Posse Peccare / Posse Non Peccare

Moore's Corner Church

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Who has heard of the term passe pacare and passe non pacare?

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Or who's familiar with these terms? Okay, we got one hand. All right, so these are

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Latin terms used in theology. I think this will be helpful. You don't really need to learn the

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Latin, but this is the way people talk about it. Adam, again, he's presented with a test.

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Will he obey God and not eat the fruit? Or will he disobey? So this is the test.

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Adam is currently in a state of innocence, right? So Adam has what we would say the passe non pacare, a

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Latin expression meaning that Adam was able not to sin.

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Everyone agree with that? So think of it this way.

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Passe means like possibility. Pacare, think of the word like peccadillo, it's doing something wrong, sin.

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And then non means not. So the passe non pacare means

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Adam before the fall, he has the ability not to sin. So he doesn't have to sin.

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He has the choice. He can either choose to sin or choose not to. Pretty simple so far, okay.

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So Adam doesn't have to sin. He truly has what you would call a free will. Adam had a free will.

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However, after chapter three, after the fall, once Adam sins, he loses that ability to not sin.

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So now Adam from chapter three onward and really all of humanity, we have, when we're born into this world, we have the non passe non pacare, meaning that mankind is not able not to sin.

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I know this is kind of complicated. Meaning that mankind in his natural condition, after chapter three, mankind, to put another term, we have to sin, we don't have a choice.

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We can't not sin. It's why? Because it's in our nature. So this is true for every person born into this world, people are born sinners.

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That's the way we put it. Original sin, the sin nature. So your unbelieving friend, your unbelieving coworker, they can't not sin.

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They don't have that ability. That doesn't mean they have to give in to every single thing but they can't stop sinning.

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They literally do not have that ability. However, once a person is born again, once a person believes on Christ, receives the spirit of God, they are once again restored to that position that Adam had.

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And they once again, we once again have the ability to not sin. So you understand the difference.

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An unbeliever can't stop sinning. But a Christian who has the Holy Spirit, we have been restored to where now we do have the power by the

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Holy Ghost to not sin. So at least in theory, we could, again, in theory, we could just live the rest of our lives without sinning.

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Now, what's the problem? We still have the human flesh. And like Jesus said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

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So we do end up giving in, but the spirit gives us that ability, the passe non peccare to the ability not to sin anymore.

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So the Christian who says, well, I just can't help it. That's not really true. And you telling yourself that makes it worse because you're sort of giving yourself an excuse.

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Well, I can't help it. Well, actually we can through God's help. Now in eternity, once we are with the

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Lord with our new resurrected bodies, and we don't have this sinful flesh anymore in eternity, in glory, we will have the non passe peccare, meaning we will not be able to sin.

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So now we have the ability not to sin, but once we're with the Lord, and certainly once we have the new body, we can't sin anymore.

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So that'll be the situation in Revelation 21 and 22. If you read

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Revelation 21 and 22, it's like a return back to Eden almost, right? There's a lot of comparisons between Genesis and Revelation.

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Well, you don't have to worry about, oh, it's just gonna happen all over again and man's gonna rebel. It will not be possible in glory because man has been redeemed.

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So that redemption process puts man in a position where we have will, we have free will, we can love

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God, we choose to love God, but the possibility of sin has completely been taken away.