For our Wednesday night study, my son and I decided to listen to the opening statements by John Pipa from the debate he had with Dave Hunt. I won't post the entire debate for Hunt seemed to have no clue as to where he was. Pipa's presentation is simply excellent. His explanation of the Vicarious Substitutionary Atonement is extremely helpful. You may listen here.
Earlier today, I did have an good conversation with a couple of friends. I had the opportunity to address the issue. If you read Anonymous' illustration of having to cooperate with God to achieve salvation and you heard Pastor Paul's illustration in the service Sunday morning, you will see they are basically the same illustration.
At one point in the conversation I asked about Romans 6:23. If the wages of sin is death and the death portion of that verse is already sufficiently paid for, and every individual has their sin paid for, then it logically follows that everyone has been forgiven of their sins. Therefore it must logically follow that death may never come upon any man since their is no longer any debt to be paid.
What is interesting is that Pastor Paul also used the Biblical illustration for imputation. I will offer another one here. If I owe my Citibank credit card company $50 Billion dollars, and someone pays that debt for me, it does not matter if I believe that someone did it or not. The debt is paid. I may write checks all day long to Citibank, if they are honest (I assume God would be) then they must tear up the checks. If Pastor Paul is consistent, he must become a Universalist.
Again, I would encourage you to listen to Pipa's explanation of the Atoning work of Christ. It is Biblically sound.
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4 comments:
"If the wages of sin is death and the death portion of that verse is already sufficiently paid for, and every individual has their sin paid for, then it logically follows that everyone has been forgiven of their sins."
No. It does not necessarily follow that because sins are paid for the perpitrator is forgiven, especially if the perp or his agent are also required to ask for forgiveness in oorder to recieve it... just as no matter who pays my air fare, I do not benefit from the free gift unless I accept it and get on the plane.
Anonymous,
"No. It does not necessarily follow that because sins are paid for the perpitrator is forgiven, especially if the perp or his agent are also required to ask for forgiveness in oorder to recieve it... just as no matter who pays my air fare, I do not benefit from the free gift unless I accept it and get on the plane."
This is the inconsistency. If the debt IS paid whether I believe or not, then a man who goes to hell does so for no reason. He could leave at any time. Would not a person who gets there and realizes, "Hey, I don't have to be here." Just leave?
Anonymous, you would be correct if the requirement for me to appropriate forgiveness is through faith, but that is not what my pastor said.
He said we have our sins already imputed to Christ. We only have to believe in order to get to heaven.
Here is the problem. The wage of sin is death. This is what man must receive. If however, Jesus paid that debt, then God cannot send anyone to hell for the debt is paid.
Therefore there must be a third place for man to go to.
Remember Romans 4 says the Blessed man is the one to whom God will not impute his sin if he has faith in Christ. Pastor Paul's sermon said a completely different idea.
THE BIAS OF DEGENERATION Oswald Chambers
Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and
death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that
all have sinned.
Romans 5:12
The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Heb. 9:26) - an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization - I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When Our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and up right, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.
Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. "And this is the judgment" (the critical moment), "that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light."
Interesting quote Evelyn. I couldn't agree more that God is dealing with the "sin" disposition. The Reformers were most certainly going after that instead of the "sins" Rome was constantly making people come to the sacraments to receive God's grace.
The statement at the beginning is very troubling.
"The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Heb. 9:26)"
Romans 5: 12 teaches the exact opposite of the first sentence. It is precisely that all sinned when Adam sinned. Therefore God is punishing all of the human race for one man's sin. The parallel is to Christ's original righteous act being imputed to believers. To argue against this is to turn the entire reformation on its head.
May I refer you to Sam Waldron's exegesis of the text? Now the exegesis is of the next 2 verses, but I think it has much to say regarding the prior verses. The third link involves verse 12 specifically.
http://www.mctsowensboro.org/blog/?p=123
part 2
http://www.mctsowensboro.org/blog/?p=124
part 3
http://www.mctsowensboro.org/blog/?p=125
"In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation."
Let's break this down.
"In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin."
Jesus never makes salvation merely possible. He actually does it. At one point, Chambers even implies this, but then takes it away with the other hand. This is the heart of the Reformation. Did Jesus die to make men savable or did He actually save anyone at the Cross?
Also, please notice the 2 humanities of Romans 5 and to which the "all" refer to.
"God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin,"
This is flat false. This almost seems to imply he denies Original Sin. But with his other statements, it is hard to pin him down without knowing more.
" but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation.""
This is absurd. Men go to hell for their sin. Romans 1 could not be any clearer. Citing Hebrews 9 for Jesus making salvation merely possible and now citing John 3 as if the conclusion that men loved darkness rather than the light somehow this leads to a conclusion that this is the sole reason men go to hell, is simply not logical or exegetically necessary.
John 3 is descriptive. Jesus is in no way saying what Chambers is falsely concluding. What is so striking about people who say men go to hell for merely rejecting Christ miss the obvious statement. They loved their sin! They love darkness. Therefore they by nature reject the light.
In the end the light merely reveals their love for their sin. Therefore sin remains and becomes even worse in its actions of the rejection of the Son of God.
Thanks for the comments
God Bless
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