Fascinating. Ok, if you don’t mind Night Spirit, I’ll play the role of apologist for the traditional Christian perspective here. Steve Pavlina is not likely to attract many fundamentalists and traditionalist Christians for obvious reasons, so their voice is not usually heard on this forum, hence my playful decision to act as their spokesman in this discussion. What I find interesting about this exercise is the idea of “arguing” a point without identifying with it personally.
With regard to original sin, I did provide you with some scriptural references and you simply bypassed them without explanation. It’s right there, in black and white. I Corinthians 15:22 clearly states “since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive”. Merely saying you don’t believe that does not make it go away. Unless you do not believe that the bible is the word of God.
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This is my soul and as far as I know, the only life I get, and it's too important to me to trust anyone else's idea of what is or ought to be true.
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So you stand as your own highest authority then? Higher than the word of God even?
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All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, because we choose to, not because we were created with sin.
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Why would we choose to sin? Why would a rational person choose separation from God? Could it be that we make that choice because we ARE sinners, because it is indeed our nature (Ephesians 2:3) and therefore it is inevitable that we choose to sin? And it is not just our capacity do evil that makes us objects of his wrath (Romans 9:22), it is that he is holy and cannot countenance sin. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord almighty…” Isaiah 6:3 states. God commands us in his word to be holy, for he is holy repeatedly (Leviticus 11:44, I Peter 1:16). Without holiness we will not see God (Hebrews 12:14). Fortunately, God in his love provides a way of saving his beloved children while maintaining his perfect integrity by sending his Son Jesus to die for our sins and in our place. However, it is only by fully acknowledging our sin and that we sin because it is our nature, that we come to see the need for a savior. To suggest otherwise, to suggest that men sin only because they choose to is to also imply that any man or woman might not choose to, which would lead to the heretical doctrine that someone else could be just as perfect as Christ. If you can be just as perfect as Christ, you’d be God wouldn’t you?
With regard to Jesus and sin, no, he did not inherit the “sin gene” because unlike us, he was/is God (“For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form”, Colossians 2:9) and therefore cannot know sin. Jesus was able to resist temptation because it was his nature to be sinless, just as it our nature to sin. He is by nature holy, we are by nature sinful.
As far as the Old Testament saints go, the only way they could have enjoyed a relationship with a holy God is the only way we can: salvation by grace through faith. In their case, the OT saints had faith in the coming messiah, while we have faith in the messiah that has already come and will come again.