Pages

Sign up to be notified of new blog post.

If you are not getting notifications of the blog posts by e-mail and would like to, click here. Make sure that you give us at least your first name.


I promise we will never give or sell your info to others.


You might also want to visit Entrusting Truth to find out more about what we do. My book and workbook Your Walk, their walk are available there as well as at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Translate

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Genetic Sin

Last week was week 7 of the 8 week session on predestination and free will.  The assignment for the class was to respond to four questions:
Genetic Sin
  • What does the Bible teach about homosexuality?
  • Is it a legitimate life choice?
  • Is it genetic?
  • What is the appropriate Christian response to homosexuals in the community? 
You may ask what has this got to do with predestination and free will?  Everything.  The arguments supporting homosexuality as a life choice are variously categorized under one or the other of the poles of those theological positions.  As with this blog, the purpose of the class is not to come up with what we think is right, rather, what the Bible teaches us that God thinks is right.  Bible deniers not withstanding.

The passages that deal with this issues are 4 or 5 depending on how you count them.  The one I want you to look at is 1 Corinthians 6:9 – 11.  Paul here lists 10 categories of sin that, using his language, will not inherit the kingdom of God.  In other words, will not enter, are excluded.  But focus on verse 11.  Paul acknowledges that some of the Corinthian believers had been in one or more of those categories.  However, again using Paul’s language, “…you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”  The implication is that those who were in those categories through a transforming relationship with Christ were no longer in those categories.

At the end of the discussion one of the people asked about the genetic issue, we had not addressed it well in our discussion.  The short answer is that all of our sin is genetic.  When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, they fell.  Not partially but totally.  The language is they died.  The language throughout the Bible describing man’s condition prior to regeneration includes dead, slave, helpless, etc.  We are genetically predisposed to sin; all 10 and more of Paul’s categories in 1 Corinthians 6:9 – 11.

So yes, sin is genetic, all of it.  Not just the ones we want to justify.  So Romans 3:20 stands, we are all in the same boat.  Without God’s intervention in our lives, none of us would, in Paul’s words, inherit the kingdom of God.

No comments:

Post a Comment