Is spiritual death from birth, or is it produced in time?

So man is not born in rebellion to God? Man is not born with a sin nature?

 

This verse is not saying that no sin is imputed without the law. Otherwise, that would contradict Romans chapters 1-3, which is showing that everyone is accountable to God for their sin, with or without the law.

Matt. 19:14 is not telling us that children are sinless! The passage, and the rest of the NT, is telling us to trust like children.

 

John 8:34 "Jesus answered them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin....'"

Romans 7:20 "But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer doing it, but sin which dwells in me. (21) I find then the principle that evil is present in me..."

You keep claiming scriptures teach "the opposite" of (insert hated reformed belief here), when you can easily shown to be wrong.

At some point, most people would be embarrassed to keep making such claims.

Nevertheless

peace to youraying:

 

And death (Romans 5). And being cast out of the Garden; this was a break with the intimacy they had with God. Yes, they talked to God but it was a pretty unpleasant conversation, with the gospel couched in 3:15.

Why do you ask this? I never said no one was unable to respond.

 

Those verses do not teach that a man is enslaved or compelled to sin, read them again.

Jesus says whoever "commits sin" is the servant of sin. He did not say we are enslaved to commit sin. Huge difference, you reverse the order. It is the committing sin that makes you the servant.

Same with Rom 7.

Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Paul is not teaching that he is utterly enslaved or compelled to sin, he says "if" I sin.

You read into scripture what is not there.

 

The word is "doulos" and it means "slave". The "Truth" sets you "free" from your slavery to sin. Plain and simple if you will accept it.

Paul had just stated that he is doing the things that he doesn't want to do. Romans 7:15-16 "....For I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing that I hate...."

There is no "if" there.

Paul is speaking of a person's life prior to salvation. That person's life is enslaved to sin. That is his point.

peace to youraying:

 

In that section of scripture from Romans 7, Paul is speaking of the spiritual warfare that exists in all regenerated children of God. Paul says he has an inward man (which he elsewhere calls the new man) which is the new nature given him at regeneration. He says he delights in the law of God after this inward man. But, he says he also has a sin nature, which he refers to here as another law and sin that dwelleth in me (elsewhere as the outward or old man). He says this nature wars against the inward man, seeking to bring him into captivity again to sin. Thus he says he both wants to do things pleasing to God, and is still subject to temptation to sin. This is because the inward man wants to please God, the outward man wants to sin, and the two sides war. We've all felt this, when we want to do good but we find ourselves at times doing things that shame us and displease God. Paul, at the end of the rope, laments thus, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The answer is simple yet astounding: "I thank my God through Jesus Christ my Lord." Paul isn't looking within for final victory, but to Jesus. Paul says, "So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."

 

By the way, one of the keys to understanding Romans 7 is verse 7: "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet."

Paul is talking about our perception of sin. By the law is the knowledge of sin. So when he says, in verse 9, "For I was alive without the law once: but when teh commandment came, sin revived, and I died." He doesn't mean he was sinless, he means he didn't perceive the depths of his own sinfulness without the law. This was specifically what the law was intended to do, to be a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. It was supposed to expose our sinfulness and convince us of our need for a savior, so that no flesh would glory in His sight.

 

I disagree.

Paul has personified "sin" as a master who controls the unregenerate.

Who can set such an unregenerate person free from the sin master? Jesus Christ (v. 24-25)

peace to youraying:

 

Why then does he speak about himself in the present tense? Is he unregenerate at that time?

 

He is using a rhetorical device to make his point. He is speaking of himself as a lost person attempting to keep the law.

In chp. 7 v.7-8, Paul speaks of the effect the law had on him, revealing sin and producing even more sin, resulting in death.

He then personfies both sin and death as masters who control us. Sin, proving itself to be utterly sinful, producing sin in him and then sellling him to death, all the while using "slave language" to illustrate the power of sin over the unregenerate.

This culminates in the lost person crying out "Wretched man that I am!" (a slave term) "Who will set me free from the body of this (belonging to the) death (master).

The answer is Jesus Christ, who sets us free from the control of sin because we die (chp 6 v.11 "Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus") to sin and alive to Christ.

8 v.2 "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death"

All of this speaks of Jesus Christ freeing us from our enslavement to sin.

peace to youraying:

 

Is spiritual death from birth ? or is it produced in time ?
does a leopard have spots from birth ? or do these spots develop in time ?
are predators such from birth ? or do they become predators in time ?
does a spiritually dead parent give birth to a spiritually alive child, or does the child die spiritually in time ?

 

What is it then that causes you to sin now? You meaning as a believer.

 

There is no doubt that a believer continues to struggle with sin. We are prone to wander. We are easily deceived. Sin and the world still tends to influence us.

I am just saying that is not Paul's point in Romans 7.

peace to youraying:

 

Beginning in verse 22 he writes: "for I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."

He is speaking of himself as regenerate and then he describes a war going on within himself between the inward man, or the law of his mind, and the old man, the flesh. He says he both serves the law of God and the law of sin. He's not speaking hypothetically, nor is he speaking of an unregenerate person. He is speaking of himself as a regenerated person who is trying to please God but is still having to fight against the desires of his flesh to serve sin.

 

I disagree.

Paul is speaking of his attempt to keep the Law of God. When Paul attempted to served the Law of God, he was unregenerate. Though his desire was to serve the law of God, sin (personified) enslaved his flesh.

When Christ sets you free, you walk according to the Spirit, not according to the Law by which sin enslaves the flesh.

8:2 "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (3) For what the Law could not do, weak as it ws through the flesh, God did sending His own Son...."

Notice the transition Paul makes from speaking of serving the "Law of God" (i.e. O.T. Law) whereby his flesh is enslaved to sin and living by the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" whereby he is freed from sin to live according to the Spirit.

Romans chp. 7 is Paul speaking of himself as unregenerate, enslaved to sin.

peace to youraying: