Mark, thank you for your comment. I’m sorry that I was slow finding and approving it. I would suggest that Luther was too good a Bible translator to allow his translation of this verse to be affected by his theology. But then, he was certainly not one of the main Reformation proponents of this doctrine.

James, thank you for your comments. I’m sorry that I have only just seen them and approved them.

Randy, thank you for your comment, which I just found and approved. I am not Orthodox but I have a lot of sympathy with the Orthodox position on this.

2]. Had they not eaten of the forbidden, they would have eventually eaten of . I tree of life. Adam’s sin brought in death.

3]. There’s a self-evident reason that the Early Church celebrated Easter every Lord’s Day long before the Friday Fast or the Holy nativity

I am a former Calvinist who became Orthodox. There is no doubt that Calvinist interpret Eph 2:3 as meaning an evil nature from birth. They get this doctrine from Augustine who taught that we have imputed guilt and privation of nature. Augusitne’s doctrine comes from Romans 5:12 which Calvinist hold to with Augustine that Adam’s sin transmits to all men a sinful substance of guilt and privation of nature. It is a genetic transmission or corruption of nature. But the New Testament never teaches that we have an evil nature. The New Testament teaches we have a mortal nature which produces sinful fruit. Paul in Romans right after vs 12 in chapter 5 says in vs 14 that “sin reigned in death”. In Chapter 6 Paul commands believers to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies. In Chapter 7 Paul after describing his struggle with sin says “Oh wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body that is infected by death.” Romans 7:24. Death by most Protestants is seen as a punishment for sin. But Orthodoxy sees death as a natural consequence flowing from separation from God. Death fell upon our nature causing nature to rebel against the freedom of the person. Now the hypostasis of our person or our soul knows that our nature can die. The three persons of the Trinity are free simply because they live in immortal life. There is no death in God. When death entered our nature we now have opposition or antithesis in our being. We lost our freedom because now we are in slavery to death and the sin that comes from that death. As Paul teaches in 1 Cor 15:56 “The sting of death is sin.” Now we can no longer love because we are subject to the slavery of survival because our personhood cannot survive if our nature dies. God told Adam that if he ate he would die in Gen 2:`17. God did not say I will pour my wrath out on you. Death is an ontological and metaphysical condition. It is not a legal problem with God. God removed the tree of life as an act of mercy so that death could bring a ceasing of our sinful condition so that we could be raised from the dead. There is no basis for anyone being raised from the dead apart from the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection from the dead is not limited to the elect in scripture. All men benefit from the resurrection of Christ. The teaching that nature is evil is Manicheanism. It is not the teaching of scripture nor was it taught by the church fathers or church councils. So Eph 2;3 I think is talking about those people who have given themselves over to their rebellion against God. We don’t know what the justice of God looks like. It is true that if we are left in our natural condition that we deserve judgment. We are either choosing life or we are choosing death. This is why there has to be united with Christ. We have to be in union with the divine nature of the Son of God. Since death was metaphysical and ontological we needed more than just forgiveness of sins. We needed to be raised to a new nature by the divine energies of Christ who raised his flesh and glorified it. This is why Paul says that if Christ is not raised you are still in your sins and are without hope. This is why Paul says that “He was raised for our justification. Romans 4:24

One final Note. Protestants don’t realize that if man has an evil nature (Manaceanism) that the incarnation of Christ would be impossible. There would be no possibility for Christ to assume every aspect of what it means to be human. Orthodoxy does not have this problem because Christ assumes our mortal nature thus raising it up to new life. Augustine was converted from Manicheanism and it is very easy to see that he brought his dualistic pagan view of human nature into his theology.

The wise men had to have visited the child when he was under 2 years old. They warned Mary and Joseph about Herrod and his plot to kill the children 2 yrs and under. So they left for Egypt immediately. I do think the gifts funded that trip.

What human kind inherited was not a sin nature but death. And that group encompasses the entire human race. Last I checked every one dies.

What we call sin is but the stench of death. Christ came to defeat death and did so victoriously.

It’s when you buy into the total depravity trap that you get easily led astray.

I have posted a comment to the video, asking for source material for the sermon. Hopefully we will get to the bottom of this soon!

I looked up Bernard Reims\’ Facebook page, and in April 2016 he was evidently reading \”Smith Wigglesworth: The Complete Collection of His Life Teachings\” compiled by Roberts Liardon (2008). I wonder if Bernard\’s reference to the otherwise unknown \”Albert Ribert\” might be taken from that book? I have sent him a message on Facebook to ask if he can provide us with a reference for this name.

Apart from that, it seems that maybe the most promising link to chase up would be Philip Evans\’ comment on 9 March 2016 that \”What Stormont records in his book is, I think, almost certainly authentic and I suspect it may have been said at a meeting of the AoG Executive Council at Wakefield the week before Wigglesworth died. That’s speculation but Wigglesworth’s son-in-law was on the Council and may have given Wigglesworth a lift to see his old friend, Wilfred Richardson, who should have hosted the meetings but was ill. (He died a few days later and Wigglesworth died at the funeral the following week.) In any event, that seems to be the only meeting Wigglesworth attended in the week or so before he died.\”

Perhaps Albert Ribert was there? Or perhaps there will be minutes or other records of this AoG Executive Council at Wakefield, which might point to the source of the wording of this 1947 prophecy? I will ask an AoG friend if he knows where their archives are kept.