Quote:
Originally Posted by KSA
1. There is no such thing as "sinful nature" or "sinful substance". Sin is not a substance, but a defection of will (according to Augustine). When Lucifer fell, he did not have any sinful nature or substance enter him. Sin is not a matter of substance, but of volition. When Satan seduced man, he did not inject into him substance - he effected his volition. Therefore, the fall did not added some other substance to human nature, but deformed human nature. We can compare the fall with the untuned piano. Piano originally was tuned to produce good music. But then it was untuned. It does not mean that some kind of nature entered it - it was simply disharmonized. Man was created a harmonious being. But fall disharmonized him.
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Yet the Word of God is replete of the phrase "
sinful nature". Why is that?
You must have forgotten when God created man, man has the
life of man, a sinless man at that time. Only after man disobeyed God by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, thereby man received the consequence of his disobedience which is death, deadened in the spirit.
You cannot compare "man" with a "piano". Before man's fall there was no hint of any element of Satan in him. Man's eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is receiving "something" outside of man as represented by the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. What man partook at that time was the death of Satan, and we can venture in saying death (signifies Satan) was injected in man.
Upon the disobedience of man, the
life of man was transmuted into the
life of Satan. Instead of the
life of God as illustrated by the Tree of Life that man must have possessed, in this man's fall the
life of Satan was manifested.
Praise the Lord! Because God loves us, He gave His Son Jesus to us and with our faith in Him we have received the
life of God into our spirit, born of God, born of the Spirit. The
life of God as represented by the Tree of Life ("I am the true vine!") is no other than the
"life-giving Spirit" who is the LAST ADAM, the Lord Jesus Christ, which is working in us daily to saturate and transform our soul-life in His likeness.