GOD FORGIVES SINNERS--PART 5

In our last post we closed by saying;
God not only allows men, to walk in their own ways, but He gives them up to uncleanness and vile affection, and over to a reprobate mind.

He also sens them strong delusion, to believe a lie--
2 Thessalonians 2;11--''And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.''

God punishes Sin with Sin.
God may put things, that are good, in themselves, in the way of people. For instance, The Law and
The Gospel become occasions for drawing out, the corruptions of men's hearts.

Paul said, he would not have known sin, but by The Law--
Romans 7;7--''What shall we say then/ Is the law sin/ God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, thou shalt not covet.''
The Law and The Gospel Themselves, are good.

However, The Law draws corruptions out of the heart, and The Gospel becomes The Savor of Death to those who disbelieve--2 Corinthians 2;14-16-[Turn].

God allows Sin, but sometimes overrules Sin for Good.
He overruled Adam's Sin for his Perfection in Grace.

He overruled The Sin of Joseph's Brothers, ''. . .to save much people alive'' [Genesis 50;20].

He overruled The Sin of wicked men, who crucified Christ, and made His Soul, an offering for sin, for the good of His Elect--
Isaiah 53;10--''Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.''

God is not responsible for Man's Sin--
Isaiah 45;7--''I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the LORD do these things.''
God did not originate moral evil.
Darkness did not proceed from God, Who is Light, nor the evil of sin from God, Who is Holy.
Here in Isaiah 45;7, Light is contrasted with Darkness, and Peace with Evil.
Darkness is the privation of Light, and the evil of punishment is the privation of peace.

God forms Light, and creates Darkness.
He forms the Light of Nature and Rational Understanding.
John 1;9--''That was the true light which lighteth every man, that cometh into the world.''
Darkness is also God's Creation--Natural Darkness results from the absence of The Sun.
Deprivation of Spiritual Light causes Spiritual Darkness.

The Lord makes Peace, and creates Evil [Isaiah 45;7].
He now makes peace, among His Saints.
At His Revelation, He will make universal peace.

The Evil, that God creates, is The Evil of Punishment for Sin, not The Evil of Sin itself.
Sin is not found among God's Creatures in Genesis 1.
Sin didn't begin with God's Original Creation.

The Lord doesn't infuse any evil into men.
But He subjects depraved men in various providential dealings;
He allows Sin, and overrules It, for the good of His People.

Sin began among The Angelic Host with Lucifer;
and with Mankind, It began in Adam.
God purposed The Fall of Both. If He had not, Neither could have fallen.

The Lord also purposed to prepare Redemption for His Elect, through the sacrifice of The Lord
Jesus Christ.
Although evil hands were associated with the preparation of that Redemptive Work, they were only instruments, that God used, to fulfill His Purpose.

God made Christ's Soul, An Offering for Sin--
Isaiah 53;10--''Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.''

We must distinguish between the words, Purpose and Author.
God purposed Sin;
otherwise, It could not exist.
According to God's Determinate Counsel and Foreknowledge, The Sins of Wicked Men nailed
The Lord Jesus Christ, to The Cross--
Acts 2;23--''Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands hath crucified and slain.''
God purposed to order events, so that evil should come to pass, to fulfill His Purpose.
Nevertheless, He hates evil.

To say that, God is The Author of Sin--that is, The Agent, Actor, or Doer, of a wicked thing, would be Blasphemy.

Sin had no actual existence, before it was committed by creatures, Which God pronounced
''Good'' after His Act of creating them.
Therefore, Sin's Beginning cannot be attributed to God.

God's Foreknowledge of Sin, does not make Him, The Author of Sin;
Anticipated Sin and Actual Sin are entirely different.

Just A Divine Election, or Fore-ordination, does not cause One's Actual Redemption, so Foreknowledge of Sin's Occurrence does not cause that Sin.

Sin became a reality, only as God's creatures perverted His Will.
It has no original substance in itself. Sin has no thesis. It has only antithesis.

Since sin came by God's creatures, it is a secondary, and not a primary consideration.

People seek to excuse their own sin, by asking, ''Why did God make Adam, capable of falling/''
They refuse to admit A Personal Sinful Condition. For that reason, considering The Origin of Sin, is not as innocent, as it may appear.

Now, Listen; GOD CREATED MAN, CAPABLE OF FALLING, BECAUSE HE COULD NOT MAKE MAN, IN ANY OTHER CONDITION--GOD CANNOT CREATE GOD.
Whatever He creates, must be inferior to Himself;
Immutability cannot create itself-only mutability.

Man was created Upright [Ecclesiastes 7;29], but he was created with two principles;
Inferior and Superior.
The Inferior Principle was related to Man's Flesh, and the superior principle was related to his fellowship with God.

When Adam fell, he lost the superior principle, and kept the inferior [which had become corrupted].
Adam could no longer fellowship with God;
so he fled, seeking to hide himself from God.
The Inferior Principle became The Reigning Principle in the lives of Adam, and his descendants.

When The Superior Principle was forfeited through Sin, Man was alienated from The Life of God.
Every Person since Adam comes into The World, dead in trespasses and sins.

Adam's Trial was ordained of God, because Probation is an essential part of self-determination.
However, God's Ordination of Adam's trial was benevolent, not unjust.
And God provided hope for Adam and All His Elect Ones.

The Lord Jesus Christ could never be tempted, the same way Adam was. He had no inferior principle, no weakness within, to yield to temptation.
He had only The Divine Principle--He couldn't yield to external temptation.
Temptation Itself, cannot pervert the soul.
Only An Evil Will, self-determined against God, can turn temptation into an occasion for ruin.

Satan was The First Actor in Sin, and The First Tempter to Sin;
when he approached Eve, he concealed the fact, of his own fall, and his enmity against God.

Sin began with Lucifer.
God pronounced it evil--
Ezekiel 28;15--''Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, til iniquity was found in thee.''

Now, I ask you, If Adam, Who possessed the strength of uprightness, yielded to temptation, how can Adam's descendants, who only have an inferior principle, resist it/
All men react in only one way, until God's Grace intervenes.
None can overcome temptation, apart from God's Grace.

So, to summarize; God, in His Plan, to glorify Himself, allowed sin to exist, but He was not its author--He only allowed it.

Man is responsible for his own sin because of his Depraved Will and Nature--Romans 5;12-[Turn].
''Therefore''=''for this reason.'' What reason/
The argument made in verses 1-11, assuming our Justification, and urging joy in Christ, because of the present reconciliation by Christ's Death, and the certainty of future salvation, by His Life.

''As by [through] one man''--Paul begins a comparison between the effects of Adam's Sin, and the effects of Christ's REDEMPTIVE Work, but did not see the 2nd Member of the comparison.
Instead, he discusses some problems of Sin and Death, and starts over again, in verse 15.

The Effects of Adam's Sin were transmitted to his descendants, by both his Natural and
Federal Headships.

Christ is Head of all believers, as Adam is Head of the race. In this was Adam ''the figure of him to come.''

''Sin entered the world''--Here, We have The Personification of Sin.
Sin came from outside, into the race of man.

''And Death by Sin''--Physical and Spiritual to all men.

''For that all have sinned''--transmission from Adam became the fact of experience.

END OF POINT ONE-GOD FORGIVES SINNERS