Well, Robert, let me know your understanding of these Bible passages, if you’d be graciously willing. Also, the word “Propitiate” means “to appease” - Jesus is our Appeasement, He satisfied the Father (Isaiah 53:11);
1 John 2:2; “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
1 John 4:10; “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Romans 3:25; “Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”
It also appears that the Old Testament animal sacrifices were also a ‘propitiation,’ that is, ‘an appeasement.’
Hebrews 2:17; “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
God does hate, it appears (although He loves sinners in the context of His Son), and requires appeasement (but ultimate appeasement is through the Son)
Psalm 5:5; “…You hate all who do iniquity.”
Oh good. Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, sarcasm can get out of hand. And, of course, dialogue like “are you asking him whether he’s stopped beating his dog?” can be possibly misconstrued as “I’m offended at these questions, why are you asking these questions like that?”
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
43
Your OP is of that logical form. That is an offense against rationality as well as manners. It is the projected taking of offense on your part.
Which means you’ll continue writing sarcasm? People have to be careful what they write, including both you and myself - or do you disagree?
So when you write, “Yours seems to be a tad higher,” this wasn’t an intentional sarcasm, and if I take it as such, its my fault?
“Yes, I slap others on the face with sarcasm- and if anyone takes offense, its on them.”
Where did you learn this?
But for the record, you haven’t taken the slightest offense, not in the slightest, at a single thing I wrote?
So whatya think, Klax, should we re-read the rules and guidelines? Or perhaps God’s word?
Or should both of us find the mythical Aramaic text since English translations should be rejected?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
45
I’m not aware of my tearing your flesh (from the Greek). As I’ve repeatedly said, your questions to Dr. Collins are doubly offensive born of your taking offense as shown in your closed passive aggression at I’m not sure what. Some imagined position of his. Or just his well respected status.
English translation must be as phenomenological as possible and I’ll try that tomorrow.
Well, Klax, that could be. And often times, after the fact, when I check what I wrote, I do realize how offensive I am. I don’t know it immediately, but I often see it when I review what I wrote.
It wasn’t my intent to be offensive when I began the post, although I can’t prove this.
So then, would you agree that oftentimes, we can be offensive, although not intentionally, or perhaps intentionally, but we own up to it?
But owning up to it is the issue.
Okay, going forward, lets try to be amiable. Or, I’ll have to check my motives and also my dialogue, judge myself before judging others, and if anyone else would like to do the same, well then this is a good thing I think.
All right then, I’ll await your rendering of John 3:36 and Luke 3:7.
The Lord said “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat…” (Genesis 2:17)
Sin is missing the mark, the target being God’s glory (Romans 3:23).
Is it your belief that when Adam disobeyed God, he didn’t “miss the mark”? Are there some disobedience which is “missing the mark” and others that are not?
Or is it your belief that when Adam sinned, he still met the target of God’s glory as per Romans 3:23?
The final issue is, did Adam disobey God?
But the better question is, “WAIT, you believe there was an Adam and Eve?”
I don’t think the Neanderthals were the ones involved with the genesis story. I imagine it was sapiens.
Well the Neanderthals went extinct well before the law was written. So what I said was that until the law was written, there was no accountability to sin.
If God did reach out to them, it’s unknown to us, because we have no writing of it.
There are plenty of people in here who believes in a literal Adam and Eve. However, they believe they were used as characters for a mythological tale. Genesis 1-11 is not written as a biographical historical narrative. It’s a historical fiction like Esther and Jonah.
Many in here also believe that there was not a literal Adam and Eve. BioLogos is not a cult. There is a wide range of beliefs among Christians who also believe in evolution and science in general.
It doesn’t mean what you think it does. That Psalm implicitly juxtaposes wicked with righteous. The wicked only makes sense when being contrasted with those who are good— those who must be entwined to the womb and never go astray, speaking truths. That doesn’t teach original sin to me.
The other one is a Psalm of David after he committed adultery. Clearly he was distraught and this is the language of despair and self-loathing. In no sense does it teach original sin for all people. Proof-text hunting Psalms is about as eisegetical as you can get.
The serious passages occurs in the Pauline corpus. You cited Romans 5.
5:12 and 5:19 have a little bit of friction to me. 5:12 makes it clear that death comes to all men because all men sin (not because one man sinned). But in 5:19 Paul seems to have believed “Adam’s disobedience has placed the mass of humanity in a condition of estrangement from God.” NJBC. We were not considered sinners, we were made to be sinners.
So what, on the Cross God had to undo the sticky situation he made granted the doings of a mythological character? I’d rather view myself as guilty for my own sins. I’d also rather understand Paul as making sense of the Cross and person of Jesus from within his culture rather than supposing he has some special knowledge about the historicity of the garden story. He ties Jesus into the beginning of human history as his culture understands it. The Cross is the culmination of all history. It’s everything.
Psalm 58:1-6
New American Standard Bible
Prayer for the Punishment of the Wicked.
For the music director; set to Al-tashheth. A Mikhtam of David.
58 Do you indeed speak righteousness, you gods?
Do you judge fairly, you sons of mankind?
2 No, in heart you practice injustice;
On earth you clear a way for the violence of your hands.
3 The wicked have turned away from the womb;
These who speak lies go astray from birth.
4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent;
Like a deaf cobra that stops up its ear,
5 So that it does not hear the voice of charmers,
Or a skillful caster of spells.
6 God, shatter their teeth in their mouth;
Break out the fangs of the young lions, Lord.
The problem with that is again the problem literalist have. They get something that’s clearly poetic in nature, isolate it from the surrounding verses, and force a false narrative onto it.
It’s not about original sin. No where in the entire Bible is there talk of original sin. Original sin is a concept that requires a basic scientific rejection.
It’s also not biblically sound.
Adam was a man just like us. He did not have a different flesh, different passions, or a brain thst functioned differently. He was tempted and failed just like everyone but Jesus. He was able to be tempted, just like we are. Otherwise, he would not have been able to be tempted and had a super magical flesh and heart. But he did not .
You don’t read anywjere in the Bible of anyone being guilty of a others sin. Jesus sctuslly repeatedly says you’re not guilty of the sins of your fathers. The only sin we are guilty of are our own.
I already showed the one verse where it says, sin has always existed, but there was no accountability to it before there was a law. Before God drew a line in the sand, there was no accountability. Eating from a tree is not evil, unless God says don’t do it. Likewise, a baby is not guilty of sin because a baby can’t choose right or wrong.
Isaiah 7:15-16
New American Standard Bible
15 He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. 16 For before the boy knows enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be abandoned.
Now we must becareful how to interpret that verse.
Many people wrong interpret it as meaning “ when a kid can eat honey he’s old enough to go to hell”. That’s not what it’s saying. It’s saying this specific child will l know enough and will eat curds and honey as a specific event unfolds.
But we can also apply it. It’s application is that there is a point when someone can’t choose good or
Evil and when they can’t choose it, they are simply not accountable to it because they did not commit it.
You asked this question (in the title) in the other thread, but made no reply to the answers given. If you really want to engage Francis Collins then I suggest you read his book. What he has to say is in that book. I read the book and gave my own commentary here. It doesn’t follow that he is interested in the questions you asked. I was interested so I gave my answers in the other thread.
I can address your additional questions in this OP as well.
You cannot presume that Francis Collins believes that human beings are born as sinners. The Bible does not say any such thing and so large portions of Christianity do not buy into that theology of men either. I certainly do not. We are sinners because of the choices we make and what we do, not because we are born. That is only a lame attempt to avoid responsibility. It is the opposite of repentance.
AND the majority of Christianity certainly does not believe that babies are deserving of eternal punishment. That is a sick belief by a small minority. In fact, I think this is a belief we can attribute to the devil – something that the devil would teach. I feel that there are many who call themselves Xtian who have effectively become devil worshippers, because the descriptions of the god they worship sound so much more like a description of the “god of this world” than a description of Jesus.
By our own choice. It is we who are responsible and nobody else.
I think there are many who have deluded themselves that they can speak for Jesus who lie a lot.
And he could also say that he doesn’t know and your question does not interest him. What would you conclude from such an answer? Are you a Gnostic who believes in a gospel of salvation by knowledge – by knowing and believing in a set of dogmas? Jesus and Paul taught a different gospel, one of salvation by the grace of God.
Actually, according to Romans 2, those who did not have “law” had “The Law” (the Mosaic law) written in their hearts - Gentiles who did not have “law” were yet accountable to God, and were judged by God because of their conscience. Romans 5 also says that yet death reigned from Adam to Moses - before The Law was written.
If the Genesis account is a mythical tale, how could there be a literal Adam and Eve? Or do people mean “literally inside my imagination” and not “literal in a historical sense”?
I don’t see in Psalm 58 concerning the righteous “never going astray, speaking truths in the womb.”
Help me understand what you’re saying here, if I may ask. Are you saying that David was “so distraught” that he was speaking hyperbole that wasn’t true, he was making stuff up?
However, Romans 5:12 does begin with “Therefore, just as through ONE man sin entered into the world…”
Also, the Holy Spirit through Paul also wrote in Romans 5:14, “Nevertheless death reigned from ADAM until Moses…”
If this isn’t true, then perhaps this was a scribal error, or intentionally added?
But you wrote “Paul seemed to believe” - but is not Scripture have as its final Author the Holy Spirit? In other words, Paul wrote with no error, he didn’t make stuff up, he was guided by the Holy Spirit in the writing of Scripture? Is not the Bible God’s word?
You also wrote: “I’d also rather understand Paul as making sense of the Cross and person of Jesus from within his culture.”
So, then, Paul was perhaps accurate in his doctrine and understanding in the context o the Jewish people and only them, but not accurate concerning the Gentiles?
So, perhaps he should not have been the Apostle to the Gentiles, since he was wrong in his doctrine?
I think you misunderstand “original sin.” Mankind is born sinners because we’re genetical offspring of Adam, who was the first sinner.
Please read Romans 5, and in particular verse 12.
Also, God did draw a line in the sand for those without ‘written law’, its found in Romans 2:12-16.
Again, people who do not have “law” have “The Law” (the Mosaic law) written in their hearts - they are accountable, since their conscience “is a law to themselves, bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”
Now, the Lord Jesus, when quoting Scripture to the Pharisees - did Jesus not treat the verses He quoted as literal?
If you do not begin with a literal position when interpreting Scripture, as the Lord Jesus did, then the virgin birth is not literal? His going to the cross is not literal? His rising from the dead is not literal?