Mamaz,
Show me where in the scriptures we see that Jesus was able to sin please. Christ came to live as man to lay His life down for His sheep.. He was the first to preach the Gospel. This was His reason for being here and becoming a man. He was tempted in every way that men are but He is and was the Only one without sin. Why is that? Is it because He was man? No it was because He is God. Show me where Jesus was tempted by the lust of His flesh as Paul shows us men are tempted by.
The very statement that Christ became man, that Christ was man in all respects encludes the ability to sin. The fact that He did not sin is the very fact that makes Him the Savior of man. If Christ could not sin, He is worthless, because He did not overcome sin, He would have been unable to fulfill the law. Satan tempted Jesus for real. This was not a stage act.
Read these temptations carefully. Reformed theology glosses over the most profound aspects of who Christ is and what He accomplished for man.
this very statement goes right to the heart of your whole theology. We are not even speaking of God, but Christ who is both God and man. It is the man part, the Human Nature of Christ that had the capablity of sin. The fact that Christ was able to fully submit His human will to the Divine will to be without sin is what makes Him who He is as the Incarnate Christ. You eliminate any aspect of man from Christ, Christ becomes meaningless for man. Because He was not really one of us, He was ONLY God. It is precisely why your whole theology regarding the will of man is the antithesis of Scripture. You take away the one thing that makes man a human being and is precisely the instrument by which man is being healed from sin in this life.
You may want to read scripture to a different level. For Christ was not born of men. He was born of God. He is God. All other men are born of men. Jesus was conceived not of the flesh but of the Holy Spirit.
Scripture says He was born of a women to be more precise. He may have been conceived by the Holy Spirit, but was born of flesh.
Once again your theology nullifies Christ as to who He really was, the God/Man. You keep Him as ONLY God. He never became man, just looked like a man. An image of a man. Totally and completely unscriptural.
Isn't any wonder that you would of necessity not believe God assumed our human natures when He, in your view, never was a man in the first place. But Christ did become man, dispite your interpretation. It was that Resurrection of our human natures in the Body of Christ that provides life to man. Death, physical death by Adam, life, physical life by Christ A perfect equation. No one escaped death by Adam, and no one will escape life by Christ. Christ lost none, John6:39. The pronoun "it" in that verse is referencing OUR human natures, He will raise IT in the last day. No exclusions.
IF this were true then He would not have had to be conceived of the Holy Spirit. He would just have had to be born as John the baptist was. But that is not the case with Christ.
Then you run to the very opposite extreme. Now you make Christ ONLY man, which if that were true, then any human being could save himself. But Scripture is quite clear that man cannot save Himself. Man can neither give himself life, that is raise himself from the grave, and could not atone of his own sin.
The answer was Christ, the God/man. Not ONLY God and NOT only man, but have BOTH THE DIVINE NATURE OF GOD AND THE HUMAN NATURE OF MAN. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of Mary, flesh. That is the mystery of the Incarnation. Christ the Savior of man, of the world.
My statement:....It is the essence of man. It is what makes man a human being and not an animal or any other created thing. Christ was tempted by the flesh just as we are.
Your response:...
Scripture to prove this please.
Satan tempting Christ, Matt 4:1-12 and Luke 4:11-13. Do you really think that this was just a friendly little chat that Jesus had with Satan?
Because we are human we can rise from the dead? Men cannot rise from the dead of thier own human accord. Jesus rose from the dead for a reason and it is not because He was Human.
Your statements come from totally misunderstanding of who is the Christ.
Man cannot raise himself from the dead, WHICH IS THE REASON THAT CHRIST WAS NEEDED. If man could save himself from death, from the fall, we would not need Christ. But Christ became man, so that we could be healed, part of that healing was to be given life, existance which was lost in the fall due to the condemnation of death to Adam. II Cor 4:14 and Rom 8:11 attest to this very fact.
Christ rose from the dead because He is the Giver of Life. He not only created us, but then also redeemed us from death, gave Life to man again. This LiFE is a physical life. Our spiritual life is a relational, or spiritual one. Because of physical death to Adam, God could not have a spiritual relationship with man for an eternity. Man would simply dissolve into nothingness as a mortal after a short terminal temporal life. Man, after the fall, NEEDED LIFE, and eternal existance once again, so that God could fulfil His purpose with man, which was to have a spiritual union for an eternity.
My Statement:....Christ is the first born of the dead, not some dead, not elected dead, or believers who died, but the dead, ALL DEAD. That is why death came from Adam and life came from Christ. Adam gave us our mortal natures, our fallen natues and Christ gives us our immortal natures.
Your response:...
Only those whom have the Spirit of Christ are Christs. Those who do ot have not part with him.
But this does not even address my statement. I am speaking about Christ's physcial resurrection and man's physical resurrection from death. Raising our mortal natures to life, immortalty.
Your response deals with man's spritual response to that Work of Christ whereby we enter into a spiritual union and communion with Christ. All men can have this union. All men were created to have this union, ALL men died, through the condemnation of Adam, and ALL men were restored to that capability, ability to have union and communion with Christ.
We enter by faith, and are saved by faith. Christ did not save our souls on the Cross. We were specifically created to do that before the fall. This union is what was lost BECAUSE of the fall. Christ did not save us from union, but to have union.
Once must know the truth of sin before one can understand the truth of Why Christ had to lay His life down for HIS sheep. Not all are His sheep.
He laid down His LIfe for THE SHEEP, so that those that believed could BECOME HIS SHEEP. Unless He saved the sheep, one cannot have a single His Sheep. You cannot have the latter without the former. It is why Christ was necessary, to restore the ability to have a spiritual relationship for an eternity to begin in the now.
God's intent is to have union with ALL MEN. That is why He created All MEN WITH A SOUL, IN HIS IMAGE. Man was created, was given the obligation to choose a relationship with God. Adam did and so must we. We are no different than Adam as a human being relative to that choice.
Sin is the least of the problems of man. If Christ only solved the problem of sin, we would still be mortal and dead. Our LIFE, our physical existance would cease upon our temporal demise. There is no eternity if Christ did not give LIFE to the WORLD. Sin is the result of being dead, being mortal. Death must be conquered, and that is precisely what Christ did. He rose from the dead, defeating death by death. Raising man's mortal nature to LIFE, immortality, an eternal existance.
A faith, or spiritual relationship cannot give man eternal life. Christ is the ONLY one who did it by His resurrection of our mortal natures, since it was with our nature that He rose from the dead. And then became glorified as well and appeared to the Apostles by entering the room not using the door.
Our nature is to sin. We never have to train our children to sin. It comes naturally to them. Scripture shows us that there is none (not some) but none that are righteous.. That there is none who do good. That the natural man cannot understand the things of God for they are Spiritually dead..Men sin because they are sinners. Men to not become sinners because they sin.
That is absolutely correct that our nature is to sin. But our natures are NOT sin. We don't need to train our children because they are mortal, dead, under the influence of the flesh, the passions. And you are right that none are righteous, all are under sin. No man is without sin. It is the easist thing we can possibly do, is sin.
Then you move to this notion of natural man cannot understand. It has nothing to do with what we are discussing. It has to to with believers who are now in a spiritual union with Christ.
Man sins because he is fallen, mortal. We are sinners because we sin. Our natures are not sin. We are not born sinners. An impossibility since a baby upon birth has not done anything. Sin is something we do, thus once we do it, we can call ourselves sinners.
This goes right back to the Incarnation and understanding Who Christ is and the mystery of the Incarnation. Our natures could not possibly be sin if Christ assumed our natures. He would be sin right from the beginning. Sin is what we do, not first of all what we are. We become sinners by doing sin. Which is why we can curb sin. We do not need to sin. We can control sin. But that is dealing with the spiritual relationship we have with Christ. With the Help of the Holy Spirit we can sin less, we are able to control sin, but when we do sin we can also seek forgiveness of those sins and remain in that spiritual relationship.
We cannot change our nature. This is why one must be born again. Not of the will of man but of the Spirit of God.
wrong nature. We are on the physical nature topic, Your comment is speaking about our spiritual nature (relationship) with Christ. Being born again is a beginning point of that relationship, It is the renewal of a relationship for which we were created as human beings, but lost through Adam in the fall. Now that the fall has been corrected, an eternal existance given to all men, a person can believe in this Work of Christ, and by so doing, that faith justifies us and we enter into the relationship which was the purpose of Christ dying for us. To restore the possibility of that relationship for which we were created to be in with God.