Are we prisoners of sin

I am a Christian and I will boldly tell you today that I still do struggle with sin from time to time; I don't always keep all of the Ten Commandments penned in exodus 20. Is it because I am evil and want to disobey God? No it is because Christians are equally and just as human as the rest of the world's people are.Paul wrote in Romans 7:15, "In fact, I don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't do what I know is right. I do the things I hate." This is a miserable state for the Christian, Paul said in Rom 7:13 "Was then that which is good, death to me? In no way. But the purpose was that sin might be seen to be sin by working death to me through that which is good; so that through the orders of the law sin might seem much more evil."Not only does sin seem much more evil for the believer but the believer is furiously fighting to limit his daily dose of sin, so to be sure this is certainly a miserable state of being as Paul again said here, "Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?"After imparting the ten commandments God offered, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed"With this offer by God in view one can only imagine how Paul must have been feeling when he wrote the above words.Now the gist of this thread. If man is inseparable from his sin than he must be doomed (Proverbs 13:6 Live right, and you are safe! But sin will destroy you; Romans 6:23 for the wages of sin is death.).And if Paul one of the trend setters in Christianity complained about sin how much harder it would be for the one who is of the world to escape destruction through his own sin. And also what is the purpose of the Ten Commandments if they seem not capable of being put into practice. And furthermore what made Paul so confident and stable in his ministry when simultaneously he complained about sin, why was he so certain that he would escape destruction?I think these are honest questions that everyone asks on the odd occasion. But before we can set out with this topic there is one question I'm sure that will almost certainly always pop up, and that is, "is there such a thing as sin?" Well I think there is by definition sin is a transgression of God's will, missing the mark set up by God. This is what sin is and considering the Ten Commandments and considering our present states I would say that sin is altogether alive and doing well.Any honest person will admit that he/she has committed sin not once or twice or thrice but a good number of times. I remember an old hymn at this point, "My sins are higher than the mountains." Indeed we are so dispirited by the magnitude of our individual sins, but then tally up our individual sins and then put on God shoes, and experience the kind of mental depression he must be suffering each day that he allows sin to hang around. We are terribly sinful creatures our very nature is sinful, perhaps sin possesses a locus on our chromosomes. Whether or not this is the case no one can deny the existence of sin.Edited by Cedre, : clarity on title

Thankyou Thnakyou I'm loving it. This is precisely the nature of responses that I was anticipating. Well not beleiving in God is irrelevant to this thread I'm here to discuss sin and not God's existence. Even if you consider sin as a fictional religious concept that is entirely up to you. Surely we are the sole answerers of our lives, but you will not deny that deep down you do believe that sin exists. You will deny again, but that doesn't bother me. At this point knowing that right and wrong exists is a universal feeling, the bible simply sheds light on what is right and what is wrong. We shall continue tomorow.

Good reply ICANT indeed Adam had received a direct warning straight out of the horses mouth (Gen 2:16), and despite this clear-cut warning he still managed to disobeyed. Eve had not heard it from God directly, because in her reason to Satan not to eat the fruit she misquoted God in a handful of ways.(Gen 2:17; Gen 3:3) To make it worse Adam was there standing right next to Eve (Gen 3:6) and didnt bother to warn her against eating the fruit or to stop her from listening to the father of lies and what's more he too ate of the tree. Now concerning Jesus and whether or not he too was born with the same sinful nature that the rest of mankind is known for. Jesus was simply implanted into Mary's womb like you were to slip a letter into an envelope. He has nothing of Mary's because to have had any of her traits including sin he would have been formed via fertilisation.

The connection was that he obtained flesh God is spirit, and he now obtained the corruptible flesh of men, so now he could take on the sin eventually on the cross, in his divine state God would not have been able to take sin on because he is a holy God this means that he is pure, without sin, and righteous. My letter envelope metaphor demonstrates Jesus as being pure and righteous as not being directly from the line of Adam, the line that passed on the sin to all mankind rather according to Mat 1:18 Jesus is the child of the Holy Spirit. And if It were never a virgin birth and Joseph was his son he would have been born into sin. Jesus is the lamp of God that washes away the sins of the world through and with his atoning blood. The Hebrew's used to slaughter a lamp in the Old Testament and everyone passed their sins onto the creature and were atoned; atonement from Jesus Christ applies that same principle.Now what makes man a man, sin or his will, his dignity, and his consciousness? I think the latter and Jesus possessed them all, the entire package save for one element and that is sin. But just like the lamp taking on the sins of the Hebrew's in the same way did Jesus double up as this lamp to save from ruin, destruction, and harm whoever believes in him. Here are the two relevant verses. In Gen 2 God is giving the command. In Gen 3 Eve is repeating God.Gen 2:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.Gen 3:3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.First of all she adds the following statement which is not found in God's statement and that is "neither shall ye touch it" secondly she is implying uncertainty to what God said "would happen if you ate it (the fruit) note God said for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Eve replaces the surely die with lest ye die, therefore displaying doubt about a command of God. They had every reason to mistrust the serpent (Satan). He was instructing them to do something that God their maker had informed them not to do. Frankly trusting in a father of lies is a dodgy move, look at what trusting in Satan got them into:
Gen 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Gen 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Gen 3:18 thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
Gen 3:19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. The state your currently in death (spiritual death leading to hell) sickness sorrow suffering pain anguish this is all due to that one encounter with Satan in the garden."God states specifically that his intent is to keep man from attaining eternal life. Why then would you possibly believe that he bent over backwards trying to provide an easy method for attaining such a thing? If you believe such a story then you must conclude that God is your enemy; it is he and his Cherubim with flaming swords that stand between you and eternal life, not his approval."Why God kept them from eating from the tree of eternal life, is for the reason that human's would have lived forever in a state of sin, and redemption would never have been possible for man. This is very possible. But also note that before the fall in the actual commandment God doesn't mention anything about the tree of life, this lives room for the possibility that we could eat from it and live forever in eternal bliss, note what God said pertaining to tree in general, he said:

"Gen 2:16 And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:"
Gen 2:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

"As this verses show God had nothing with man eating of the tree of life the only tree he forbade was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And as for the matter of freewill man had always possessed it, that is why he sinned against God, he could also have chosen not to listen to the serpent and not sin against god. This is freewill, the freedom to make choices in accordance with one's will. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is exactly that a tree of knowledge. Note it’s not called the tree of Freewill to choose between good and evil.Edited by Cedre, : No reason given.

This was for sure the chief purpose behind the entire Jewish sacrificial system. You have shown not to understand the doctrine of atonement, go on brush up on this and then we can talk again about the role of Jesus in salvation. Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.

I think that until you know everything there is to know about everything dear Woodsy that you should lay off making such assessments. My favorite and self- coined motto is being open-minded with a sieve. It’s not good to be open-minded about everything neither is good to be close- minded as well, just have a sieve over your mind.I have found that in many cases it is not intellectual hurdles that keep someone from believing in God rather it is more spiritual than that. People just don’t want to give up their sinful ways, because they love being in sin so much, they are enjoying themselves to the fullest and the thought of having to give up all of these pleasures just isn’t thinkable for them. My opening post deals with the problem of sin. Sin is enjoyable but it has a huge downside, and that is death, spiritual death that condemns the doer to hell. Edited by Cedre, : No reason given.

I don't think that you are justified in making this quote but you are entitled to it anyway, God gave us a freedom and no one but you can deny yourself that freedom, but about the words we utter, God does say in Mathew 12:36 And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.Any way the mere fact that you would try to tell between what is morally acceptable and what isn't would suggest that there is this native tendency possessed by every person that causes him/her to want to do right. We might argue that wanting to do right is an evolutionary milestone, but similarly we can argue that it exist because God has written his commandments on the hearts of everyone "Rom 2:14 Some people naturally obey the Law's commands, even though they don't have the Law.Rom 2:15 This proves that the conscience is like a law written in the human heart. And it will show whether we are forgiven or condemned,"This explains why even atheist can be morally acceptable without acknowledging God the captain of morality. However the bible says in Eph 2:8 "for by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;" Many try to work their way into heaven but God has no business with how good a person you are, his primary concern is with the individual's heart. God is looking for true followers not wolves in sheep's clothing. Jesus said to a gang of Pharisees once:

Mat 23:25 A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of violent behaviour and uncontrolled desire.
Mat 23:26 You blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside may become equally clean.

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This is how a lot of Christians are, they are phoneys causing only greater confusion in the world and blocking off the doorway to those who might have been saved had they only been true representatives of God's kingdom. Jesus said in John 10:27 "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:" Sadly the world cannot make distinction and the entire body of Christ has been judged based on this rotten apples.

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Now about just being moral without giving glory to the one who has inspired morality within. God would loved to be acknowledged when one does a good deed, to be saved we have to acknowledge the savior, this is only reasonable. Romans 10:9 declares: "Because, if you say with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and have faith in your heart that God has made him come back from the dead, you will have salvation:" Therefore your next statement doesn't hold and it hasn't been borne witness

Religion has assimilated morality and set itself up as the sole determinor of morality and tied morality with its theological ideas of sin and has thus denigrated morality. More's the pity, especially when religion claims that most falsely that not believing in God releases one from morality.

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you say:
That false teaching has aided the spread of atheism, mostly among the believers. Here's a prime example from a creation-science activist in my area:

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This is another unjustified statement, because the truth of God should draw you to him, and what keeps you interlaced with God is your love for him God says in Romans 12:9 "Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good." It is because certain Christians don't abhor that which is evil that they return to that very thing.

2Pe 2:21 They would have been better off if they had never known about the right way. Even after they knew what was right, they turned their backs on the holy commandments that they were given.
2Pe 2:22 What happened to them is just like the true saying, "A dog will come back to lick up its own vomit. A pig that has been washed will roll in the mud."

God has commanded us to love him with all our heart soul and mind. Many who fall away for good have lacked this love instead they had a greater love for sin, their hearts where not with God from the beginning Luke 12:34
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

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Many Christians fall away because they don't cut loose sufficiently from the world of sin, not that they can't do it but rather they just won't try hard enough, if they are willing to be transformed God will empower them to do be transformed.
But even as Christians we are tempted Jesus was tempted, sadly a lot of Christians just enjoy to sin, as shown here Job 20:12 Sinners love the taste of sin; they relish every bite
Job 20:13 and swallow it slowly.

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Edited by Cedre, : No reason given.

A couple of you are pushing for the attitude that we should just be good for goodness sake. But if you really look at this, it doesn't make much sense. Because I would ask you "why should I be good?" it's a fair question. If I'm not required to be good by authority (a human authority's no good), then I might as well be bad then there is no point in being good to be sure it's a whole lot easier to be a bad little rascal.So to all of you who are pushing for this attitude answer me, why should I be good? And also answer what being good is and what being bad is if we don't have a measuring rod so to speak with which to determine if a particular behavior is good or bad. If a practice is acceptable in my eyes then why shouldn't I pursue. If there is no absolute moral canvas against which to compare our daily behavior than morality becomes relative than I may well decide for myself what good is? Why don't we all decide for ourselves what good is.

This is not an answer at all to my question then I'll ask you why is whatever you would not do to yourself, your family, and friends bad, who said that it is bad if there isn't absolute good and wrong. So what you do to your family I guess would be good. But what if I always lie to my family steal from my family, rape my little sister almost everyday, destroy property because my parents disappoint me. So this is what is good for. Is this the logic behind your argument.Edited by Cedre, : No reason given.

But the question still remains why should I try to keep the peace, why should anyone be punished if there are no absolutes. If I wont allow an individual to shove his philosophies why should I give that same privilege to a group of people. Who gives them the right to tell me that I may not act according to what I think is right, since neither of us have a list pointing this out, and sent me to rot in jail if I simply wish to live up to my set values, values that suit my life. If not killing or stealing suits them, its fine but they shouldn't sent me to hell if I disagree with them. So jails shouldn't exist neither should moral codes. If I wanna kill somebody I should be allowed because this is right for me, if that person doesn't want to die and believe that murder is wrong tough luck to that individual. Its survival of the fittest baby.

Words like must, ought to, should, or supposed to can only stem from a world governed by absolutes where transcendent good and wrong exist; you cannot tell me I mustn’t tell untruths, for even if I lied it would make no difference, seeing that it’s nowhere forbidden to lie. Your argument is as follows, there are no absolutes, but despite this a group of people who have come together can formulate their own absolutes by which every member of that group would have to abide by if he wishes to continue existing and living in that group.Okay so at least we agree that without God there aren’t any absolutes, so everything goes that has been accepted and agreed upon by the majority. And any action not in keeping with what has been agreed upon by the group will then have to be amoral/immoral.In light of this note the following quote made by anthropologist Ruth Benedict illustrates in Patterns of Culture:We might suppose that in the matter of taking life all peoples would agree on condemnation. On the contrary, in the matter of homicide, it may be held that one kills by custom his two children, or that a husband has a right of life and death over his wife or that it is the duty of the child to kill his parents before they are old. It may be the case that those are killed who steal fowl, or who cut their upper teeth first, or who are born on Wednesday. Among some peoples, a person suffers torment at having caused an accidental death, among others; it is a matter of no consequence. Suicide may also be a light matter, the recourse of anyone who has suffered some slight rebuff, an act that constantly occurs in a tribe. It may be the highest and noblest act a wise man can perform. The very tale of it, on the other hand, may be a matter for incredulous mirth, and the act itself, impossible to conceive as human possibility. Or it may be a crime punishable by law, or regarded as a sin against the gods. (pp.45-46)So according to the above data and in line with your definition of what is morality, if the killing of innocent babies is the majority consensus in a given part then that is moral thing to do right, so not killing and fighting for the survival of babies would be immoral. If lying is a common and acceptable practice in a certain culture then not lying would be the immoral thing to do. You know what I think, I think this is rubbish. Your definition is rubbish because we all know that certain practices and behaviors are just plain wrong. Things such as slavery, torture, or political repression are regarded as immoral regardless of your background. There is a universal right and wrong that all submit to or at least recognize (their conscience will haunt them if they break it), I’m not saying that everything is universal but there are things that everyone from all around the world agrees to be moral and immoral. Even if it would be the majority consensus to kill unborn babies, cripples, the old we know that this practices are outright immoral.When Hitler killed all those Jews and the greatest part of Germany supported his actions, then to adhere to your definition of morality Hitler was acting morally since this was the moral consensus of his day in his country. Hitler might have bypassed the moral consensus of the Jewish people by going into their land to retrieve them but once they were in his country he could do with them as he saw feet, and by that times the existence of the Jewish peoples was immoral according to the consensus of Germany.Or take the eugenics movement upon majority consensus it was viewed moral to sterilize hundreds of thousands of people in some states it was even made law. But sit back and ask yourselves is any act regardless of how evil it seems to me how wicked and abhorrent it seems in nature, any act simply because the majority agrees that it is moral could it really be moral.According to your definition of morality what suits the society is moral but if saving lives is moral in the part of the world you find yourself then in other parts of the world saving innocent lives would be immoral if there that is the consensus. If the whole world agreed that the existence of the Jewish nation and people as an example is amoral and that everything Jewish for that matter should be eradicated would it be moral just because it is the majority view or societal view.Were the Aztecs morally correct by performing all those human sacrifices, was slavery morally correct because it used to be the majority consensus. By your definition of what is moral this acts were indeed moral seeing that the societies practicing them had agreed that they were.

This is an flawed statement, since the opposite has been observed to be true. There is great mistrust in the world, that is why skepticism is so widespread, because people have distrust about many things or things that they are not easy with. But despite this society carries on unharmed. However what if lying is the consensus as in the example you supply below, here you have no choice but to tolerate my lying even if you do not agree seeing that this is morally acceptable thing to do. Thank you for providing me with this example, where lying is the consensus of the day, so in this context people are being deliberately fed propaganda, but nonetheless it is the consensus and therefore is the moral thing. North Korea is another prime example where deception and brainwashing are considered moral.But you haven't answered the core question which is are this things right just because a bunch of people say they are, this means that nothing is wrong because what is viewed as wrong by a group of people is viewed to be right by another group of people. this means that nothing is really wrong, it all boils down to opinion's, we think that this is wrong and that that is right because it suits us best that way. No good or bad just opinions.Edited by Cedre, : No reason given.

Expressing finality with no implication of possible change this is the definition of absolute. First of all you need to read the bible at large before you draw any conclusions about its message, or about God’s dealings with the Israelites, what he did he did with a purpose in mind, he didn’t do it to spite us or for fun, all his dealings with the Jewish people and the ancient world culminated in the arrival of Jesus Christ. When God passed down his Laws he did so with the mind that some of them should last forever but not all, and the bible is clear on this please read your bible and determine which of these laws he meant to last forever. But concerning those that he meant to last he says about them in Mat 5:18 Truly I say to you, Till heaven and earth come to an end, not the smallest letter or part of a letter will in any way be taken from the law, till all things are done. The Ten Commandments is one such set of laws which God meant to last forever. And this are also absolute laws.Now about God ordering the deaths of certain nations at the hands of his children, Israel. Who is it that carries out the law when it is broken is it not the lawgiver, the court agrees on laws but also enforces those same laws, by passing sentence to the guilty party.About sin God says the wages of sin is death, so when God ordered for example the destruction of Jericho he was simply implementing the law that the citizens of this city had broken and that is sin, and this he did via Joshua. Courts don’t usually arrest criminals they have the police to arrest criminals for them and this is merely what God did when he gave this instruction to Joshua. When God sent down fire from the heavens to punish the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah he was implementing the law that states, the wages of sin is death.

Now firstly I would like to say that everything posted here since the opening of this thread have not been empirically tested to to be true, so when people say that God exist or that he doesn't, there is no absolute prove for either claim. Or when they say that sin is a myth or that morality is relative all of this claims are just claims until proven to be true.God says by faith we are saved, faith implies that there has to be a certain element of believing without seeing, God says in 2Co 5:7 "But we live by faith, not by what we see." so ultimately the person who wishes to surrender his life to Christ has to do so not so much as a result of overwhelming empirical evidence, but partly as a result of that and partly as a result of his faith. This isn't irrational for indeed not everything has to go through the lap to be shown to be true. For example if your mother says I love you, you'll just have to believe her or not because you can't put her or her love into a test tube. Certain things we have to take by faith, because reasoning will only bring us this far.So yes it is a thing of faith, but Christianity is not without its supporting facts and proofs. In any case this is beside the aim of this thread. Returning I should say that sin has serious consequences. It is a fearful thing to land into the hands of an angry God, God is angered by sin. But the bible also says that he is slow to anger and quick to forgive, but his justice is a fact and it will in due course prevail.

Dear Coragyps, I'm not sure if God has a copier, maybe he does because he simply gave Moses a copy of the original ten commandments that Moses had broken. God didn't start up with an entirely different Ten Commandments.