2nd. Semipelagian.-(a.) Man’s nature has been so far weakened by the fall that it cannot act aright in spiritual matters without divine assistance. (b.) This weakened moral state which infants inherit from their parents is the cause of sin, but not itself sin in the sense of deserving the wrath of God. (c.) Man must strive to do his whole duty, when God meets him with co-operative grace, and renders his efforts successful. (d.) Man is not responsible for the sins he commits until after he has enjoyed and abused the influences of grace.
– A.A. Hodge
In the last BLOG we dealt with position (b) above. It is such a serious deviation from orthodox theology that it needs more than one BLOG, and in reality volumes of books and sermons are needed on the issue. It is truly at the heart of what Scripture teaches on depravity and therefore of salvation. The issue of sin in some way determines what one believes about salvation. I will give below what a few of the confessions or statements say on this matter:
Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence; whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin, and as soon as they are capable of moral action become transgressors and are under condemnation (1963 Baptist Faith and Message).
We believe that children are born with a nature which will manifest itself as sinful as they mature. When they come to know themselves to be responsible to God, they must repent and believe in Christ in order to be saved. Before the age when children are accountable to God, their sins are atoned for through the sacrifice of Christ. Jesus Himself assured us that children are in the kingdom of God (1963 Mennonite Confession of Faith).
The two statements above are really statements of the Semi-Pelagian view. Both statements say that children will indeed become sinners at some future point because of their nature, though they say that the nature itself is not sinful. I am not sure how this is supposed to work out, that is, how they can be so sure that all children will sin and yet not one of them have a sinful nature, yet that is their position. If the nature of man is only inclined toward sin, and yet all will sin, it is hard to imagine what the new birth really is. I suppose it gives a nature that is inclined toward holiness and yet is not holy even as it comes from Christ Himself. What is utterly vital to see at this point, however, is where this teaching leads a person. What one believes about the depravity of human beings and of infants will lead one to certain conclusions regarding salvation and the work of Christ. This is the issue concerning original sin and it is utterly vital to the teaching of the new birth and of the Gospel. It is not just some minor issue that we are dealing with, though many might sneer and say that, it is one that is at the heart of Christianity.
As Adam and Eve stood in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was reckoned by God’s appointment to the account of all their posterity, who also from birth derived from them a polluted nature. Conceived in sin and by nature children subject to God’s anger, the servants of sin and the subjects of death, all men are now given up to unspeakable miseries, spiritual, temporal and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus Christ sets them free…The actual sins that men commit are the fruit of the corrupt nature transmitted to them by our first parents (1689 Baptist Confession of Faith).
Here we see how the Reformed have put it. The 1689 also agrees with the Westminster Confession of Faith. The differences between the Semi-Pelagian (Arminian) statements of faith and the 1689 Baptist Confession are enormous. We saw in the BLOG preceding this how our view of sin and the nature we are born with influences our view of the new birth, the work of Christ and of the Gospel. We can simply smile and agree to be gracious toward each other, but when one person really believes the Semi-Pelagian view and another really believes the Augustinian view, a different view of the Gospel is of necessity there. It is that serious.
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