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Christian Clarity
Article
Objection to the Gospel of Jesus Christ #10: "If men aren't responsible for their own sin, the cross is for nothing."
Men are not responsible for their sin. Men are in no way fundamentally evil but are overcome by sin, a living adversary who is stronger than they and who has usurped all their resources in order to do its own work in the world which is not of God and is lawlessness. God explicitly, as spirit and as life calls sin lawlessness.
1 John 3:4-6 Every one that practises sin practises also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. And ye know that he has been manifested that he might take away our sins; and in him sin is not. Whoever abides in him, does not sin: whoever sins, has not seen him or known him.
Christ is spoken through by God to say that the prince of this world has no part in Jesus Christ:
John 14:29 And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it shall have come to pass ye may believe. John 14:30 I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing;
To practise sin is to be fallen as are all men and to repeatedly demonstrate that fallenness and the fact of having been overcome by an adversary stronger than natural men. God directly says this as spirit and as life:
Prov 13:6 Righteousness preserveth him that is perfect in the way; but wickedness overthroweth the sinner.
Psa 65:3 Iniquities have prevailed against me: our transgressions, thou wilt forgive them
Psa 69:2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I am come into the depths of waters, and the flood overfloweth me.
Psa 14:2,3 Jehovah looked down from the heavens upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. They have all gone aside, they are together become corrupt: there is none that doeth good, not even one.
Those who speak of 'responsibility' are spoken through by sin to deny that men are fallen and to deny that sin is in fact an adversary. Instead, sin speaks of itself as being an 'act' or a 'state' in which or out of which men in 'free will' 'do' good or evil. But God says as spirit and as life that it is not in man to find his own way:
Prov 20:24 The steps of a man are from Jehovah; and how can a man understand his own way?
Jer 10:23 I know, Jehovah, that the way of man is not his own; it is not in a man that walketh to direct his steps.
Sin denies its own existence and is a lie. But God cannot deny Himself as He is the truth.
2 Tim 2:12-13 if we endure, we shall also reign together; if we deny, he also will deny us; if we are unfaithful, he abides faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
In denying it's own existence as to its true nature, sin deceives men in order that it may grow and spread. But God, who cannot deny himself has overcome sin, as a house divided against itself cannot stand:
John 16:33 These things have I spoken to you that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye have tribulation; but be of good courage: I have overcome the world.
Christ did not overcome a former model of behavior which men did in sedition against God in 'free will' or in the absence of any other being but in fact overcame the world. He did not come to straighten out the actions of men in 'free will' but to birth them as real, literal new creations in Jesus Christ and to overcome an adversary who had overcome men. This adversary is sin.
Mat 12:29,30 Or how can any one enter into the house of the strong [man] and plunder his goods, unless first he bind the strong
While Satan is also an adversary stronger than men he himself is the slave to the sin in him, his own speech:
Ezek 28:14-19 Thou wast the anointed covering cherub, and I had set thee [so]: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou didst walk up and down in the midst of stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou wast created, till unrighteousness was found in thee. By the abundance of thy traffic they filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned; therefore have I cast thee as profane from the mountain of God, and have destroyed thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I have cast thee to the ground, I have laid thee before kings, that they may behold thee. By the multitude of thine iniquities, by the unrighteousness of thy traffic, thou hast profaned thy sanctuaries: and I have brought forth a fire out of the midst of thee -- it hath consumed thee; and I have brought thee to ashes upon the earth, in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the peoples shall be amazed at thee: thou art become a terror, and thou shalt never be any more.
Having overcome men, the sin them has killed men spiritually. Spiritual death is expressly to be excluded from being one with God:
Rom 7:11 for sin, getting a point of attack by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew [me].
On the cross Jesus Christ paid the penalty for the deeds done in the flesh while the elect were slaves to sin. The cross distinguished us as elect in every way from sin. This distinguishment which is true forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a emotional widget whereby God makes us feel better by merely saying that what was done through us by sin is all forgotten. He literally separates us from our former deeds in sin such that sin now has no part in us whatsoever.
Psa 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
Christ in the flesh paid the penalty for our deeds done while we were under the control of sin. Now we are no longer of the flesh as the flesh has been put to death in Jesus Christ. We are no spirit and still do not have free will.
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me; but [in] that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the [faith] of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me.
"...in flesh.." is the clothing by which we, as spirit are not found naked. But when Christ returns we will be given a new body:
2 Cor 4:6,7 Because [it is] the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in [the] face of [Jesus] Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us:
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen