[QUOTE="HeIsHere, post: 5272515, member: 316104"
]I have learned over the years this all stems from a misunderstanding of the word "dead" it does not mean they cannot respond.. dead means separated, that is how it was used back then.
Again, they make another assumption that at the "Fall" mankind his/her faculties are so damaged that we are all born morally incapable of being persuaded something is truth.[/quote]
You must have missed my post 3044 dealing with the Fall? In it I explained how Adam died spiritually. The fact that he died logically presupposes prior life, does it not? (Only the living can die, right?) So...you are right.. death is separation from God -- specifically, in the case of Adam, he lost the Spirit God had breathed into him at the very beginning when he became a "living soul" (Gen 2:7) . Adam's separation from God is graphically portrayed for us in Gen 3:22-24 when he drove the man out of Garden, and set cherubim in it to not allow Adam back in. God made it
impossible for Adam to re-enter the Garden, which by the way was God's earthly temple at that time, whether you care to believe that or not. (But this would be a topic for another time.) Another graphic picture of what separation from God is can be seen in Jesus' account of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31). There was this great chasm that separated the rich man from Lazarus, and the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to him to help ease his torment. But Abraham essentially told the rich man that it was
impossible for anyone to cross that chasm.
When Adam lost the Holy Spirit, he lost his spiritual Life; hence he died. He became separated from his Creator, and there wasn't a thing Adam could do to reconnect to God. Adam's unceremonious eviction from the Garden is a vivid picture of God making it
impossible for him to reconnect to Life (i.e. eat from the Tree of Life). And so it has always been with all of Adam's progeny, save for the Last Adam, of course -- who, as an embryo in Mary's womb, was filled with the Spirit of the Living God. It is literally impossible for us to reconnect with God. We do not have that kind of [will] power. The only way any of us can reconnect is by God's sovereign power (i.e. his Grace!). It's impossible for innately evil beings to make good choices! (Can good trees bear bad fruit or bad trees bear good fruit?) Our choices are as limited by our sinful nature as God's choices are limited by his holy nature. And I have often cited or quoted supporting scriptures to this effect (Jer 13:23; Rom 3:9-18; 8:8, etc.) And even more recently in post 3331 by quoting Jn 8:23-47 wherein Jesus told the Pharisees, among other things, that they
were unable to hear what he had to say. And he went on to say that the reason they couldn't hear was because they did not belong to God! Rather, they were of the serpents's seed!
Separation from God is a spiritually incurable condition by any human physician. Only the Great Physician can raise anyone from the dead! Only He can bridge the gap between us and the "tree of life" or between us and that great chasm in the afterlife. The very fact that God uses the metaphor "death" to describe our spiritual condition should tell you something. When any of us die, do we have the [will] power to return to this life? To reverse our death!? Do our souls have the [will] power to rejoin themselves to our bodies? Then what would possess you to think that we have the power to reconnect to God? Why would you think that what God has separated, we can undo his sovereign decree by choosing to reconnect ourselves to Him? When God closes a door, who can open it; Or who can close what He has opened (Isa 22:22)? Or what God tears down can be rebuilt, or the man He has imprisoned can be released (Job 12:14)?
I just wonder why God has to blind some people who are already born morally incapable to respond positively to the Gospel, I guess He had to make doubly sure. sigh!
See Rom 9:17-18. God has a good purpose for all that he does. It seems you have forgotten that God doesn't think or act as we mere mortals do (Isa 55:8-9).