I recently taught a class in which the various tenets of a major religious philosophy came up for discussion. After a lengthy explanation of only one of those items, one of the class members said to me, “It must take a theologian to make something that is so simple so complicated.” The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with her. Just a little common sense makes them all sound ridiculous.
Have you heard that we are all born in sin, totally depraved and unable to do anything good? Yes, I can take some passages out of context and completely apart from the rest of the teaching of scriptures and make them say anything I want them to say too. So? Common sense makes it plain that this is a ploy to blame our sins on God. After all, He is the one who made us, who created us the way He did.
Now just exactly how did God create man? He made us in his own image! Now tell me I am completely and totally depraved and unable to do anything good. That is not only ridiculous, but patently irreverent and probably sacrilegious as well, if I am indeed made in the image of God.
But that doctrine does do this for me: it takes the blame off of me when I sin. It makes my sins completely and utterly God’s fault for making me that way. Let me know if you are willing to be the one who stands before Him and tries out that excuse.
The Bible teaches that there was a time when I was without sin, Rom 7:9. What could that possibly be but childhood, before I was unable to recognize a consciousness of sin? At that point, “Sin revived and I died [spiritually].” So much for “born in sin.”
Then there are passages galore that tell us that sinning is our choice. “Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies,” Rom 6:12. “God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability but will with the temptation provide the way of escape,” 1 Cor 10:13. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” James 4:7. My class easily came up with a dozen more telling us that sin is not inevitable for the Christian, the one who now has the help of Christ, that he now has a choice. That means we do not have to sin--the blame is ours, not God’s, not the church’s, not our parents’, not society’s—not even Adam’s.
And it certainly makes wonderful and obvious sense that someone created in the image of God was not only created “very good,” Gen 1:31, but also has the power to choose between right and wrong. The problem comes not because we have no choice, but when we make the wrong choice. You have to work pretty hard to complicate that.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, Gen 1:26.
Behold, this only have I found: that God made man upright, Eccl 7:29.
"'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'” Acts 17:28.
Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, Eph 4:24.
Dene Ward
Have you heard that we are all born in sin, totally depraved and unable to do anything good? Yes, I can take some passages out of context and completely apart from the rest of the teaching of scriptures and make them say anything I want them to say too. So? Common sense makes it plain that this is a ploy to blame our sins on God. After all, He is the one who made us, who created us the way He did.
Now just exactly how did God create man? He made us in his own image! Now tell me I am completely and totally depraved and unable to do anything good. That is not only ridiculous, but patently irreverent and probably sacrilegious as well, if I am indeed made in the image of God.
But that doctrine does do this for me: it takes the blame off of me when I sin. It makes my sins completely and utterly God’s fault for making me that way. Let me know if you are willing to be the one who stands before Him and tries out that excuse.
The Bible teaches that there was a time when I was without sin, Rom 7:9. What could that possibly be but childhood, before I was unable to recognize a consciousness of sin? At that point, “Sin revived and I died [spiritually].” So much for “born in sin.”
Then there are passages galore that tell us that sinning is our choice. “Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies,” Rom 6:12. “God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability but will with the temptation provide the way of escape,” 1 Cor 10:13. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” James 4:7. My class easily came up with a dozen more telling us that sin is not inevitable for the Christian, the one who now has the help of Christ, that he now has a choice. That means we do not have to sin--the blame is ours, not God’s, not the church’s, not our parents’, not society’s—not even Adam’s.
And it certainly makes wonderful and obvious sense that someone created in the image of God was not only created “very good,” Gen 1:31, but also has the power to choose between right and wrong. The problem comes not because we have no choice, but when we make the wrong choice. You have to work pretty hard to complicate that.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, Gen 1:26.
Behold, this only have I found: that God made man upright, Eccl 7:29.
"'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'” Acts 17:28.
Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, Eph 4:24.
Dene Ward
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