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spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 11/23/2004 12:24 PM (GMT -6) |   | Augustine wasn't an apostle chosen by Jesus Himself before witnesses. He was a man like us. God can speak through him and he can also be wrong. God can speak through you and you can also be wrong. In a sense we are all anointed, but only one was unique and the anointed one. The apostles were special in that they were chosen by Christ Himself to teach His words. Augustine and the rest of us have come to know this Christ through their words. It is because of their authoritative "witness" of this tangible Christ that we have fellowship with the Father, not because of Augustine or you or me.
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
Spen Lake
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lock
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 701
| Posted 11/23/2004 1:01 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by the Wicker Man
quote:
Originally posted by lock
You always want it explained so that it fits how YOU FEEL about what true love is, as opposed to what the bible directly teaches. Instead of adjusting scriputre to how we feel, we should adjust how we feel to scripture.
i'll bet you contradict what you believe scripture says about true love by how you treat your children
i'll bet you don't give them acid to drink in order to contrast it with water, as you believe that God made evil in order to contrast it with good
i'll bet you don't cut off your child's arm so that they can really appreciate their other arm, as you believe that God made evil in order to contrast it with good
you believe God forces people into a relationship with Himself with NO input from them, yet I'll bet you didn't do this with your wife
like the hindus that don't believe in reality, yet stop at stop lights, EVERYTHING you do contradicts what you believe scripture teaches
When considering my love for my family, it drives home the point I am making. The problem is not our nature, its the flesh. Our very conscience has the law of God written in it. Paul stated that he delighted in the law of God within his inner man (or mind) but he observed another law within his members warring against the law of his mind. I desire, wish, will (however you wish to look at it) to love my wife and children as best as possible. But just as Paul says in Rom. 7, I find myself doing the very things I hate, such as losing my temper and bickering over small details.
As for Christ Jesus, I'll try to explain it again for you Wicker Man. Christ was born of the flesh. He experienced the same desires we experience, but he did not let those desires lead Him to sin. Christ was able to do this because He was in continual accord with the spirit of God. As Rom. 8:3,4 tells us, "Christ came in the likeness of sin's flesh, and concerning sin, He condemns sin in the flesh, that the just requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who are not walking in accord with flesh, but in accord with spirit.
His achievement are we, being created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God makes ready beforehand, that we should be walking in them. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/23/2004 2:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Lock: If I had the ability to remove all that inhibits the relationship I have with my wife and children, by all means I would do it.
Tom: Would you remove the free will necessary to their choosing to enter into loving relationship with you?
Lock: God will, through Christ, remove all that which inhibits our nature (i.e. the flesh and sin, which make its home in the flesh) from having the relationship it longs to have with its Creator.
Tom: Then the resulting relationship God gets with us is one in which he is neither loved nor worshipped.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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borg
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 324
| Posted 11/23/2004 5:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Wickerman, I do not know if your worthless appeal to Isaiah 5 was ever answered, for I got to sick of the same mundane arguments used consistently by people like you; but I was thourghly disgusted with the way that you handled that verse. Sir, you are wrong, and your interpretation of it is wrong. Nowhere in all of this section of verses was God ever speaking of His POWER or FOREKNOWLEDGE or anything to which you would liken it. Rather, a clear, untainted reading of this passage clearly shows that God was declaring that He was under NO obligation to do more than what He had done for His people.
Furthermore, your attempt to "prove" that Christ was born in the same "sinful flesh" as we are, is without Biblical warrant. Beware lest you travel beyond the bounds of Scripture into fuitle human reasonings. Christ was born of a woman, but how that union was made in her womb is nowhere stated in Scripture. Yes Romans 8 boldly says that those who are born of the flesh CANNOT please God, and that they CANNOT submit to the Law of God. But don't be forgetting what Christ Jesus said to Nicodemus in the 3rd Chapter of St. John verse 6. That which is born of the flesh IS flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Our Lord was born in the flesh, by the Spirit; I'll leave you to figure out the "logic" of that one; but I dare not go beyond the scope of Scripture.
"So it is a more glorious work of power to uphold a soul in a state of grace and holiness, and to carry it on till it is brought to glory, when there is so much sin remaining in the heart resisting, and Satan with all his might opposing, than it would have been to have kept manfrom falling at first, when Satan had nothing in man." Edwards | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 11/23/2004 5:43 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by lock
quote:
Jesus suffered eternity in Hell? Multiplied times every sin ever committed?
John-
You have alluded to this in another post...
quote:
At last weekend's EEM conference, Dr. Boyd said something that left several of us scratching our heads. When answering a question about the atonement, he said Christ "paid the penalty" for sin, as well as saying the merits of the atonement were like a "blank check." I was under the impression that Doc believed in the "Christus Victor" view of the atonement, not the penal substitution nor the sin-debt payment view.
I know he doesn't come around here much anymore, but could someone who knows clarify?
Thanks,
John Earp
Where can I read up on the "Christus Victor view of atonement" and the penal substitution view and the sin-debt payment view?
Hi lock,
For a short summary, the following article is helpful, if not quite exhaustive:
http://twtministries.com/articles/8_mgt/hisatone.html
The "Christus Victor" theory (also known of as the "classic" theory), was popularized in the last century by Gustaf Aulen, and is basically a revisit of the largely undeveloped theory that held sway in Christianity until the advent of Anselm's satisfaction theory (c. 1000 A.D.) The CV theory focuses on the triumph over death, hell, and the grave which Christ's atonement accomplished.
The penal substitution theory is practically identical with the satisfaction of divine wrath theory.
The most helpful book on the Atonement I have found is P.P. Waldenstrom's Be Ye Reconciled Unto God. He was a Swedish Lutheran professor of theology who was very influential in the pietist movement. His book is available online free of charge at:
http://twtministries.com/articles/8_mgt/reconcil.html
A longer, more developed book by Waldenstrom is available at:
http://www.gospeltruth.net/Waldenstrom/wald_atone_index.htm
A little bit of bio about Waldenstrom is available at the Pietisten website:
http://www.pietisten.org/winter0304/waldenstrom.html
The following is an excerpt from an article on Waldenstrom in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology:
Waldenstrom, P. P. – (1838-1917)
Swedish theologian, preacher, and writer who was a key leader in the organization of the pietist revivals into the permanent Swedish Mission Covenant. He was also a major figure in the establishment and early life of two American denominations with Swedish roots, the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Free Church. The Covenant has retained significant continuity with Waldenstrom's pietism and modified Lutheranism.
Born in Lulea, Waldenstrom studied theology and classical languages at Uppsala University. His ordination as a priest in the Lutheran state church took placein 1863. Later he resigned his clerical standing as theological and practical differences with the Lutheran hierarchy increased.
From the beginning Waldenstrom opposed the liturgism of the state church, which too often replaced rather than enhanced a genuine, personal faith in Jesus Christ. In the pietist tradition of Spener, Francke, Zinzendorf, and Wesley, he approved the gathering of devout Christians and serious seekers into small conventicles for mutual prayer, Bible study, and conversation. From this starting point Waldenstrom's journey illustrates the worst fears of the orthodox critics of pietism. While retaining a fully Lutheran understanding of the sacraments, he approved, and occasionally presided at, celebrations of the Lord's Supper in these small gatherings of the devout. This meant celebrating the Eucharist outside the regular parish structure of the state church. This in turn led to the demand for a regenerate church in which only believers would be admitted, where one's status as a believer was determined by one's conversion to Jesus Christ and not by the affirmation of a creed or by participation in certain sacraments. In short, the mark of the true church, in Waldenstrom's opinion, was neither a proper creed nor the preaching of a doctrinally correct gospel nor the celebration of the sacraments; rather, living faith was the central mark of the church. Waldenstrom emphasized, in consistency with this position, the primacy of the local congregation, and he rejected the authority of the great Lutheran and ecumenical creeds on which the Swedish state church was based. In place of the creeds he substituted a simple biblicism. The status of any doctrine could be determined, according to him, by asking, "Where in the Bible is it written?" Any form of higher criticism would threaten such a biblicism, and Waldenstrom, even after his study in Germany, rejected it furiously.
While Waldenstrom's theology annoyed the Swedish Lutheran hierarchy, it won approval in other places. In 1889 Yale University, responding apparently to his emphasis on congregational polity, awarded him a doctorate of divinity during the first of his three trips to the United States. True to the pietist impulses in his heritage, Waldenstrom strongly encouraged evangelism and missions and supported various social projects, serving from 1884 to 1905 in the Swedish House of Representatives. In 1913 his own university, Uppsala, bestowed upon him the Jubilee doctorate of philosophy.
Waldenstrom is best remembered for his doctrine of the atonement, which foreshadowed many of the emphases of twentieth century Scandinavian work on this doctrine, especially Gustaf Aulen's Christus Victor. The specific form of Waldenstrom's restatement of the atonement, however, illustrates both the strengths and weaknesses of his biblicism. The state church had been teaching that the atonement on the cross, among other effects, reconciled God to man. Waldenstrom at first continued to teach the doctrine of the state church; but when challenged, "Where is it written?" he discovered that it was nowhere stated in Scripture. This caused him to rethink the issue.
The least controversial thesis in Waldenstrom's restatement of the atonement was that the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, and Christ's atoning work proceeded fundamentally from God's love and not his wrath. Even theologians such as Luther (in most of his emphases) and Calvin (clearly and repeatedly) agreed that the foundation of Christ's atonement is the love of God. But Waldenstrom added the claim that in no sense did the cross reconcile God to man; rather, the atonement only reconciled man to God. This conflicted with the Lutheran confessions; but Waldenstrom rejected them, and he challenged anyone to find a biblical text that asserted that the cross reconciled God to man. (As a part of his argument, he denied that the term "propitiation" is anywhere found in the Greek text in reference to Christ's relation to the Father.) When asked what took place on the cross, Waldenstrom answered that Christ had won the victory over death, evil, and Satan.
Waldenstrom's biblicism, however, prevented him from giving a clear picture of this victory. He was asked where in Scripture it is written that the world is already reconciled to God, and he could not find a text. He could not appeal to the creeds of the church, for he had rejected their authority. And appeals to philosophical, speculative, or conceptual considerations were inconsistent with his biblicism. In the end Waldenstrom concluded that the atonement (and not just the application of the atonement) is a continuing process and that as each person is newly converted, through faith, to Christ, the new convert is reconciled to God. It is quite unclear, however, what sort of victory Christ won on the cross if the atonement is a process which is not completed until the last convert is won for Christ. Throughout his life Waldenstrom wanted to say that Christ did win a decisive and completed victory on the cross; but he was never able to explicate that victory in the sense of showing its integral relation to the ongoing process of the atonement and reconciliation of man to God.
In fact, Waldenstrom was not so isolated from the creeds and the history of theology as his biblicistic methodology might lead one to expect. Apart from the pietist emphases mentioned previously and his restatement of the atonement, he lived quite faithfully within the theological structure of classical Lutheranism. And his memory and contributions have been most cherished by those standing in a basically Lutheran tradition who appreciate his emphasis on renewal and new life within that context. (From EVANGELICAL DICTIONARY OF THEOLOGY edited by Walter Elwell © Copyright 1984, by Baker Book HouseCompany.)
______________
Blessings,
John
http://revivaltheology.net | | Back to Top | | |
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the Wicker Man
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 73
| Posted 11/24/2004 2:03 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by borg
Wickerman, I do not know if your worthless appeal to Isaiah 5 was ever answered
It's never been answered. God expected good grapes from His vineyard (which is why vineyards are planted), instead He got worthless grapes.
God doesn't always get what He wants.
Matthew 23:37 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling."
God wanted, they were unwilling.
quote:
Furthermore, your attempt to "prove" that Christ was born in the same "sinful flesh" as we are, is without Biblical warrant.
Romans 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, thus Jesus was one of us.
You don't believe Jesus became one of us? Then He could not be our propitiation and our high priest.
Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
How was Jesus tempted in ALL things AS we are?
James 1:
14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
Jesus was enticed by His own lust (desires) which He had because He was in the flesh like us, yet He didn't birth sin. We have the same potential, being in the same flesh as Jesus, having the same lusts (desires) as Jesus. Because of our identical potentials, Jesus can sympathize with us. He's 'been here and done that'.
sympathize: feel, experience
uromancer to the stars | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/24/2004 2:39 AM (GMT -6) | | borg: Wickerman, I do not know if your worthless appeal to Isaiah 5 was ever answered, for I got to sick of the same mundane arguments used consistently by people like you; but I was thourghly disgusted with the way that you handled that verse. Sir, you are wrong, and your interpretation of it is wrong. Nowhere in all of this section of verses was God ever speaking of His POWER or FOREKNOWLEDGE or anything to which you would liken it. Rather, a clear, untainted reading of this passage clearly shows that God was declaring that He was under NO obligation to do more than what He had done for His people.
Tom: Wow, borg. You’re offensive AND wrong at the same time! Congratulations. Do you feel it actually helps your case to say you get “sick” and “thoroughly disgusted” at the “worthless” arguments of people “like you”? You went too far, bro. The next thing you need to post on this discussion board is an apology.
But as for Isa. 2.1-4 you are so very wrong. Here’s the passage:
quote:
1 Let me sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He digged it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. 4 What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
In vv. 5ff God declares his intention to judge the vineyard. But vv. 1-4 are the issue. Some comments:
(1) A “clear and untainted” reading of this passage does not “clearly” show that God was saying “he was under no obligation to do more than what he had already done.” That is a clearly tainted misreading of the passage. God’s point in these verses is not to say he was under no obligation to do more. Divine “obligation” doesn’t figure into the passage at all. God makes his own point clear in v. 4: “What more was there to do [for you] that I have not done?” This is NOT the same as saying God was “under no obligation” to do more. I agree that God was under no obligation to do more. Heck, I’d argue God was under no “obligation” to do less, or to do anything. But obligation is not in view. The point is that “God left nothing undone.” Verses 1-4 are about the past. The point is to stress that God has done for Israel everything God could have done to secure her fruitfulness. That much IS actually said.
(2) The other inaccuracy you stand on is claiming that the passage says nothing about “foreknowledge.” Again, you’re flat wrong. The implications for divine foreknowledge come out first in the metaphor itself in v. 2b, where the beloved “looks” for the vineyard to yield grapes but finds instead that it yields wild grapes. When the metaphor is unpacked, turns out that it’s (v. 4) God who “looked” for grapes but found “wild grapes,” and (v. 7) “looked” for judgment but found oppression, and “looked” for righteousness, but found a cry.
The question is, what does “look” mean? What’s it involve? The verb means “to expect, look for, hope fore, or wait for” (Job 30.26; Ps 69.20; Isa 5.2, 4, 7; 64.3; Jer 8.15; 14.19). And what does it mean to attribute this action to God? What's it mean for God to expect to come to pass something that doesn't come to pass? How does a God who knows the future exclusively as what shall come to pass have such expectations? How's such a God honestly "wait" for what he knows isn't coming? That’s the issue. Now, you can claim that this is just God lowering himself to our language and describing himself “as if” he expected or looked for grapes when he actually knew grapes wouldn’t come, but don’t claim that there’s “nothing in this section that speaks about foreknowledge or anything like it.” Anyone can see that it does. We can disagree about whether or not and what God’s “expecting” what doesn’t come to pass here (as in Jer. 3) says about God’s knowledge of the future, but we can’t pretend it brings nothing whatsoever to the discussion.
Dream on,
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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borg
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 324
| Posted 11/24/2004 4:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom I do not believe that an apology is in line here. reading through many of your posts and others posts here on this board (often) I do not see these conversations coming across with love. The way that you have handled many of the posts submitted by Cottonman have enraged me. You do not deal patiently with him and neither do some of your commrades. You ask me to apologize? I ask for what? I have seen more sarcastic, rude, and unloving posts come from some of you people on this forum then any other forum I post on, and this last post of mine was, not only to answer Wicker's objection, but to test the waters. It seems that you people can throw out ad homs and not really care about it, and why is that?
I feel as though many of the threads on this forum lack the Holy Spirit. It is no longer about sharpening one another but ripping on others who disagree from yourself and defending vain and useless ideologies unwilling to work with one another. This isn't the spirit of debate that I sense in a good Christian enviroment and leaves me to wonder when it was that the Holy Spirit decided to leave such useless bantering.
So if I give an apology, it would to a degree be unsincere. For such posts have made me sick, and I do get sick of the rhetoric and "proofs" that are so often build on straw men here at this forum.
(I am in no way excluding my posts from some of the stuff that I hate on this forum. I have been guilty of it, but needless to say I have awaken to that and that is why I do not post as often as I use to.) Be careful brothers, for if the Holy Spirit does leave this forum with its many arguments, we become guilty of sin in grieving the very thing that we attempt to sharpen one another with.
"So it is a more glorious work of power to uphold a soul in a state of grace and holiness, and to carry it on till it is brought to glory, when there is so much sin remaining in the heart resisting, and Satan with all his might opposing, than it would have been to have kept manfrom falling at first, when Satan had nothing in man." Edwards | | Back to Top | | |
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