right on Arsenios, this is what i mean in the triune post to BR tonight, i just can't put it in words properly yet. good post ! ! !
ECT This should start a decent discussion: Universal Atonement
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right on Arsenios, this is what i mean in the triune post to BR tonight, i just can't put it in words properly yet. good post ! ! !
TFTn5280
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Yes! Torrance even more so than Barth is a Patristic scholar. He said many times: The more one reads the Patristics, the more his (or her) Western mind is freed from Augustine's hold on the Church. Yes, it is very much a movement, a Reformation of the Reformation. I remember prof Deddo once telling me that we are mustard seeds now, small and insignificant. But don't despair, he said; one day we will sprout and grow into huge plants the world over will see.
This, in my opinion, is a result of losing the Trinity in our doctrine of God. Yes, most Christians give assent to the doctrine of the Trinity. But very few of them theologize through that grid. Thus many powerful truths are neutered, stripped of their power, just sort of assumed to have always been true. The resurrection is a case in point. We think of heaven and hell as something "God" made and something that everyone just sorta goes to when each one dies. All dead babies go to heaven, for example. Why? Because they're innocent. Well, yes, but not free from the curse of the fall. They still died didn't they? Something has to free them from the grave. That something is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The grave frees no one de facto. All are raised in Christ in Christ's resurrection (hence the universal scope of atonement). As Walker reminds us in the video: if there be no resurrection, we are still in our sin. Heaven is the Father's house, prepared by Christ the Son. NO ONE just gets there.
I could go on and on. The whole debate between Calvinists and Arminians would dissolve if Evangelicals would learn to think Christocentrically. Instead they abstract "God" and project upon him scholastic concepts in abstention of Christ. And they think of "man" the same way, attributing to humanity a freedom which was only set free in Christ. Were it not for him, we would still be dead in our sin, but because he died while we were yet sinners and raised us in his resurrection, there is an ontological "already" at play in humanity that is not yet fully realized: WE have been set free to choose Christ, to respond to his call. How could there possibly be free will otherwise? How foolish the thought!
I digress.
Torrance served for years as the moderator of the Reformed Church of Scotland. While there he met extensively with the Eastern Orthodox Church. He with them crafted a reconciliation between the Scottish church and Orthodoxy. Yes, he was aware that many of the Patristic teachings are alive and well in the EO Church.
Indeed.
Interesting
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Arsenios
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Arsenios
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BYZ – John 14:30
ουκετι πολλα λαλησω μεθ υμων
No longer much will I be speaking with you
ερχεται γαρ ο του κοσμου αρχων
for is coming the of the kosmos Ruler
και εν εμοι ουκ εχει ουδεν
and in Me not is he having nothing
So you are right -
It is the ruler of the kosmos who has nothing in Christ,
and not the kosmos which he rules...
So that as a creature OF creation, OF the Kosmos, OF the world,
Christ so lived His Life that the rulership of that creation
had no control or presence in Him at all...
Sorry I mis-'spoke'...
Arsenios
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Arsenios
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I had wrongly stated that Christ said
"The world has nothing in Me."
Then YOU said: "That is not in the Bible," remember?
So I rightly stated what IS in the Bible"
"The ruler of the world has nothing in Me."
So thank you for the correction...
Arsenios
TFTn5280
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What a wonderful example of how Christian disputes can be resolved. Thanks Arsenios
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No worries. What I had in my mind was the "accuser comes but he has nothing in me". Now I am after to find out what translation had it as such. It was probably from a Calvinist commentary I threw out. . .
Arsenios
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Now I am after to find out what translation had it as such.
It was probably from a Calvinist commentary I threw out. . .
Oh you rotten child!
I mean, Poor Calvin!
Now I gotta pray for HIM!
Oh the shame!
Arsenios
TFTn5280
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There is no good reason for not believing in Jesus Christ. Yet for no good reason some will refuse to believe. And they may go to hell who refuse him. But we ought not waive our fist at God, blaming him for this. You, O God, why did you make them for destruction? NO! The only way humans can perhaps change the destiny provided them in Christ’s perfected work is to finally refuse the reconciliation accomplished by him on their behalf. This grounds reprobation not in God’s will but in their own. Calvin erred in this. Must we continue to propagate it? The mystery of iniquity does not originate from above; it finds its source down here, somewhere near I fear, somewhere very close to home.
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Arsenios
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The Mystery of Iniquity is a gift... It is the usage, by God, of the evil that is in us and around us, for the elevation of our souls to Him... In the world, we WILL find tribulation... Great evils thrust upon us... And in these, we will find great Peace from Christ Which He gives...
The purpose of our life is not to question God about His Good Sense, but to turn from evil and embrace the Good, to turn from the world and to embrace Heaven, to scorn self and embrace God... Our job is not so much to make good choices as it is to make good decisions and live by them... The choices will then follow...
Without evils besetting us, how few will be those who seek God!?
We will instead just munch on our next bon-bon...
Take our wives and kids for granted...
Open the fridge...
Grab the remote...
See what's playin'...
Forgetting, you see, that the quintessential definition of evil is:
"ALL that is NOT of God."
That means every thought and every movement...
To be Christian means:
Not merely the occasional if regular acknowledgement of God's Greatness...
It is instead pandemic and wonton immersion in God...
How many men and women do you know like this?
Arsenios
jsjohnnt
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Your last sentence is especially powerful because it forces us all, (me especially) to review our own lives and accept responsibility for that which we cannot change . . . . . . . except to be found in (eis) Christ.
jsjohnnt
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Good post, I think. You wrote: It is instead pandemic and wonton immersion in God... How many men and women do you know like this?" Of course, the answer to your question, as you know, is the very issue that demands that the flow of the blood of the Lamb be continual in an aorist sort of way.
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Here is where the reason can be found: Rom 8:20 __ because Adam had as yet, no way to may a choice.
jsjohnnt
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Explain, please.
Update: apparently, you added that last phrase while I was posting.
But, of course, Adam did have a choice or he would have sinned (eaten the fruit) immediately after his creation.
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In vanity is where the issue of choice originated. You must understand that vanity is not sin in order to get a grasp on this. Remember how God spoke to Cain, to warn him of the same issue before killing Abel? That's it!
TFTn5280
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The instant we make Jesus our example and link righteousness to obedience (ours now), we place ourselves under the very law that he ~ and only he ~ fulfilled, the covenant of which Paul calls faulty and obsolete (Heb 8). Furthermore, had we only needed the Holy Spirit to live in obedience to the Law, then Christ died in vain. God should have just sent his Spirit and saved his Son the anguish. NO! Christ did what was impossible for any of us (post Adam at least) to do. PERIOD. It was not primarily as example that he came. He came because we have each of ourselves found ourselves in a dilemma that we cannot possibly ever resolve: our own human condition. Because he was human as we are, he could represent us in that very condition. Because he was God as well, he could represent us there successfully. As man, he could sin; as God, he was able not to.
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This is about a specific command God gave Adam and how Adam handled it and why and not about any LAW of Moses or whatever. PERIOD. I am not going to reply to your desire to make this about salvation, specifics about Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit or whatever else you won't let go of. It is about choice making whether in or out of Christ. Why not let yourself get over it or around it that you might see to learn something.
Learn this beacuse it happened in the Garden of Eden.
In vanity is where the issue of choice originated. You must learn that vanity is not sin in order to get a grasp on this. Remember how God spoke to Cain, to warn him of the same issue before killing Abel? That's it!
I hope you can condescend to reply to that alone without whatever else you might have in mind.
Respectfully asked.
TFTn5280
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Calm down, CR. I was actually responding to Arsenios' comment and tagged yours by mistake. Although in looking back at it, it speaks to the same issue you raise. Adam did not have to sin ~ however inevitable it was that he would. Cain did not have to slay his brother, even though he was born on the fallen side of Adam. However, because he was born under the curse of Adam, he was subject to death whether he sinned himself or not.
Vanity, it seems to me, feeds on the desire to be one's own sovereign.