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Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 1766
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 9:07 pm: |     |
quote:As a sidenote, I find it interesting that the Catholic Church would never allow such heresy as Protestants have allowed to creep into the church, with regard to Christology.
As a response to your side note, the Catholic church does not teach substitutionary atonement.
quote:He would be taking it out of context because the Psalm, as is the common structure of the Psalms, begins with a complaint but ends with hope and praise and with the psalmist making it clear that he knows that he has not been forsaken (as in separated from/abandoned by God). Thus, just the complaint by itself with no other meaning, is out of context
So it is also your contention that the psalmist never felt forsaken by God?
quote:And which is it, was He actually forsaken or was it only that He "felt forsaken"? If it was only the latter, then how is that taking the "literal meaning" or "normal reading"?
Personally I have avoided trying to answer that question in this thread. Colleen and Chris both suggested that He "felt forsaken" or that as a man He experienced being forsaken but as God, He did not.
I would say; however, that it makes considerably more sense that someone who felt forsaken would cry out "why have you forsaken me" than it would for someone who both felt and knew with certainty that he was not forsaken. So in terms of a "normal reading" of the passage it makes considerably more sense.
quote:Didn't He ask the Father to spare Him from death in the Garden of Gethsemane
And you are contending that Jesus is referencing the people observing Him on the cross to this experience in the Garden, but that Jesus is no longer calling out for the Father to deliver Him from death?
You keep trying to raise new issues without ever addressing the original ones. |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 1771
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 6:13 am: | |
Here is a solid article with an alternate view from what Jeremy's link presented. I appreciate the emphasis it places on what this passage means relative to the cross and salvation.
http://www.lwbc.co.uk/eli.htm |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 3912
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 3:47 pm: | |
Rick,
I'll just quickly address your post #1766, before moving on to your latest post.
As I've pointed out before, it's not true that the Catholic Church does not teach substitutionary atonement--I think you're confusing that with penal substitution. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitutionary_atonement#Belief_in_the_Doctrine)
I think the best explanation regarding the Psalm is the one I quoted above. I will re-post it here:
quote:Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani are the opening words in Aramaic...of [Ps 22]. Doubtless our Lord continues the psalm in silence. The fact that the words are a quotation removes the dogmatic difficulty. The psalm is not a cry of despair but, on the contrary, a hymn of supreme confidence in God despite profound suffering. As in our Lord's case the divine 'foresaking' in the psalm is no more than a poetical expression of acute physical and mental pain to which God has 'abandoned' the psalmist without, however, having 'turned his face away', Ps [22], 2, 25. In our Lord's mouth, indeed, the words are not even a complaint because his intention is simply to show that the fruitful martyrdom of the innocent psalmist was a shadow of his own."
Again, I say that verse 1 of Psalm 22 cannot be taken out of the context of the rest of the Psalm.
Or else we could take the following out of the context of Psalm 10: "There is no God" and run with it!
Jeremy |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 3913
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 3:47 pm: | |
Rick,
I can't beat around the bush with this one. What you call a "solid article" I call blasphemy. The interpretation that's been accepted into many modern Protestant churches leads to abject heresy.
From the article:
quote:He was experiencing total separation from His Father because of this sin, yet He had never sinned. He was the sinner’s substitute. As Wesley suggested, the terror Jesus must have felt is beyond words, and maybe no amount of descriptive language would ever make us realise what this separation from God meant to Him. It is sufficient to say that this was the only time in all of eternity that the Father was forced to turn His face away from His only begotten Son.
Let's compare that to this quote:
quote:Satan with his fierce temptations wrung the heart of Jesus. The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father's acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. [...] And all that He endured--the blood drops that flowed from His head, His hands, His feet, the agony that racked His frame, and the unutterable anguish that filled His soul at the hiding of His Father's face--speaks to each child of humanity, declaring, It is for thee that the Son of God consents to bear this burden of guilt; for thee He spoils the domain of death, and opens the gates of Paradise." (The Desire of Ages, pages 753-755.)
Both quotes say that Jesus was filled with terror/fear, that He was totally separated from the Father (although Ellen doesn't use the word "total," Adventists do elsewhere in quotes on my website), and that the Father hid His face from Him.
And why should we listen to John Wesley, a man who denied the Gospel and confessed that he himself was not saved??
All of the above statements are heresy. You can't have "total separation from the Father" and maintain monotheism. (And you can't have it in His human nature without destroying the hypostatic union and teaching Gnosticism--although the author makes it clear in that last sentence that he is not even confining the separation to Jesus' human nature.)
And the claim that "the Father was forced to turn His face away" is in direct contradiction to Psalm 22:24 which explicitly states:
"For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
Nor has He hidden His face from him;
But when he cried to Him for help, He heard." (NASB.)
I will never understand why on earth people come up with exact phraseology that directly contradicts the exact phraseology of Scripture!!! It just blows my mind!!! It's like Colossians 2 saying that false prophets say "touch not, taste not, handle not" and then along comes Ellen White who says the exact words "touch not, taste not, handle not"!!!
This IS just as absurd as using the words of Psalm 10:4 that "there is no God"!!!
Also, "the only time in all of eternity" is an oxymoronic statement. There is no such thing as "time" in "eternity." If people only understood basics such as these, then they would not come up with these heretical theories. Since God is outside of time, it is impossible for the Son to be separated from the Father, unless He was separated eternally and not temporally.
The author then makes a statement which is actually very true: "Jesus’ cry does not arise out of the need to understand His Father’s reasons for all of this."
Since Jesus knew all things (John 16:30), then we have to immediately reject a "normal reading" of Matthew 27:46, since that would indicate that Jesus did not know why this was happening to Him.
Then the author has this quote:
quote:Up till this moment, when He was forsaken by men He had been able to turn to His Father, but now even this refuge is denied Him, and He is absolutely ALONE.
Again, this is in direct contradiction to Scripture:
"Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me." (John 16:32 NASB.)
"...God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself..." (2 Corinthians 5:19 NASB.)
Also, if He was not "able to turn to His Father" then why on earth was He crying out to Him? Not only is it heretical, it is nonsensical! And again, it sounds exactly like the garbage that Ellen wrote.
Then the author goes on to yet more blasphemy, saying that what happened at the Cross was "injustice"!
Then the author says:
quote:The physical pain must have been horrendous, but even worse was the period of spiritual separation from His Father.
Which spirit was separated from which spirit? How many spirits are there? How many gods do we have?
The author then states:
quote:To Jesus this separation from the Father was the ultimate agony. Yet Scripture says that it “pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief.” [Isaiah 53:10].
He cannot use a verse which talks about physical suffering to say that it is actually talking about "the ultimate agony" of "spiritual" suffering. He is not even using Scripture coherently.
Then he admits the following:
quote:To think that the only begotten Son of God should undergo all of this on our behalf, for Him to be forsaken by His dear Father, defies logic.
Yes, it defies logic. But the truth is not illogical. God's Word is not illogical. "'Come now, and let us reason together,'
Says the LORD,
'Though your sins are as scarlet,
They will be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They will be like wool." (Isaiah 1:18 NASB.)
And again the author defeats his own argument when he says:
quote:Make them see that the price can be seen in His hands, feet and side.
How can the price be seen in His hands, feet, and side if the "ultimate" price was suffered in His spirit?
And then he says:
quote:Tell them that there is no other way and the price has been paid “with the precious blood of Christ, as lamb without blemish and without spot.” [1 Peter 1:19].
Exactly. The price was paid with His precious blood, which Peter says is more valuable than gold or silver and which is, yes, valuable enough (infinite value!) to pay the price for our sins! According to the article's arguments, Jesus' blood may have been more valuable than gold or silver but it apparently was not valuable enough to get the job done! He had to suffer "spiritual separation" in order to really pay the price! I consider that to border on blaspheming the blood of Christ, and it disturbs me greatly.
The author is right that "the price has been paid 'with the precious blood of Christ"--not with His spirit, through "total separation" from the Father.
The Apostle Peter says in the next chapter: "and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, ..." (1 Peter 2:24 NASB.)
Again, He bore our sins in His body not His spirit.
As I say on my website: The New Testament epistles teach over and over that it was Jesus' death on the Cross that saved us and atoned for our sins. They never say that Jesus was separated from God, or that that is how He suffered the penalty for our sin (and if that is how He paid the penalty, then why did He even need to die physically?)
I urge all of you to please take a closer, second look at what kind of doctrine you are accepting.
The NT never teaches that it was anything other than the physical death of Jesus Christ that saved us from our sins.
Please answer just this one question: If it was Jesus' "separation from the Father" that actually paid the penalty for our sins and saved us, then why are the Apostles and their New Testament writings completely silent about this "true" Gospel and what really saved us? Should it be a silent secret???
"nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own.
26Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." (Hebrews 9:25-26 NASB.)
"For God's will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time." (Hebrews 10:10 NLT.)
"For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
19in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison," (1 Peter 3:18-19 NASB.)
And to go back to quoting hymns...
"What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus."
Jeremy
(Message edited by Jeremy on April 12, 2012) |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 3914
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 4:29 pm: | |
Also, Colleen mentioned above that Romans 3 says that Jesus was a "propitiation in His blood." So again, yes, He was a propitiation in His blood not His spirit.
If we are going to accept the plain words of Scripture, then let's accept the plain words of Scripture.
Jeremy |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 1774
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 4:33 pm: | |
Jeremy,
Thank you for your opinion.
I'm glad to hear that you consider this viewpoint heresy, because I believe that it is central to truly understanding and appreciating the Gospel
quote:If you can grasp a little of the extreme horror Jesus must have felt on the cross to cry out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” then you are beginning to value the cost of your salvation.
I'm glad to hear that you consider Wesley, Luther, Spurgeon and so many other great men of faith heretics. I am proud to be counted among names like those.
I believe that your teaching is compromising the doctrine of the atonement.
I believe that you have denied the clear words of Scripture that Jesus was made sin and that Jesus was made to be a curse. These just add to your denial of the plain statement where Jesus expresses being forsaken. I'm not sure how many Biblical passages or core Christian doctrines that you will ultimately deny in order to maintain your view but I am done trying to reason with you. You have repeatedly avoided addressing the specific issues I have raised from the start of this thread, instead throwing out one red herring after another. Instead of dealing with what was actually said, you twist words and make accusations.
quote:If it was Jesus' "separation from the Father" that actually paid the penalty for our sins and saved us, then why are the Apostles and their New Testament writings completely silent about this "true" Gospel and what really saved us? Should it be a silent secret???
You know very well that I, nor anyone else here, nor anyone I quoted said that "Jesus' 'separation from the Father' paid the penalty for our sins". I fail to understand why you would present this false accusation except a desparate need to defend your view at all costs.
What we said was Biblical (although you have denied that these passages mean what they plainly state) that Jesus became sin and that Jesus was cursed, and became a curse and that being made both a sin and a curse IS an important part of how Scripture describes that our salvation was made possible in Him.
BTW, check the actual wording of the RCC councils rather than wiki
quote:Whence it came to pass, that the Heavenly Father, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1, 3), when that blessed fullness of the time was come (Galatians 4:4) sent unto men Jesus Christ, His own Son who had been, both before the Law and during the time of the Law, to many of the holy fathers announced and promised, that He might both redeem the Jews, who were under the Law and that the Gentiles who followed not after justice might attain to justice and that all men might receive the adoption of sons. Him God had proposed as a propitiator, through faith in His blood (Romans 3:25), for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world (I John ii, 2).
The statements from the councils (or from Popes) would be the only official doctrinal positions of the RCC and these do not outline the substitutionary atonement.
Rather than wiki, I would suggest looking to how the RCC church describes its view of atonement:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02055a.htm
quote:That great doctrine has been faintly set forth in figures taken from man's laws and customs. It is represented as the payment of a price, or a ransom, or as the offering of satisfaction for a debt. But we can never rest in these material figures as though they were literal and adequate. As both Abelard and Bernard remind us, the Atonement is the work of love. It is essentially a sacrifice, the one supreme sacrifice of which the rest were but types and figures. And, as St. Augustine teaches us, the outward rite of Sacrifice is the sacrament, or sacred sign, of the invisible sacrifice of the heart. It was by this inward sacrifice of obedience unto death, by this perfect love with which He laid down his life for His friends, that Christ paid the debt to justice, and taught us by His example, and drew all things to Himself; it was by this that He wrought our Atonement and Reconciliation with God, "making peace through the blood of His Cross".
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Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 3915
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 5:10 pm: | |
If anyone is interested in the history of this discussion on this forum, please see this thread from last year (where I also showed the historical understanding of these passages by the Christian Church): http://www.formeradventist.com/discus/messages/11/11462.html
Jeremy |
Truman
Registered user
Username: Truman
Post Number: 107
Registered: 1-2012
| | Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012 - 10:50 pm: | |
Wellllll.....since you're both heretics, it's a good thing you're both saved; and that we only flame heretics in discussion threads, instead of burning them at the stake.
Maybe we can arrange a doctrinal sumo-wrestling match at the next Fellowship weekend. Uhh...on second thought, I didn't need that visual.
Peace, brothers; you agree that you disagree. |
Mjcmcook
Registered user
Username: Mjcmcook
Post Number: 454
Registered: 2-2011
| | Posted on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 10:22 am: | |
Jeremy & Ric_b~
I think both of you from time to time write the
rebuttals for the "sda" sabbath school lessons?
If I am correct, I surely hope you are "in sync"
regarding what you write~
~mj~ |
Mjcmcook
Registered user
Username: Mjcmcook
Post Number: 456
Registered: 2-2011
| | Posted on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 11:35 am: | |
Truman~
~~~ LOL~~~ for your post # 107 !!!
~mj~ |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 3916
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, April 13, 2012 - 1:54 pm: | |
Here are some of the shocking quotes by John Wesley that I was referring to above:
quote:"And yet, this is the mystery: I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen, a proselyte of the Temple, one of the 'God-fearers' (Acts 13:16). And yet to be so employed of God; and so hedged in that I can neither get forward nor backward! [...] If I ever have had that faith, it would not be so strange. But I never had any other awareness of the eternal or invisible world than I have now; and that is none at all, unless such as fairly shines from reason's glimmering ray. I have no direct witness (I do not say that I am a child of God) but of anything invisible or eternal. [...] I want all the world to come to what I do not know myself."
http://books.google.com/books?id=3z8V4DgB2iYC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&source=web&ots=511Suus9CU&sig=J5uI__IxaK7kG0F5-CkfAdDo_TU#v=onepage&q&f=false
The above quote was written in a letter to his brother Charles Wesley when he was in his 60s, many years after his supposed conversion.
quote:"God does undoubtedly command us both to repent, and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance; which if we willingly neglect, we cannot reasonably expect to be justified at all: therefore both repentance, and fruits meet for repentance, are, in some sense, necessary to justification. But they are not necessary in the same sense with faith, nor in the same degree. Not in the same degree; for those fruits are only necessary conditionally; if there be time and opportunity for them. Otherwise a man may be justified without them, as was the thief upon the cross [...]
It is incumbent on all that are justified to be zealous of good works. And there are so necessary, that if a man willingly neglect them, he cannot reasonably expect that he shall ever be sanctified; he cannot grow in grace, in the image of God, the mind which was in Christ Jesus; nay, he cannot retain the grace he has received; he cannot continue in faith, or in the favor of God."
(http://www.godrules.net/library/wsermons/wsermons43.htm)
Jeremy
(Message edited by Jeremy on April 13, 2012) |
Animal
Registered user
Username: Animal
Post Number: 1002
Registered: 7-2008
| | Posted on Saturday, April 14, 2012 - 9:17 am: | |
quote scripture...not dead people ....sigh |
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