F
fhansen
Guest
Yes, Basils point in any case is that we want to be true children of God, not slaves of the household based on fear of punishment.
Last edited:
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.
J
Julius_Caesar
Guest
The truth is as Paul said, we are slaves of God. We serve Him now. And it is a dreadful thing to fall into His Hands.Basils point in any case is that we want to be true children of God, not slaves of the household
F
fhansen
Guest
Both, the love that Christ works in us. This righteousness only “comes from God” as you quoted from Phil 3. Righteousness isn’t just a word-it has meaning and identity. The church historically has defined justice or righteousness for man with the three “theological virtues” of faith, hope, and love. With love being the most important and encompassing the rest.Hodos said:I’ll bite. Despite the fact that the text contradicts this and doesn’t say what you are saying…Who’s love if Paul speaking of in that passage? Yours? Or Christ’s?
It’s not merely being accounted righteous, or declared or imputed to be righteous. it’s to made righteous, to become new creations as we’re not only forgiven but actually washed clean and given the grace of justice or righteousness, even if only in seedling form to begin with, needing to be exercised, “invested”, stretched, tested, challenged and increased. The problem was that, yes, we couldn’t be who we were created to be, we couldn’t fulfill the law, any of it apart from God-and that’s the most basic lesson for man to learn. So the Ten Commandments, as examples, cannot be authentically fulfilled by man- simply because we don’t love as we must. And we don’t love as we must because we lack fellowship with God, who, alone, can produce or grant that love in and to us, ‘placing His law in our minds and writing it on our hearts’. The purpose of the New Covenant is union with Christ- and the Father, and the Holy Spirit: union with God through the Son.Hodos said:No one is disputing the fact that we fail at keeping the law, or obtaining righteousness. That is entirely the point. And just as the Old Covenant required atonement by blood (only here it is not effective, it only points to the work of Christ), so does the New Covenant where Christ sheds his own body and blood for us that we might be accounted as righteous before God.
Without that union man already exists in an unjust, disordered state of being. With that union, all things are possible, all things can be as they’re intended as justice is restored to God’s wayward creation even if that wayward creation may still struggle at times to remain in Him, in that union-and away from sin. And that union is established by faith, even if relatively weakly at first, but intended to grow in strength. So faith doesn’t merely result in a legal transaction of our being translated to righteousness in God’s eyes while in fact we remain snow-covered dung-heaps. It’s not faith, per se, that makes us just, as if faith is the equivalent of righteousness for man. Nor is it a license to be free from our obligation to be actually righteous. Rather, our union or communion with God is the essence of our justice, and faith is the entry way to that union. We’re saved by faith, via faith, through and on the basis of faith.
continued, sorry:
Last edited:
F
fhansen
Guest
continued:
And the point is that under the New Covenant man is not relieved from his obligation to be righteous, to fulfill the law; rather he’s obligated to become united with God, and remain there, a partnership wherein the law becomes actually and truly fulfilled in us by Him, the right way now, finally. He did not create sinners after all-and has never intended for us to remain as such. And yet we must still cooperate in this endeavor:
“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Rom 8:12-13
Anyway, the point is that justification is not intended to bypass or relieve us from the obligation to actually be just - and so the NC is not about freeing us from the obligation to be sinless. Rather they’re about finally achieving in us freedom from the sin that earns us death. That’s how the law is upheld by faith.
And the point is that under the New Covenant man is not relieved from his obligation to be righteous, to fulfill the law; rather he’s obligated to become united with God, and remain there, a partnership wherein the law becomes actually and truly fulfilled in us by Him, the right way now, finally. He did not create sinners after all-and has never intended for us to remain as such. And yet we must still cooperate in this endeavor:
“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Rom 8:12-13
Anyway, the point is that justification is not intended to bypass or relieve us from the obligation to actually be just - and so the NC is not about freeing us from the obligation to be sinless. Rather they’re about finally achieving in us freedom from the sin that earns us death. That’s how the law is upheld by faith.
Last edited:
F
fhansen
Guest
Can you clarify this thought? Do you believe that faith is meant to be strictly fear driven? “Believe and obey or you’ll go to hell”?The truth is as Paul said, we are slaves of God. We serve Him now. And it is a dreadful thing to fall into His Hands.
Last edited:
J
Julius_Caesar
Guest
You have to consider the last things. Otherwise, you lie to yourself about the nature of God.Do you believe that faith is meant to be strictly fear driven? “Believe and obey or you’ll go to hell”?
F
fhansen
Guest
The last things being our judgment? And what about the nature of God? I’d submit that we know little about that nature. John revealed, however, that God is love. And Jesus demonstrated that very love in everything He said and did, including His willing passion and death on a cross-and His resurrection. That was God, Himself, on the cross humbly suffering in human flesh. I’d submit that we’d know more about the nature of God by reading 1 Cor 13:4-8.You have to consider the last things. Otherwise, you lie to yourself about the nature of God.
Does that mean that He’s some kind of cuddly sugar daddy in the sky? No, it just means that He places love as superior to all-and is the very virtue that He wants cultivated in us-for our own good. He wants love, not force, to reign is His universe, to triumph over evil. And love’s a choice. Had Adam loved God he would’ve obeyed Him-and evil would never have entered his world. That, presumably, was to come later.
We should fear God; that’s the beginning of wisdom. But we should come to love Him; that’s the fruit of that wisdom, produced as we come to know Him. God has always been on mans’ side, wanting only the very best for us even as we might think we know better. His love is unfathomably huge and unconditional. But He allows us the freedom to ultimately reject even that love, to go our own way, and that rejection is the basis of hell.
Last edited:
J
Julius_Caesar
Guest
That Love isn’t compatible with evil, and Love damns as well as pardons. Selectively reading passages that leave out the direness of not aligning oneself with Love deceives oneself and others.The last things being our judgment? And what about the nature of God? I
F
fhansen
Guest
Yes, that’s the point. Nothing’s been left out. Love triumphs over evil, by its nature. Love opposes evil but will allow us to remain in it if we so desire. Hell is the rejection of love, of God.That Love isn’t compatible with evil,
Last edited:
J
Julius_Caesar
Guest
The last part has been.Nothing’s been left out
Leaving out the upsetting parts about a person gives us a murky picture who that person is. The same goes with God.
F
fhansen
Guest
I haven’t followed all of this thread. If you’ve been defending man’s obligation to be sinless, you’re right. That sinlessness will only be authentically achieved, however, to the extent that we love, as God does. That’s the basis of man’s perfection which is why the Greatest Commandments are what they are. And why they’re worth mentioning apart from the others. God’s most basic command to man could be stated as: “Thou shall love”. Then obedience flows if its own accord, the right way. He wants that for us, but He will not force it upon us. And, yes, there’s hell to pay for ignoring and opposing that most right and good obligation.The last part has been.
Leaving out the upsetting parts about a person gives us a murky picture who that person is. The same goes with God.
Last edited:
J
Julius_Caesar
Guest
All the more reason to fear “Him who can cast body and soul into Hell.”And, yes, there’s hell to pay for ignoring and opposing that most right and good obligation.
F
fhansen
Guest
We always need to retain a degree of fear, based on our weaknesses, limitations, and sin. Humility, alone, demands this and this is why the Church teaches that we cannot have 100% certainty of salvation. God is perfectly trustworthy and true while we’re the wildcard in it all.
But there’s a difference between thinking, as some do, that God is almost angrily preferring to send us to hell when the truth is that He desires none to perish (2 Pet 3), and laments every lost sinner.
To know God is to love Him, because He’s sheer Goodness itself -and then fear is lessened, both because we know His love better as well as experiencing our own love growing as a result of knowing/uniting with Him, along with the fruit that such love should produce.
But there’s a difference between thinking, as some do, that God is almost angrily preferring to send us to hell when the truth is that He desires none to perish (2 Pet 3), and laments every lost sinner.
To know God is to love Him, because He’s sheer Goodness itself -and then fear is lessened, both because we know His love better as well as experiencing our own love growing as a result of knowing/uniting with Him, along with the fruit that such love should produce.
Last edited:
J
Julius_Caesar
Guest
A parent can be angry with his son for backtalking and be grieved for him at the same time.But there’s a difference between thinking, as some do, that God is almost angrily preferring to send us to hell when the truth is that He desires none to perish (2 Pet 3), and laments every lost sinner
F
fhansen
Guest
I agree. Love doesn’t love sin-that would not be to desire the best for his son. So God chastises those he loves. But some may be incorrigible-and He finally will let us go-chastisement and punishment have no merit after that point.A parent can be angry with his son for backtalking and be grieved for him at the same time.
F
fhansen
Guest
I appreciate some Church teachings on freedom as they apply at this point:
1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.
1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil , and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.
I think it’s interesting to note, too, that at the end of the day God is our beatitude; He’s our purpose and complete total and fulfillment of our innate desire for good, the very source of sheer, unbridled happiness for man.
1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.
1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil , and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.
I think it’s interesting to note, too, that at the end of the day God is our beatitude; He’s our purpose and complete total and fulfillment of our innate desire for good, the very source of sheer, unbridled happiness for man.
Last edited:
G
goout
Guest
Do you fear not getting an ice cream cone today? Why not? Pick whatever pleasure it is that you enjoy, and ask yourself if you fear not having that pleasure. If you don’t, why not?That’s the problem: I don’t see Him as lovable, but fearful.
…
What is the good thing that prompts fear in you?
- Status
- Not open for further replies.