More on the "Common Fall"

[InChristAlways]

John 9:38 Then he said, "Lord, I believe!" And he worshiped Him. 39 And Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind." 40 Then [some] of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, "Are we blind also?" 41 Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains.

Christ is telling the Pharisees that being blind equals the need for Christ to lead them. But in their pride and self sufficiency, they increased the gravity of their sin of unbelief. So they are not believing in God, they are believing in themselves.

By exclaiming that "We see" is admitting their pride. They think they see, but they are actually blind and not enlightened to the truth of Christ

Hi lov. Thanks for responding. Pride and haughty were pretty serious offences in God's eyes it seems. And this message was also to them:

Matt 23:38 "See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 "for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed [is] He who comes in the name of the LORD!' "

Leviticus 26:18 ' And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. 19 I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.

Obadiah 1:3 The pride of your heart has deceived you, [You] who dwell in the clefts of the rock, Whose habitation is high; [You] who say in your heart, 'Who will bring me down to the ground?'

1 Tim 3:5 (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); 6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the [same] condemnation as the devil.

[Robert R. Higby]

LJ:

And at what point in someones life do they 'become' a seed of Satan? Is this like reverse regeneration?

A fair question. No, it is NOT reverse regeneration--a thousand times no! The devil was a liar and murderer from the beginning, from his first moment of consciousness. As is the devil, so are ALL of his children--both spirit and human. The seed of eternal sin is different from the seed of temporal sin from day one.

The 'common clay' referred to by Paul in Rom. 9 is simply human existence that is created from the dust of the ground. In no way does it refer to 'common sin'. In Paul's analogy--God creates some of the dust to eternal life and others of the dust to eternal punishment--without even considering sin as a factor in his decision. It is dual election before either had done good OR BAD of any sort. There is no evil in clay; that is the point.

The only truth to a common fall is that all (excepting Christ) are conceived in iniquity. The issue here is whether all are conceived in the same substance and essence of iniquity. Is there a distinction between temporal evil (which is destined to be overcome by God's miracle of regeneration) and unstoppable or eternal sin which cannot be reversed even by God--due to his supralapsarian decree and corresponding creation of spirits in that type of evil. Is his will done on earth as it is decreed in heaven?

[Mickey]

Bob, I actually asked that question in response to Joe's comment about the reprobate:

"They BECOME seeds of satan. They are not created as seeds of Satan."

So I responded with: "And at what point in someones life do they 'become' a seed of Satan? Is this like reverse regeneration?"

The reason I asked this question is because it can't be answered. People becoming seeds of Satan? Maybe I miss understood the statement?

What seems logical to me and lines up with scriptureis that God devised a plan to create two kingdoms that would be totally and utterly under His complete and absolute control. Nothing would happen apart from Him causing it. In this plan a covenant was established in the Godhead that a people would be created for mercy and another for damnation both parts giving God alone the glory. It was decided that a man would be created and from him a woman and from those two; the human race would come. Biologically every person that has ever existed came from Adam. But it was never intended that life be lived out for eternity in the flesh as it was in the garden and as it is today. The elect were are created to live and walk with God for eternity and the reprobate were created as an example to the elect of what they could have been if God had chosen to make them that way. For this we praise Him for His grace and mercy in Christ.

Now, the spiritual condition or nature of man is given to each individual according to God's decree. It is not a biological process that is passed on genetically. If we are one of Christ’s sheep we were brought into this world for the sole purpose of mercy and grace. With this we have the assurance that God's love has always favored us and His grace and mercy have guided our steps all our lives even while we were at enmity with Him in our minds. If we are a reprobate we have Christ’s words that tell us we are a child of Satan. Paul’s words: a vessel of wrath in which God endures their existence. We can know that the Child of the devil has always been hated by God and His wrath has always abided on them. Any perceived good towards them we know in realty is judgment.

The difference between the not-yet-regenerate elect and the reprobate is the kingdom they belong to. The elect experience in every way what the reprobate does before they are regenerated. They hate God, desire the things of the flesh, they hate His Law or they use it to promote their lies and manipulate the weak. The elect are guilty of all these things. Only their sin is atoned for and they are loved dearly by their Father. But they are not of the Devil for Christ says that those whose father is the Devil cannot here His words and do not believe. It is these that we say are the seed of the Devil(Gen 3:15). Their representative then is the Devil. The Devil represents those whose sin is not atoned for and are kept in darkness forever. The elect’s representative is Adam whose sin was atoned for by Christ--the second Adam--and who was converted to the truth.

I say as Bob said that because of the 'fixed' or 'irreversible' decree of God that some are reprobate and some are elect, a difference exists. To what degree I do not know.

[Mickey]

I didn't know Bob had posted this and because it completes my thoughts, I thought I would tag my last post with it. Well put Bob!

We now come to the last discussion, which is the matter of two seeds of evil—the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. The promised seed of the woman is ultimately Jesus Christ. However, the culmination of the prophecy in him is not all that is talked about. There is a long historical enmity between the two seeds which spans the time between the original curse and the death of the promised Messiah.

‘Seed’ in this instance cannot mean pure biological descent, though it includes an element of that. All of humankind, both elect and reprobate, are biologically descended from Eve. Yet there are two separate seeds promised in Gen. 3:15. This introduces a spiritual element. As the serpent was not merely physical but also the habitation of Satan, even so a large portion of mankind would be created in his likeness. They were to appear biologically as humans--but spiritually they would be snakes: not human but devil. They would all be the devil’s children, created in an iniquity that is beyond redemption. Since God purposed from eternity to create them for the sole purpose of glorifying himself in their damnation, there would be no capability of righteousness in them.