Strictly speaking, yes. That says nothing about whether man can keep the law perfectly. Only that if he were able to, he would be just before God.So Lutherans subscribe to salvations by works alone? That’s news to me
Hi TriuneUnity,
That’s okay, crazzeto. I always double check anyway. Yes, outside of Christ, if you keep the law perfectly, you would be just in the sight of God, much the same way Adam was up until he broke the law. But any doctrine like that can never stand alone and you’d have to figure in that man after the fall is unable to keep the law, etc.
Wow, that’s a crazy interpretation of Luthers comment “I wish I had written with out all works, of all laws”… No wonder you’re confused about the fundamental nature of man if you think man has no need of Christ for salvation.
Mainly the sections that address the will and state of man in Adam. The canons of that council were meant to counter both Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. An example would be: CANON 1. If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was “changed for the worse” through the offense of Adam’s sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20); and, “Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?” (Rom. 6:126); and, “For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (2 Pet. 2:19).
Of course he does, crazzeto. You’re taking my comment out of context. You asked is there anything man can do to enter heaven. I said yes, he can keep the law perfectly.
I clarified with outside of Christ… So then you retract your statement, we all need the blood of Christ to be saved…
Yes, because man is unable to keep God’s law, Christ had to make atonement.
We did not change our fundamental nature. God pronounced the curse of physical and spiritual death upon man as a result of man’s disobedience. That is, it is as a result of man’s rebellion against God’s commandment. The new nature, regeneration, is also something that God gives to man as a result of the obedience of Christ on our behalf. So, man doesn’t change his nature in rebirth, either.
It means that what Adam suffered as a result of the fall, we also suffer because we share in his guilt. That is, the canons especially reject the notion that man is born sinless, which is what Pelagianism teaches. It also rejects the Semi-Pelagian notion that man cooperates with grace in regeneration. Changed for the worse would mean this statement from the canons: “If anyone asserts that Adam’s sin affected him alone and not his descendants also, or at least if he declares that it is only the death of the body which is the punishment for sin, and not also that sin, which is the death of the soul.”
But according you we did, our nature used to be good, then we disobeyed and we changed our nature to evil…
No. Our act of rebellion set in motion the previously announced curse of God upon mankind. The punishment of that curse was spiritual and physical death, and so, that is what we suffer.
Triune, your entire spiritual outlook depends upon the nature of man being fundamentally changed… This is a propisition which is fundamentally opposed to scripture, the nature of creation doesn’t change. Lucifer was a murderer from the start, where as man was very good. We may be weakened, but we are still very good which is why we are being saved and why God promised a saviour from the start.
It depends on how you are defining completely corrupted. We are totally depraved in the sense that all of our faculties are affected by sin. Our mind, our will, our emotions, our bodies. We are enslaved to our sinful nature. Everything that we do is driven by that sinful nature. Everything that we do will be tainted by the sin that infects us. Wrong motivations, a lack of faith in God when we do things which we would consider good works, etc. We are capable of performing righteous actions from a civil or communal standpoint. Care for the poor, better governments, less anarchy, medical research, etc. All of these are still possible because we retain the image of God to that degree.
Lucifer was a murderer from the start. So your argument is that God created Lucifer evil?
God created everything perfect, the difference is the Angels had their choice from the start with full knowlege of everything that would happen. From the start, Lucifer decided he wanted to be like God, if not just be God… His mistake…
So did Adam. He knew full well what the consequences of his actions would be before he took them.