The world we live in is all a product of God’s choice. His choosing to redeem us, regardless of how he ordained it to happen, was a choice. That is the beauty of his love for us, it is a free gift that he is not obliged to give. That is the beauty of all love, it can only be freely given and not coerced.God went over the top for me – so what? That wasn’t because of anything I did. That wasn’t because of my sin. That was His choice. Why should I feel guilty that Jesus hung on the cross and died for me if that was purely a voluntary choice and not a matter of necessity?
But I disagree with this paradigm because it implies that good deeds make up for bad deeds, and that’s not even true among finite beings like ourselves. What would you think of a judge who, as he is overseeing the trial of the man who murdered your friend, declares, “It is certain the defendant committed this terrible crime, but owing to his many wonderful works of charity, I’m going to declare him not guilty”? Or even, “We know the defendant is guilty of murder, but because a $1 billion donation was just made by a friend of the court in the defendant’s name, I’m going to declare him not guilty”? You would be screaming bloody murder over the injustice. And yet some people actually think that’s how salvation works: somebody commits a sin, but Jesus comes along and bribes God into letting the sinner go free, and the only reason we need Jesus for salvation is that we can’t come up with a big enough bribe on our own.As finite beings, we can not atone for the offenses, let alone the sheer number of them. Or put anotherway, it would take us, alone, by ourselves, an eternity to atone for those infinite crimes.
The assumption here is that our sense of justice is perfect. We want someone to suffer, to be punished, even despite their repentance and good deeds.But I disagree with this paradigm because it implies that good deeds make up for bad deeds, and that’s not even true among finite beings like ourselves. What would you think of a judge who, as he is overseeing the trial of the man who murdered your friend, declares, “It is certain the defendant committed this terrible crime, but owing to his many wonderful works of charity, I’m going to declare him not guilty”? Or even, “We know the defendant is guilty of murder, but because a $1 billion donation was just made by a friend of the court in the defendant’s name, I’m going to declare him not guilty”? You would be screaming bloody murder over the injustice. And yet some people actually think that’s how salvation works: somebody commits a sin, but Jesus comes along and bribes God into letting the sinner go free, and the only reason we need Jesus for salvation is that we can’t come up with a big enough bribe on our own.
What I meant was, if Christ didn’t have to die for me to redeem me from my sins, and instead He chose to die as a demonstration of love or for some other reason, then I have no reason to consider myself accountable for His death, only whatever was actually necessary from Him to procure my salvation, nor am I inspired to sacrifice myself even to the point of death, knowing it was unecessary for Christ to make such a sacrifice. Indeed, I would be repelled by such superfluous masochism and would point to any such display as an example of what someone ought not to do.If you think that God redeemed us because of something we did rather than freely out of love for us, then that would be a heresy. I don’t think that’s what you mean, but it is implied when you say, “That wasn’t because of anything I did. That wasn’t because of my sin.” It IS because of our sin that Christ had to die for us to redeem, but it was not because of our sin that he had to choose to do it. It is because he loves us that he chose to do it, and fulfilling the bonds of that love required him to take flesh and bear our sins.
No, the assumption here is that God’s sense of justice is perfect – i.e., for every sinful action, God puts forth an equal and retributive reaction. If this is not so – if God can simply ignore sin and treat wickedness the same as righteousness – then God is no more just or good than we humans are, and the Scripture, “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all,” is false.The assumption here is that our sense of justice is perfect. We want someone to suffer, to be punished, even despite their repentance and good deeds.
I see what you are saying…and you have a good point.What I meant was, if Christ didn’t have to die for me to redeem me from my sins, and instead He chose to die as a demonstration of love or for some other reason, then I have no reason to consider myself accountable for His death, only whatever was actually necessary from Him to procure my salvation, nor am I inspired to sacrifice myself even to the point of death, knowing it was unecessary for Christ to make such a sacrifice. Indeed, I would be repelled by such superfluous masochism and would point to any such display as an example of what someone ought not to do.
To put it bluntly, if all I need from you to survive is a pint of your blood for a transfusion, and you allow yourself to be bled completely out so that you die, only the first pint of blood was a beautiful and loving gift – the rest was just you being ridiculous.
Catholics don’t attribute mans guilt of sin to Christ. If we did asprotestants due than Jesus deserved hell fire for eternity as that is our due place. We know Jesus did not suffer hell fire for eternity.I did hear the explanation, but it was that explanation that led me to shut off the radio and never return. “He did it to prove a point,” is repellent. “He did it because He had to,” on the other hand, is compelling. When the author of the letter to the Hebrews says, “You have not yet resisted sin to the shedding of blood,” he was pointing to Jesus’ sacrifice. But to say Jesus’ sacrifice wasn’t necessary is essentially to give the Hebrews reason to say, “Yeah, but He didn’t have to do that – He chose to – so why should we have to do that?”
The idea that God expended unnecessary effort just to prove a point to us, or to inspire us, actually robs the cross of that very meaning and inspiration, instead turning the cross into a testimony to gratuitous, pointless violence.
But God does not require Christ to suffer in our place. God requried and requires Love. Remember he appeased Gods wrath. Look at it this way my kids mark all over my TV they deserve punishemnt. My wife sees what the kids do and pours her love out for me makeing my favorette meal cleaning the house. She sacrafices her time and effort to appease their wrath. A protestant would have me come home and beat my wife so my kids get off free. A catholic would see her self sacraficing love and that Love would an appeasement for what the kids have done.For God to require nothing at all for Adam’s sin, or for God to require less of Christ than what was required of Adam, would have been arbitrary and unjust.
Your right God who is perfeclty just must judge sin. A just God would not punish one who is innocent and let one go who has sined.e.
The resolution to the conundrum, if we desire to peer into the mind of God, at least as far as He has revealed His mind in Holy Scripture, is mostly seen in the perfection of God. He is perfectly just, perfectly loving, perfectly merciful, perfectly powerful, perfectly holy, and so forth, and these divine attributes are definitional to His being. To remain perfectly just, He must judge sin. In His love, He chooses to judge sin in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, who chooses to bear our sin upon Himself. Thus, in Christ, we have access to the forgiveness and mercy and grace of Jesus Christ, but outside Him, we remain under wrath for our sin (both original and personal.)
Peace to you.
I’m not sure how Catholics recite the Nicene Creed, but I believe one version of it says, “He” (meaning Christ) “descended into Hell.” If that’s so, then Christ did experience death and separation from God, which is God’s ordained punishment for sin. But that death and separation from God is eternal for us only because once we are cut off from God in that way, there is no way for us to heal the breach. In other words, the punishment for sin is God’s cutting us off from Himself, but our staying cut off from God is not an added punishment but rather the consequence of our inability to be reattached apart from Christ. But for Christ, this cutting off was not permanent because He was perfectly obedient to the Law, and when God established the Law, He also established that whoever does the Law would live. Hence, because Christ obeyed the Law perfectly, Christ merited the resurrection to eternal life for Himself and for all those who are found in Him.Catholics don’t attribute mans guilt of sin to Christ. If we did as protestants do than Jesus deserved hell fire for eternity as that is our due place. We know Jesus did not suffer hell fire for eternity.
Absolutely, which is why Protestants do not recoil from the sacrifice of Christ, even though He was indeed an innocent who was punished in the place of the guilty. Christ volutarily took our guilt and our sin upon Himself and was slain for it. Had he been dragged kicking and screaming to the cross as an unwilling participant, then we would have reason to be horrified. But Christ willingly did what He had to do to save us. He loved us enough to undergo in our place that which we, not He, deserved.There is quite a difference between shedding the innocent blood of an involuntary victim(egkDeut 19:1-10, 1 sam 19:5; Psalm 106:38 and offering oneself up voluntarily in love for others Jn 10:18, Heb 7:27, phil 2:6-8.
So what you’re basically saying is, God takes bribes. He will take an offering of a wholly different kind in place of dispensing justice and let sin go unpunished instead. Remember you can forego beating the kids because you don’t have to be just – you can be arbitrary toward sin and turn a blind eye to sin as if it didn’t matter whether your children do right or do wrong. But if God did that, then He would be no different from us in terms of justice, and consequently not worthy of our worship and obedience. After all, He could not exhort us to deal justly with one another because we could turn right back around and say, “Why should we? You don’t. You take bribes and ignore sins. Why should we not do the same?”Look at it this way my kids mark all over my TV they deserve punishemnt. My wife sees what the kids do and pours her love out for me maoteeing my favorette meal cleaning the house. She sacrafices her time and effort to appease their wrath. A protestant would have me come home and beat my wife so my kids get off free. A catholic would see her self sacraficing love and that Love would an appeasement for what the kids have done.
We are not compelled to enter it, nor are we compelled to receive grace by faith, but such grace must necessarily be imparted/imputed to us for our salvation. Outside Christ there is no salvation, for there is no other name given under heaven, by which we must be saved.
St. Paul seems to make these arguments quite clearly in his letter to the Romans, and I would offer that it seems be obvious in St. John’s Gospel as well. I am content to remain within the understandings and ponderings of the Blessed Apostles, and to keep at arm’s distance the labyrinthine speculations of philosophers.
Paul makes no arguments of Grace being imputed there is however scripture upon scripture to support grace being infused truly changes us into the righteousness of Christ not a imputed cover up.Easter blessings be with you.
Apparently you have forgotten Romans 4 entirely. I have reproduced it below and bolded each occurrence of the Greek word logizomai, which means “to count, reckon, or impute.”Paul makes no arguments of Grace being imputed there is however scripture upon scripture to support grace being infused truly changes us into the righteousness of Christ not a imputed cover up.
What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is **counted **for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God **imputeth **righteousness without works, saying, *Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not **impute ***sin.
Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? For we say that faith was **reckoned **to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be **imputed **unto them also: and the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.
For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all (as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was **imputed **to him for righteousness.
Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was **imputed **to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
Its not hell as we understand the term today its realm of the deas that he decended. Hell is one of those word that has changed like pray and gay. He realeased those from the realm of the dead he did not release those in hell as we know word todayI’m not sure how Catholics recite the Nicene Creed, but I believe one version of it says, “He” (meaning Christ) “descended into Hell.” If that’s so, then Christ did experience death and separation from God, which is God’s ordained punishment for sin. But that death and separation from God is eternal for us only because once we are cut off from God in that way, there is no way for us to heal the breach. In other words, the punishment for sin is God’s cutting us off from Himself, but our staying cut off from God is not an added punishment but rather the consequence of our inability to be reattached apart from Christ. But for Christ, this cutting off was not permanent because He was perfectly obedient to the Law, and when God established the Law, He also established that whoever does the Law would live.
Christ did not keep the law to merit eternal life for us. The law was never intended to save us that was the whole point Paul was making with Abrham showing how God promissed Abraham before cercomsision and promised his inheretants 450 years prior to the law of Moses. Ill provide scripture later.Hence, because Christ obeyed the Law perfectly, Christ merited the resurrection to eternal life for Himself and for all those who are found in Him.
Agreed, but those who were in the realm of the dead were dead and separated from God just as Christ was dead and separated from God. So Christ took our penalty upon Himself. But Christ was righteous under the Law, as Paul wrote:Its not hell as we understand the term today its realm of the deas that he decended. Hell is one of those word that has changed like pray and gay. He realeased those from the realm of the dead he did not release those in hell as we know word today
I think I already quoted it in Romans 4, though there is more in Galatians 3. But Galatians 3 just reinforces what I said:The law was never intended to save us that was the whole point Paul was making with Abrham showing how God promissed Abraham before cercomsision and promised his inheretants 450 years prior to the law of Moses. Ill provide scripture later.
First the Greek verb logizomi does “most often indicate” what someone or something is merely “considered” to be but is not so in reality. The new testament uses logizomai 41 times most of these refer to what someone is thinking as a mental representation of the reality they are witnessing. Take a look at Lk 22:37 Rom 3:28, 6:11, 9:8, Phil 3:13; 4:8Apparently you have forgotten Romans 4 entirely. I have reproduced it below and bolded each occurrence of the Greek word logizomai, which means “to count, reckon, or impute.”
Aren’t you overlooking a couple of verses from Romans 4?God is recognizing or viewing Abraham faith as righteousness. He is being given the term just precisely because that word best describes his inward condition.
And yet that is exactly what God must do if He is to save us, because:No one especially not judges should designate as just someone who is not intrinsically just.
But “no deceit” about what? About the fact that one is unrighteous! Psalm 32:5 goes on to say, I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. It is as Jesus said, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. So long as you deceive yourself into thinking you are righteous, you cannot be forgiven of your sins.David speaks of one “in whose spirit is no deceit.” This statement is speaking of the inner quality the spiritual essence of the person.
But righteousness, according to everything Paul says in Romans 3 & 4 concerning the Law and its purpose, is not something that can be infused, only imputed. The Law’s job is to show people, “Look at what you have done.” Infuse all the grace you want into a person, and that will never make them righteous, because the Law will still be there saying, “Look at what you have done.” It is only if the guilt for your wrongdoing has been lifted from you, placed on someone else, and punished in that substitute, that the Law no longer has power to declare you guilty. And that is what God has said again and again through the Law and finally through the Gospel. In the sacrifices of the Old Testament, the sins of the people were punished in the animals sacrificed on their behalf – only in a figure, not actually, for it is impossible for the blood of animals to take away sins. But in the great sacrifice of the New Testament, the sins of the people were punished in the Messiah sacrificed on the cross on their behalf – this time for real, not merely in a figure, for the Messiah truly did take away the sins of the people and drown them in his death.Paul in Romans 4 shows us the process comprises both the infusion of righteousness into the individual and Gods recognition of that righteousness.
That would make the best sense of all.**
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Not at allAren’t you overlooking a couple of verses from Romans 4?
But he uses David as the example of faith. Its not jsut a belief in God faith. This is a faith that brought him to repentence. And this faith is counted as righteousness every time David confesses his sins.Rom 4:5 – But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Does Paul expect us to believe in the same God who test us with seemingly impossible promises like Abraham, or do we just believe in the “alien righteousness of Christ alone”?Rom 4:16-17 – Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all (as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations), before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
Likewise:
All of Romans exspecially Ch 2 is an indictment against the Jews for their hypocrisy. Lets quote this verse in its entirety to get the contextRom 2:26 – Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?