God's character and our accountability?

visualreferences said:

I've been thinking about predestination and God's sovereignty a lot lately and I've been wondering... could man keep God's law? Was Christ sent to do it for us because we could not, or because we just don't? If we can - who's done it? And if no one, how do we know we can? If we can't...well, this can't be the case.. or we could not be accountable. How could be all be deserving of hell for not doing something we couldn't possibly do? I thought the idea was that Christ died for our sins we WERE accountable for, and are no longer. The question is...how were we accountable? We must have been...because God could not punish us for something we are not responsible for - such an injustice is not in His character.

We must have been. The question is.... how?

It's a lot easier if you believe in some measure of free will but I don't see how anyone who believes that Bible is the Word of God can deny predestination and God's sovereignty.


Thanks in advance for any ideas you can offer!

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To put it simply - no, just because man "ought" to keep God's law doesn't mean he "can" keep God's law.

Justification is more than Christ dying on the cross for us - it also includes Him living the life we never can - a life free from sin.

edie

edb19 said:

To put it simply - no, just because man "ought" to keep God's law doesn't mean he "can" keep God's law.

Justification is more than Christ dying on the cross for us - it also includes Him living the life we never can - a life free from sin.

edie

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I agree. Even though God through Jesus Christ already died for our sins and our sins have been forgiven. At the same time, we can never have a human life free from sin. Not long ago, I have been thinking about this and thought about my years of struggling with sin. I have learned that by holiness does not mean I will be sinless but I can be blameless. My life as a Christian takes work and requires the commitment of my heart, mind and body. After our salvation, as Christians, we are to (1 Peter 1: 13 - 16)

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

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Scriptures says that we (christians) are accountable for our actions. (John 3:18) In 1 Corinthians 2:6, “but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world....” made me think. Wisdom by definition means quality of being wise; power of judging rightly and following the soundest course of action, based on knowledge, experience and understanding. We are to discern between right and wrong Hebrews 5:14 (New Living Translation) "Solid food is for those who are mature, who have trained themselves to recognize the difference between right and wrong and then do what is right."

Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."--Matt. 26:41.

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You have placed out-of-perspective value on volition.

We are responsible by the simple fact that we ourselves make those decisions.

Just because God is "unfair", doesn't necessarily means He's unjust.
Mercy trumps justice, but there could BE no mercy without justice.

Our "decider" has been rendered unfit for spiritual discernment or desire since The Fall. It takes the merciful intervention of divine grace to impart a spiritual life to us, so that we recognize our reason for being, & so we even desire to know what the reason is. In the words of "The Bard":

"2B, or not 2B... which is my apartment?"

visualreferences said:

Thanks for the responses. I'd like to hear more.

How are we responsible, and accountable, if not by our decisions?

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Even when we never intended to sin but we do sin due to our sinful nature. All God require of us is to pray to Him daily or hourly or however frequently, ask for forgiveness and ask for guidance to avoid the mistake again. God will put His children into various life's experiences as spiritual training. No matter what we do, God will direct us if we aware of it or not. God will always lead us to His providential circumstances for our own good, in His will and for His glory. The key, God wants our hearts. As believers of Jesus Christ, we should not fear of facing up our failures, guilt and sin because Jesus is in us. We just need to have a personal relationship with Jesus by reading the scriptures and pray faithfully from our hearts. The first step to clean out our hearts is to admit that we are the one who is responsible for our own sins (intentional and non-intentional).

I like this quote:

"God goes right for the heart. It is where He meets us. It is where He desires that the flame of an intimate, life-changing relationship with Him be fanned into a great source of spiritual heat and light. He desperately seeks to dwell with us at the core." Joseph M. Stowell (Fan the Flame)

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We are forgiven by His Grace. Grace means undeserved love and forgiveness that we can go to God and pray. We need to have "grace" rooted in our hearts that as long as we repent our sins daily and talk with Him daily, God will be with us, give us internal spiritual peace and guide us through our circumstances.

Matthew 22:36-38 (New International Version)
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment.

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About Obeying the Ten Commandments. We are to LOVE God and Others. My problem with legalism is that it can't produce a pure heart. Rules do not protect us from sin because rules are basically guidelines that will help you avoid sinning. Jesus had a problem with the pharisees who were very legalists and they had about 613 rules to protect God's commandments. Therefore, Legalism is: "It's pretending to be holy without really being holy". We are under Grace and that we are to obey God and follow His Word (the Bible). God wants a pure heart from us and He does not need to give us rules in order for our hearts to be pure. Jesus Christ forgave our sins and all God wants us to do is be Christ-like. Jesus said in Matthew 5:8 "God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God." God wants our hearts more than He want us to follow rules. If we give our hearts to God, then we will know what is sinful and what is not sinful.

visualreferences said:

I've been thinking about predestination and God's sovereignty a lot lately and I've been wondering... could man keep God's law? Was Christ sent to do it for us because we could not, or because we just don't? If we can - who's done it? And if no one, how do we know we can? If we can't...well, this can't be the case.. or we could not be accountable. How could all be deserving of hell for not doing something we couldn't possibly do? I thought the idea was that Christ died for our sins we WERE accountable for, and are no longer. The question is...how were we accountable? We must have been...because God could not punish us for something we are not responsible for - such an injustice is not in His character.

We must have been. The question is.... how?

It's a lot easier if you believe in some measure of free will but I don't see how anyone who believes that Bible is the Word of God can deny predestination and God's sovereignty.


Thanks in advance for any ideas you can offer!

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We are responsibele to do what God commands because we are His creatures. He made us and has every right to tell us what to do. That in no wise means we are able to do it. We lost our ability to obey God when Adam fell. Responsibility has nothing to do with ability. We cannot keep the law. the Law is holy and perfect and we fall far short. The purpose of the Law is to show us our need of Christ. Gal. 3:19-25

Christ came to keep the Law in our place the same as He came to die in our place. We are made the righteousness of God in Him in the same manner He was made sin. 2Cor. 5:21 By a sovereign act of imputation God caused the guilt of all the elect to meet on Christ and by the same sort of act causes the perfect righteousness of Christ to be ours. We are justified by both the death and righteousness of Christ. His blood put away our sin and His righteousness makes us acceptable to God. So that now we can come boldly unto the throne of grace crying Abba Father.

Psa. 85:10 says that mercy and truth are met together and righteousness and peace have kissed each other. That can only happen in Christ. Truth demands a just penalty for sin, death, mercy says let them go. In Christ they have met together. Righteousness says the sinner must be punished, peace says they have been in the subsitiute.

Justice and fairness would require that we be damned forever if it is thought to be the way natural justice works. But the justice of God isn't like man's. He decides what is just and right. Prov. 17:15 says that he that justifies the wicked and condemns the just are an abomination to the Lord. But that is exactly what God did in Christ. And it was right for Him too do so. He has the right to impute guilt to an innocent but man doesn't. Especially if that innocent takes the guilt willingly. That is what Christ did.

Your questions are the essence of the Gospel. Unless you get this right you will build everything on it wrong. It is the foundation on which the whole of Christian thought is built. It is the Gospel that Paul preached. 1Cor. 15:1-4.

If I can I wil do my utmost to help you to understasnd this essential truth. Ron.

Man cannot keep the commandments of God: only Jesus THROUGH that person can follow God's commandments. Humans are completely deprived and useless without our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

There is none that seeketh after God. Rom 3:11

It is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.Phil 2:13

In reading in The Sovereignty of God by AW Pink, the chapter on 'God's Sovereignty and the Human Will' it become ever so much clearer! God is sovereign and man is responsible!

visualreferences said:

This doesn't make any sense to me - at all. To be responsible, or accountable for something, one must be the cause of that thing and to be the cause of the thing one must have the ability to do so. We are not responsible for the Creation, we did not cause it, our Creator did.

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It doesn't make sense because I did a poor job of expalning it. I will try to do better. First we must look at our responsibility to God as His creatures. When God created Adam he was responsible to God to obey Him. He was created as both our father, as we all come from him, and as our federal head. We were in Him in both a natural and representative way. When he sinned we all sinned in him. Rom. 5:12-19, 1Cor. 15:21,22. When he rebelled we rebelled. Spiritual death was the result of that rebellion and it was passed to us in Adam. Physical death came later but God kept His word when He said that in the day you eat you will die. Adam, and us in him, died that day and lost any ability to obey God apart from God doing a regenerative work in him and us.
So then we are responsible to God as His creatures,who were made a little lower than the angels and in the image of God, to obey but in our fatherAdam we lost that ability. That does not negate our responsibility. We are still His creatures and we are still required to obey simply because it is right that we should. Ability was lost in Adam but responsibility remains.

Add to that our willfull disobedience in every aspect of our lives. We not only sinned in Adam but we do so because we want to. Our hearts are evil and decietful . Jer. 17:9 Sin comes from an evil heart. Matt. 15:19 Read Rom. 3 for an apt description of man and sin. Not only can we not seek God but we will not seek God.

God's strict unbending justice demands satisfaction. We are resonsible for our sin in Adam as our federal head and representative, in our nature as creatures to obey and in our own rebellion. So that even though we are unable to obey because of sin we still ought to and it is right that we should. Our resonsibibiliy lies in what is rightfully due to God and is not established by our ability.

Thank you, I appreciate it - it's not easy but I think it's very important.

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Again, I hope that helps. If you still need more I will do my best. Ron

visualreferences said:

So for the ability to have been lost, he must have had it. Adam had the ability and the free will to choose God's will but just chose not to? God foresaw what would happen to Adam but did not ordain it? Or make it so that nothing else could have happened?

Also, would you say that all of mankind is tied to one another in their sin? Do we all share in each other's sins as we do with Adam's?

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Carefull, free will is almost cussing around here

OT : Welcome to SR, nice to see you jump in with both feet!

visualreferences said:

Thanks Trying to get to the bottom of the biggest issue and I don't see myself being able to do it by discussing it with people who completely disregard certain parts of the Book - so I came here.

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I hope others much more intelligent and knowledgable than I will jump in and seek to help you understand. There are no dumb questions only dumb answers. I am a master at the latter.

visualreferences said:

God foresaw what would happen to Adam but did not ordain it? Or make it so that nothing else could have happened?

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I think that it is very important to remember the chief end of man: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We were created for the glory of God. Is God glorified in saving people? Of course! Is He glorified in damning the unregenerate? Well, yes. He created some to be vessels of honor and others to be vessels of dishonor. Thus, it was in the divine purposes of God for man to sin. He was not responsible for it (God is never to blame when men sin), but before He created the earth did He know that man would sin and fall from His grace? Absolutely. God ordaines everything. He works everything for the good of His elect (Rom. 8:28). Thus, in eternity past, long before the world was ever created, God knew that He was going to send His son to die as a propitiation for the sins of the chosen ones. It is not up to us to question why God knew that man would sin and did nothing to prevent it anymore than we can question why He chose to save some and to damn others.

Rom 9:15For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Rom 9:16So then [it is] not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
Rom 9:17For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
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Rom 9:18Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth.
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Rom 9:19Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
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Rom 9:20Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed [it], Why hast thou made me thus?
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Rom 9:21Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
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Rom 9:22[What] if God, willing to shew [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,


We were created by God and for His glory. Thus, He has the divine right to do with us as He wills. The whole purpose of the earth and her inhabitants is to bring glory to God.

visualreferences,

As far as "responsibility does not imply ability," I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but think of it in this scenario:

You borrow money from someone. Then you take all that money and squandor every last penny by living "in the fast lane" or living "the high life," so to speak. Then what? That someone comes looking for you, because you owe him a debt. Except you have no money left. That's bad news.

Responsibility does not imply ability = you have no money for the debt you owe = we do not have the moral capacity to do such things pleasing to God that would merit us salvation.

visualreferences said:

How? How is He glorified by causing Himself displeasure? Or would you say that it pleases Him to damn those who are not saved? God says, in Ezekiel, that he does not take pleasure in seeing the wicked die instead of turning from their ways and living.

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God does not cause Himself displeasure in the death of the wicked. He takes no pleasure in it and does show how insane it is to continue in rebellion but it is just and right that God should punish sin. His righteousness and justness is glorified in the death of the wicked. Also the word pleasure in the Ezek. passage I believe can be correctly rendered satisfaction. He finds no satisfaction in the death of the wicked. Their eternal torment can never satisfy God's righteous justice. That is why damnation is eternal.

Then how are we responsible if He controls it all? It's so frustrating! We're all falling to our doom and the only one with the ability to stop it is God. Why are we responsible for His choice to be gracious or not be gracious?

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We are responsible because unbelief is to call God a liar. 1John 5:10 God's gracious choice to save some is amazing in the fact that we all deserve to go to eternal torment. He was and is never under any obligation to save any. Those He leaves in their sin get exactly the reward they have been working so hard for. Christ not only said you cannot come to me but that you will not come to me. John 6:44, 5:40

You don't have the money to pay the debt... why? Because you were never given it? No. Because of a choice you made...you _did_ have ability... you may have lost it but you lost it because of a choice you made, making you responsible.

In the case of our discussion, we never had the money...

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We owe a debt of obedience to God as our Creator and it doesn't matter if we have never been give the ability to pay or not.