Ruth.
You are the one saying that Christ failed in His mission, because you insist that man has the ability to choose good from evil, and deny the gift of salvation. If Christ only accomplished the possibility of salvation, then it is hypothetically possible than NO ONE would choose to accept the gift and Christ died for nothing!
God in fact did not fail. He came to redeem His creation, and every sinner that every lived. He accomplished that fact totally. He overcame the fall for every single human being. Adam sinned and plunged the universe into death and corruption (sin). Christ overcame death, thus freed mankind from that bondage to death and sin. How successful does one need to be. Not one was unredeemed. Christ put mankind back into the pre-Adamic state of being able to once again commune with God. Death and sin prevented communion with God. Now man can again commune, however, the choice of whether we will or will not commune with God is left to man,just as it was left to Adam. His one sin was universal in its scope and brought death to ll. Our sin now after Christ can still separate us from God if we chose to deny the spirit. Those that do not believe have already been condemned.
If Christ only accomplished the possibility of salvation, then it is hypothetically possible than NO ONE would choose to accept the gift and Christ died for nothing
He accomplished it only for the sole purpose that ALL men would again have that choice. The topic of this thread is total depravity which is not the meaning for me, however, what Adam did was to prevent man from every again being in Union with God. That is why man could never save himself. He was dead. He needed to be made alive. This is precisely what Christ did in His redemptive work.
Christ came to redeem ONLY those that the Father had given Him, no others. See John 17:6 and John 17:9.
John 17:6 and 9 is not addressing believers, only the apostles. This whole chapter is Christ's prayer for himself, vs 1-5, for His disciples vs 6-19, vs 20-23 for His Church, vs24-26 for the world.
The next discussion you need to have is about the supposed "free will" you think man has! I pray that your eyes will be opened to the Truth of the Word, but first you must learn basic grammatical structure, of English and then Hebrew and Greek. Then you would be able to read the Bible yourself and not have it dictated and interpreted for you!
Unless you can theologically show that Adam did not of his own will chose to sin, you can make a statement that man has no will. You will need to show that God also has no will, because scripturally that is part of our Image of God.
As to learning Greek, that is moot. It was given in Greek, explained in Greek, was practiced in Greek, was written in Greek. Why would I need to do better than the Greeks.
Also, the Bible expressly forbides private interpretation for the sole purpose that salvation, the Gospel was not given to a single individual ever.
It's just that I trust Christ with the Power of the Holy Spirit to do a much better job than mere man. You or myself.
