Not all Christians believe like Larry. Some of us see humans as being very imperfect, very twisted from what we might have been, BUT still, nevertheless, loved by God. Loved so much, that he came and sent His only Son, down to become our Saviour.

Anna

Your quite mistaken. I’m quite cool about it all, not the least upset and was both times I wrote it. Just quoting the Scriptures. The “wacko” comment doesn’t bother me in the least.

Blessings,

Ldh

Didn’t know I’d set you off on more “filth, dung and dirt” and “filthy menstrual rags” and “crap and dung” and “vomit” etc.

As far as I’m concerned that’s wallowing in rhetorical excess.

Maybe two thousand years ago that sort of speech was the height of oratorical sophistication, but I’ll tell you for free that it makes a you sound like a wacko.

That’s the last comment you’ll get from my unclean lips on the topic.

I think you missed my point. In the eyes of God all sin is filth, dung and dirt. When one first sees and continues to see the Cross of Christ one can only assess themselves as such and not be judgmental upon another. This is the very assessment the Apostle Paul gives of himself, nay, in reality the Holy Spirit gives of Paul through Paul when he says, “I am the least of the Apostles, a wretched man, the chief of sinners”. It is true there could be false wallowing disguising itself as piety, but that was not the intent of what I was saying. What I was saying was that in the eyes of God, though I’ve PERSONALLY never struggled with the sin of homosexuality, my OWN sin nature is utterly no better.

Or in like comparison when certain leaders of Christianity, which could be debated, vomited out their judgment upon New Orleans saying that Katrina was God’s judgment upon that city – if God judged New Orleans for her sin, then why not a nice country town of white picket fences, my, your or any other man’s dinner table? What holds His stroke back this very minute upon any of us! Nothing but the Cross of Christ!

Here’s one for you (these are thought experiments not personal judgments, I pick icons merely for the universal effect they will produce):

If I told you Bin Ladin deserves hell, think for a moment and ponder that thought and note your response. Then ponder this Billy Graham deserves hell. Now ponder your thoughts. Note the difference. THAT differential is called self-righteousness, justification by works and sanctification by works and a denial of Christ Alone. It is the heart beat of original sin.

Is it really wallowing in rhetorical excess when my salvation or any man’s cost the Lord of Glory everything? Was Paul, again the Holy Spirit, wallowing in rhetorical excess when he called all the confidence he had in his former goodness, crap! Note well that Paul sets forth his BEST works as being nothing but dung and crap and not his “imperfections”. Was the Holy Spirit setting forth rhetorical excess when He said “Your righteous deeds (not your unrighteous deeds or imperfections) are nothing but filthy menstrual rags to Me.” When Isaiah beheld the Lord of Glory and said, “I am UNDONE for I have seen the Lord of Glory…am a man of unclean lips (that is filthy) and live among a people of unclean lips…”? Was Peter wallowing in rhetorical excess when He told Jesus to depart from him because he, Peter, was a sinner?

Is it rhetorical excess as you behold Christ beaten, bleeding, spat upon, forsaken of all people and of God upon the Cross for YOUR and MY sin? Are we then to say we have only “imperfections”. Did Christ have to die for mere imperfections and peccadillos? Is it rhetorical excess that Christ suffered the undiluted cup of God’s wrath, His OWN Father, and that His own Father poured out that very wrath on His own Son for me and you? Was it rhetorical excess that God the Father set forth His Son to be crucified and God the Son did so willingly?

Not at all! It is infinite rhetorical excess to call our sins imperfections in light of the Cross of Christ.

L

I was thinking what the NT had to say about sexual sin, and whether Jesus unloaded both barrels against someone seems to me to have had less to do with whether the sin was sexual, and much more to do with how much they were hiding from themselves and others. Proud, duplicitous Pharisees get both barrels. The slutty half-breed Samaritan woman from John 4 was shown mercy. Zaccheus was also despised & conniving and also got Christ’s mercy & fellowship. True, maybe some unrecorded adulterous relationship earned him special treatment from Christ. We can’t know. ; )

Add in some negative examples, like John’s rebuke to Herod’s adultery and Paul’s harsh words for the Corinthian dallies, and the premise that sexual sin isn’t in itself a DO NOT INTERFERE! sign seems stronger.

I have–you have–had to stick your nose in a neighbor’s business. But I think we both agree that

“I am not (normally) called to violate the sanctity of another person’s moral competency.”

Thanks and Amen for that.

Certainly what goes on in the bedroom across the street is of no interest to me. Nor should it be.
***
On a separate topic (I think), Larry wrote: “Though I may have been much ‘prettier’ in the eyes of men, who are blind, in the eyes of God I am filth, dung and horrid.”

What a peculiar and unhealthy self-conception this is. I’m the first to admit that we are, none of us, examples of perfection, but surely conceiving of one’s self as filthy and as dung is wallowing in rhetorical excess. Perhaps moderation is too pagan a virtue to appeal to the religious enthusiast, but I suggest that extremes of language, like extremes of behavior, do not conduce to the good life.

It would help Christians to once again see sin for what it REALLY is – a condition and not particular acts of sin. As they say, turned in upon our selves, this is the heart of sin. And as Augustine rightly observed if you understand sin as a condition, this inward curving, then you can realize, some for the first time that sin can take on quite a nice gloss. It can take on the nice gloss of the blue haired elderly lady of the church who is very pious outwardly but really doesn’t see herself as “one of those sinners like THAT one over there”. It can take on the nice gloss of divorce, homosexuality and abortion are great evils, but the evil of birth control is glossed over very sweetly among the church goers. It can take on the nice gloss of that denomination over there struggles with homosexuals and at least we don’t, being so conservative, but never mind that we wickedly bury the Gospel and Christ from the eyes of men with our weekly piety preaching. It can take on a nice gloss that condemns a struggling wet drunk that is unacceptable in the eyes of religious society and accept the rabid dry drunk who boasts in his abstinence (nothing is worse than a former addict who thinks he’s beat his sin by his will, this is how Pharisees are raised up). It can take on the nice gloss that says thieves, murders and adulterers are loveless selfish people out for themselves and then accept as a wonderful neighbor the great guy that helps every one out and tithes every week to either justify himself or selfishly improve his sanctification guised as “growing in Christ-likeness”.

Yes if Christians once again saw sin for what it really was we’d flee back to the Gospel again and stop all of this “morality” none sense and quit sending a message to the viewing unbelievers that Christianity has little less in difference from Mormonism or Islam, after all don’t we all want moral societies?

But true godly love is to be curved outward onto neighbor for the neighbor’s sake with no “hidden” agenda such as “I’m trying to get more sanctification, holiness or piety” (all false views of these). True love rises out of a true faith that is utterly fixed upon the Cross of Christ. Is it not obvious that this is false piety: “I saved your life Bob (but what I won’t tell you is that I did it to improve my sanctification”). Is it not obvious that such is really worse sin than a homosexual, thief or adulterer because it guises itself as sanctimonious but is worse selflessness, all the while the agenda is, “Look God, how sanctified I’m being”. Is it not PAINFULLY obvious that while the thief may rob your goods on earth for his gain, that a pious “Christian” who feeds you and saves your life with his eye secretly on his “growing in Christ likeness, “holiness”, “sanctification”, “piety” is worse than the earthly thief. For his selfish gain that he seeks (so he thinks) is far greater than the earthly thief’s stealing your money, for he seeks greater favor and holiness in God’s eyes, and instead of just forthrightly stealing from you he pretends to care for you. If we were to rob him of his miserable “sanctification” seeking by showing him that “his righteous deeds are indeed filthy rags before God”, would he then be so loving to his neighbor. Do you suppose he would still feed and help his neighbor if we said, “For your reward you will go to hell.” Then, his religious false Christian piety would reveal itself for what it was and then he would rage at God for not accepting his false sanctification.

Ldh

brother joe