Allow me to preface this post by saying it is a "Exploratory Post" this means everyone is free to express their ideas without others calling them a doctrine if demons or others saying you can't disagree....this is a open "free for all" to express and discuss your ideas (wacky or whatever) and/or beliefs.
What makes a person good or bad? We know as Christians it is being "Born Again" by the Spirit of God. Okay, lets take a step back and say for the sake of discussion that you have a choice in being Born Again. What made you make that choice the way you did? Of course the Christian will answer the Holy Spirit wooed me or worked on my heart and opened my eyes. Okay, why do some accept and agree with the Holy Spirit and some don't?
Hmmmm...*taking another step back* Aren't we a product of our environment? Don't we make decisions by what we have experienced in the past? Isn't it God who chooses the time and place people will live?
Okay, one might say environment is chosen by God in our best interests so that we would be eventually saved, therefore we are not a product of our environment, but rather a product of how we respond to the environment God has placed us.
Hmmm...*taking another step back*
How we respond to our environment is determined by our genetics something we had no hand in. A Christian might respond God again has chosen the right genetics for our spirit to inhabit to give us the best possible chance of eventually choosing Him.
The wild card in all this is our spirit; are each of us given a spirit as God gave Adam or does spirit beget spirit as flesh begets flesh so that our spirits are the result or combination of the spirits of our ancestors just like our DNA? We know there are spirits without bodies looking for people to inhabit ...how do this figure into who we are and our eternal destiny?
We need to know more about "spirits" ours and others.
Well hopefully you found something in all this to comment on...Lol!
If God determines to woo us with the Holy Spirit, and if God determines our environment, genetics and our spirit then even though we have free will I would say the deck has been stacked so that there is only one outcome for any given individual.
Unless of course our spirit doesn't come from God the same way as Adams' but is instead the product of Adam snd Eve's spirit and who knows what other spirits?
We know from Scripture a body can house more than one spirit, when a evil spirit is housed within a body does it have a affect on its offspring?
Yes, I am aware that I am talking to myself....glad you posted Chevy, least I know Harold Camping wasn't right!...I'd be a little worried otherwise...lol!
:ROFL:
Okay, I'm just going to put down a few more thoughts before I forget them:
When God created everything, at the end of everyday the Bible says : "And He saw that it was good"
It was a evil influence from outside that corrupted what God created as good.
If our spirits come directly from God as Adams' did; then they would be good and we would start out as good? Yet the Bible is clear; we are conceived in sin, brought forth into corruption.
*I am beginning to think we are not who we think we are*
Romans 8 says creation was subjected to frustration so that the sons of God would be revealed.
So was creation after it was corrupted from the outside subjected to frustration to weed out the corrupt and reveal those who belong to God. This would suggest that we belong to God or not at birth by being a product of the spirit we are born with.
Oh, my....I wonder if I am going to far with all of this? Yet where have I made a wrong turn to get here?
listening to all the reformation talk really opens the door to the evil one, and that is one of his hopes.
Romans7:7 � 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.
7:8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.
7:9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
7:10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
7:11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
7:12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
7:13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
Romans 5:12-14 ~ "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned --- for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come."
� Being the offspring of Adam did we all sin in Adam?
� "Death spread to all men"....wow it makes it sound like some kind of spiritual virus that has corrupted us all by corrupting the one we are all copied from.
� How is Adam a type of one to come?... does it mean they both received their spirits directly from God? Or does it mean Adam is the head if the physical human race, while Jesus is the head of those born again....
If we inherit a corrupted spirit from our ancestors going clear back to Adam's spirit which was corrupted by sin and passed on down to us; this would explain why we need to be born again with a New Spirit.
It would seem that Jesus' work on the cross was a type of vaccine, killing that which corrupted the spirit of man. Yet even after this corruption is killed off by the vaccine we are still dead because we have already been killed by it. We must be raised to life.....Enter the Holy Spirit to do this very thing!
This also explains why the Bible can say Jesus died for all men....the vaccine is available to all yet some refuse, some accept but refuse the Holy Spirit and remain dead, therefore are re-infected. These are those who accept the forgiveness and love of Jesus yet continue to work for salvation by keeping the law and those who take the Grace of God as a license to sin.
The question remains : What is it that determines how we choose?
The human race has been corrupted so that we die, the symptom is physical death, the cause is spiritual death which came through sin insipired by Satan.
Instead of trying to hold onto this physical life and denying the cause of our symptoms we need to just let go of this life and die already and go to God for new Spiritual life and trust him for a glorified body.
Again what is it that makes some run after this and others run away?
� Again what is it that makes some run after GOD and others run away?
I have currently have five choices before me :
1) Reformation theology is correct about unconditional election...God just chooses (for reasons known only to Him) to save some.
2) God has Created all things good, however a enemy has brought in corruption and God just lets things run their course and for reasons only known to Him; some choose him and some don't.
3) This is a hybrid of 1 and 2. In other words God lets things run their course, yet manipulates things and occasionally supernaturally steps in for reasons only known to him.
4) God planted good seed ie: the spirits of Adam and Eve. Satan corrupted the offspring of Adam by interjecting his own seed in to the human race. As in cross breeding the offspring may take predominantly the traits of one breed or the other, meaning there would be sons if God and sons of the evil one. However more often than not the resulting offspring takes traits from both parents which would make it difficult to separate whose children they really are, ie: which parent will they take after. Therefore this could be what this is all about: Seperating sheep from goats, wheat from tares, good fish from bad fish.
5) God is still in the process of creating taking Mankind through a type of spiritual evolution, through the process of natural selection some make and others don't.
