Doctrine of devils

Amen TCassidy,

I am shocked to hear what some are saying here! It sounds like some are denying original sin and claiming that Christ payed for everyones sins! Why on earth is there a place called hell then?

How on earth can anyone who calls themself a Baptist, Evangelical, and/or Fundamentalist, deny that men are condemned for their sin? Sad very sad indeed. This is what happens when you let your feelings dictate your theology instead of God's Holy Word.

 

Your brother would be better served at a much better, more Biblically sound school.

 

Nonsense Tcassidy:

Our Lord warned of a sin that IS NOT FORGIVABLE! How fearful that is. Now then, was THAT SIN paid for??? If yes, how can any sin still damn? If it was not paid for, then what? How do your questions fare with the "unforgivable sin"??? Chaek-mate mate.

 

Let me ask you, Larry, is Hebrews 2:9 correct?
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Or Hebrews 7:27?
Unlike othe other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.

What about Hebrews 9:26b?
But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

or Hebrews 10:12?
but when this priest [Christ] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.

One time. for all. to do away with sin.

Which is WHY John 3:16-18 reads:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believed stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

Sin is nowhere mentioned there, only a refusal to believe.

When various Apostles were asked what a person must do to be saved, you never read, "Stop sinning." You read, "Believe. Repent and believe."

Some of you may consider not believing to be a sin, but there is no command in the Law to believe. There is only the direction that, in order to gain heaven, one must follow that narrow road of faith in the true Jesus Christ.

I would ask you who are so antagonistic to me to stop for a moment and consider sin not from man's point of view, which you have been doing, but from God's point of view. Every sin is an insult to Him, as it entails direct and willful disobedience of a known law. If Jesus did not die for ALL sin, past, present, and future, then there are insults to God left standing for eternity.

Not so. It is finished. The debt is paid. Justice is fully satisfied.

Man does not go to hell for sins, but for refusing Christ.

Do not confuse what we think of, or even know, as wrong with a sin. Cigarette smoking, for instance, was considered quite fine and even healthy for a long time. Therefore it could not be considered a sin. Now we know it is deadly. Does it suddenly become a sin? No, it does not. It remains, however, a deadly choice.

God has graciously given each of us the choice of whether or not to believe. We are not commanded to believe as we are commanded to not bear false witness, or commit adultery, etc. We are told under no uncertain terms, however, that the only way to eternal life is through faith in Christ Jesus. Nevertheless, one can refuse a direction and that does not make one guilty of refusing a law and sinning.

 

Yes, of course. Is your understanding of them correct? That's a whole different issue. But even that doesn't affect the questions I asked you.

And no one disputes that.

But you still cannot refute the evidence of Scripture that unbelief is a sin. Nor have you explained how eternal hell is just punishment for something that wasn't a sin anyway.

That is the gospel of Calvinism.

The Law is not the sum total of sin. There was sin in the world before there was the Law. In fact, the reason why all are condemned in Adam is because there was sin before there was the Law. This is an extremely inadequate interpretation.

No, that's why hell exists.

Then why do people go to hell? Eternal punishment for something that isn't a sin?

Refusing Christ is a sin since it is disobedience to God. Plus the Bible tells us that people do go to hell for their sins (Rev 20 and 21).

Your theology of sin is very lacking.

 

But you still cannot refute the evidence of Scripture that unbelief is a sin. Nor have you explained how eternal hell is just punishment for something that wasn't a sin anyway.

Here is what Paul says:

I would not have known what sin was except through the law...For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.

So unless you can show me a law which says 'thou shalt believe', then unbelief is not a sin, for is it not disobedience to a law.

Nor is hell a punishment for sin or sins. If it were, Jesus' death meant nothing, for the wages of sin is death and, as I quoted from Hebrews, and you agreed, He tasted death for us all. You agreed to that verse.

Revelation 20, where people are judged according to what they had done, may be looked at in light of Jesus' own words in Matthew 25 -- "Inasmuch as you did not do it to the least of these my brethren, you did not to it to me." It is better to let Bible explain Bible...

In addition, Jesus also mentions that the deeds come from the attitudes of the heart, and it is with the heart one believes or does not believe. Actions are simply an outworking of that, ref. James.

When you stated that hell exists because Jesus did not die for all sin, you are not only disagreeing with Hebrews, which states that He, as High Priest, died once for all (and which you agreed to), but you are disagreeing with Jesus Himself who stated that hell was made for Satan and his messengers (angels).

You are picking and choosing verses to try to support a doctrine that destroys the character of God and the accuracy of the Bible. I hope those who are reading this and considering the ideas of Calvinism will see that.

 

It's biblical. It's just not Calvinistic. However, if what I am saying seems heretical to you, then I know I am on the right track. What Calvinists espouse is heretical as far as I am concerned, denigrating the character of God, the work of Christ, and making a lie out of the fact that we are created in His image.

The Bible could not be more clear. We are condemned because of unbelief, not because of sin. Jesus took care of sin. To say He did not is what is heretical.

 

Wow, TCassidy, watch where you post stuff. It looks like you are agreeing with me!

 

In other words, to claim that Jesus died for all sins, in agreement with what Hebrews claims, is a doctrine from the devil?

Interesting...

 

Barry Setterfield here: This is nothing Helen has made up. The doctrine she is referring to was taught at the old Adelaide Bible Institute in South Australia and this was the preferred theological seminary in South Australia for all denominations. The principal of the college at the time was the Reverend Geoff Bingham, who once said, in my presence, "If only everyone knew that all their sins had been forgiven by Christ's sacrifice, the world would turn to Him in droves. However, many Christian denominations have blurred that issue."

 

I guess its too bad then that scripture never teaches this. Sure would have cleared up a lot of confusion, huh?

 

I'm sorry for double posting, but I cannot get over the absurdity of the 'Setterfield Theory' posted above. Not only does it make Christ a failure in His attempt to save all men (in fact, He was such a miserable failure that He could not accomplish the salvation of a single one), but He was a double miserable failure because He could not even effectively communicate the message of what he actually did.

 

Barry and I have been looking up a lot of stuff and this is what we have found, biblically. ALL sin is atoned for. All of it. Justice is totally satisfied in Christ.

But atonement is not forgiveness, and I was wrong about all sins being forgiven. The more we talked, the more I realized that atonement is a legal issue and forgiveness a personal one.

Here is a picture. If someone killed my daughter, that someone might be put in prison for life or executed. At this point justice would have been served by the laws of the state. However that would have nothing to do with how her husband or Barry or I or any of her friends would feel about her murder. We have been told, as Christians, to forgive. And that is a separate issue.

This is why, then, although all sin has been atoned for, there is one which cannot be forgiven, and that is blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, according to Jesus, then, according to Paul in Romans 1, suppressing the truth one knows becomes, eventually, denying the Holy Spirit Himself. Walk away from the only source of forgiveness -- God -- and there simply cannot be any forgiveness.

Even though justice had been served and even that sin atoned for.

I'm curious how this sits with you folks. Part of what showed me was in Psalm 130: "If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared....O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins."

I apologize for substituting forgiveness for atonement when what I was thinking of in my mind was the legal issue of atonement.

 

You have obviously not understood what we have been saying.

Christ accomplished atonement for all sin for all time. However forgiveness is found ONLY in Christ. This is not a matter of failure on Christ's part, despite the sarcasm of your post (it is incredible to me how so many of you Calvinists get so nasty -- is this the character of Christ in you? Or is the Holy Spirit simply failing in His responsibility to transform you into the likeness of Christ?) -- but rather the failure of men to be willing to follow the truth they are shown. Christ is there for all of us, but we are allowed to respond as we choose. The failure is ours, not His.

 

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
John 1:29

Was John right or wrong?