So, a true saving faith is void of correct knowledge?
So, when the Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees “If you do not believe EGO EIMEE (“I - I AM”), you will perish in your sins” (John 8:24)…
Perhaps Jesus was wrong then?
If a person rejects that Jesus died for their sins as a Substitute and Ransom, that person could still come to a saving faith in Christ resulting in their justification and regeneration?
When the Lord Jesus said in Luke 18 that it was the tax collector who went home justified and not the Pharisee, was Jesus wrong?
I’ll go ahead and answer: if the substrate of their faith is wrong, if they flatly reject Jesus is fully Jehovah, if they reject Jesus died for their sins, if they trust in their “good works” so-called instead of approaching God, “Lord, forgive me a sinner!” - then that faith was not a saving faith that did not result in their justification before God.
“The Law” is shown in Romans 3:21 - it’s the Mosaic law, the law of Moses, the Torah, as distinct from the Prophets.
Romans 2: 26 fine tunes it to the 10 commandments, since The Law included circumcision.
“law” (not “The Law”) is defined in Romans 2:6 through 10. It is the totality of God’s ordinances, starting with Moses, written by the Law Giver, the Judge, who will judge all according to their works (although their works have to be perfect, like God, to achieve eternal life, which is impossible, hence the need of a Savior).
Paul shows the relation of “law” and “The Law” in Romans 7:7
But if that 'myth tale" included the names of real people, but actually was not a true historical account, then would it not be a lie, since that “myth” is lying about true people because those events never occured?
In Luke 16, Jesus talks about the rich man in a place of fire called ‘Torment,’ and the rich man sees Abraham and Lazarus in ‘Abraham’s bosom.’
If this account is not true, is a myth, but Jesus used real names of real people, then wouldn’t this be a lie?
When Abraham spoke to the rich man in Torment in Luke 16, but actually Abraham never did talk to the rich man historically, then this account is false, a lie about Abraham, which means Jesus was wrong, misled or lied? Which means Jesus is not God?
It is my belief that death reigned from Adam to Moses. This says absolutely NOTHING about human beings being born as sinners or babies deserving eternal punishment. I suggest you try again with a more sensible question.
I understand the verse by reading the entire chapter. Here are some highlights
Romans 5:12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.
Romans 5:18 Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.
Do you believe that all men are acquitted? Klax and universalists may believe this, but I doubt that you believe this any more than I do. Just as we have to repent before we are acquitted, so also do we have to sin before we are condemned. What Adam did brought the fall of all mankind – first by severing the relationship we had with the creator, and secondly by introducing the progressive degenerative spiritual illness called sin, self-destructive habits which tear down our free will and destroys one by one everything of value within us. It is not that we are all the same but that sin will drag us down into corruption without the intervention of God.
In this way do I understand Romans 5:12-21 as you requested me to explain.
Can a person incapable of understanding any of those things be saved? Yes they can. Salvation is by the grace of God. Your dogma will not save you. Your knowledge will not save you any more than my knowledge will save me. Our study of the scriptures will not save us. Jesus said in John 5:39 “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”
No more than Jesus was wrong when He said that Peter would deny Him three times before the cock crows. These Pharisees did indeed perish in their sins just as He said they would. But no you cannot use this to turn the gospel of grace taught by Jesus and Paul on its head.
Indeed, correct knowledge saves lives. That is why we refuse the lies of creationists and embrace the discoveries of science. But will any of this knowledge save us from our sins? No it will not.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
65
I certainly went on the counter-offensive Charles, with all the mordant, trenchant tools in my kit, like Jesus but not as harsh by a country mile, but that’s played out now that Dr. Collins honour is restored.
Now for the Chinese whispers of Hebrew to Aramaic to Greek to English.
The history of the translation ‘wrath of God’ is a fascinating epistemological and phenomenological one I’m sure you’ll agree.
Why were the words ‘wrath’ and ‘anger’ chosen? Throughout? From the array of nuanced original Hebrew (and its Canaanite relative Aramaic) and Greek?
From my friend Steve Chalke’s essential and highly acclaimed The Lost Message of Paul:
[The] two leading Greek words which are translated into English as wrath or anger are thumos (θυμός) and orge (ὀργή). Both have been regularly read as articulating the heat of God’s anger against human sin as well as those who commit it. It is often presented as fact that thumos speaks of God’s wrath poured out in the heat of the moment, whereas orge has more to do with God’s considered and ongoing angry response to our sin. So, for instance, Strong’s Concordance confidently states that orge can be defined as anger, wrath, passion; as punishment or vengeance.
But, once again, digging a bit deeper to take a look at the root meanings of these words reveals that thumos can indicate any kind of emotional response or outburst of emotion – rather than necessarily an angry one.
In the works of Homer, the legendary Ancient Greek poet and author of the Iliad and the Odyssey,2 thumos is simply used to denote emotion or desire; so when one of Homer’s heroes is under emotional stress, we read about how they will sometimes choose to externalize their thumos, whatever it is.
And then, in his book Phaedrus, the fourth-century bc Greek philosopher Plato depicts logos (knowledge) as a charioteer driving and guiding the two horses eros (erotic love) and thumos (spiritedness). Later, he picks up this same theme when, in the Republic, he argues that thumos is one of the three core constituent parts of the human psyche, which are:
epithumia (our appetites), our desires;
thumos (our passion), our emotional response to pain, suffering, injustice, attraction, etc.;
nous (our intellect or reason), which is, or should be, the controlling part that subjugates our appetites with the help of thumos.
Likewise, rather than necessarily referring to anger, orge, which comes from the verb orago, simply implies a longer-term and more sustained feeling.
It is highly informative, therefore, that, in his letter to the church in Ephesus, where Paul writes ‘Be angry (orge),3 and yet do not sin’, all agree that he is quoting King David who in Psalm 4 pens the phrase ‘Be angry (ragaz),4 and do not sin.’5 But, whereas in the 1984 edition of the New International Version, Psalm 4.4 reads, ‘In your anger, do not sin’, the 2011 edition of the very same version – with its updated understanding of Ancient Greek – has changed the words to ‘Tremble and do not sin’. What’s more, the New American Standard Version agrees, while the Good News translation gives us ‘Tremble with fear and stop sinning’.
The real irony here is that, once again, none of this is new. The old King James Version of 1611 always read: ‘Stand in awe, and sin not’. So there it is in black and white!
Ragaz really does simply mean any emotion that causes you to tremble or quiver, to catch your breath, to be taken aback, to shudder, rather than necessarily referring to a response of anger. No one knows that better than Paul, the Second Temple Jewish thinker, and that is the meaning that he imports into his usage of orge.
Some years ago I had the opportunity to ask Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, one of the UK’s senior Jewish leaders, about the concept of God’s anger. I will never forget his answer. ‘It is perhaps better, and far more accurate,’ he said, ‘to understand God’s anger as his anguish – a dimension of his love, but never an emotion in opposition to it.’
I remember sharing this story of Jonathan Sacks’ amazing insight with another rabbi friend of mine. He smiled at me, with one of those kind but knowing smiles, and then said, ‘Well, if you are going to take the Hebrew Bible and build it into your Christian understanding of life, it probably makes sense to ask a Hebrew what the words you are reading might actually mean.’ *
But of course, even to those who read no Hebrew, all this should be obvious – because the most profound theological truth expressed in the whole canon of Scripture is that ‘God is love’.6 It is not that God approves of love. Love is not a quality that God possesses. It is the divine essence itself – God’s essential being. Indeed, the Bible never makes assertions about God’s anger, power or judgement independently of God’s love. God’s ‘anger’ (as we call it) is nothing more than an aspect of this love, and to understand it any differently must therefore be to misunderstand it
My critics will of course respond that surely, if God is love, God must also experience anger at injustice. But this misses the point. As the great theologian Karl Barth once explained, if God exhibits characteristics of anger, judgement and the like, they are never more than ‘repetitions and amplifications of the one statement that God loves’.7 If we forget this – if we ever talk about God’s anger outside of the context of God’s love – we make a great mistake.
‘*’ More on the Hebrew:
both the English words ‘wrath’ and ‘anger’ have different emotional, spiritual and psychological loads for each individual reader. They often carry extremely negative connotations, undertones, associations and inferences which are personal to every reader, though frequently held unconsciously.
And, I put it to you, all this creates a giant problem, which is why we think that the piece of the picture of God we’ve labelled ‘wrath’ just doesn’t fit.
Let’s start with the Old Testament. There is an array of Hebrew words which all get translated as anger or wrath, even though each one has a specific and different meaning. However, a survey of them reveals that typically they depict God’s wrath in terms of a father’s discipline towards his children, or a broken-hearted husband’s yearning for an unfaithful wife, or a king’s yearning for his wayward people. In fact, surprisingly, the Old Testament even presents God’s wrath as a motivating attribute in prompting people to respond to God’s overtures of grace. Which, once you stop to think about it, raises all sorts of questions about the way we have understood and applied this word.
So, let’s take a look at those original Hebrew words and their roots.
For instance, chemah is very often rendered ‘hot displeasure’ or ‘anger’, although in fact it is more accurately defined as meaning hot, fever, or gripped with passion. The point is that it is not only when you are angry that you become hot and red in the face. For instance, you blush and become hot when you’re embarrassed. So, chemah can mean embarrassment.
Or you might feel chemah when you’ve been betrayed. Is this anger, or a deep and burning sense of hurt? If a woman discovers that the husband she loves has been cheating on her, or a man feels betrayed by the woman he is utterly committed to, what do they feel? You may choose to call it anger; I think it is more complex than that. It is about the agony of rejection; the suffering of a broken heart. Perhaps God’s heart – the heart of the loving parent, husband or king – is wrung with pain when we choose to turn our backs on God.
Then we have ̀ebrah which means outburst of passion, and qetseph, which means literally a splinter, but when translated metaphorically means to be displeased, to fret or to burst out. And kaac, which means to be grieved, hurt, sorrowful or troubled.
The Hebrew word aph, which we have already come across, and literally means ‘nose’, can in a freer sense imply rapid breathing in passion. But it too, as we’ve seen, is often translated simply as anger. And then, among others, there is ragaz, meaning to be emotionally agitated, excited or perturbed, to tremble or quiver.1
Although God has been so often painted as frightening and ferocious, the obvious impact of a deeper understanding of such Hebrew words is that we recognize that these have been the traits of the god of our theological assumptions, rather than the God of reality. Far from being driven into a red-hot rage by our sin, the Bible reveals to us a passionate God who is taken aback, troubled, pained and broken with sorrow by our rebellion and rejection of his ways
I guess I need to clarify. Jews attain forgiveness within Judaism. I don’t think God’s covenant with the Jews has been revoked by God. I’m also a universalist in that I believe God’s grace extends to all people.
It looks like there is the opportunity to use definitions of the same word to come to different conclusions. I still wouldn’t like to spend eternity with a god who is wrathful and angry and needs to be appeased. Even if it is only on special occasions. This sounds more like hell than heaven. I understand God to be Love and Grace.
This quote from today’s Richard Rohr Daily Devotional describes very well where I’m coming from:
Cynthia Bourgeault invites us to consider the meaning of the passion from a wisdom perspective, not as a spectator watching what Jesus did, but understanding what each of us is called to do: The passion is really the mystery of all mysteries, the heart of the Christian faith experience. By the word “passion” here we mean the events which end Jesus’s earthly life: his betrayal, trial, execution on a cross, and death. . . .
The spectacle of an innocent and good man destroyed by the powers of this world is an archetypal human experience. It elicits our deepest feelings of remorse and empathy (and if we’re honest, our own deepest shadows as well). . . . It’s been used to stir anger and scapegoating. It’s been used to fuel anti-Semitism, to induce personal guilt—“Christ died for your sins”—and to arouse devotion in a sentimental and even fanatical way.
From a wisdom point of view, what can we say about the passion? . . . The key lies in reading Jesus’s life as a sacrament: a sacred mystery whose real purpose is not to arouse empathy but to create empowerment . In other words, Jesus is not particularly interested in increasing either your guilt or your devotion, but rather, in deepening your personal capacity to make the passage into unitive life. If you’re willing to work with that wager, the passion begins to make sense in a whole new way. . . .
The path [ Jesus ] did walk is precisely the one that would most fully unleash the transformative power of his teaching. It both modeled and consecrated the eye of the needle that each one of us must personally pass through in order to accomplish the “one thing necessary” here, according to his teaching: to die to self. I am not talking about literal crucifixion, of course, but I am talking about the literal laying down of our “life,” at least as we usually recognize it. Our only truly essential human task here, Jesus teaches, is to grow beyond the survival instincts of the animal brain and egoic operating system into the kenotic joy and generosity of full human personhood. . . .
What is the meaning of the passion? First of all, God wasn’t angry. Again: God wasn’t angry! Particularly in fundamentalist theology, you’ll often hear it said that God got so fed up with the sins and transgressions of Israel that he demanded a human sacrifice in atonement. But of course, this interpretation would turn God into a monster. How can Jesus, who is love, radiate and reflect a God who is primarily a monster? And how can Christians theoretically progressing on a path of love consent to live under such a reign of terror? No, we need to bury once and for all those fear-and-punishment scenarios that got programmed into so many of us during our childhood. There is no monster out there; only love waiting to set us free.
It’s called literary analysis. The juxtaposition is implicit. It doesn’t say everyone is evil. Without the contrast the statement doesn’t work. It’s also very general. Why on earth you want to make it universal is beyond me.
As for Paul in Romans 5 @mitchellmckain is correct. Your sort of exegesis leads to universal salvation. Paul says Jesus’ death leads to all men being saved. By all does he just mean now Gentile as well as Jew or every single living person? Reading all these statements as universalistic decrees is where you are going wrong.
How the conservative mind goes from a psalm of lamentation to “making stuff up” boggles my mind. The language is strong and if you want to be so literal, it only applies to David. But yes, it’s hyperbole. Shouldn’t our sin make us feel like that? Did you ever do something where you REALLY get a lot of shame and were distraught by it? Not just a “regular” sin but a major screw up on your part?
Yes there was no sin in the world before Adams. It’s a literary parallel.
Also the whole point for Paul is claiming that the sin of Adam was bad but it’s badness pales in comparison to the Cross. Gods mercy is 10000000x stronger than man’s sin. Verses 16 and 17 make that clear.
As I said before, the garden story was probably historical to Paul and he cast the cross in the most universal way his culture allowed. It was about going back to the beginning and showing Jesus as the culmination of God’s work. The emphasis here is establishing Jesus’ death as the new dispensation. Like many of his time he probably did think the garden story was literal. We now know that not to be true. So we have to seek other explanations.
I take the major brunt of what Paul is trying to argue to be true. It’s okay that a scriptural writer 2,000 ago didn’t know modern science and thought the garden story was true. In that culture Paul’s wording and language makes perfect sense. It casts Jesus Salvific work in the strongest possible terms. Inerrancy is a detriment to understanding God.
Do you know why catholics developed the doctrine of original sin and infant baptism? You seem to not understand the doctrine and who made it and what it was about.
Original sin since it’s creation has been that infants are born automatically guilty of sin and that without them being baptized they go to hell. It’s about them being born guilty of sin, despite not having not committed a sin. You know they are born guilty, because the without infant baptism they go to purgatory or hell. That is what the doctrine was, has been, and always will be.
Original sin is not the belief that we are born capable of sinning because we are Adam’s offspring. Humans have always had this ability. If this ability did not exist, then how would Adam have sinned in the first place. If Adam was not able to sin, then he would not have sinned. He was able to sin, and according to scriptures so was angels. Also Jesus was born just like us. His flesh was just like us. So Adam, you, me, Jesus and everyone else has the same humanity, the same flesh, and are all able to sin. The fact that Jesus was able to be tempted, yet chose to not sin, is why he was able to be the perfect sacrifice and fulfill the law and overthrows death.
Something else that you keep getting correct on but can’t seem to grasp is this.
Just because something is not literal in the Bible in one place does not mean nothing in the Bible is literal. There are obviously people here who believes that the story of Jesus is literal, and still don’t believe that genesis 1-11 is literal. Why?
Basic reading comprehension. Regular old middle school reading comprehension. When you read genesis 1-11, you’ll notice that it’s written in a very different style than other portions of the Bible. If you read exodus 1-11, or 1 kings 1-11, or the accounts of Matthew or the books of acts by Luke and so many other places you’ll notice it’s written in a completely different manner. They spend entire books to cover just a generation or two. They are historical and autobiographical narratives. Genesis 1-11 spans thousands of years and dozens of people and lots of events all in a few pages.
The only other places where you read a style similar to genesis 1-11 is places like psalms 74 where God battles a giant mutliheaded fire breathing serpent dragon or books like revelation that takes a true story through highly symbolic means.
Mentioning something does not imply it being literal. Jesus mentions Jonah, and that comes from the story of Jonah. You’ll see Jonah mentioned in a few places in scripture. He was a real person. Yet this real person was also used in a fictional story in the Bible.
The story of Jonah is fictional. This one is harder to realize because most people don’t know very much about when it was written, what just happened with the jews and Assyrians , and so they miss out. But there are also plenty of clues as to the type of tale it is.
Jonah was written centuries later when the prophet is first mentioned.
Jonah started off basically already in the Assyrian empire. He left and went half a days travel down to Joppa and then begin traveling to the other side of the Mediterranean Sea over 2,000 miles away. Then was brought back by a sea monster and spat back out on the Assyrian shoreline snd then travel hundreds of miles to Nineveh. It’s jokes about going up snd down. Wordplay.
It says that the ship had thoughts. It literally said the ship was thinking and not only was Jonah scared, not only was the pagans scared, but even the ship was scared.
If you go down to the word used ( about to ) you’ll see that it is chashab and means “ to think “.
You’ll also notice that the word typically translated as big fish ( whale ) actually comes from genesis 1 and means sea dragon. Just like the one god battled and killed in psalms 74.
You’ll notice other things like how Jonah who refused to even preach to pagans was willing to die for the pagans which presumably was Assyrians as well. Then once he did preach to the Assyrians he sat up to watch them die. He wanted them to die. But they did not. Yet when a simple plant died, Jonah had a breakdown. It’s mocking his emotions.
It also says that the Assyrians there was so dumb they did not even know their right hand from their left.
The story is full of very clear fictional elements. Yet it was still considered worth placing in the Bible. Despite it being clearly a fictional piece of art, Jesus mentioned it and overlapped his story with it.
This is part 1 of a 4 part series on the ahistorical nature , not historical, of Jonah.
So likewise, Jesus mentioning Adam does not demand a literal reading either.
I do not claim to speak for Dr. Collins, but since as has been mentioned I do not expect for him to answer it, so I will give it a try.
Question 1: Are humans born sinners, because of original sin? I do not think so. Why?
Humans are born “selfish,” because they need to focus all their efforts on their own survival as they come into this world as helpless beings totally dependent on
others.
Humans are finite, which means that they make mistakes. When they learn from their mistakes that is fine. But when they blame their mistakes on others or refuse to accept responsibility, that is sin.
Humans are born into a corrupt and sinful world, so we find that it often easier to cheat and tell lies than to be honest and truthful.
Humans grow up they are supposed to learn how to share and live with others responsibly, but many do not.
People are sinners because they are weak, finite, conform to low standards, and lack maturity.
This is how people like you and I became sinners, although maybe you are different. We were selfish, some more than others, but selfishness is sin, because it separates us from God. Only Jesus can forgive our selfishness and reconcile us with the Father. First we must take full responsibility for our selfishness, turn away from our old selfish life, and turn to Jesus, and we will be saved and receive eternal life of love and joy with God.
Please let me know if you have any questions, preferably by private message…
Thanks for the clarification. I do believe humans are born sinners, although in the case of babies, “where there is no law, there is no imputation of sin,” including The Law written into the heart of people (that is, they are accountable to their conscience) - per Romans 2.
Nonetheless, thanks for the clarification.
If you’d be willing and when you have a chance, then, I’d like your response to verse 19a, which says:
“For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were MADE sinners…”
A baby, yes. A person with Down’s Syndrome? I believe so.
It is the Lord Jesus who saves, I think we agree on that.
But false doctrine concerning who Jesus is does matter. That people twist His work, in that people understand they must add to His work - this does matter.
If a Jehovah’s Witness believed that Jesus was a created being, an angel, and not God, not Jehovah, is it your believe they would go to heaven?
If a person believed that their ‘good works’ was of sufficient merit to obtain eternal life - is it your believe they would go to heaven?
It is God’s grace that He sends correct information, by whatever means, be it missionaries or a Gospel tract or whatever.
And it is God’s grace that He grants repentance.
The Gospel of Grace, by Christ and for Christ, is indeed all grace. It is He who saves, who is the Author and Finisher of the sinner’s saving faith, a faith that is Received (2 Peter 1:1), faith being a work but it is God’s work (John 6:29), but that saving faith will have the right components. That a sinner receives the right doctrine and Receives the saving faith that Christ Himself produced - this is all the grace of God.
But “the Gospel of Grace” does not mean that false doctrine is not to be rejected.
Quite a bit of writing here, I have to admit. Much to read.
But based on your friend’s writings, these could possibly be rendered thus:
Then John 3:36 should be rendered “the anger of God abides on him” ?
Luke 3:7 “who warned you to flee from the coming anger?”
Or, “who warned you to flee from the coming anguish?”
Is it your belief that the “forever and forever” and “the lake of fire” - where the false prophet and the devil will ultimately reside - these are to be viewed upon as metaphors?
Hello Robert,
So, God’s covenant with the original system was replaced by the new - that is, Christ - since the first could not be kept. However, God’s “law” never went away. It’s still in force.
Reading Romans chapter 2, whereas God “will render to each person according to his deeds, to those who by PERSEVERANCE (perpetually keeping, constantly, no let up) in doing good…” and also in verse 10 “the doing the good”, and also in verse 13 “the DOERS of The Law who will be justified”…
So, God’s law never goes away, will always remain, and as Paul writes in Romans 3:31, "Do we then nullify ‘law’ through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish ‘law’ "
Here’s the caveat, Robert, I hope you really understand this…
Romans 1 demonstrates that Gentiles are sinners. However…Romans 2 shows that the Jewish people could not judge Gentiles since they themselves don’t KEEP it.
This is the point, Robert. It is either salvation (1) by “law keeping” or (2) by “a law of faith”
Because here’s the thing that many Jewish people, and many Roman Catholic and many Protestants, and the rest of the world do not understand -
…If it is not by way of faith in Jesus Christ, then it is by God’s ‘law’, but in order to be justified before God through ‘law’…
…then that person must KEEP THE LAW…PERFECTLY…WITHOUT SIN…NOT ONE SIN…they Persevere, they KEEEP…they are literally contiunually doing ‘The Good’ - like God!
In order for a person to KEEP God’s law, they would have to be…like God, as good as God.
Are there Jewish people who are Judaizers who kept God’s law PERFECTLY? Because “doing my best a little here and a little there” won’t cut it.
And with that, if a Judaizer is a sinner in that that person sinned just ONE time - then their only recourse is faith in Jesus Christ.
Sinners MUST go through the one Door, the Lord Jesus Christ. And by trusting in Him, they enter into union with Him (Christ), in that they are crucified with Him, buried with Him, raised with Him, seated with Him in he heavenlies, they also BECOME the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor 5:21) - and also obtain Christ’s glory! (2 Thess 2:14).
If a person does not have a perfect sinless righteousness And Also fall short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23) - they ain’t gonna make it. Gotta have Christ’s righteousness and His glory.
Attempting “to do their best” will not justify them before the Father.
Some things here, Robert
John 3:36, Luke 3:7 - these are quotations from the Lord Jesus Himself.
God Hates the workers of iniquity (Psalm 5:5) - although He loves sinners in the context of His Son (John 3:16).
God does punish sinners, but provided a way out - through His Son.
Is it your belief that “all men” in Romans 5 is either Greek or Gentiles only, or Jews only? Does Romans 1 through 4 not show all Gentiles are sinners, Jews are sinner too, but there is salvation - to the Jew first and then to the “Greek”?