The Doctrine of Original Sin

To add clarification of my testimony:

Ephesians 1:13
En hos humeis kai akouo logos alethia euaggelion humon soteria en hos kai pisteuo sphragizo hagios pneuma epaggelia.

that which is translated "after that ye heard" is akaou which means to be endowed with the faculty of hearing, and the tense in this verse is the aorist, so should be considered without regard to past, present or future tense.

that which is translated "after that ye believed" is pisteuo which is also in the aorist tense.

Both of these are in the active voice, so it is I who have heard and it is I who have believed. No one has heard for me or believed for me.

This can be contrasted with "ye were sealed with" "sphragizo, which also is in the aorist tense but the passive voice, indicitive mood. I am the object of the sealing, but I am not the one doing it.

I am by no means a Greek NT scholar. It is something that I would like to learn more of. But I have learned to use the tools out there in order to get closer the original language. Perhaps TCGreek is out there lurking and can check my work here for me. The fact that some English translation use the word "after" which indicates time and order, should not be a basis for theology since the words translated are in the aorist tense, of which it is said there is no english equivelant to the aorist and so if most often translated in the past tense.

The ESV seems to capture the tenses closely. "In him you also, when you heard(A) the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him,(B) were sealed with the(C) promised Holy Spirit,"

Which also may be translated, "You also trust in Christ upon the hearing of the word of truth, that is to say, of the glad tidings of your salvation, by believing in which you are also sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, unto the redeeming of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory - Ephesians 1:13-14

As to the use of this verse to establish and doctrinal postiion of the order of salvation I don't see how it is possible based on the text itself. All I may take from this text and its context is that God is the cause of my salvation and I attribute it completely to Him.

 

I see no one commented on this post of mine. (#139)

What does this mean to a Calvlinist?

 

Amy,

I am concerned that you might be becoming too pre-occupied with the Calvinist and Arminian distinctions. I hope I am wrong. But to answer your question, here is my understanding of the passage:

I think a proper understanding can be had by comparing the other passages like it. Mark 10:15, Luke 18:17, Matt 18:3

All these passages refer to being like little children, and not being little children. These passages are not teaching, or meant to teach, concerning original sin. In the context of Jesus saying these things regarding children were the Pharisees coming to Him and testing Him, and in Luke where the parable of the Pharisee and Publican is given just before the word of Christ about children.

So, the sense of this text is not whether the child by nature is innocent, spiritually alive, or any other such thing regarding the nature of the child. THe sense of the text and made clear by the context, is the manner of children in humility and trust, without pride and self-conceit like the Pharisee rather thant he publican.

Unless we become like that, we will not go away justified as the publican did, who exhibited that he became as a little child before God.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this. There's no passage I know of that relates something like a sinful nature being added to Adam after he sinned. Must have been there from the beginning - free will.

Also, I don't think anyone has proven the point about babies becoming elect when they die. Does this happen after they die, or just before they die, or what? What if they get sick and almost die and are made elect and then recover? Are they still elect after that or do they become un-elect again?

 

I thought after I posted that, "Someone will post and deny it." So I stand corrected, there are folks who deny original guilt AND the inheritance of a sin nature and are total pelagians. lbaker, you need to study pelagius. Your views are spot on with his.

To your questions about infant salvation I am going to take the advice of 2 Tim 2:23 on this, "But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes."

 

:laugh: Yeah, a "straight" Ephesians testimony would be hoping too much for you! :laugh:

It's quilte simple, RB. You heard (with your own ears), you believed in such a way as God sealed you with the Holy Spirit of promise. Same as Acts 2:38 -- "repent ... be baptized [of the Spirit] ... receive the Holy Spirit." It's only "Greek" to the Greeks (Well, and the Calvinists.)! :laugh:

Huh? So because it says you must believe before you are sealed and you don't agree, then the passage doesn't suggest an "ordo saludis?"

Ok -- suggestion: Go back and relive the moment. What did you experience? What was the message? What made you think at that moment that you were saved or in need of salvation? When "the scales fell away" from your spiritual eyes, did you realize you were "elect" or did you realize you were in need of salvation? Did you repent and trust Christ or did you just presume you were saved? What happened next? Can you show that that was a pivotal moment in your life or was it an foregone conclusion once you "heard" the gospel?

skypair

 

Curious...if you claim physical death is a result of the "soul that sins"...why (and how) did Jesus die physically?

 

I'm sorry, Amy. First I should by now have applauded your resolution of your Calvinism-free will inner conflict in favor of the biblical truth.

What does "of such is the kingdom of God" mean to Calvinists? They haven't figured it out yet. :laugh:

What does it mean to us? It means that they are in a state of innocence that believing on Christ confers upon us. Only ours is a little better. Ours is a "tested favorable disposition" toward God. There's, like Adam's, is an "untested favorable disposition" toward God (according the Renald Showers who I think has it right scripturally). Adam's disposition was positive until it was tested -- same with infants.

For infants, like for Adam before Eve (well, before the fall :laugh:), there was no "test." The first "test" is -- given the option of self-gratification or God's rules, which do we choose. Now the next "test" (since we have all sinned) is -- God's rules (the gospel) or self-gratification. Do we go back to innocence or do we go our own way?

So can we be "born again" to childhood innocence and keep it? Only if we choose to do so. God does not make it so without our cooperation -- our "synergy" to use their fallacious terminology.

skypair

 

So now you recommend that others study theologians rather that scripture??? We readily admit that Pelagius was wrong in some respects. Please consider what Ibaker is saying and don't "lump it in" totally in with Pelagius. Don't you know any better?

Very "priestly" of you, RB. Don't offer a scriptural opinion -- don't help the saint that has questions. Just "kick back" in your smug intellectualism and let them flounder in their ignorance!

skypair

 

Deuteronomy 1:39
39'Moreover, your little ones who you said would become a prey, and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter there, and I will give it to them and they shall possess it.

Which led me to this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by John Calvin
39. Moreover, your little ones. I have already shown that God so tempered His judgment that, whilst none of the guilty should escape with impunity, still His faithfulness should remain sure and inviolable, and that the wickedness of men should not make void the covenant which He had made with Abraham. He, therefore, pronounces sentence upon them, that they should never enjoy the inheritance which they had despised: yet declares that He will nevertheless be true in the fulfillment of what He had promised, and will display His mercy towards their children, whom in their despair they had condemned to be a prey to their enemies.

When He limits this grace to their little ones, whose age did not yet allow them to discern between good and evil, He signifies that all who had already arrived at the years of reason, were, from the least to the greatest, accomplices in the crime, since the contagion had spread through the whole body. Surely it was an incredible prodigy, that so great a multitude should be so carried away by diabolical fury, as that nothing should remain unaffected by it, unless perhaps a timely death removed some of the old men rather on account of the vice of others than their own. But, if even a hundredth part of them had been guiltless of the crime, God would have left some survivors.

"To have no knowledge of good and evil," is equivalent to being unable "to discern between their right hand and their left hand;" by which expression in Jonah, (Jonah 4:11,) God exempts from condemnation those little ones, who have as yet no power of forming a judgment. From hence, however, some have foolishly attempted to prove that infant-children are not defiled by original sin; and that men are involved in no guilt, except such as they have severally contracted by their own voluntary act (arbitrio.) For the question here is not as to the nature of the human race; a distinction is simply made between children and those who have consciously and willfully provoked God's wrath; whereas the corruption, which is the root (of all evils) although it may not immediately produce its fruit in actual sins, is not therefore non-existent.

from here

Then, in Vol 3 of his Harmony of the Gospels on Matthew 19:13-15, Mark 10:13-16, Luke 18:15-17:
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Calvin
This narrative is highly useful; for it shows that Christ receives not only those who, moved by holy desire and faith, freely approach to him, but those who are not yet of age to know how much they need his grace.

Taken with:

Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 8:1
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Us and those being the elect.

If Christ's substitutionary death covers original sin as well as willful sin, it seems as if his disposition toward infants would lead one to conclude that infants, dying in infancy, are in Christ Jesus, not under condemnation for original sin and therefore elect, as opposed to infants, passing from infancy, who are doubly responsible.

 

additionally "of such is the kingdom of Heaven" does not refer to their inherit innocence or spiritual condition, but of the lack of willful sin and blessed state that the elect will experience in Heaven.

1 Corinthians 14:20
Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.

 

In other words in "evil" be like infants who are not evil, but think as adults.

BBob,

 

The Bible has so little to say about the fate of dead infants, that I find it rather interesting that we have so much to say on the matter, whether we be Calvinists or not.

And frankly speaking, I find John Calvin to be speculative at best.

 

I believe that is pretty well what I said:

 

Being individually evil, or willful sinners, does not take away the aspect of inherited spiritual deadness (original sin) that manifests in all infants passing infancy. Infants, dying in infancy, are blessed and made spiritually alive through Christ at the point of their physical death.

 

Good stuff! I agree.

 

Can't say I blame you.

As has been posted, do you have scripture to support just one little portion of this? I have never read anything like this. I think my explanation makes much more sense in post #177 and does have scripture to support it.

The soul that sinneth shall die.
When we come to know God and Glorify Him not as God, it is sin.
Suffer not little children to come unto me, for such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
I was once alive without the law, the commandments came and I died.

All scripture, that line up perfectly with my post.

BBob,

 

Plenty of scriptural support over on the thread that deals with infants, dying in infancy.

BBob, do try and be an adult in all your thinking, instead of tossing sideways insults, ok?

 

Still speculative at best and dependent on human reasoning.