I decided to carry on as I hope to clarify a few things - perhaps I'm just thinking through your posts and thinking out loud, but here's some clarification on what I meant.
chrisdate wrote:
I believe you misquoted it. The version from which I quoted says "a kingdom AND priests," you said, "a kingdom OF priests," and I think that has a bearing on the Calvinist's argument. But yeah, we'll discuss that separately.
I see what happened - I quoted your quotation, but then I referred to a crucial phrase according to the version I'm more familiar with. I prefer the Majority Text so I'll try to remember to stick to that version (the one you quoted).
It's not really a good example, because it doesn't exist outside of a context. Its context is one which includes a price for the purchase, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, etc. No such contextual evidence appears here.
I disagree, but this is a linguistic issue. We can make certain assumptions about how phrases will be understood by the audience in the absence of contextual qualifiers. If a Christian writes to Christian churches and uses the language of redemption, then unless he specifically states that he is talking about going to Wal Mart and picking up the computer he put a downpayment on, then we can pretty much assume he is speaking of the atonement.
In 2 Peter, the context is that these false teachers were once Christians, and now aren't; that they once professed the ways of righteousness but now have turned aside to walk in the flesh. We would expect 'bought', in that context, to refer to their former position as Christians. Referring to their position as Jews wouldn't serve any purpose that I can see. The correlation seems naturally to refer to the Lord having redeemed them from sin only for them to return to it again.
What's more, the Apostle wasn't only writing to a redeemed community, he was also writing to a Jewish one.
I think the interpretation of the passage is clear, whether the audience were Jews or not - those bought by the Lord were now denying him. However, this is a difficult issue, and the churches may have been Jewish. In what way, though, would these false teachers be denying the Lord who acquired the national people of Israel from Egypt, of whom they were covenant members? What correlation would there be?
Peter was the apostle to the Jews, and this is good evidence that his churches would have been Jewish. However, the areas he writes to were, to the best of my knowledge, very sparse in Jewish believers (Galatia in particular), and he might have been in these areas for all kinds of reasons (keeping a low profile being one of them). Peter himself seems to exclude them as being Jewish when he writes:
1Pe 2:10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
That, in and of itself, introduces the possibility that a different purchase is in view--depending, of course, on our following disagreement. So I guess that I might be willing to concede that an epistle directed toward a Gentile community probably ought to be assumed to be referring to the atonement when it uses language of purchasing, but such is not true of an epistle to Jews.
But the language of purchasing isn't used in the OT of the redemption of Israel - only the language of acquiring, but not specifically the purchasing language. The LXX never uses the word 'purchase' to refer to Israel either.
Yup, and nations are comprised of individuals. Besides, you're assuming that the ones referred to as "bought" are "bought" in some individual, not corporate, fashion. Where does the text suggest that? If God "purchased" a body of people, and some rejected Him, they would justifiably be referred to as "those whom God purchased," because they're part of the larger group. While certain of your points are stronger, this one just isn't.
I'm saying that it's the nation that was acquired (not 'bought' as such). God acquired a nation as an inheritance:
Deu 32:9 For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
God inherited Israel, in a corporate sense. He redeemed them as a kinsman redeemer - he didn't purchase them in a market as a Greek despotes would purchase his slaves. Israel can be referred to as he whom the LORD acquired or redeemed, but not as he whom the LORD purchased. Individual members of Israel are not spoken of as redeemed or acquired, because the acquiring is of a nation as an inheritance (just as God divided the nations as an inheritance, according to the number of the sons of God, but the LORD's portion is his people'). God chose a nation and redeemed it, and made it his inheritance. It is never spoken of individuals within the nation, and even if it were, that nation was no longer God's nation when Peter wrote at any rate. God had a new nation.
None of this suggests that they were ever truly penitent. More, however, none of this suggests that they were purchased on the basis of having first repenteded. I'm just trying to avoid loaded language being read into the text.
I don't think it's possible to take that line in light of Peter's words:
2Pe 2:20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
2Pe 2:21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
This certainly says that they had escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord, and that they had known the way of righteousness, but turned from the holy commandment.
My knowledge of OT history is limited; I've got a lot of learning to do. Were those false prophets Israelites? If so, they were purchased along with the rest of Israel.
Yes, they were.
What were the Israelies in Egypt? They were slaves. And not of the sort upon which there were limitations in the Law. You may very well be right, that in the LXX they wouldn't use "purchase" to refer to slaves, for the reasons you've described. But in Peter's time, the purchase of a slave from the Greek slave market would have provided for language very applicable to the purchase of the Israelites from Egypt, since they were slaves under Egypt, and now slaves to their Master, Yahweh. It's no wonder that the language of a Greek slave market was used.
But the language wasn't used in the OT, and so there is no evidence that the redeeming of the Israelites from Egypt - an event which simply doesn't use the language of market-place purchase in either the Hebrew or the LXX - would have evoked this language to the Jews of Peter's day. We know that the word despotes, and the verb agorazw, would have evoked the Greek slave market. It's an extra, and unsupported, step, to further say that to Jewish hearers, they would have then applied the idea of a slave market to the exodus, even though this event isn't even referred to by Peter in the context. But besides all this, the nation of Israel wasn't any longer in a redeemed relationship with the LORD as Master anyway, even if they did read this idea back into the narrative. You can't deny a Master who is no longer your Master.
Until then!