Yes, in my opinion also it is not more difficult but requires more effort. You both have helped me to clarify my thought.

If Jesus could do this, then so could any other converted person, so the assertion that a converted person cannot sin is false. You can assert that a converted person cannot sin, and have it be a true statement, as long as you carefully clarify the statement, as you did above in reference to Christ, but as you originally stated it, unqualified, it's false. That is, you said:



This isn't true, as a person in this condition could do the same thing you said Jesus Christ could do, which to decide to stop depending on God. A converted person can do this at any time.

It looks like what you really meant to say was that a converted person cannot sin, provided said person does not decide to stop depending on God.

So this would make taking the two paths come down to either resisting God, or depending upon Him. Which is more difficult?

Likewise I've appreciated the discussion.

To be clear, the narrow path is the easier path because God's love makes it difficult for the lost to destroy themselves. We're in agreement on this point?

When you say it requires more effort, this means that it requires more effort to serve God than it does to fight against Him, right?

Yes. In addition, I would say the narrow path is the easier path because God bears the weight of every burden.


No, I mean that, in an evil world, it requires more effort to fight against evil than to go with it. As I said in my post #125470, the difficulty, the effort, doesn't come at all from serving Christ, but from the machinations of the enemy.

If a person is not depending on God, is he converted?

I answer most vehemently, No! He has reverted to his lost condition. He is diverted from his high calling. He has been subverted from the Rock of his salvation. He has been perverted from holiness. He is many kinds of "verted" but converted isn't one of them.

Do you disagree?

Very nice!!



The effort involved in serving God is exactly the same effort involved as that required to fight against evil, right? Aren't these synonymous? If not, what additional effort is involved in fighting evil that is not involved in serving God?

The effort involved to go along with evil is the same effort involves as fighting against God, isn't it? A point I've been making is that God isn't passive in His workings with us. It requires effort to go along with evil, and that effort is precisely the effort to fight against God.

Therefore is the effort to fight evil is greater than the effort to go along with it, it follows that the effort to serve God is greater than the effort to fight against Him. The only way around this is to somehow distinguish between the effort involved between fighting evil and serving God, or between going along with it and fighting against God.



The difficulty in fighting against God comes from resisting the pangs of the conscience and the promptings of the Holy Spirit. God loves us too much to let us go without a fight. In Acts of the Apostles it says that the Holy Spirit is constantly seeking to draw the attention of men to the love of God revealed at the cross (not the exact words, but the concept). This means the resistance must be constant. This is hard work, even if work that one is not conscious of it.

Arnold, you wrote this:



The "that condition," in the context of what I said, is being converted. You are saying that as long as one is in a converted condition, one cannot fall into temptation. But any converted person can choose to fall into temptation, so this simply isn't true. To say that one must revert before doing so doesn't help matters because one reverts precisely by falling into temptation.

I wrote the words, "that condition," didn't I? So doesn't it make more sense to take those words in the context of what I said, rather than what you said? Hermeneutics.

Anyhow, I see no difference. When you spoke of conversion, you qualified it with "after already knowing Christ and having Him as one's personal Savior, and being indwelt by the Holy Spirit." That's the condition we are speaking of, right?

In that condition, one does not sin.


While one is converted, in Christ, born again, whatever you want to call it, he cannot fall.

Falling into temptation requires separating from God's grace first.

Yes, in reference to what I had written.



No, not really. You responded to what *I* wrote. Hermeneutics.



Unless one chooses to, which one can, at any moment. So one doesn't sin as long as one remains in the condition of not sinning, which is true, but circular.



Again, this looks circular. You look to be saying that as long as one doesn't fall one can't fall. A converted person, in Christ, born again, whatever you want to call it, *can* fall into temptation.



You're presented with a temptation. You consider the temptation, and decide to do it, and so fall into temptation. Are you saying you have to separate from God's grace before you consider the temptation, or before deciding to do the temptation?

Regardless if you wish to add some in between step or steps, it would still be false to claim that a born again person cannot fall into temptation.

Right. And most of our differences come down to hermeneutics.

I am of the firm opinion that when I wrote "that condition" in my post, I know best what "that" was referring to. However, others may hold a different opinion.


"Whoever is born of God does not sin; he cannot sin because God's Seed remains in him." I'm going to stick with this promise.


"You consider the temptation, and decide to do it." Is such a person still being led by the Holy Spirit? Can a person filled with the Spirit choose to sin?

Perhaps that's where we differ. I am convinced that humanity and divinity combined does not commit sin.

Hence, my answer to the question "Why do we sin?" is simple: We are not combined with divinity.