his divine stamp of approval on that creation by calling him, “the son of God” (Luke 3:38)…”



“Even though Adam was created innocent, by an act of free will he fell into imperfect practices which God allowed so as to not violate the freedom which alone makes it possible for men and angels to choose to love Him.” ~ Essential Christianity by Walter Martin page 17

Many so called "Discernment" ministry people have argued with me... one in particular states I am a "semi-pelagian" (Hi Ken Silva) Yet, it is Ken who claims to have been "mentored" by Walter Martin... this same Walter Martin from whom most likely I first heard this teaching from... (Oh and Ken Silva's definition of mentoring is that he has listened to Walter Martin tapes... he never met the man so if that is the case, I listened to him live for many years as well as listened to tapes and read his books... so I am also "mentored" as Ken Silva... so have all the same credentials or lack of that he does)

So, as I read this, I find it sad that Ken Silva uses the name of Walter Martin to legitimize himself, yet never met the man... then attacks others for the very thing Walter Martin taught! It is as if Ken Silva is the Anti-Walter Martin.

Walter Martin for all his flaws was a great man in my view. He taught me much... such as not attacking the person but addressing their doctrine when you are trying to lead them to Christ. Ken seemed to miss that point I guess... The point here is that I have addressed Ken Silva's doctrine... and even now am. He is a brother in Christ... though I see him as very confused. Unlike his words to me, I consider him saved if he claims Jesus. I think his actions and words dishonor Walter Martin greatly and that Ken Silva may need to bone up on Walter Martin as it seems to Ken Silva, Walter Martin was a semi pelagian heretic as he believed and taught many of the same things I do.

Tozer Devotional: Christ Our Mediator

Tozer Devotional
Collective Writings from the Books of A.W. Tozer

That Incredible Christian
Chapter #25
The Increasing Knowledge of God

Christ Our Mediator

How two wills set in opposition to each other, and both free, could be harmonized was God's problem and His alone; and with infinite wisdom and power He solved it through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ our Lord. Because Christ is God and man He can properly represent each before the other. He is the Daysman who can stand between the alienated man and the offended God and lay His hand upon them both. "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5) . All this is such a familiar part of evangelical theology that it may safely be assumed that the majority of my readers know it already. That is, they know it theoretically, but the experiential aspect of the truth is not so well known. Indeed large numbers of supposedly sound Christian believers know nothing at all about personal communion with God; and there lies one of the greatest weaknesses of present-day Christianity.

Prayer
O Great Mediator, You have scrubbed clean my heart and mind. You have paid my sin-debt in full. I want to know You, intimately know You!

Scripture
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men--the testimony given in its proper time.— 1 Timothy 2:5

Thought
Christ mediates between God and us. He draws us to God who wants all to be saved. Christ has done this by giving Himself as our ransom. You and I may know God! Are we presently knowing Him?

How does Choice work in Salvation?

How does Choice work in Salvation?

(Much of this is taken from a comment thread at CRN.info in which we were discussing how choice is part of our salvation I thought it a great discussion. I have taken my comments and added the main point of other’s questions in the article. I have also edited my comments to flow better than in the comment thread. I had not taken time before to really look at what I did believe on this but as I wrote I realized many things. I hope it helps others sort out much of the confusion on this matter though I know full well the debate will go on and on.)

The Father draws men unto Jesus and men seek Jesus out…
It is all a work of the Holy Spirit, yet a man can be drawn to Christ and still walk away as in the story of the Rich young ruler.
One can look at Jesus and not mix faith with God’s word to have a saving belief in God.
Jesus states that we are to seek after the Kingdom of God (Matt 6:33) as well Jesus tells those in Matthew 7:7-11

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
So if one is drawn to Jesus by the Father and asks, seeks knocks… Jesus will and answer is found and open the door…

It is not a matter of either/or but of both…

The context of Matthew 7: 7-11where Jesus states to "seek" actually starts in chapter 5… to say then that in 5:1-2 that all in the crowd were believers.. I might agree, but they believed that they could enter into the Kingdom by the law making them righteous… which again Paul states: Galatians 2:21 21.
“I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” "

So to say it is to believers… yes it is, but those who saw that by their prayers out of their own righteousness, they could please God… and Jesus states that they need to seek Him… and enter in by faith… not works.

In Acts James speaks about the salvation that has come to the gentiles and clearly states that a remnant of men will seek God.

Acts 15: 13-18

When they finished, James spoke up: “Brothers, listen to me. Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written: “`After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things’ that have been known for ages.

Also to say men do not seek God negates that the Holy Spirit is now active… as Paul stated in Acts 17:24-27

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

It is by faith we are to seek after God… as Hebrews 11:5-6 states.

“By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
This is but a small sampling of how wrong the idea that men cannot seek after God is… In fact I see that the teaching that men cannot seek God negates and removes the Holy Spirit from the salvation equation is a gross distortion and of satanic origin. For since the Holy Spirit has been poured out men now can seek after God. Before this, God would seek after men individually as in the case of Enoch and Moses and later deal with men by the Law as with the Nation of Israel, yet still on an individual basis if one reads closely. It was never the case of "all men" but of a few men being able to seek God as the Holy Spirit would rest on them individually... but also not permanently.

Now one might ask, if man is free to choose God with no help from God, by his own volition…then why are there plenty of verses like this all throughout the OT and NT?
“When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.” Acts 13:48


Since no one had yet to receive the Holy Spirit … even the disciples… it seems that you have only people that may believe but are not yet sealed.

The difference from the OT to the NT is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Also, again if you understand the Jews did believe, but wrongly… or Paul is stating a lie in Romans 9 by stating that they sought God by works of the Law and not by Faith.
The point I think that is missed is that it is all free will now… it was not under the OT as it was either you were a lost Pagan (unless you were the exception and converted) or of the Chosen Hebrews. But all were under the bondage of sin. Now, since the Cross, sin was judged and died with Jesus on the Cross…

2 Cor 5:14 -21 is very clear on this…

"For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

Note a distinction in these verses...

1. That one died for all, and therefore all died.
This is all men it is not just those saved as Paul goes on to include them also…

2. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Paul now includes those who came to faith… and states that they now are new creations… and we should not look at people from a worldly view point…

3. Now this is the message of the Gospel and Kingdom…
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.
Not just the saved as Jesus died for “all men”.

4. Again the Gospel is about reconciliation… not stopping sinning…
“We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

IF Jesus who had no sin became sin for us… and as sin died on the cross, then sin is dead. Death is the judgment of sin and sin was judged and died in Christ for us… so that we can be reconciled and not have our sins held against us.

Now, to just say that it is the Holy Spirit as some assert… to be just those “elect” but, yet God through Jesus calls “all men”, and draws all men unto Jesus… and men now by free will choose to enter into the Kingdom by works or faith… by self righteous acts or by the finished works of Jesus…. Jesus is the only Way in and it is by Faith… not works… but as Paul pointed out…

Romans 9: 30-33
"What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.
Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the “stumbling stone.”
As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

Now the reason many verses are in the OT stating that man has no free will is because at that time man did not… the Holy Spirit had yet to be poured out on all men…
About the verse in Acts stating”

“When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.” Acts 13:48
The ones appointed entered in by Faith… and appointed can also be “ordained” as it was appointed/ordained by God that man would enter in by faith in Jesus and not by works… so the appointed here are those who entered in by the appointment of faith through Jesus unto eternal life.

My point is not that God does not draw men, but that God now by the out pouring of the Holy Spirit removed sin and now has restored our free will so that we can make the choice of works or faith in Christ Jesus… Salvation is all of God and not of men… but one must still freely choose… and by faith is the only way to freely love God as works only appears to appease God…


Choice is a response to the initiation that God started… it is only a “work” if one is depending on one’s self and not Jesus…. faith is a gift… it to is not a work…and it is the power in which the Holy Spirit draws men to Jesus. At that point a person needs to respond by mixing belief with faith… as Hebrews states. Hebrews 4: 1-2
“Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. “
We need to mix Faith with the message… that is not works as some state by far. It is the acknowledgement that one cannot “work” to please God. It is the realization that there is nothing I can do but fall on the mercy of God.
Jesus stated that He was like the serpent Moses raised up in the desert (John 3:14-15)

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Those who were bitten by the serpent died unless they went to the bronzed serpent on the pole and simply gazed on it. They did not offer sacrifice… but by acknowledging, they were dead, went to the pole and gazed on the serpent for life… Jesus became sin on a pole (for cursed is anyone who is hung on a tree) and all we do is gaze on Him… by faith and are saved.
To say that faith is “works,” is not biblical at all… not is the idea that choice is works. One can never state “I am saved because of my choice”, as without Jesus doing the initial works one then cannot choose to trust in those works over ones own.


Is choosing a work and thus a contradiction as works is then mixed into faith?

I see no contradiction as even Jesus states:
John 7: 17. “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.”
Jesus taught Jews as a Jew under the law... To show that by it righteousness cannot be obtained… it is only to point out that one is dead in their sins. Just as Paul taught… and Peter… and John… and Jude… and James… the OT.
This is the “choosing” that I am referring to… the will of God called predestination. That those in Christ, have chose to do God’s will and not their own… so they are part of the “eternal plan” that God foreknew in Christ…
But, still unlike Calvin’s version… man chooses between his own will or God’s and it must be free to be a choice. In a sense this is much easier to understand once one can set aside their Calvinist or Arminian views and focus on the teachings of the Bible.

We have seen the Father if we see Jesus. Yet, now we see Him only by faith.

By God revealing who He is by showing us Jesus, we still need respond to that. I see it as professing and possessing.

One can believe in Jesus and state so, yet not mix their belief with faith and still not be "saved". They live as practical atheists. Yet, one that professes and then mixes their belief with Faith, has found the Son and Life... in that they found the Son and Life, are now possessed by and possess this Life that brings us salvation.

We are not our own when we come to Christ... and though are free to walk in the obedience of Christ (not our own... but walk by the imputed obedience as we have none of our own) or walk by our own righteousness and be frustrated... though still technically saved must still remember daily we are dead to sin as opposed to when we were dead in our sin.

It is in the relational aspect of our faith we are saved, not in our doctrinal stances... I am not saying "no doctrine, doctrine" whatever that means, but rather that once one comes to life in Christ the "doctrine" is not "head knowledge" or "mental assent", but heart knowledge and receiving a clear conscience and the mind of Christ. He becomes our very Life and we are new creations... the new man.

We are drawn by the Father to Jesus by the Holy Spirit... this was not possible under the Old Covenant as that required one to die before they could get out from under it. Now, we have died in Christ and Jesus fulfilled the Law...every jot and tittle... and abolished it so that we now live in Him and by His righteousness. We are no longer under the ministry of death and condemnation, but the ministry of reconciliation and once one receives that reconciliation, receives Life eternal. If not eternal death for that is the covenant (the covenant of death as Isaiah states) that person chose to stay under.

To be drawn by the Father, is because He poured out the Holy Spirit and that is because Jesus became sin and sin died with Him on the Cross... so that we can become the righteousness of God in Christ.

Be blessed,
iggy

Quoting Tozer: Isn't it Great that CRN is anti-mystics yet...

I find it so funny that CRN quotes Tozer regularly... and yet rants against many things Tozer taught!

1. Tozer promoted "Christian mysticism".

Although many Christians cringe at the term “mystic,” A.W. Tozer used the term to mean, “that spiritual experience common to the saints of the Bible times and well known to multitudes of persons in the post-biblical era.” He referred to the evangelical mystic as one “who has been brought by the gospel into intimate fellowship with the Godhead.” from the back of the book: The Christian Book of Mystical Verse by A. W. Tozer

2. Tozer promoted "Free Will" Here is another source.




Tozer was asked by a young man studying at a Bible school, "Dr. Tozer when the boys begin to debate Arminian and Calvinistic theology, what position should I take." Dr. Tozer replied, "Son, when they begin that debate you go and get in your prayer closet and you cry out to God and in four years you will be closer to the Lord but those boys will still be debating Arminianism and Calvinism."


Now the real question is why would CRN quote Tozer and as I also do at times... being of emerging persuasion... I believe this quote sums it up.

Some wonder why "Tozer's writings are as fresh today as when he was alive. It is because, as one friend commented, "He left the superficial, the obvious and the trivial for others to toss around. . . . [His] books reach deep into the heart."

Yet, if one disagrees with someone to the point of name calling and often slanderous accusations... then why quote from someone that seems to back the ideas of your opponent... unless it is to show both are wrong. Why use one to show his ideals are yours when they are not? Now that IS the question that one need ask CRN.

Be Blessed,
iggy

Of Free Will and The Love of Jesus...

Matthew 16:24.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. KJV

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. NKJV

Now I am not even going to even talk about which version is better... as I think they still state clearly the same thing.

Jesus states that a man has a will and can come after Him... there is not much difference in saying "If anyone desires" as a desire is out of a man's will...

In other versions still the idea is conveyed... such as the NIV

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Yet, it seems that though some teach that man has no "free will" Jesus taught that man can choose Him. Now, be careful not to take me as saying man has a part in their own salvation as that IS of God and God alone... the point is that the Father draws a person ( John 6:44. "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.) Yet, still man must make that decision to follow after Jesus.

In that decision, one must realize that as Jesus stated one must then die to self to be able to follow Him. With that free will is exchanged for God's will through Jesus Christ.

Romans 6: 5-14 is rich with this teaching of being dying with Christ on the Cross and now where our Life comes from.

"If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."

Now as one who died with Jesus and as Paul stated, "because anyone who has died has been freed from sin." we know a dead person no longer "sins" so we also find Life at the Resurrected Life of Jesus.

Now, we all will sin... we all will fail as we still live in the "mortal body" Yet, we are no longer slaves to this "mortal body" for if one is in Christ, the sin in us has been judged and put to death, and we Live now "in Chirst" by the power of the Resurrection. We have exchanged our "sin and death" that reigned in our mortal body and not Christ Jesus reigns in us and gives us His very Life...

Jesus is the only "immortal" (1 Timothy 6:16) and by Jesus we will one day exchange "the mortal with immortality". (1 Cor 15:53)


God is good, for He draws a person to Jesus in whom we choose to follow... there is no doubt be one Calvinist or Ariminian that one still must "believe and receive" (Philippians 1:29; 1 Tim 1:16; John 3:16-17; Matt 10:40; John 1:12; John 20:22)
so that is not the debate... at least I would hope. (note: I re-read and noticed a bit of fuzz in that sentence so yes it is edited)... For a person can only freely love another if they are free to choose to do so. If they are not given a choice then how can a man love freely... God freely chooses to give grace to WHO he chooses... in that act of Love, man can and must respond to it... but without the ability to freely choose... it is not pure Love.

Be Blessed,
iggy

A Question of innocence...

DAVE N has left a new comment on your post "J.I Packer and the Five Basic Truths":

I disagree with your statement that man is born innocent. The Scriptures do not teach that, do they? Job 15:14; Job 25:4; Ps 51:5; Rom 5:12;Also, you said, " I think man without God can make a moral choice" According to whose standard? Your's? I think its irrelevant! Lets talk about what God thinks, not Iggy. God is not interested in morality (according to man) He is interested in righteousness (obedience)! Rom 6:16; I John 2:29; 2 Cor 5:21;Lets keep the main thing, the main thing.


Dave N,

Great! Let’s keep the main thing the main thing… I have no problem in that…

First off you misrepresent what I have stated… Man can make a moral choice… even Calvin states that… You missed that I teach it be a “sustained” choice… meaning man fails! You left out half of what I actually teach. I think you have not read enough of me to know for certain as to what I do believe... a comment is not where I do my main teaching... LOL!

But let’s look at what your verses actually state OK? I am using KJV for its universality... though I prefer the NKJV.

Job 15: 14. What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

Notice it states that he should “be” clean? It does not state man is born unclean… only that he “be” clean… that means that man still can be born innocent yet fail in his being clean by God’s standards.

Now also the point that Job states about “born of a woman”… this again is not stating that he is born evil… but again shows my point that man is not righteous and will fail in sustained righteousness…

Job 25:4. How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?

Job Is asking again the same question.. But this still does not state man is born “totally depraved”. The idea of being born of a woman means that man is born evil or “not innocent” is not a ”Christian” teaching but a Gnostic teaching. If you read the other “so called” gospels Gnostic teachings you will see this taught in the form of the Serpent Seed where some teach that Eve conceived a child from the Serpent… in that then all mankind is evil in its fleshly form…

I want to also point out that Job is not talking about woman being evil and passing on the "evil gene" (that will lead to issues later when we have a "perfect Jesus" "born of a woman". The phrase born of a woman means "lowly state" it is a sign of humility that God is immortal and man is mortal. Remember in Hebrews 2 6-7 it states:

But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands:

Man is made lower than the Angels who are immortal... that it one of the main points of the incarnation as Jesus "born of a woman" became a man... So to make

Psalms 51: 5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

This is not about being born in sin rather that (if you have ever noticed) King David’s mother is not mentioned and we can only speculate as to who she is… This leaves us a bit of a question as to his heritage… and possibly that he was a bastard child… note David is the anti-type of Jesus who was also thought by many to be a bastard child… so again this is not stating man is born in sin… rather that his mother sinned when she conceived him.

Rom 5: 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:.


Again, it is apparent that you have not read much of what I write and teach… as I do not deny man is under the covenant of death and will receive the wages of sin… Yet still in this verse show me where man is born totally depraved or that man is not born innocent.

Now, notice Romans Chapter One.

18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

Notice here that man has clearly seen by the things made God’s Power and His Godhead.

21. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

Notice also here that they knew God… yet made a choice not to glorify Him as God? They professed themselves to be wise? They worshipped idols by choice?

24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:


Notice God then “Gives them up”? That they once were innocent but by their own choices turned to worship creation and not the Creator and God “gives them up”.

25. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

Notice here that they did not “retain God in their knowledge”…. Meaning they did at one time… but forsook God?

29. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30. Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31. Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32. Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.


Man did know God… and this is not about Adam and Eve as Paul seems to make a distinction as to Adam and all mankind. Man can know God even today and choose to seek Him... but until man sees he cannot please God by his own standards and that God's ways are much higher... he will not be saved... it is when a man comes to the end of himself and understands that his good is not good enough and that though he may try and try, once he falls from innocence (as all men do Rom 3:23) he enters under the same covenant of death that Adam came under and in that without the sacrifice of Jesus and His resurrection no one can be saved.

Now the issue of obedience I will refer you to the verse below where you quoted me...

Rom 5:19. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

Notice it is not our obedience but Jesus'. Everything is imputed from Jesus... we do not walk in our OWN obedience as that is the issue in the first place... we have none to walk in... we do walk in the imputed obedience of Jesus for it is "through the obedience of the one man (Jesus) the many will be made righteous.

I then to do good must totally depend on Jesus to do God's will and purpose in and through me. I have no obedient "works" of my own to offer. (note also Phil 2:12-13)

Now also, I need to clarify, "innocent" does not mean "good" it is neutral as man has yet to sin... but that in his fallen nature will fall into sin.

Also, if you want more info on this topic Irenaeus on Free Will is a good thing to read as he was a contemporary with John the Apostle and a Disciple of Polycarp. Polycarp was directly discipled by John so there is some great heritage there.

Be Blessed,
iggy