I TOLD YOU NOT TO READ THIS! WHY ARE YOU HERE?
I just proved total depravity…man’s nature to do what they’re directly told not to do! 😉
But, that still doesn’t mean Total Inability is true. I mean you are able to admit that you disobeyed my request to refrain from reading this, right? Sure you are. You make mistakes but you are able to admit that fact when confronted. So too, when fallen humanity is confronted with their fallenness by God’s powerful word, there is nothing preventing them from willingly acknowledging that truth and repenting in faith. That is why we are all held responsible, not merely for the decisions of Adam, but for our own decisions since the fall. We must decide how we will respond to the words of Jesus, for it is by those words each of us will be judged:
Then Jesus cried out, “The one who believes in Me believes not in Me, but in Him who sent Me. 45 And the one who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. 46 I have come as a light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me would not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears My words and doesn’t keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects Me and doesn’t accept My sayings has this as his judge: The word I have spoken will judge him on the last day.49 For I have not spoken on My own, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a command as to what I should say and what I should speak. 50 I know that His command is eternal life. So the things that I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me” (Jn 12:44-50).
Notice by what standard we are judged in the final days? Jesus does not say you will be judged for what Adam did, in fact no where in scripture does it teach that anyone is judged guilty for Adam’s sin. We are judged for our own unbelief and rejection of Jesus’ words.
If anyone perishes, they will perish for rejecting the truth so as to be saved (2 Thess. 2:10). If anyone doesn’t enter the Promised Land, it will be due to their own unbelief, not the sin of their grandparents. As Heb. 3:19 states,
“So, we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.”
Any doctrinal system which teaches that people will spend an eternity suffering in hell due to the sin of another is not teaching the bible.
The person who sins is the one who will die. A son won’t suffer punishment for the father’s iniquity, and a father won’t suffer punishment for the son’s iniquity. The righteousness of the righteous person will be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked person will be on him.
“Now if the wicked person turns from all the sins he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is just and right, he will certainly live; he will not die. 22 None of the transgressions he has committed will be held against him. He will live because of the righteousness he has practiced. 23 Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “Instead, don’t I take pleasure when he turns from his ways and lives? … if a wicked person turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will preserve his life… “Repent and turn from all your transgressions, so they will not be a stumbling block that causes your punishment. 31 Throw off all the transgressions you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, house of Israel? 32 For I take no pleasure in anyone’s death.” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “So repent and live! (Ezk. 18:20-32)
Now, here are few more things you shouldn’t do!
- Whatever you do, don’t subscribe to the Podcast!
- And never, ever support this ministry to help get the word out!
- Do NOT share this article or any other article to help your friends understand the universal love and provision of God.
If you make a mistake and do one or ALL of these things, I will forgive you, but you are responsible for confessing. You can confess for breaking one of these rules by sending me a Twit or a Facebook post. Now, be good and obey all these rules you depraved worms. 😉
I really tried not click on this. I held out for awhile… but in the end I succumbed. Was it my sin nature? Can I blame Adam?
I have a question about this statement: “Any doctrinal system which teaches that people will spend an eternity suffering in hell due to the sin of another is not teaching the bible.” Do you think that whether or not the Gospel gets preached to a person makes any difference? Is whether we preach the Gospel that important if God will make sure the person gets the Gospel through some other means? Do you think people even *need* the Gospel, or is the Gospel just telling people what they already know inside? I remember a Steve Hill sermon where the Spirit of God prompted him to witness to a man, and he refused. He would walk by each day and feel that prompting. One day the urgency was especially strong. It was as if God wouldn’t let Steve go away. But the evanagelist Steve Hill disobeyed. He didn’t witness to that man. The next day that man was dead. Do you think Steve’s sin played any part in the eternal destiny of that man? Thanks for any clarification.
Read the article about those who never hear the gospel.
Thanks but that doesn’t answer my question. Was the Holy Spirit moving upon Steve Hill or was Steve Hill just imagining it? Did it matter whether Steve Hill obeyed? His his obedience or his disobedience make any difference or not? That’s what I’m wondering and that article doesn’t clearly address that.
Can I comment even if I didn’t read the article? 😉
No. Do not comment on this article!!!
I started thinking about the Ezekiel passage before you landed there! Great article. It is indeed the case that we are not judged for somebody else’s sin. The Judgment is an exposure of deeds and a punishment in according proportion; we aspire to be saved from that shameful recompense and can be so through Christ:
Matthew 16: 27
“For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will repay each person according to what they have done.”
Revelation 22:11-12
“Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy. Look, I am coming soon! My recompense is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”
Romans 2:5-6
“But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done.’
Psalm 62:11-12
“One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard: ‘Power belongs to you, God, and with you, Lord, is unfailing love’; and, ‘You repay everyone according to what they have done.'”
Job 34:11 (unrebuked Elihu speaking)
“He repays everyone for what they have done; he brings on them what their conduct deserves. It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice. … Look up at the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds so high above you. If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him? If you are righteous, what do you give to him, or what does he receive from your hand? Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself, and your righteousness only other people. … God is mighty, but despises no one; he is mighty in strength and wisdom.”
2 Corinthians 5:10
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20
For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:17
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. Romans 3:21-22
I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! Romans 6:19-21
Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes… “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Romans 10:4-10
“There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12
People are Totally depraved – lacking the righteousness required if one is to enter eternal life. Nothing that has been said here negates this. Unbelief is the product of unrighteousness.
Pastor Flowers writes, “…when fallen humanity is confronted with their fallenness by God’s powerful word, there is nothing preventing them from willingly acknowledging that truth and repenting in faith.”
Surely, no one believes this. What does Paul say about the Word, “…the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
“…those whom God has called…to us who are being saved…”
There is an article on the blog which fully debunks the rending if 1 Cor 2 as meaning most of humanity must deem the cross as foolishness due to an inborn nature imputed to all man due to the sin of Adam.
Pauls contrast is between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God, which we are responsible for choosing. You presume it’s foolish to them by sovereign decree but we don’t blame God for mans choices like your systematic implies.
I’m stuck in the middle between you guys. I reject libertarian free will and assert that stumbling-blocks are owed to the superordinate responsibility of God. However, as Romans chs. 8-11 asserts, the stumbling-blocks are ancillary to an ongoing creative process, with an ultimate ‘pleroma’ reconciliation. This is why Romans 11 explicitly says that, though reconciliation depends on coming to faith, it is nonetheless the case that the unelect are not beyond hope (Romans 11:7 + 11:11). Romans ch. 11 is the “point” of ch. 9. Calvinists are challenged to find some way to resolve “the unelect are not beyond hope” with their theology.
This middle-ground maintains the best of both worlds. Christ has offered pardon for sin and salvation from punishment. Election manifests in life as “faith, through love, working” (Galatians 5:6). The unsaved will be light-exposed, judged, and punished in proportion to their infractions, as recompense — not for who they are, but for “what they have done” (as the Bible says repeatedly). This conforms to the broad Pharisaic Jewish expectation of Gehenna, an expectation Jesus did not come to correct, but an impending reality from which to offer relief (John 3:17-21).
This was like the 3rd article from the front, but I just HAD to click it FIRST, lol 😛