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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 1/28/2007 5:01 PM (GMT -6) |   | I've been thinking a lot recently - there are a lot of issues intertwining in my head and at the moment they're a bit tangled up. I started with issues of justice and punishment, and moved from there to the right/obligation to punish and who has it and why - from there to the atonement, and how Jesus can somehow not only represent himself, but everything we have done, and everything that has been done to us. This led me to the idea of ownership, although giving also puzzles me...though that's a different question.
Now, I still haven't got these first things sorted, but a question that is puzzling me now is what self-giving love means, and is about. Why is it a problem? Well, in the normal course of things I would say that if I gave myself to someone, they in some sense became an owner of something of me. In the case of God, however, this disturbs me a little - if we say he gives himself to us the idea of my owning God doesn't really make sense - ownership tends to be over and above something, and that I could in any sense be over and above the divine creator of the universe doesn't seem right.
So, what does self-giving love really mean? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/29/2007 7:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Markporter:
I've been thinking a lot recently - there are a lot of issues intertwining in my head and at the moment they're a bit tangled up. I started with issues of justice and punishment, and moved from there to the right/obligation to punish and who has it and why - from there to the atonement, and how Jesus can somehow not only represent himself, but everything we have done, and everything that has been done to us. This led me to the idea of ownership, although giving also puzzles me...though that's a different question.
Now, I still haven't got these first things sorted, but a question that is puzzling me now is what self-giving love means, and is about. Why is it a problem? Well, in the normal course of things I would say that if I gave myself to someone, they in some sense became an owner of something of me. In the case of God, however, this disturbs me a little - if we say he gives himself to us the idea of my owning God doesn't really make sense - ownership tends to be over and above something, and that I could in any sense be over and above the divine creator of the universe doesn't seem right.
I think we are within our rights to think in the terms of God being a WILLING "love slave" to us. It's all over Scripture how he submits himself to OUR issues to be with us. He's been this "Immanuel" since the beginning. And God's ALWAYS intended for us to be ONE with him. I would say that this means that God isn't bothered by the idea of "belonging to us"
Think about marriage. There can be an idea of MUTUAL SUBMISSION of free beings to one another. In other words, there is an interdependent relationship where each CHOOSES to "belong" to the other, in a relationship of fidelity, intimacy, and passion. Ownership does not have to be over and above. Jesus had was the MASTER from whom all things came...and he washed his SERVANTS feet and ended up calling them friends. God is a SERVANT LEADER/OWNER who freely wants to SUBMIT to us and SERVE us. And if that's what God wants to do, he's free to do so.
Just some of my thoughts.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/29/2007 10:18 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Hi, Mark.
I'll just respond to the first paragraph.
markporter said...
I've been thinking a lot recently - there are a lot of issues intertwining in my head and at the moment they're a bit tangled up. I started with issues of justice and punishment, and moved from there to the right/obligation to punish and who has it and why - from there to the atonement, and how Jesus can somehow not only represent himself, but everything we have done, and everything that has been done to us.
Singing Saturday's Vesperal Liturgy (tone eight) I noticed especially that Christ frees us from bondage to our passions. I thought about that, such bondage. I asked myself what that meant. I think that it helps us to consider that not only did a man become God, but God became man. God bore our weaknesses, and in that form of a servant he "bore our sins." That is, he bore in his suffering human nature the consequences of our "missing the mark" (please recognize this as a definition of sin: "missing the mark"), our corruption, degradation, brokenness, misalignment, derailment... in his flesh.
Further, I considered that we, in our sin, are bound by the influence and weight of that sinfulness. We want to do good, but do evil instead. We are ensnared, and crushed by the weight of those snares. We have real, actual, and certain need. We need deliverence.
Christ did many things for us. Christ died to put to death the consequences of our sin. Becoming sin for us, in his own unfallen flesh that took upon himself the very condition of brokenness and weakness, and suffering under the weight of the fallout and challenges of our condition, Christ went the whole way, all the way, suffering all the way for us, and bore the death and abandonment of the Cross. He died for us, and conquered those consequences of sin.
Not only that, but Christ also rose, conquering death by his own death, and rising for our justification. In his risen flesh he "recapitulated" (a good word) humanity in his resurrected flesh, healing humanity in himself, and making himself to the the fountain of life.
But lets go back a bit--as it addresses your question, I think.
We have need to have our passions tamed. Passion is a created thing, and good; but in Scripture it is an expression that sometimes speaks of the coup of sin which can become the taskmaster of flesh and thoughts that bow in slavery to sin, down, down, down spiralling. What is needed. Christ's temptation and suffering should come to our minds. In his flesh he took on the big dogs, and proved himself master of them. Further, his mastery provides victory for us too. Not only did a man become God, but God became man.
Note the goal!
"O Christ our God...you tasted death in the flesh for our sake, mortify the rebelion of our flesh, and save us."
.....D O W N L O A D F I R S T.....
Like the Nicene Creed says, "For us men and our salvation..."
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 1/29/2007 9:23:55 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 2/6/2007 6:58 PM (GMT -6) | | | Thanks guys...some beautiful stuff. Guess there's a reason I love posting/browsing here. | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 3/23/2007 4:53 PM (GMT -6) | | Let me move topic slightly to something else I've been thinking about - work. If the Christian life is a call to self-giving love, but a good proportion of that is made up of buying and selling, working and being paid for that work, how do these fit in with each other? What I mean is, that Love will offer gifts to a person purely for who they are, whilst our normal day-to-day existence seems to be very much about doing things purely in terms of a market of exchanging goods - work for money, money for products. What's the missing link? What's the connection?
M | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
Megistered Rember
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 3/24/2007 3:49 PM (GMT -6) | | "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you."
I understand that there can be a problem with creating dependency, but giving too much is hardly a problem for me and most of the Christians I've met. And we are supposed to be servants. Does a servant refuse to serve because others might become dependent? If we are hoarding enough money that we have to struggle with how to make our charitable donations, then we are one of the rich men for whom entering heaven is more difficult than a camel passing through the eye of a needle.
The median household income in the United States is $46,000. The average American household makes 600% as much as the average household worldwide. The average American is very rich. If your household makes more than $46,000, you may safely classify yourself as "filthy rich" compared to the worldwide average of $6,000 -$7,000.
Even if we obtained this money through just means (which almost without exception we do not), we would still have an obligation as followers of Jesus to do what Jesus says: "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you." Does someone outside the Christian community have such an obligation? I don't know. I don't need to know. I'm not in charge of them, and I refuse to be part of the majority which rules over them.
But to answer your question Mark, I don't see any problem with buying and selling, even within the Christian community. That is probably the best way to handle the more mundane exchanges of goods and services. But we should remember that we are only stewards. And if anyone (Christian or not) asks for any possession from us, it is as much theirs as it is ours. We should imitate and take confidence from our "Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - StavesacrePost Edited (Sahid) : 3/24/2007 3:52:32 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/24/2007 7:43 PM (GMT -6) | | | "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you."
I think this verse is a good example of how Christ uses Eastern rhetoric to hyperbolically contrast what was wrong with Pharisaical thought. The Pharisees looked for ways to interpret the Torah in terms of their own self-interest. Matthew ends Christ's teaching on the Torah by saying, therefore, whatsoever you would that men do unto you, do unto them." He also said that the 1st and 2nd greatest commandments were to love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
To my mind, what Matthew was trying to bring out about Christ's view of Torah adjudication was this--the covenant people were to keep the terms of the covenant down to the least of the commandments. Christ says this explicitly in the sermon on the mount. He says it again when he says of tithing mint and cummin that "these things ye ought to have done, but not to have left the weightier things undone."
Christ gave examples of how the greater and weighter obligations of the Torah could, at times, necessarily trump the lesser duties. He shows that David used that same mode of adjudication, as did the priests when they profaned the Sabbath to do their duties. The Pharisees, themselves, realized this. But they adjudicated with a view to their own self-interest.
E.g., they realized that an ox in the ditch trumped the Sabbath rule to some extent. But they seemingly were more interested in the fact that their ox was a means to making money than they were in having compassion on the ox. Otherwise, it would have been a no-brainer for them to realize that Christ could legitimately heal a son of Abraham on the sabbath seeings how a son of Abraham is greater than an ox. He exposed the fact that they didn't have compassion for the ox in mind at all in their adjudication of the law. But, on the other hand, he admitted that compassion for the ox actually did trump the normal duty of sabbath-keeping.
So how does this fit with buying and selling? To love one as oneself entails the belief that people have analogous needs and desires. People typically want and need material "goods," as well as emotional "goods" like freedom and dignity. These needs are such that the best way to ensure that people get these desires/needs fulfilled is to allow and expect people to work for their own bread. Because a person who expects bread for nothing is missing out on the dignity that comes with earning one's own bread. And the best way to allow people to fulfill their obligations of providing for themselves and their families is to allow them as much freedom as possible to acquire material goods.
The sabbath law was a law grounded in the fact that there needs to be a balance between spending time at work and at other activities related to other duties. So on the one hand, we try to understand that balance and live accordingly. We need not suppose that the specific Torah sabbath law is binding on us to recognize the benevolent intent of that law. On the other hand, we understand that we have failed miserably at attaining that balance in our own lives, apart from Christ. Hence, we are to have compassion and mercy on others who fail.
This is where the Sermon comes in. Not only are we to act with compassion towards those who are financially ruined, say, by a natural disaster (which is an obvious duty of loving one as ourself, since we would want help in such a situation), but we are to act with compassion towards those who have ended up in dire financial straits due to their own vice and lack of self-discipline--because we have done the same in at least some areas of our life, if not financial ones.
But, as POW says, to the extent that we see our acts of "giving" as tending towards furthering the vice of a person, we rightly question the propriety of such "giving." Because to the extent that a person still has the self-discipline to act rightly on his own to avoid suffering and/or hunger, he ought to. It is never right to expect hand-outs to avoid living in a dignified manner. Because dignity is a higher good than the comfort of avoiding work.
I think there are cases where we can act in such a way that we further one's self-destruction. There are plenty of verses that deal with this subject. E.g., Christ told the Pharisees that they made their proselytes two-fold the sons of gehenna than they were. James said teachers cause all to stumble. Paul said those Christians who were busy-bodies and not working, were not to be companied with as a mode of church discipline--since christians are to exemplify the fact that he who doesn't work ought not eat. We are to expect more of Christians than others because where much is given, much is required.
In short, justice is the ideal in a world proceeding properly and dutifully. But in a fallen world, mercy can, and often does, boast over justice/judgment. But it takes judgment to apply mercy and compassion since "where much is given, much is required." We are never to give to a person if we know that our gifts are being used by the recipient as a means to evade what is "required" of them. To do so is to help them destroy themselves. This is not love. So the question gets down to what you think is required of a person given your understanding of human duty and what you know about that individual.
On the other hand, insomuch as anything not of faith is sin, in those cases where it is not clear whether we are helping people live in vice when they actually have the self-discipline and willingness to earn their own bread if necessary, it is probably safer to err on the side of mercy. This is why I always tell Zach that my view ends up being practically identical to his--because life is so complex that we typically don't have enough knowledge to refuse mercy to "him who asks." But because these things can require judgment, there is no black and white rule that can answer all our specific questions on the matter.
If it turns out that the rule of "anything not of faith is sin" only applies to acts that are not intrinsically right or wrong, we still have the fact that God doesn't allow us to be tested above what we are able. I suspect this applies to the capacity for wise judgment also. If I'm not wise enough to know whether I'm helping or hurting someone by giving, God will not allow me to be in such a situation.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 3/24/2007 8:13:53 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/25/2007 8:53 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Zach: If a man asks for something that we know with certainty will allow and lead him to sin, is it our perogative to remove his God-allowed ability to choose between good and evil? Not only does this act despise the man's free will, it seems a little presumptuous to me. Even if it is sin, who made us this man's lord?
Jeff: I don't say we "remove his God-allowed ability to choose between good and evil." I'm saying that if we know that giving does more harm than good, we don't give. But such a case where we have such knowledge will be very rare.
Take some more statements of Christ. He says "Do NOT give that which is holy to the dogs." So here we have, in the same sermon, Christ saying something ought NOT be given. He says "If any man will ... take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also." Is this to be taken literally? Can I not give money instead? Isn't this just a way of saying we should be willing to give more than we are asked of if conditions justify it? And if so, doesn't it mean that we are to use judgment and mercy, the two weightier Torah principles?
Neither tithing nor mercy are to be done completely independent of judgment. It takes judgment to know that the suffering ox trumps the sabbath. It took judgment for David to know that his circumstances justified the eating of the shewbread. It took judgment for the priests to know that the Sabbath should be profaned for certain things.
Likewise, I think when Christ says, "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you," I don't think he is saying I can only give to him asking me to give and I can only lend to him who wants to borrow. Sometimes a person can rightly judge it to be more appropriate to give to him who is asking only to borrow.
Christ said if our brother asks for forgiveness, we should forgive 70X7 times. But surely, he doesn't mean only 490. He's just illustrating the principle that we should forgive those who are repentant. On the other hand, he says of those that are unrepentant of true wrong-doing that we regard them as publicans. And even this doesn't mean that we are to hold grudges or retaliate. It just means, probably, that the unrepentant wrongdoers in the church community shoud be excommunicated from fellowship in some sense, just like Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians.
Christ said ask and it shall be given. But he also said in other places that God would answer their requests if they asked "believing" or consistently "with the will of God." This makes sense even in the Sermon, itself. For there, he tells his disciples to pray "THY WILL BE DONE." That, itself, is a request that God's will be done. So how can God answer all of our requests when they are contradictory? He can't. So He answers when requests are "according to His will."
Zach: Jesus gave himself over to men who would kill him. He was the stumbling stone on which they fell. I believe that he understood this at the time. He gave violent men the perfect opportunity to sin.
Jeff: True, but he also told his disciples that if they were persecuted in one city to flee to the next. We know why Christ gave his life. He said it himself--as a ransom for many. And even when it came down to it, he prayed to the Father that if it were POSSIBLE, that cup would pass. But alas, it was the Father's will that he give his life as a ransom for many.
Zach: I honestly do not mean to be polemical, but how do you square this with your idea that we should choose to do what's good for someone instead of what they want when the two conflict? Are you saying "do unto others..." is equivalent to "discipline others..."?
Jeff: Not giving is not the equivalent of disciplining. Indeed, NOT giving is doing NOTHING. Disciplining is doing SOMETHING. But regarding the case of a conflict between one's good and one's request, I think I am obligated to do what I judge is best for people. (Just like God answers requests when they are "according to His will," even though Christ said "ask, and you shall receive." Christ expects us to reconcile contradictions in terms of principles--like the ox and sabbath reconciliation. Otherwise, human duties could not be enumerated in a list small enough to remember them all.)
E.g., I believe parents have the right and duty to deny the requests of their children when they deem the requests as adverse to the the well-being of their children. I think the same is true of one individual to another. But the two cases are not completely analogous. I have, as a parent, obligations towards my child's future character that I do not have with another adult--even my own wife.
In this sense, the parental case is similar to the case of a local community of believers. We have a duty to exercise church discipline to those in our believing community, but we have no such duty or right to do the same to those who are "without." There is no hard fast rule in these matters that applies equally to all people and all cases. Because where much is given, much is required. E.g., as a parent, more responsibility is given to me regarding my children's well-being than is given me regarding your well-being. And this makes sense since I have much less influence over you than I do over a person that I raise from an infant.
Zach: Under this ethic shouldn't Jesus have avoided Jerusalem in order to prevent the Jewish and Roman authorities from committing the great sin of deicide?
Jeff: This gets back to all the discussions on the "General Chat." I have come to the conclusion that God's providential activity is conditioned by certain things. You will see there that I disagree with D. and Tom on the ultimate end of creation. My view is to take the scripture at face value when it says that all things exist FOR the Father and FOR the Son. Tom and D. think God created FOR us and only incidently for God and Christ. (I'm not even sure what it means for something to be incidently for someone. "FOR" implies purpose. Purpose is intentional and, thus, not incidental, to my mind.)
Per my view, God loves us because God is love. But He didn't create us FOR us. So whatever God does, He does with the creational interest of His Son in mind. At no time is God indifferent to the interest that He intends for His Son in creation. Part of how Christ ends up becoming the beneficiary of creation as Christus Victor is by redeeming mankind. This required that he incarnate and die. And presumably God brought this providential event to pass at a time that He deemed as most fit.
Therefore, I don't try to equate an ethic for God or Christ with an ethic for us creatures. The way that the Father and the Son become beneficiaries of creation constrains what and when God does things. These kinds of constraints have nothing to do with how I act as a creature, necessarily, though they do condition things. Christ did what he did in obedience to the Father, trusting that he would be glorified thereby (see John). This obedience entailed specific duties that don't apply to us--like dying a particular prophecied death as a means to his own and the Father's glorification, etc.
On the other hand, I owe duties to my creator and fellow men. I have to perform those duties in a world of relatively uniform causality on the inductive belief that men are similar and that we are to treat one another, therefore, as we want to be treated. But this rule allows for all kinds of complexity--like the fact that men are different than women, children are different than adults, and so on. Differences in ability equate to differences in duty--for where much is given, much is required.
Zach: My own response to this understanding is to say that respect for human free will must extend to respect even for poor (and sinful) choices if it is to be meaningful.
Jeff: I understand your position. But even you have to allow for unique cases like children. And that's all I'm saying. There is no one fast hard rule that entails all our duties. We are to love all persons. But people are different, so we can't treat all people identically and assume that we are loving them equally. The way I love an adult is different than the way I love a one year old baby.
Similarly, Paul says walk in wisdom that you might know how to answer EVERY man. Not all men need the same answer to a given question. We are to speak, he says, ACCORDING TO THE NEED. How is this different than Christ saying do good unto all men? How can I give if I am convinced it will cause more harm than good, when Christ says to do good unto all men?
The very fact that Christ said "where much is given, much is required" proves that he didn't believe all people have identical duties. And the fact that he said judgment was a weighty principle of the Torah means that he believed we must use judgment to know what to do in certain cases.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 3/25/2007 9:38:53 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 3/25/2007 10:25 AM (GMT -6) | | OK, so the basic picture you guys are suggesting is one in which work is fulfilling the duty of providing for oneself, leading to a state in which there are no unhealthy dependencies. In a way, that makes sense. I don't think it's the full picture though. A few things;
- Everything we have is a gift from God in the first place, so in a sense we're not really providing for ourselves but somehow taking advantage of God's provision and making the most of it. Lots of professions seem to be about more than this too, is someone building a cathedral really just providing for themself?
- The caring professions in particular seem to point in a different direction - Are doctors and carers etc. etc. really just providing for themselves, or are they doing something else? Are these really just acts of service in return for money? Is life that mercenary?
- I think the picture of love being suggested is one in which love doesn't just involve self-giving, there are other aspects to it as well which can be manifest in different ways. I think I let myself get sidetracked there and missed something about love. Does someone fancy filling me in a bit?
- Where does giving fit into this picture? I'm not seeing its place at the moment.
In other words, I think this picture is beginning to go somewhere, but that there are some rather huge gaps that I'm not quite seeing yet. | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 3/25/2007 10:31 AM (GMT -6) | | | I should add that I'm not thinking about giving as the giving one does to the poor and needy, but the giving that forms a part of everyday working and friendship relationships. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/25/2007 11:03 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Mark, I think your further comments get at the heart of my contention. We are to seek opportunities to do good unto all men. These opportunites are to be regulated by our specific duties to specific persons, like spouses and children, e.g. But the point is, it truly takes wise judgment and self-control to do these kinds of giving effectually in all the various kinds of activity it entails. And as we grow in both, we become more "fruitful" in our giving. There are no hard fast rules since we are to do good as we "have opportunity." And we are only required to do according to the measure that God has given us, thus far.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 3/28/2007 6:19:30 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Violin for God
Luke, I am your father. --Nooooooooo!!!!!
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 690
| Posted 8/18/2007 12:59 AM (GMT -6) | | I'm not sure if my question is quite on track with the intended direction of this thread, but related to the stated topic of this thread, "Self-giving love," I've been thinking a lot about the whole issue of the cross, what it means, and what it really accomplished. I've been toying with the idea of thinking about it in more metaphorical terms... how the crucifixion more like a representation of a grander picture (Rom 3).
But here's the question I have in light of 1 Tim 2:6 where Jesus "gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time" as well as Eph 5:2, Gal 1:4, etc.
I'm not sure how to make sense of this in light of Love. (For the record, I don't really care for the penal-substitution view because it's hard to make sense of Love and God) When one gives oneself up in such a way as described in these passages, who or what is the recipient?
If the Son gave himself up to God the Father, then that serves only as blood-money of sorts and God the Father demanding payment, right? ... but how does this make God the Father loving?
If he gave himself up to us, what does that mean? We didn't specifically demand anything in the first place, but rather we separated ourselves from him.
So I'm having a difficult time understanding these passages in light of Love. Any ideas?
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 8/18/2007 8:50 AM (GMT -6) | | VFG:
So I'm having a difficult time understanding these passages in light of Love. Any ideas?
I think I may have some. Before we do anything else, though, I figure we'd better bring Isaiah 53 into this. I get the feeling this will help a little. Let's read and ponder this first...
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied ;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
After reading this, Vi., see what thoughts come to you, with respect to your question. We can go from there.
"Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began."
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." | | Back to Top | | |
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Violin for God
Luke, I am your father. --Nooooooooo!!!!!
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 690
| Posted 8/18/2007 9:06 PM (GMT -6) | | | Ok, I read the passage and this does seem to lean strongly to the penal substitution view (PSV). Jesus was innocent. Someone had to take the blow. The Father loved us so much that it was decided for the Son to be "crushed for our iniquities." But the difficulty I'm having is with the whole "punishment" idea.
See, right now I'm all into the whole idea of God restoring creation back to where it ought to be. We're to conform to Christ's "image" - living life as he did, following in his footsteps, looking forward to when everyone looks like Christ. But how does punishment restore? Punishment only serves to get rid of the bad stuff, but it itself doesn't do any restoration.  This icon is a good representation of how the Father appears in the PSV: "Shame on you for breaking my Law!" Punishment minus restoration seems to be absent of love.
What I'm also getting from this passage is the Father telling the Son, "It'll only hurt for a short time. Bear with it."
Also, I misstated something. In my last post, I wrote, "When one gives oneself up in such a way as described in these passages, who or what is the recipient?" Recipient is totally the wrong word intended in my question - so ignore that. What I really meant to write in that place of my post was this:
If Jesus 'gave himself up' for us (given that there is that "gap" between us and God), to what or whom did he give himself up?
Looking forward to hearing your ideas, 'cause I need help! 
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 8/19/2007 8:09 AM (GMT -6) | | | I'm also persuaded that the greek (pistis Christou) that is usually translated "faith IN Christ" in several places is more accurately translated "faith OF Christ"; we are saved by HIS faith. Somehow growing up, the idea that Jesus lived by faith was lost on me. Maybe due to assumptions that downplayed his humanity, I don't know. But it changes perspective for me pretty significantly. | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 8/19/2007 9:50 AM (GMT -6) | |
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
It may seem on the face of it that this language is incompatible with the view I hold (I'm not sure what to label it.) But as I've been soaking in this for quite a while, it still makes the best sense to me of the scripture. Jesus is taking it upon himself to remedy our sin. Our sins brought about this state of affairs where there was a serious question as to whether God's purposes (perfect unity) would be thwarted. Our sins opened the lingering question, gave grounds to the accuser: can Man EVER be faithful? Jesus' life, death and resurrection closed this question-once-and-for-all. We created the mess, he cleaned it up, definitively. His faithfulness guarantees that our unfaithfulness will be overcome. If the Trinity can overcome a rift in the Godhead, anything else is a pretty simple matter. The question is closed. Reconciliation is inevitable. No more "what ifs" remain.
Post Edited (Corey) : 8/19/2007 9:59:30 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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