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Since when does Jesus support the death penalty for capitol offenses? It seems that Jesus brought a whole new paradigm to the table, one in which "capitol" offenses (be it murder, adultery, etc.) were actually EQUATED with having angry thoughts toward your brother or sister, or committing adultery in one's heart. In Jesus' eyes they are one in the same. If that's true, and your statement is true, then we're all subject to the death penalty...

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BAPTISM

I'd like to hear what some OTHER (besides myself) people have to say about Baptism. That is why I come to this board -- the diversity of views and the chance to interact.

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Good call, POW. I would love to talk about baptism, but this thread is seriously disturbed. Could you start a new baptism thread for us? Thanks, pia

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I'd like to hear what some OTHER (besides myself) people have to say about Baptism.

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. . . 'The old has passed away, now all things are become new' (2 Cor. 5:17). These words of the Apostle Paul express the sense that a profound break had occurred with the coming of Christ. It can hardly be doubted that even before Paul, in the first Jerusalem community, Christians were fully aware of this newness. If in spite of this newness Christians continued to regard Jewish worship as a norm even after the rupture with Judaism, we also have evidence to show that this norm did not contradict the newness of Christianity, but on the contrary had to include this newness within itself in some way, had to find its 'level' within this newness.

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SO WHAT IS THE NEWNESS?

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. . . The one essential difference between the Judeo-Christian Church and the 'Gentile' Church lay in the fact that the Judeo-Christians did not break away from their people and believed in the possibility of the conversion of all Israel to its Messiah. They thought of themselves as the forerunners of this conversion, the nucleus of the New Israel, called first to renew the Israel 'after the flesh.' The Jerusalem. community believed in this way, and so did Paul, who has been regarded as a rebel against Judeo-Christianity only as the result of some incomprehensible misunderstanding. 'His epistles show that he remained a Jew who preached a "Hebrew" Gospel to the Greeks based on purely Hebrew presuppositions.' Paul's dispute with his opponents over circumcision was a dispute within Judeo-Christianity, within a certain general agreement of principles. Nobody denied the worldwide mission of the New Israel nor the necessity of preaching to the Gentiles. The disagreement touched only on the place of the Law within the Church, which was the New Israel for the Gentiles too. In defending the Gentiles' exception from the law of circumcision, Paul was defending not the independence of Christianity from the Jewish Law, but the true nature of the New Israel, the New Covenant in the Messiah and, therefore, the true meaning of the Law. Circumcision was not obligatory because it was a sign of the Old Covenant, while Baptism was now the sign of its renewal, in which the separation of the Gentiles and the Hebrews 'after the flesh' was being broken down, in which all could be one in the New Israel. Later on we find a similar argument in the Epistle to the Hebrews, on the question of sacrifices. Here again we find not a rejection of sacrifices altogether but a reminder that after the Sacrifice of Christ they have become unnecessary, since they were the prophetic forerunners of this complete and perfect sacrifice. This was not the negation of the 'old' cult as a whole, but simply of those elements in it which were overcome and fulfilled in the new cult, in the life of the New Israel. There was nothing essentially false or mistaken in the Christians' faith in the Possibility of the conversion of Israel. Indeed very many were converted, and the first century was marked by the rapid expansion of Christianity within the sphere of Judaism. But this faith was not destined to be justified by events. The Old Israel, as a whole, 'hardened its heart' and rejected Christianity. In Romans 11:28 Paul accepts this as an accomplished fact: 'As concerning the good news they (the Jews) are enemies....' But this change in the mind of Jews changed nothing in the essence of the Church, even at the moment when it took place. Even with the comparatively rapid disappearance from the Church of Jews after the flesh, the Church was and remained the New Israel, the sole inheritor– in the eyes of believers– of the calling of and promises to the Old Israel. 'The transfer of the Church into the hands of the Gentile Christians,' Dix writes, 'can be considered as completed by the end of the '60s. But it was completed only when it became clear that the Gentile Church was flesh of the flesh and bone of the bone of the Church of the Circumcision, that her faith was the same faith, her life was that life which had been promised in the Old Testament, and that all her members were children of Abraham, "who is the Father of us all" (Rom. 4:16) and the "inheritor of the world" (Rom. 4:13-16).

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http://www.jbburnett.com/schmemann/schmemann-ordo.html
Schmemann, "The Original Structure of Christian Worship"


Quoting the above:

"Circumcision was not obligatory because it was a sign of the Old Covenant, while Baptism was now the sign of its renewal, in which the separation of the Gentiles and the Hebrews 'after the flesh' was being broken down, in which all could be one in the New Israel."

A friend reminded me that Baptism had become, by NT times, a rite of entry for the unclean/gentiles to enter the Covenant. How POWERFUL an image must that have been, then, for JEWS to be baptised by John in the Jordan? WOW! And the quote above is illumined by that fact too. ALL needed the "wall of separation" broken down; as we identify bodily with Christ's death and resurrection.





Edited by - Al2Si2H4O9 on 09/03/2002 09:43:53 AM

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Rom.6

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

[6] We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.
[7] For he who has died is freed from sin.
But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.
[9] For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
[10] The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
[11] So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

Romans 6:3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

Romans 6:6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

Romans 6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

co-buried/buried together with

co-crucified/crucified together with

co-borne/borne together with

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ABOUT THE BOOK "Galatians: A Commentary"

From the Publisher: Paul's letter to the Galatians has been at the center of doctrinal controversies from the day it was written, and this is reflected in a surfeit of commentaries on the epistle. What sets this new one by Tarazi apart from the crowd is its focus on the first-century controversy addressed by the epistle rather than on the modern controversies that have swirled around it ever since Luther made his interpretation of it the center of the Protestant Reformation.

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Originally posted by 1way

Thank you POW, and blessings back at you. So, what about my post? You were mentioning how we are co-related with God, so what about us also being His co-workers, wouldn't you add that to your list?

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Originally posted by 1way

...Today, we would never attach gospel issues with someone's offensive table manners, but Paul did just that with Peter. Please do tell, in what way did the commentator rescue Paul from such an extremely unusual event?

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