[Pchris]

I totally agree to your point stated that sin was not part of God’s creation. Sin doesn’t originate from God.
Sin is an act considered to be a transgression against God. Biblically, sin is ultimately sin against God.

THREE FACTS ABOUT SIN
1) SIN IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT IS RIGHT
Only God in His infinite wisdom and character can and had determined what is right for man. God has revealed what is right through the person of His son Jesus Christ and in the Gospel.
According to 1John 3:4 ( whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness) NKJV. “Lawlessness” in the above scripture is the failure to be law abiding . An all-wise God has determined laws that is best for mankind and sin on the other hand, is the failure to live by that divine law.
Anything contrary to God’s word and how He wants you to live is sin.
God wants us to live right by Him , He wants us to serve and obey Him but sin is the exact opposite of that. Sin seeks to make God a liar. No one should be ignorant of sin because sin is clearly defined in the Bible…
2) SIN HAS THE POWER TO DECEIVE
Hebrews 3:13 ( But exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘today’ , lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.)
While sin exhibits it’s pleasure , it conceals the pain and shame that follows . It promises more and returns less than anything known to man. For example if you yield to the sin of fornication and eventually contract an STD, it’ll bring a sense of regret because it didn’t present itself as an action that carries such weighty concequence in the first place but rather an action that’ll be beneficial to you both sexually and financially.
Sin presents itself as the fulfillment of all the flesh desires and seeks to fulfill. It appears quite pleasurable In it’s pursuits.
Sin occurs as a result of one yielding or succumbing to temptation from the devil. No one is free from temptations, even Jesus was tempted in all points as we are. Temptation is evil and God never tempts anyone . The root of every sin is the devil, do not expose yourself to the devil but rather expose yourself to the word of God if you want to come out victorious.
The longer we yield to sin, the harder it is to resist it. The reverse is also true , the longer we resist the devil and his temptations, the easier it is to resist. James 4:7 ( Therefore submit to God, Resist the devil and he will flee from you)
3) SIN NEGATIVELY AFFECTS OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
We were created primarily to fellowship with our Father (God) . We are created in the image and likeness of God and He has a divine purpose for each and every one of His creation.
Through temptation, the devil attempts to steal your identity and purpose in God, with the hope that he/she would succumb to the temptation.
Sin brings guilt and in turn severes your relationship with God. Just like in the case of Adam and Eve, they always enjoyed fellowship with God not until sin came and negatively affected there relationship with God.
Guilt is the state of having done wrong, liability to penalty. Guilt cannot stand in the presence of God.
As a believer, understanding this fact about sin has helped me to constantly practice spiritual sensitivity, knowing that the natural instinct of guilt is to avoid the presence of God, I am always on alert.
My relationship and fellowship with God is very important to me and I always seek to guard it with all deligence . 1Corithians 10:12 ( Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall) NKJV
Practicing spiritual sensitivity through the renewal of my mind with the word of God, consistent prayers and meditation on God’s Word has helped me easily detect the deception of the devil.
As a believer, understanding that your relationship with God is constantly under attack by the devil , has made me place a high level of importance to my relationship. I clearly understand that I should In no time engage in a conversation with the devil because by doing this, it will only make me prone to succumbing to his lies. The only one I should always be in consistent communication with is my ABBA, For His word reveals both the intention of the devil and the thought of God towards me.

[Pchris]

WAYS WHICH JESUS OPERATES AS THE HIGH PRIEST FOR THE BELIEVER TODAY

1) AS OUR ADVOCATE 1 JOHN 2:1-2
Jesus Christ stands in the gap for us believers, He speaks to God on our behalf and speaks to us on behalf of God through the person of the Holy spirit. When we are in need , He brings our needs to God and intercede for us.
By virtue of His death , resurrection and ascension, Jesus stands as a mediator between God and man.
Jesus is our advocate, He is literally our Lawyer . He makes appeals , He files motions and defends us even when we were wrong because of His grace ,empathy and forgiveness. He is actively fighting for us.

2) AS OUR SAVIOUR
Hebrews7:25 ‘Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him , since He always lives to make intercession for them’ NKJV
There is a guarantee, that those who go through the Son to the Father are saved. Jesus remains and will always be the passage way through which unbelievers can access God the Father.
The gospel is for man to be reconciled to God through Christ.

3) HE SYMPATHIZES WITH OUR WEAKNESSES
HEBREWS 4:15-16 ‘ For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.’
Jesus Christ our High priest is One who can relate to our weaknesses because He was once man like us and He had emotions. He is in the best position to plead our course and this is because He dwelt amongst us an can relate to our struggles . He is able to offer the right support and succor to us because having been tempted and knowing what it feels like to be tempted, never yielded to sin.

[Pchris]

EXAMPLE 1
Exodus 32 vs 10 ‘Now therefore ,let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and i may consume them, and i will make you a great nation. nkjv

After the isrealites responded to God’s faithfulness in delivering them from egypt by making a golden statue to worship and having a party around it.
God confronted Moses on mount sinai and revealed His plans to burn hot and consume the children of isreal. And Moses responded with a plea in verse 11-13
verse 11 ‘ Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God , and said ‘Lord ,why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of egypt with great power and with a mighty hand .’ nkjv
After Moses’ plea ; God relented from the disaster He had spoken of bringing on His people. Looking at the above scriptures , it may seem as though Moses’ plea convinced God to change His mind by reminding Him of something He had said .
This action of God seems to contradict His word in Numbers 23 vs 19 ‘God is not a man that He should lie , nor is He a son of man that He should repent.
Reconciling this with the unchanging nature of God we must understand that God’s plans are unfolding. God is too big to contain in neat ,tidy formulas.
The above scripture indicates that God changed His course of action based on Moses’ plea, but the irony of the story is that in Exodus 32 vs 7 , God is the one who tells Moses to go down and see the situation . Moses didn’t know the people had corrupted themselves, God showed this to him.
Furthermore , the very thing that Moses uses to ‘change God’s mind ‘ is God’s own promise and God of course hadn’t forgotten His promise because He is omniscient.
God had put Moses into a situation so that he would see the problem God already knew about ,remember God’s promises and petition God to change His course of action. Moses’ prayer itself is a result of God’s plan.

EXAMPLE 2
GOD PROLONGING KING HEZEKIAH’S LIFE 2KINGS 20 VS 1-6

It happened that at the time King Hezekiah fell terminally ill and God sent His word through His prophet Isaiah that he was going to die, but King Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to God for mercy. God heared his prayers and added 15 more years to his life .
It may seem as though God acted contrary to His word in ‘ Isaiah 55 vs 11 – So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return to me void but it shall accomplish what I please , and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.’ nkjv
But reconciling this with the unchanging nature of God , we must understand that we have a God who is relatable and make sense to us . God is not rigid or static, our God is a merciful and compassionate God .
God doesn’t need permission or consultation from anyone to be the God that He is. His word in Romans 9vs15 ‘ for He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion’ . This scripture further affirms the unchanging nature of God.

[Pchris]

The Holy spirit’s ministry to the world of unbelievers is the work of conviction. The Holy spirit’s work of conviction means to place the gospel in such a clear light that the unbeliever understands what the content of the gospel is and to acknowledge that the gospel is true , regardless of whether or not the person accepts it. It is important to bear in mind that it is the Holy Spirit that has the conviction ministry and not the body of Christ.

An instance of the conviction of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the new testament is found in the book of Acts 3 and Acts 4:4.
In the above scriptures, it can be seen that the man at the beautiful gate that was lame from his mother’s womb, experienced a miracle and was able to walk again

3 THINGS IT PROVES

1) The gift of working miracles
The man at the beautiful gate was well known by the people because not only was he lame from his mother’s womb, he was also well known for asking alms from people who entered the temple.
When Peter set his eyes on him , he manifested the gift of working miracles through the Holy spirit and the lame man was able to walk again.

2) it proves the gift of special faith.
Every gift of the spirit is operated by faith . That is the kind of faith that passively receives a miracle. The same kind of faith Peter operated with.

3) It proves that there was an impact on the unbelievers. Acts 4:4( However, many of those who heard the word believed ; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.) Nkjv

From the above scripture, the unbelievers who saw the miracle perfomed by Peter through the help of the Spirit and also heard Peter and John preach the gospel, were convicted by the Holy spirit and they believed.

[Pchris]

The Book of Hebrews fall under general epistles. Other General epistles include (James, 1Peter, 2Peter, 1John, 2John, 3John and Jude).
The book of Hebrews circulated independently for a long period of time before been accepted into the New Testament.
I choose the stance that Hebrews fall under the General epistles because of the following reasons.

1) NO CLAIM OF AUTHORSHIP
The anonymity of the book of Hebrews does not seem to be an accident. The first sentence of Hebrews (Hebrews 1:1-4), which is where Apostle Paul would normally identity himself as the author, if Apostle Paul wrote the book of Hebrews why did he not claim authorship of the book as he does in every letter he wrote? Usually in most of the Pauline epistles, Paul claims authorship by introducing himself as a “Bondservant of Jesus Christ” or “An Apostle of Jesus Christ”.

2) REFERRING TO JESUS AS HIGH PRIEST
Apostle Paul could not have been the author of the book of Hebrews because no letter of Paul refers to Jesus as High Priest. This is an important theological difference between the letters of Paul and Hebrews.
The style and language of the book of Hebrews are different from Apostle Paul’s other letters.

3)THE AUTHOR WAS SOMEONE WHO REMEMBERED THE APOSTOLIC TEACHINGS

It is suggested that Apostle Paul could not have been the author because the author of Hebrews includes himself among those to whom the gospel was confirmed by those who heard Jesus Christ(Hebrews 2:3) . Apostle Paul however argued strongly in Galatians that he had not recieved the Gospel from anybody but directly from God (Galatians 1:11-12).
No other book in the New testament ties together old testament history and practices with the life of Jesus Christ as thoroughly as the book of Hebrews. Just as Jesus taught that the old testament was fulfilled in Himself. So the author of Hebrews taught that the old covenant was brought to completion in the new covenant . The book of Hebrews also shows that because the old covenant has been fulfilled in the new covenant , the new covenant is actually better. The new covenant was made superior by the ministry of Jesus Christ.

[Pchris]

The effects of the fall of man

1) Cursed environment
The punishment of Gen 3:17-18 reveals that man’s sin(fall) caused the curse against the ground , resulting in the troublesome thorns and thistles and a change in the way the natural world works . The ground was cursed throughout the whole earth making survival very difficult.

2) Changed Relationships
The fall of man damaged man’s relationship with other people. Immediately after the fall, Adam and Eve relationship with one another took a turn for the worse. Adam blamed Eve and God for his sin. And Eve on the other hand blamed Satan ( Gen 3 :8-13). There was fear, shame and blame but no remorse or repentance. Relationships began to suffer . It is was not long after the fall that Cain killed Abel. (Gen 4:8). We see in the scriptures that before the fall of man, the man and woman were naked and unashamed. Shame altered man’s relationship with himself.all of us now struggle to some degree with self worth because of our sin .

[Pchris]

In the old testament the Holy Spirit was not indwelling and His presence was not guaranteed always. There was temporary inspiration that came upon different men to carry out great and mighty feats for God.
In the Old testament the Holy Spirit inspired all kinds of men.
Great men and prophets such as Daniel, Ezekiel, Othniel, Joshua, Gideon etc just to name a few,produced outstanding results through the sometimes overwhelming inspiration of the Holy spirit.
Prophets were able to write scriptures in such a way that there was unity in them . Even if some of the Prophets never knew or met themselves, this was able to be achieved through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This inspiration is what false prophets never had.
The inspiration was not forced or triggered by them but the Prophets could put themselves in a place where they could recieve from God .

[Pchris]

In the old testament the Holy spirit was not indwelling but often came upon prophets and selected individuals. The Prophets even though couldn’t trigger the presence of the Holy Spirit but could put themselves in a position to be inspired by the Spirit. In the old testament, the people of God couldn’t be guaranteed of the presence of God always.
The Holy spirit was responsible for the inspiration of the Prophets in the writing of the scriptures and this is what false prophets never had. These inspiration was not forced or triggered by the Prophets. Prophets and men such as Daniel, Ezekiel, Othniel, Gideon, Moses etc Just to name a few were able to carry out great and mighty feats for God through the sometimes overwhelming inspiration of the Holy spirit.

[Pchris]

1. JAHAZIEL ( The son of Zechariah)
2Chronicles 20:14
From the above scripture, it is seen that the Holy Spirit came upon Jahaziel to pass an instruction to the people of Judah.
This instruction an guideline from the Holy Spirit came at a much needed time when the people of Judah where faced with an intending attack and invasion from the Moabites, the Ammonites and the people of battle .
After the king heard about the attack that was coming against his people, He immediately sought the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout Judah.
The people of Judah gathered together to ask for help from God and in the gathering the Holy spirit came upon Jahaziel and singled him out to pass a message and directives on how to overcome the battle ahead. ( 2samuel 20:15-17)
Through there obedience to the instruction of the Holy spirit, The Lord went ahead of them and set ambushes against the people of Ammon, mount seir and Moab and they were defeated.
The people of Judah through the help of the Holy Spirit were not only victorious but we’re able to find abundance of valuables on the dead bodies of there enemies.

2. OTHNIEL
Judges 3:10
The Holy Spirit came upon Othniel in the time when the Israelites cried out to God in captivity of the king of Mesopotamia.
It happened that the Israelites did evil in the sight of God and they forgot their God and served other gods. This act of the people of Israel brought the wrath of God upon them and God delivered them as captives to the King of mesopotamia.
After 8years of captivity in the Land of Mesopotamia, the people of Israel cried out to God and God heard there cry. The Holy Spirit came upon Othniel and through the help of the Spirit he was raised up as a deliverer for the Children of Israel. He went out to war and the Lord delivered the King of mesopotamia ( Cushan Rishathaim ) into his hands and he prevailed over the King , And the children of Israel enjoyed 40 years of rest afterwards.

3. SAUL
1Samuel 10:10
In the above scripture, it is seen that the Holy Spirit came upon Saul and empowered him with the ability to prophesy among prophets that came to meet him.

4. SAMSON
Judges 14:6
It happened in the time when Samson went to Timnah with his parents to take a wife from the daughters of the Philistines. When they got to the vineyards of Timnah, a young lion roared against Samson and the Holy spirit came mightily upon him and gave him supernatural strength such that he was able to tear the lion apart.
He was able to do what seemed impossible to man through the help of the Holy spirit.

AMASAI
1Chronicles 12:18
The Holy spirit came upon Amasai the chief of captains and empowered him to speak to David words of peace while David was fugitive from Saul at ziklag.

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