ECT This should start a decent discussion: Universal Atonement
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jsjohnnt
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I do agree as to "most homosexuals." But there are those who have come out of that lifestyle who still have the inclination and, thus, the problem. The resolution for that, is (a) grace and the Cross and (b) continual confession and repentance as in I John 1:9 ("keep on confessing . . " as the presence translation allows).
It is a shame that Christian ministers believe they have to justify the sin, rather than treating this issue as any other sin, accepting the sinner, praying and working for his total deliverance just as that minister would do with one who is constantly anger but regrets his temper, or a smoker, or a lazy person or . . . . . . . . . well, you get the point.
Look, I know folks who have an existential problem with drinking, and go out and get drunk . . . BUT that person dares no "give up the [holy] ghost" (pardon the pun). The Cross gives us all the time in the world in our dealings with our "most besetting sin." We know our own hearts. We know that our sin does not define who we are. So, why do we not allow that same standard for those who are caught up in sin that we would never be involved with?
jsjohnnt
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Bless you my child !!
Seriously, thanks for your thoughts and confirmation. It is nice to know that I get things right, once in a while.
jsjohnnt
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Did you return to finish this post?
God's Truth
New member
There are conditions to God's love.
God saves those who love Him.
John 14:21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them."
Our obeying God is loving God, and then He will love us.
God loves us if we LOVE Him by OBEYING HIM.
1 John 5:3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands.
John 15:10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love.
1 Corinthians 8:3 But whoever loves God is known by God.
Psalm 91:14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.
1 Samuel 2:30 "Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, declares: 'I promised that members of your family would minister before me forever.' But now the LORD declares: 'Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained.
Cross Reference
New member
Thank you. However, apparently you do because Jesus was God's representation of a perfect man __ a perfect son Adam was given the opportunity to become.
Lon
Well-known member
Good point. For me, frame of reference and short-cut. If such is unavailable, that's fine. It just helps expediate, I think. Necessary? :nono: I think saying "Barth" is the shortcut, but actually winds up being some 1000 pages of reading or so! :noway:
For me, I've been lazy, I think. Rather, it took me a long time to understand if my salvation was sure. At it applies to unbelievers, I'm not sure. I've watered and planted and saw God give increase. Ultimately, whether Christ died for all or just those saved, is of not consequence to us but to argue over, for we who are in Christ are all fully atoned for. That isn't to say it is of no consequence, but rather that I was caught up in my Christianity with bigger issues of import to me. Now, because I've become Reformed from Dispensationalism, my learning curve has been caught up in essentials (thank you again for your help on this).
I can juggle quite a bit, but tend to stay focused when I need to consider doctrinal decisions. It may or may not allow for this particular thread to be directly on my plate or frozen for later. I will, however, keep a watchful eye to see how it develops and where it is going as well as take any admonishment/encouragement to learn/participate as necessary.
In our Christ,
Good Morning, Afternoon, or Evening in however circumstance this finds you
-Lon
TFTn5280
New member
Not specifically...but I will repost a post I posted on a previous thread (how's that for alliteration ; ) It'll at least be a starting point for some who have yet to read it.
"Universal Atonement" relative to 2 Corinthians 5.14-21
v14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;
The word for "compels" literally means "to seize without release": "For the love of Christ seizes us and won't let go."
This verse and the passage as a whole speaks to humanity’s ontology in Christ, our existent status as human beings in him. Hence in this verse "all" means all and not some, as in some who are elect. And "died" means dead. As dead as Christ was dead in the tomb, that is how dead all humans were in his death. He died for all; thus in his death, all died with him.
15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
"Those who live" is likewise a reference to all humanity and not to certain individuals who have put their faith in Christ and have thus been born again (This is not an argument against faith in Christ or regeneration; it's just that faith is not in view here). We may know that “those who live” is inclusive of the all of v 14 by simple deduction: If everyone died in Christ's death, but only the faithful are alive in his resurrection, then with whom should the living share the Gospel? The dead are as dead as Christ was dead in the grave, that’s the point of this passage ~ not spiritually dead but dead as in no breath in them whatsoever. Again, they are as dead as Christ was when he died. Thus, the "those who live" is a reference to everyone who has breath in his or her lungs. Everyone died in Christ, and everyone rose with him in his resurrection; therefore the living should live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again.
And here the word "for" should better be translated as "on behalf of": He died on behalf of all, their ontological status contained in him, "in order that" those who live, literally, "the living ones" should live no longer for themselves…
The important thing to take away from this verse is that all humanity died in Christ's death, and all humanity rose in Christ's resurrection. All humans are alive right now on Christ's side of the resurrection ~ and are included in him.
16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.
"Flesh" in this verse is a loaded term. It speaks to the entirety of human ontology. It is the flesh that the Word became in the incarnation. It is humanity on the fallen side of Adam. It entails every aspect of our personhood, even our fallen state of being. And Paul says that we are to evaluate no one on these terms any longer ~ because dead on the fallen side of Adam means alive on Christ's side of resurrection. We regard no one as dead in Adam's flesh but everyone alive in Christ, in his resurrection.
And I will expand more on this in a bit but Paul says that Christ was once known according to this same flesh but not any longer. What happened? Christ took that fallen humanity to the cross with him and into the grave with him ~ and there he left it! In resurrection, Christ is victorious over everything that set itself against life in him: sin, death, the devil, even flesh, everything. In his resurrection we no longer regard him or anyone else according to that former humanity.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
My translation: "For this reason, if even one person is in Christ, a new creation he is; the old flesh (sin, sinful nature, sickness and psychosis, hence the entire range of human being) has passed away; behold, the new has come."
In this translation I turn to the UBS text rather than the TR because in this instance it fits better with the context of the rest of this passage.
"In Christ" is again a reference to ontological status in him in his incarnate person, in resurrection. The old flesh died in Christ; a new creation has come with him in resurrection.
This verse does not narrow the preceding verses down to a select few; instead it narrows it down to one. This is Paul's way of addressing “the many in the one" or said another way, "the all in the one." This is a common construct in the Mediterranean social world of his day: the one and the many; the many in the one. Here Paul is including all in his reference to the one.
18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,
Here "all" is neuter and is inclusive of all creation, humanity included.
The word for "has reconciled" is an aorist participle and should be translated thus: "... God, who reconciled us..." The Gr aorist tense conveys the certainty of a past event but does not take time into consideration. Therefore, no matter where we are in our walk of life, the aorist is always active: we are reconciled to God in Christ.
And again, "us" here is inclusive of all humanity because, as we learned above, we are to regard no one according to the flesh because all died in Christ and rose again with him in resurrection.
19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
This is our ministry as believers, the Gospel we should declare to those who do not yet believe: that it was in the flesh or "incarnation" of Christ (again from verse 16) that God reconciled the entire world to himself, and that includes all who hear our voice, not crediting to them the sins they committed.
20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.
"Therefore, be reconciled to God!" Here is the second half of the Gospel, the first half being: you died in Christ; you rose again with him; you are alive in him and are no longer to be considered as someone who is yet dead in the flesh, because Christ came in that same flesh, died to it and rose victorious over it; you are now included in his resurrection, just as you were in his death, and you are therefore a new creation. You stand now as one who is completely reconciled to God because of what Christ did in your place ~ Therefore, drop your enmity against God, befriend him and be reconciled to him!
21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Two things about this verse, the second first: "might become" here does not convey possibility; instead it denotes certainty. The death Christ died was a righteous death. Sin had no hold on him; thus nor did death. His was a resurrection of righteousness. We died that death with him, in him, in his incarnate Person; thus the grave he took us to could not hold us either. Hence ours as well is a resurrection of righteousness, the righteousness of God in Christ.
Second point: this verse speaks plainly as to how that happened. The early Church Father’s had a saying that speaks profoundly to the incarnation of Jesus Christ: That which Christ did not assume, he could not heal. Christians live predominately today under a Doctrine of Christ that teaches them that Jesus came in a new kind of humanity, unrelated to our sin fallen flesh, and that he lived out his life in that perfect humanity, never giving credence to the outward temptations that he faced. He went to his death in the perfect state in which he came, but on the cross God imputed our sin to him, whereby he died in estrangement. In resurrection his righteousness is imputed back to those who believe. This is called the double move of God or the double decree.
This I see as legal fiction. Legally God decrees Christ a sinner. But he’s not. Legally God declares believers righteous. But we’re not. Both sides are legal but neither side is true. It is a legal fiction.
What Christ did not assume, he could not heal means that he assumed our entire flesh in his incarnation: sin, psychosis and all. That’s what it means that he became sin. Yet he fought back the proclivities of humanity in his flesh his entire life, beating and bending our self-sickened desires back to his Father. The temptations he felt were real temptations, internal temptations, because they were our temptations. Beating and pounding his way forward with blows, defeating the tyrants at every turn ~ sin, sin nature, psychosis, the devil, even the Law ~ so that when he went to the cross to face the final enemy, that enemy could not hold him there. There he took us with him in his flesh, and with him there we rose in righteousness, his real and true righteousness, his genuine ontological righteousness, not the kind that God blinks and winks at, but the real righteousness of God in Christ: Christ in us and we in him that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. Amen
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Cross Reference
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My Love TO Christ compels me to do many things because of that love [committment, duty, allegiance]. One would be to know it is my responsibility in striving to be conformed to His image, for purifying my soul, my heart. He won't do that for me __ or you. So it is not a question of Him not letting go but my obedience that His Life IN me will continue unhindered to the completion of what He has started by redeeming me, i.e., to love as He loves. The compeling, committment, duty, allegiance in this are 'eternal values'.
Christian Liberty
Well-known member
Do you think there's a place for a different term (such as heterodox) to describe doctrines which implicitly undermine the gospel but don't necessarily lead the holder of said doctrine to deny the gospel, and which wouldn't quite qualify as heresy as such unless consistently held?
I'd probably put unlimited atonement in this category.
Nang
TOL Subscriber
I don't see how . . or why you should.
Of course I know who you desire to protect by finding such exemption, but IMO you do him no favors by compromising the logical and biblical consistency of upholding all the (Dordt) views as an absolute whole.
One little weakness in a chain, can potentially break down its entire strength.
I don't quite agree with all that, the basic principle yes, if we have besetting sins we are to get victory over them and we are obliged to help and to uphold others in besetting sins, help them get the victory.
Turning back is not an option, we are the Lord's.
But serious sex sin is to be treated seriously in the body and discipline may well involve expulsion from out of the midst of the assembly, other sins if persisted in also require shunning.
This is for the sake of the assembly and for the sake of the backslider.
Arsenios
Well-known member
The professor's point was that the Reformers' problem was with the person retaining responsibility in their salvation which the Latin Church of the West insisted upon... eg Repentance to the end meant for them that no matter a person's entire life of repentance, if it was turned from at the end of one's life, the whole life was thrown away in that final action of turning away, and in this the Works of God across the person's lifetime were made void BY the person...
So the SHIFT they sought and received from Luther was relief from the penitential view of the Latin Church where overcoming sin was central, to the non-penitential view of Atonement on the Cross for some, but not for all...
So that the Latins were insisting on penance in overcoming sin for one's personal salvation, and the Reformists were insisting that we do not have to overcome sin at all if we are the elect because Christ paid the price for our sins...
The treachery of the latter view is in the fact that within it, a person is not required to be overcoming sin in order to be saved, and can go right on sinning... And as the professor pointed out, the Reformers looked into themselves and found that they were NOT overcoming their sins... And that they COULD NOT...
From the Orthodox perspective, all we can say is that this was 500 years into the apostasy of Latin Rome from the Eastern Church, which was Her Mother... And in this apostasy, it is not surprising to us that the overcoming of sin was being lost in deed, if not in doctrine, and that the imposition of Latin Authority via PENANCE in their Scholastic Legalism of Church Administration was creating the mess that led to the Reformation...
The reformers simply and truthfully noted that the overcoming of sin by means of penance imposed by an authoritarian Church was false, and so sought a way of Salvation that bypassed the overcoming of sin...
And that is how the West was Lost...
The Eastern Church knows and disciples the overcoming sin...
The Western Church LOST this knowledge and discipling, and fell into the Church having Authority to impose punishments for sins so as to discourage sinners from sinning...
The East confessed sinners living repentant lives in lifelong struggle in overcoming sin... A process of maturation in the Faith of Christ...
If this has all been covered, forgive me - I am still catching up on the thread from page 3...
Arsenios
Nang
TOL Subscriber
“Faith alone justifies, but not the faith that is alone.” “Works,” Luther said, “are not taken into consideration when the ques*tion respects justification. But true faith will no more fail to produce them than the sun can cease to give light.” Martin Luther:
Here testifying that Sanctification is as monergisic as Justification.
The holy works of the sanctified believer, are produced by the vine; not the branches. John 15:1-8; Galatians 5:22-25
The chosen and holy "branches" are anointed vessels for the Master's use . . . meant to produce His fruit.
" . . . Without Me you can do nothing." John 15:5
Here testifying that Sanctification is as monergisic as Justification.
The holy works of the sanctified believer, are produced by the vine; not the branches. John 15:1-8; Galatians 5:22-25
The chosen and holy "branches" are anointed vessels for the Master's use . . . meant to produce His fruit.
" . . . Without Me you can do nothing." John 15:5
The reformers did not teach continuance in sin, we BELIEVE in VICTORY over sin, not by lifelong struggle but by revelation, that is the revelation that Christ has totally disarmed sin for us and the temptation to sin at the cross.
We are sanctified by the blood of the Lamb, no other way.
If you are in a lifelong struggle then you do not have that revelation, this kind of faith is KNOWING.
Arsenios
Well-known member
Did you listen to his setting up of the problem that the Reformers were facing? Rome was teaching them that they had to overcome sin by punishment, eg by penance... And they were NOT overcoming sin... So they were not being saved by overcoming sin which was not being overcome...
YOUR, and the Reformation's, teaching is that sin is not FOR us to overcome, and the divergences all seem to come from differing answers regarding HOW we do NOT overcome sin...
And I can tell you this:
IF I were in a church that discipled penance for the overcoming of sin unto salvation of my soul, and that penance was NOT overcoming sin,
THEN would I too rebel against the church that was falsely discipling me unto the damnation of my soul...
And the simple empirical FACT on which it seems to be all based is the FACT that penances from Rome were NOT efficacious in the overcoming of sin in the sinner...
That is how I understood the Professor to be posing the issue of Reformational theologies...
Am I mistaken?
Arsenios
Arsenios
Well-known member
No, they did not...
Indeed so, but not by any human effort whatsoever...
Which makes it a personal matter? Revelation of God to me?
Such a revelation will fall into the same pit as did the Latin "Crime and Punishment" theory of overcoming sin... Indeed it is why Europe is functionally atheist today... Because at the end of the day, even with such a revelation, we are still tempted... Absence of temptation is no proof of Salvation... It can be and normally IS demonic deception, inducing pride...
Yes - And the question becomes: "How are we so sanctified?" Our concern is with the Household of God, the Ekonomia of Salvation, wherein we will find what Christ established on earth in His Apostles that man find the Grace of God which IS Salvation...
Well, IF such a revelation is wrong, and the Scripture is right wherein Paul tells us that IF we persevere to the end in our lifelong struggle to run the race set before us, THEN we SHALL be saved, THEN such a revelation is NOT the revelation that we should desire...
Not all knowing is the same...
The Ancient Christian Faith discipled knowing God by the purification of the heart unto a pure conscience in which the Mystery of the Faith is held by those mature in it...
And if this kind of life is what is needed in this fallen cosmos in order that we be one with the Bridegroom, then to say that the Bridegroom did it all FOR us and we can take our ease, is to prevent our union with Christ...
Arsenios
Arsenios
Well-known member
It was sure a poser for me, I can tell you...
I had never asked the question: "What was the basic issue the Reformers were addressing in the Latin Church?" They all harped endlessly on "works salvation", but what was beneath that?
And the professor's idea that it was the failure of Rome to effectively disciple men to overcome their sins by penances that forms the backdrop for the rest...
I had a similar epiphany after my college years studying Plato and Aristotle and the ancients in Greek, and being competent enough but still not able to answer why to all the approaches they took? Then, some years later, I read, for the first time, to my shame, the ILIAD of Homer, and every one of the Philosophers were trying to answer Homer... I was shocked, as my entire graduate education in Greek Philosophers, finally made sense to me...
This could be the key to the Reformation...
And it might not...
Arsenios