This is not true at all. The new man created when a person is born from God does not sin and can not sin (
1 Jn 3:9) because he is joined to the Lord and is one spirit with Him ().
Clearly John is not saying that we who have been born again, who have become followers of Christ will never sin again. He is saying that it is no longer in our nature to want to continue to sin like someone who is unsaved would have no issue doing.
In Rom 7:14-20, Paul is pretty clear on the fact that he still struggles with sin.
It is untennable to say that sin does not separate us from God.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you (
Is 59:2)
Do you have Scriptures to back up the idea that separation from God due to sin is not "automatic"?
Isaiah is not referring to the peoples condition of separation (spiritual death). In Is 59:2, the prophet Isaiah is giving a rebuke to the people for their national corruption, injustice, and hypocrisy. Also, they are under the old covenant. We are not and never were.
Respectfully, it is not necessary to throw simple logic and common sense out the window in order to interpret scripture. In fact, they should go hand in hand. As I explained in my post, if spiritual death, which is separation from God, was an automatic effect of sin, then salvation would be impossible. We do not stop sinning the moment we are saved as I just showed with Rom 7. We are told that the wages of sin is death. Wages are not an automatic effect. They are something that is paid out for a service/act that has been done. These wages were payed out by God when Adam and Eve disobeyed His commandment. This death that God paid out was spiritual death. Not physical and not soul death as I explained in my original post.
And if there is a disagreement that spiritual death was not the punishment that God paid out to Adam and Eve, then you need to explain to me how it is that Eve realized she had been deceived.
The age of accountability doctrine has no Scriptural basis as far as I can tell.
I was not making an argument for an age of accountability. I was simply stating that as a result of us coming into the world already separated from God, we will inevitably sin.
Also.... if it is our sin that separates us from God, then logically, we would not be separated from God until we sinned. If we are not separated from God until we sin, then we must be spiritually alive (in relationship with God). In which case, why is it then we sin in the first place? Where does this desire to disobey God stem from?
I had no desire to do the good of God or to follow his will, before I was saved. This only came about after I was saved. The reason why is until I was saved, I remained spiritually dead, separated from God, not giving a damn.
No, forgiveness was not appropriated to all mankind the moment Christ paid the penalty (
Acts 26:18,
Rom 4:5-8,
Eph 1:7,
Col 1:14,
Col 2:13,
1 Jn 1:9).
Before Christ,
no one guilty of sin could freely come into God’s presence, not because God hated people, but because His holiness demanded separation.
If forgiveness only occurs at the moment of salvation, then how do you go about receiving it? You certainly can't come to God for it. You're still guilty of sin. To say that it was Jesus' sacrifice on the cross that has made it possible is to simply deny the fact that Jesus is God. It is to reduce Jesus down to being only a means to God. Jesus Himself even tells us in Matt 12:31 that forgiveness would be appropriated to all mankind at the cross.
The key to this verse is understanding what blasphemy of the Spirit is. The simple answer is 'unbelief.' We see this explained in John 16:8-9. But there are two important things here we need to understand:
First, when Jesus says you do not believe in Me, He isn't meaning in the same sense that you would say you do not believe in
aliens or
Unicorns. He is meaning that you are choosing not to place your faith in Him.
And second, Every single person comes into the world as an unbeliever. Which means, we are
all guilty of blasphemy of the Spirit.
Because we are all guilty of blasphemy of the Spirit, what Jesus says in Matt12:31 can only make sense if forgiveness is appropriated to all mankind at the cross. If not, and it only happens at salvation, then either no one is saved since their unbelief won't be forgiven, or Jesus was wrong and their unbelief was forgiven along with the rest of their sins.
All sin has been forgiven except for unbelief, the one thing you must repent of.
Salvation has two elements - never perishing and eternal life (
John 3:15-17).
These are not two separate elements, they are saying the same thing.
Salvation is receiving new spiritual life. This new life will be eternal because the only thing that could take away spiritual life was God's punishment for sin. However, Jesus took all the punishment God had to give satisfying God's justice. Because there is now no more punishment left to give, there is now no longer any possibility of spiritual death.
This is why the forgiveness of sins had to take place before salvation could be offered. Not only did it allows us the freedom to come into God's presence in order to receive it, it assured us that our salvation would be eternal.
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