Post
by Otherness » Fri Jul 02, 2021 3:29 pm
This reply addresses comments by commonsense, Paidion, and darinhouston. Thank you brothers for sharing your thinking with us. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
commonsense>>>Otherness, it sounds like you are a believer in the original sin theory. I'm not, so we aren't on the same page.<<<
Yes, regardless of how you frame it, sin's ORIGEN in our domain of reality, occurred in “the Garden” in “the beginning” of the human experience. Call it “original sin,” or “the Fall,” or “alienation from God,” but, yes...this made it impossible for humanity to hit the MARK on the (life) trajectory it was now on. Please remember that to “miss the mark” is the very meaning of the Greek word for sin. The practical consequence of this “original sin” was the loss of the Person / person (natural) intimacy that God intended for Himself and Man. This natural affection (2 Timothy 3:3 KJV) would have oriented Man outside himself , thus making him an other-centered being. As it is Man defaulted to being self-centered and demonstrates this SIN in all manner of thoughts and deeds. This existential / ontological corruption of Man's being is the root of all “sins,” and corrupts all it touches, and all that touches it : it is “uncleanness” itself.
Left to ourselves, without the perspective of the Holy Spirit's Presence within us, we really have no idea that there is any other way of being than being self-centered. We are so inured to self-centeredness that we don't (can”t) even recognize that it is the offspring of (that original) sin.
commonsense>>>I agree. A " religious system" is man's workings and our salvation lies in obedience to the Law of the Spirit which is to love others as ourselves. God did not need to become a man in order for man to know this.<<<
Remember what God said to Israel through Jeremiah (7:22-23) to point out the danger of (mere) obedience to any (concept of) Law. He certainly did speak to them of burnt offerings and sacrifices, but these became ends in themselves to them, and they missed the mark, again, for which the words were intended. The Scripture and the Church are indispensable to the individual Christian, but remember the worthy critique of history in regard of both. It goes something like this : “Catholics worship the Church, and Protestants worship the Bible, but they both have fallen short of (fallen away from) loving God with all the heart and soul and mind and strength.”
God became man to save us from (even this) deception, itself (Matthew 24:24).
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Paidion>>>My position is that Jesus is not "God", either in the sense of being the Father, or in the sense of being part of a Trinity (a third century view). Yet Jesus is more than an ordinary man, because He is God's "only begotten" son. For that reason it would be correct to refer to him as being "divine". However, according to the author of "2 Peter", whoever he was (almost certainly not the apostle Peter), ordinary people can also partake of the Divine Nature.<<<
The Divine Nature is the Nature of God : the Nature of the Father : the Nature of His (Holy) Spirit. Remembering that in the beginning the Logos was God, and knowing from Isaiah 43:10 that HE Who is I AM says : “...Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me,” well...how do you reconcile this with your belief that Jesus has the Nature of God (by nature), but is not I AM?
Elsewhere you have referred to the Trinity as a concept of a “compound God.” To characterize Trinitarianism as describing a compound God connotes (actually, denotes), to my mind, a way of thinking that “misses” an accurate understanding of what the formalism and rationale hopes to communicate. That is, it is too coarse (carnal, material, physical) a word to capture the spiritual essence of the thinking; rather, the word that comes closest, in my thinking, is multidimensional. Pointedly, this is not just a semantic nuance because Trinitarianism describes an immaterial realty -- a multidimensional Spirit (John 4:24). This Pure Spirit is surely not less wondrous than the demonstrably multidimensional Reality that He creates.
Previously on this forum I have used this multidimensional reality (that science has confirmed) to “reverse engineer” the Trinitarian Formulation. God is reclaiming, in our days, the evidence that is Natural Theology so that the bully pulpit of the putative authority of science can be rationally deconstructed. He is “letting“ science, on its own terms, draw the “rational” mind back to(ward) Himself.
We make a critical error when we presuppose that the created “i am” has any competency whatsoever to subject Uncreated I AM to its logic, to its measure. If (and this “if” is only for argument's sake) The Creator exists in a Trinitarian State, then this must be “the given” for any subsequent (logical) thought, because TRUTH (God) is the foundation of all right thinking and reason.
The right understanding of the TriUnity of the Godhead, and His (creative) purpose in existing in such a State, is where we Christians will find the “unity” (power) to overcome our denominational / doctrinal differences. In a sense we will find the creative symmetry that was broken so that diversity might have actual being, thus (even) making possible the very (real) beings that we (ingeniously) are.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
darinhouston>>>dwight92070 wrote “Hebrews 2:14 - Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same (which He had not done before the incarnation), that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”<<<
darinhouston>>>The "he" here is not with reference to God, but to Jesus.<<<
How do you reconcile this statement of yours that “he” does not refer to God, but to Jesus, with the Apostle's statement that Jesus is the Logos made flesh; that the Logos was God?
Love, in the mystery of the fellowship
