Results 1 - 4 of 4
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Paul's evil practices Pre or PostJesus | Rom 7:19 | hobbs | 169173 | ||
Hi Tim! Please take a look at an article I am perusing. It actually has me revisiting doctrine that I was taking for granted. You will find it at http://founders.org/FJ02/article1_fr.html John |
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2 | Paul's evil practices Pre or PostJesus | Rom 7:19 | Morant61 | 169175 | ||
Greetings John! I wasn't impressed my friend! :-( Allow me to demonstrate why I wasn't impressed. First of all, the article almost completely ignores every verse I have been citing. It does refer once to Romans 6:6. Here is what it says. "How can this be? Rom. 6:6 explains: "Our old man was crucified with Christ, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin." The two-nature view above tends to say that the Old Man is only judicially dead, that he still exists, and must be reckoned as crucified daily by faith. But Paul states that our Old Man (our former pre-Christian nature) dominated by sin and hostility to God and His Law, has been done away with through the work of the cross and its application to us by the Holy Spirit in the new birth. Now the Christian is a New Man: "If any man is in Christ, he is [not has] a new creature (2 Cor. 5:17). "Since you have laid aside the old man with its evil practices, and have put on the new man who is being renewed . . . ." (Col. 3:9-10). No longer are Christians slaves to sin as when they were Old Men. Now they are New Men, dominated by slavery to God and grace and righteousness and delight in his Law. The Old Man is dead.[4] Our slavery to sin is broken. However, the sins which once dominated us remain in the imperfect New Man." So, I am not a slave like when I was the Old Man, but the New Man is still a slave? :-( Christ killed the old man, but left the sin? This seems like double speak to me. Secondly, the article makes the same mistake that many do when describing the slave to sin in Rom. 7:14-25. It speaks of carnality and immaturity, and human experience. However, Rom. 7:14-25 doesn't say, "I fail more often than I want or should." It doesn't describe an immature believer. The person in Rom. 7:14-25 NEVER DOES GOOD, not once. He always fails. Is that true of our experience? Is it true to the description of a Christian in Rom. 6 and 8? No! The article concludes that sin will always be a part of our existence, we will never be free of it. Is this what Rom. 6 and 8 says? I do not understand why we can't simply take what Scriptures says at face value! It says that we are no longer slaves to sin. This view says that God has started to set us free, but has left the job unfinished. :-( Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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3 | Paul's evil practices Pre or PostJesus | Rom 7:19 | hobbs | 169195 | ||
Hi Tim, forgive me if you think that I don't take the Scriptures at face value. I really do. I also strive to understand the context. My biggest roadblock is my own fealty to the doctrines I have learned and love. The tendecy is to read with spectacles shaded with my presuppositions. I pray that the Holy Spirit will grant me fresh eyes when I approch the Word of God; that I may read it as if it were the first time. In my estimation, our disagreement hangs on the tense in which Rom 7:14-25 was written. If it is past tense it is the unregenerate Paul speaking of his old nature. On the other hand, if it is the present tense it is the regenerate Paul speaking of his failures as a new creature. What the article in question did point out was greatly helpful to me, because I had'nt noticed for myself. The following is from Malone's article "The Man in Roman's 7" In Rom. 7:7-13, Paul uses the first person, past tense to recount his pre-conversion state. Before conversion, he was blameless as a law-keeper in his own eyes and before his countrymen (Phil. 3:6). However, when the Tenth Commandment came to his conscience, "Thou shalt not covet," it killed Paul before God. It stirred up his heart, revealed coveting before God, and killed his self-righteous soul sometime before (or when) he looked into the righteous face of Christ on the Damascus road. Rom. 7:7-13 perfectly parallels Paul's past tense description of every Christian's pre-conversion state in 7:5: "For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body, to bear fruit for death." In Paul's unconverted state, God took the Sword of His Holy Law and pierced his heart, unleashing all manner of filth and degradation which killed him before God. There was nothing wrong with the Law. Paul was the problem. In Rom. 7:14-8:4, Paul moves to the first person, present tense. This is a perfect parallel to the shift from the past tense in 7:5 to the present in 7:6: "But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter." The shift from the past pre-converted state of every believer in 7:5 to the present converted state in 7:6 is illustrated by Paul's personal experience in 7:7-13 and 7:14-8:4 respectively. The man of 7:14-8:4 is described in the first person, present tense. He is Paul as a Christian. If you wish to dicuss this issue further I would be happy to oblige. I've learned much as a result of it. If you prefer to move on, that would be fine with me also. We could revist rom 6:6 and 7:14...I have'nt had the time to really study them and how they relate to the topic at hand. God Bless brother Tim, John |
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4 | Paul's evil practices Pre or PostJesus | Rom 7:19 | Morant61 | 169217 | ||
Greetings John! Thanks for the responses my friend! Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. I don't want to beat a dead horse, so just allow me to close this discussion with a couple of brief comments about the present tense in Rom. 7. I disagree with the article for two main reasons. 1) First of all, the historical present is a well recognized use of the present tense in the Greek language. To say that Rom. 7:14-25 could be an example of an historical present is not a stretch or special pleading. It is an appeal to a very familiar use of the present tense. 2) Secondly, I disagree with article because the verses I have been citing are also in the present tense. For example, Rom. 6:6 - "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—". Here, 'no longer slaves' is in the present tense. Which of course bring us back to my original question, 'How can Paul say in chapter 6 that believers are no longer slaves to sin, but then say in chapter 7 that believers are slaves to sin?" This is what I was referring to when I mentioned taking Scriptures at face value. We can't simply ignore chapter six and accept chapter seven. We can't accept a theory that makes chapter seven true, but chapter six false. Well, I have to run. My daughter is due to give birth any time now. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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