So, do we become born again through natural law?
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huh? Up until now, I have only used the term natural law for how this physical/natural universe which God created works. I have certainly not used it for anything spiritual. That sounds like a contradiction of terms to me. So the answer is no.
Ah⌠I get it⌠you want to suggest this makes magic necessary to Christianity. LOL No, I certainly do not believe any such thing. I am particularly opposed to this grotesque notion that God needs some kind of magical spell in order to forgive people. I find the idea that Jesus was some kind of divine-human sacrifice to power such a spell even more monstrous. No! Again the transforming power comes from ideas and inspiration. The point was a demonstration that we are the problem not God, for God would do anything â give anything for our redemption. We must accept that we are the ones who have to change. Then there was the restoration of the memetic inheritance we had from God through Adam to one from Jesus as the new Adam. That is the rebirth which we are offered â first to die to sins of our inheritance from the first Adam and to conform ourselves to the life given by the second Adam. This is not magic either, even if it is not natural law as I have been using the term until now.
I suppose you can say I think there is something analogous to natural law â a spiritual law if you will, because I do not think God is whimsical or arbitrary. There would certainly be nothing mathematical or objective about such a thing. What makes the laws of nature governing the universe objective is the fact they they donât care what we want or believe. A law governing spiritual things would have to be different â coming from the logic of things like belief, love, and desire, as well as the nature of sin and what it takes to remove this from us. I suppose you could call this a kind of methodological naturalism extended from the physical to the spiritual in the context of a rejection of the metaphysical naturalism which equates the scientific worldview with the limits of reality itself.
And of course there is the gospel of grace taught by Jesus and Paul that salvation comes by the work of God, not by our own efforts. And yes I reject this notion that faith is some kind of magical power which God gives us so we can save ourselves. Faith is no such thing. It is simply the other side of grace â accepting that we can do nothing and thus leaving it in the hands of God. Nor is grace some sort of divine magic â divine involvement in our lives to be sure, but there is nothing magical about it.
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Please clarify something for my because I didnt totally understand what you said. Do you think that Jesus going through the death on the cross, His resurrection and ascension dealt with our past sins and seperated us from the power of sin? In other words forgave us and gave us power over sin and transfered us into the Kingdom of God. Can we be truly born again? A new creation in Christ.
First, Jesus demonstrated that our sins could be forgiven without dying on the cross â so no to that one. Secondly, it is more than apparent that our sins are not âdealt with.â All the bad habits of our sin remain. Christians are no better than other people. So I repeat, the idea that this was some human/divine sacrifice to power a magical spell so we can be forgiven or get rid of our sins is nothing but incoherent nonsense. But these are not the words used in the Bible, are they? And I am rejecting the change of the words used in the Bible to such as these.
Did Christ die on the cross to save us from our sins as it does say in the Bible? Absolutely! Did men give their lives in so many wars so that we Americans might be free? Yes! There is nothing magical about either of these. They certainly did what it took. Christ did what was needed for us to change, just as those men gave their lives to protect the freedom we have in America.
God does not have a problem forgiving us. Jesus made that clear over and over again. The problem is that cheap forgiveness is the worst thing God could do â that would only guarantee that we would never change. And if we do not change then our sins would destroy us. We have to understand that we are problem and repent. We may not be able to remove our sins by our own power, but that understanding, at least, is a necessity. I suppose in some ways you could say that psychology is involved and in thus some natural law in that sense. That doesnât take God out of the equation. But magic? Yeah. That is just nonsense.
Can the innocent really take our place and pay for our sins? Sounds like a patsy. Does the use of patsy sound like the work of God. This is perverse and deranged. HOWEVER⌠if we are talking about what it takes for sinful human beings to change. Then the perversity lies completely within us and not in God. And it is not hard to think of examples of this in everyday life. How many times have you heard it said that an alcoholic does not change until they hit rock bottom â but that usually means that innocent people have suffered horribly or even died. In that sense, yes, the innocent OFTEN pay the price for people to change. This is how it works in Christianity too â or at least it should! When you look at Jesus on the cross, what do you feel? Accomplishment or repentance? Is Jesus on the cross more like the child hit by a drunk driver or the prison term by which a man says he has paid his debt to society? You think about it, because the latter is not compatible with the teachings of Jesus and Paul in the Bible â it is travesty worse than the Pharisees.
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So if I understand correctly you dont believe that the Word became a man, took mans spirit that was united and a slave to the nature of the flesh, went to the cross and through His act, executed our old man, the first Adam, and then through His resurection to life raised up those who put their trust in that act as truley reborn of the Spirit, new creations. The new creation has now beeen transfered from the power of sin, Satan and the flesh into the Kingdom of God, no longer a slave of sin, no longer under the power of sin and Satan. They actually are no longer what they were but are born anew. That we become children of God, born of His Spirit. That our spirit is circumcised from the flesh. What the law could not do by its laws Christ did by our execution and our literal resurrection of our spirit in Christ. Now He is our Lord and not Satan and sin. âIts no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me and the life I know live I live by faith in the Son of God that gave himself for me.â The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin but Christ death was our death and His resurection was ours. And we are now seated in heaven with Him. And through this act of unmerited favor, grace, He has delivered us, saved us from past sins and given us actual power over sin. If I understand correctly, you dont believe in the atoning sacrifice giving us the power over sin. You think that because He died that should move us to obedience but no actual inherent power. Is that correct?
Have not read the other comments, but wanted to point to a BioLogos resource. The BioLogos tent is actually fairly wide in terms of whether you think Adam was a historical (real) person or not.
Here is a post by one of our long time staff members, Kathryn, that you may like to read.
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Where are you getting this stuff? Not from any denials of mine and not purely from the Bible.
I am a Trinitarian Christian because I believe the words of the Bible which I have read for myself. God certainly chose to become a human infant named Jesus subject to all the natural law of this world growing up as one of us, including finally being mocked and nailed to a cross, wrongfully executed by the will of sinful human beings. But no I donât buy into your particular interpretation and alteration of the words of the Bible that makes Jesus out to be an executioner or denies the reality of sin in Christian life.
I certainly repudiate you making stuff up about what I do or do not believe which has nothing whatsoever to do with anything I said. I believe the actual words of the Bible and certainly no alteration or âsummationâ you choose to make of them and that includes any attempt of yours to read something magical into the words of the Bible.
As for Galatians 2:20 which you quoted, I would start by putting it back in context:
Galatians 2:11 But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, âIf you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?â 15 We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, 16 yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified. 17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we ourselves were found to be sinners, is Christ then an agent of sin? Certainly not! 18 But if I build up again those things which I tore down, then I prove myself a transgressor. 19 For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose.
Paul is talking about His long on-going battle with the legalism of the circumcision party. As always Paul is speaking to assert the gospel of grace taught by Jesus, which was best explained in the most detail in the epistle to the Romans. So I would certainly understand everything here through that lens and the lens of the words of Jesus Himself and repudiate any excessively literal treatment of the words here which contradict those. The words here certainly do not deny reality of sin in his own life let alone in the lives of other Christians. For me the best summation I know of the problem of legalism which Paul is repudiating here is found in Romans 10.
Romans 10:5 Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on the law shall live by it. 6 But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, âWho will ascend into heaven?â (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 or âWho will descend into the abyss?â (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
Whenever you think you have a way of judging who goes to heaven and who goes to hell then you have crossed over the line from faith into legalism.
You also made a reference to Romans 6 (about being a slave to sin) and again I would put that back into context where it is NOT any denial of the reality of sin in Christian life but dealing with a series of errors that Paul has seen in the understanding of sin and salvation. And I would sum it all up in the often repeated words of Jesus, âYour sins are forgiven, so go and sin no more.â It is not about some record of what we have done but what we choose to do and be from now, where we try to do what is right for its own sake in faith and not expecting rewards as if what we do could earn our way into heaven.
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Since i created this thread.I whould like to give the debate we three got here a little off time.I stopped responding so to prevent this ongoing debate.If possible ican try redirect this to another thread .But i think the debate here in this particular thread is making more harm than good in answering my questions.Im guilty in enganging in this too and i apologize.Thanks and God bless
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Yes so back to the topic by summing up my answers to the questions posed in the OP:
How do we reconcile the Biblical account?
There is obviously some symbolism involved particularly with regards to the 2 trees and the talking snake. God did not make magical golems of dust and bone, but made them according to laws of the Earth and breathed life into their minds by speaking to them.
Did God make Adam and Eve special?
My answer was that the difference is one of inspiration not something like genetics.
Did God choose them as representatives
God often chooses individual to speak to so that the ideas God would teach us come through them.
how do we reconcile it with the creation of Eve out of Adam?
Eve is the first inheritor of that inspiration from God to Adam, not by genetics obviously but by sharing what God told Adam with her.
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Start a new thread.
Scripturally, being asleep is associated with being dead.
Jesus also did more than die for us. He rose back from the dead and defeated sin and death.
To do a little devilâs advocate Socratic probingâŚ
In what way did He do that, since sin and death remain in the world?
- Personally? He didnât sin and He didnât die? This one is somewhat reasonable. So mostly the question is whether this means any more than that?
- Symbolically? Metaphorically? They have lost their sting.
- Spiritually? Spiritual life⌠with a little lobotomy done on the spiritual body so we cannot sin?
- There were these two guys named âsinâ and âdeathâ and He won a game of chess against them.
- He started a chain of events which would eventually allow scientist to the discovery of the cure for both evil and aging.
- Or is this another of those failed prophecies like all those made by the Jehovah Witnesses?
You are trying to make Christianity like any other religion. Where your actions save you. You are trying to make yourself a small god that can be saved by himself ,throwing out Jesus of the way. This is not christianity. He defeated sin by sacrificing himself for us ending the bloody cycle of animal sacrifices who were insufficient to completely save you. For ones fault someone needs to suffer. Christ sufferd for eveyones. In this cross it should have been me not him. He saved you both spiritual and physical. The habits that you always make reference ? Yeah he saved you from the âbad habitsâ you always state as well . He showed a way of righteousness . And if you sin which all of us do its ok ,you can ask for him to forgive you and he will rather than bogling your mind around on what to do now ,or doing some work that will please him.
Maybe I donât belong on this thread as you asked for suggestions on reconciling the view that Adam and Eve were literal figures but may I refer back to Mervin Bitikofer who pointed to the theological element of the creation story. I would like to expand on that. The Bible is a collection of a wide variety of types of writings but the thread that holds them all together is their theological basis that tells of Godâs interaction with humanity and more specifically people who he revealed himself to in a variety of ways over thousands of years. Biblical characters/writers have difficulty describing these interactions, think of Abraham, Daniel, Moses, etc. My point is that God speaks to people according to their specific cultural context and worldview. The issues for the people of the ancient world were not scientific or linguistic questions such as are raised in this forum. They were interested in much more important matters such the health and well-being of their family. Genesis 1-3 taught them that
1) There is one God who created everything.
2) He created humans in his image.
3) We were formed to have a special relationship with Him
4) We broke that relationship with God by our rebellion.
5) Suffering is the consequence of thinking that we know better than God
Etc.
Trying to get important information across to people can be very difficult especially when there are opposing points of views. Think of the issues raised through our current epidemic. Who is telling the truth? If your audience is a group of scientists, you would use different language than if youâre speaking to non-scientists. It has been the issue for anyone who has tried to tell others (who donât share their cultural worldview) about Jesus. Picture language is always more emotive and gets across our meaning way better. Would you prefer a literally and scientifically correct explanation of the bullet points above or the theological rich and engaging picture story that answers these issues and more in such a brief and beautiful passage?
Genesis is a theological story first, before anything else. It met the needs of its primary audience - the people of that time. Iâm sorry to say, but I think itâs arrogant that we believe that everything has to revolve around the way we think. I believe God wants to change the way we think so that it revolves around him.
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May i ask what did these people lack for not undertading a more complex story?The mesopotamians were reading astronomy and maths at that period of time
I think it is a complex story - there is a lot described in only 3 chapters. It is just not the scientific story many people want to have today. It was very relevant to the Mesopotamians as like many other nations, they believed in many gods who had different roles, etc. Genesis 1 is a wonderful description of there being only one God who created and so ruled everything. By the way, it is possible that the oral story of Genesis was around a long time before it was written down and if so, it probably predates the Mesopotamians.
What i was trying to say is that the messopotamians were so advanced that they whould have actually understood a scientific story.Unless it actually predates them
Itâs unlikely that they would have understood the scientific language that we use today. Will we understand the scientific language in use in 5000 years time? But anyway, Genesis 1-3 has a lot more to say than just describing the creation of the world. It helped people understand the problems they were facing and drew them to the creator God who loved them, just as it continues to do so today.
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Oops, my bad⌠I guess I let @SkovandOfMitaze lead me off topic again.
Nope. In fact I go in the opposite direction to say that nothing you can do will save you. I believe in the gospel of grace taught by Jesus and Paul. âWith men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.â Matthew 19 Many Xtians pay lip service to this and then turn around with a Gnostic gospel of salvation by knowledge and mental works (believing in the correct doctrine). They call it salvation by faith, and then realizing the contradiction turn faith into a power given them by God to save themselves. This is a bunch of double talk. Faith is no such thing. Faith is the simply the other side of the coin from grace, which is accepting that nothing you do can get you salvation.
What I do is repudiate the idea that salvation by the grace of God means salvation by divine magic. Our salvation does take work, but it is not our work but Godâs work. I do reject the Calvinist/Augustine formula that this is all some arbitrary decision of God against our will. God does require us to make a choice. But that is only accepting a gift and it is absurd to claim that accepting a gift changes it from a gift into wages earned. Ultimately the line is drawn definitively in Romans 10. If you think you can say who is saved and who damned then you have crossed the line from a gospel of grace and faith into legalism and a gospel of works.
But the work of God in this is not magic but inspiration â that is how God does things. God is not a necromancer achieving our salvation with magic powered by blood sacrifices but rather the supreme psychologist who knows what it takes to get us to change and step by step sets up those events to change our hearts and minds. Because salvation is NOT getting a forgiveness pass on our sins, salvation is getting us to stop it with these self-destructive ways of thinking and behaving.
So what is MY answer to the challenge I posted above. In what way did Jesus defeat death and sin. Personally to be sure, and spiritually in the case of death, but in the case of sin, it is indeed a future promise that a way has been opened for this to be accomplished. And a critical part of this is our repentance â a desire on our part to stop. The death of Jesus on the cross provides a critical psychological ingredient for getting us to do that.
The last thing i can say is i cant really get my mind around how can you believe in something supernatural while denying anything that has to do with it.And im not specifically saying âmagicâ which you call for every thing out of science explanation