Comments on: Salvation: Is It So What? or Whatever?

By: Phillip Winn

Phillip Winn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:42:28 +0000

I’m more and more convinced that sharing the Gospel is almost always the most effective in the context of relationship. Not *only*, but *mostly*.

By: WebMonk

WebMonk — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:22:00 +0000

“The eating of the Tree of Knowledge was an event purposed by God to give man a Free Will.”

Huh? Eating the fruit couldn’t give free will since free will needed to already exist for them to eat the fruit in the first place? They already had free will before they ate the peach.

There are quite a number of other whoa’s there for me too.

MDS – “The mental gymnastics of getting all the puzzle pieces put together correctly satisfies a certain sort of itch, but is void of life. They become a curse to my living in relationship…..”

Right on brother. I’m a recovering theology debater myself. I still enjoy the “mental gymnastics” as you put it, but I’ve found it to be largely hollow. (at least in the way I approached it – as a debate tournament) And when that hollowness got expressed in arguments/debates, it was pretty bad for my relationship with God and everyone else. As I go through life, I’m becoming less and less worried about precise theology beyond the Nicean-type level.

On the flip side, I am becoming more bothered by the divorcing of Jesus from everything else in the Bible. A Jesus who came to save us from big, vague, hazy somethings gets pretty hazy too and seems to stop being Jesus pretty soon.

How do the two go together? I’m not really sure. On one hand I’ve got an understanding that is much more inclusive than before, but it’s also getting a bit more dividing than it was before because there is a HUGE population of people who say “Jesus saves!” but don’t seem to think of what they might be saved from or what it is that caused the need for saving in the first place. I start to have more questions about those people than about my gay friend who argues up and down that there’s nothing in the Bible about homosexuality, but trusts in Jesus who saves from God’s judgment for our failings.

I suspect I suffer from some version of Multiple Personality Disorder.

By: iMonk

iMonk — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:41:04 +0000

Carolyn:

This appears to me to be Word-Faith teaching, quite similar to Kenneth Copeland and various Tulsa teachers and prophets. Would that be correct?

By: son of adam

son of adam — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:38:53 +0000

This stuff’s not going to be on the test, is it?

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:35:47 +0000

Gotta take a young woman to a court ordered meeting. Will elaborate soon as I return.

By: son of adam

son of adam — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:32:51 +0000

Carolyn,

Double Whoa! Can you elaborate on that? You lost me.

By: iMonk

iMonk — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:27:18 +0000

>…Death did not happen as a result of sin…but as a completion of God’s plan to make ‘man in our image.’

Whoa.

>….Christ’s spiritual death (death of His soul)…not His physical death…

Whoa again.

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:16:43 +0000

We are in the ‘Love’ part of the Law. “If you love me…you will keep my commandments.” The glorious interactive Love between God and the individual believer….accomplishes righteous fruits (deeds). God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are workers. Most words used in connection with God….are action verbs. Each person chooses to remain in ‘death’ or to move from death to ‘Life’ in Christ Jesus.

“peace”

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:07:57 +0000

For many…confusion happens when trying to divide the Law into Old and New Testament Law. Then Ten Commandments (the shall nots) proved those already under the ‘Curse’ were guilty (’all have sinned and come short of the glory of God) and in need, therefore, of redemption. Christ’s spiritual death (death of His soul)…not His physical death (crucified fleshly body) removed the ‘appointed’ spiritual ‘death’ or ‘curse.’ But….but….but…in order to pass from the ‘death’ back to ‘life’….one has to accept the redemptive act. Christ’s redemptive ‘death’ and resurrection to Life, invoked the latter part, or the fulfillment of the Law. “Love” is the fulfilling of the Law….therefore, the complete Old and New Testament Law …both condemns and redeems man.

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:06:24 +0000

God has ‘appointed unto man once to die’….thus the curse. That ’spiritual’ death happened in the Garden when Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge. Death did not happen as a result of sin…but as a completion of God’s plan to make ‘man in our image.’ After Eve and Adam had both eaten, God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know GOOD and EVIL;….’ The eating of the Tree of Knowledge was an event purposed by God to give man a Free Will. Man now has internalized (experienced) both good (Garden with God) and evil (destructive nature of Satan). God ‘appointed’ the state of ‘death’ or ‘curse’ for man. God also ‘appointed’ man redemption from the ‘curse’ of death (’lamb slain before the foundation of the world’).