steve7150 wrote: it is for the sake of justice that the punishment fit the crime. "For the sake of justice" does not mean "justification." In the bible "justification" is the same greek word as "righteousness" to my knowledge,
Good point.You and I actually believe the same here: I actually do believe that justification and being made righteous are the same things.
I do not believe that man could ever pay for all of his sin. For a while, I was arguing hypothetically, as if the sinner could clear his own slate...and what would follow from that. I assumed that the Universalist would think that once the sinner has paid for sin, he would be free. I admit that in adopting this idea (for argument sake), I confused a couple of my points. I will try to keep things a little more straight forward.
Remember my argument that I used to start this thread: that the payment of sins on the part of the sinner is only part of the problem. The bigger problem is that the sinner is not born again and he is still an enemy of God.
The main thing I want to do here is to point out that there is a part of justification made possible by the payment of sins on behalf of Jesus that, if not applied to the sinner, would not be the salvation that the bible describes .
I realize that the sinner (in your view), by himself could never totally close the gap between himself and God on his own steam (I hope that I represent your view more correctly in the future). True, the sinner after paying for his sin would not have been fully justified ( rightouss), but the task laid before him (as punishment) is to do the main thing that justification would do for him. Are there other elements of salvation that would not have been applied to him even after paying for his own sin? I believe that there are, (and I have argued that they are the very ones that will keep him out of heaven), but as for my point right now (in light of the scripture I have been using), they are beside the point.
The problem, Steve7150, that you cannot escape, is that there are key elements that the atonement covers in regards to payment for sin, that if charged to the sinners account would logically have the him punished on account for his own sin, instead of those same sins being atoned for by Jesus: the very thing that is salvation.
steve7150 wrote:Even if they could pay their sin debt as i have said all along, they are not righteous, they ARE NOT JUSTIFIED, they still have a record of sin , they are ex-convicts with a criminal record which is public record.
A pardon removes the sin and the record of sin and makes them righteous with the righteousness of Christ.
Even if there is some record of sins held against the sinner despite him having paid for them, the sinner would have still paid for his own sin instead of Jesus paying. If Jesus has not paid for all of his sin, that... is not the salvation the bible describes... even if you have Jesus removing an over arching record of sin after the sinner has paid for it. The salvation of the bible always has Jesus paying.
The bible always takes it for granted that the removing of the sin record happens in conjunction with the atonement being applied. You will need to provide at least one verse that shows that the removing of the sin “record” could ever happen separate from the sinner being saved from all of his sin (by having JESUS pay for his sins).
Here is a verse that shows that the removing of the record is done through the atonement, at the moment a man is saved from all of his sin:
Colossians1/21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of[f] your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by CHRIST’S PHISICLE BODY through death TO present you holy in his sight, without blemish and FREE FROM ACCUSATION.
Him, “reconciling us through Christ’s body”, testifies to the fact that the ones that are freed from accusation (record erased) have had Christ suffer for their sins, instead of themselves. If they suffered for all of their own sin (Matt 18 and 5 says that they will), how could they be reconciled through his PHISICLE body?( reflect on that)
Yes, the atonement deletes the record, but through Jesus’ paying for sins through HIS physical body on the cross. His suffering is the foundation for salvation, that is the atonement. Our suffering for sin, instead of Jesus’ suffering...is not the atonement, and does not constitute salvation as revealed in the bible (The whole thing is right there in Colossians 1/21, don’t miss it).
Your view (even though you don’t see it this way) still has the sinner (possibly) going to heaven without Jesus’ sacrifice applied to him.
Remember, as homer pointed out, the unforgiven man was equated with a man that owed an unpayable debt in Matt18. At this point, your argument about the fact that he is not righteous (still a sinner in light of the fact that the he has not been atoned for) would only land him at a point of no return, because he has not been cleansed by Jesus, and as Jesus said to peter “the one I do not wash can have nothing to do with me”. This is inescapable, no matter what kind of extra applying of righteousness or clearing of records you believe could be given after that point.
Here is some more scripture:
Hebrews 10/11 says: “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when this priest offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.”
Notice that the writer tells us something that animal sacrifices do not do, and in doing so, reveals to us what Jesus’ sacrifice does do: “takes AWAY sins”
The man that has paid for all of his sin, was his sin “taken away” by the atonement?
1 thess 5/9 say: “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Paul says that it is God’s will that we would have salvation... and not suffer wrath.
You could say, “yes, God could save the sinner from his suffering of wrath in hell, so this verse fits my view just fine.”
If the sinner is judged worthy of wrath (payment of his own sins), and he pays and suffers for all the wrath that God has allotted him, in what way has he been saved from wrath?
How can you say that salvation from wrath is anything at all to the man that has not been forgiven and has been made to suffer all the wrath appointed to him for his crimes?
Steve Gregg, in a debate on his site about eternal security, uses Matt 18/23-35, to argue that the man that had been forgiven (by the king) lost his salvation because he was made to pay all that he owes to the king. The man had salvation because he had been forgiven by the king at the beginning of the story, but then it was taken away.
I agree with Steve’s line of arguing there and it works great when talking to Calvinists. But what you and he need to see (Steve seems knows this, because it is his argument) is that in virtue of being made to pay for all that he owed to the king, the man, by definition was: not saved, not forgiven. Notice that the story does not highlight someone simply losing their salvation at any point in life. This deals with the judgment, and what follows: the payment of all sins. The complete and ultimate punishment of full payment of sins WITHOUT ESCAPE (no atonement) is directly contrasted with the forgiveness the man once had. Once this man entered into his punishment, by contrast the atonement, forgiveness was not available to him.
That is the point of the story: losing forgiveness, having reached a point in which forgiveness will not be extended. If forgiveness would or could be extended at this point (after the judgment), salvation was never truly lost, and Steve’s argument would not have followed.
Equally, In Matt 5, Jesus tells us to be reconciled before the judgment, the alternative is: no reconciliation, payment for all sins without possibility of release until you have cleared your own slate, paid the debt in full. Again, we see the same point here: there is a point where reconciliation (justification) will not be extended.
If I pay for my sins,or you pay for my sins, or my neighbour pays for his children's sins Jesus has not, and that (by definition) is not the atonment of Christ.
My argument has been that logically, the sinner pays, or Jesus does, no middle ground. The context of the scripture I have been giving backs this up, and in my view, makes an air tight case: Complete payment for sins on the part of the sinner is the complete exclusion from the atonement of Jesus Christ for all time, because the atonement is payment for sins.