dongiovanni1976x

So when you say that "I think of Paul as a sin abolitionist or reformist" are you suggesting that you think Paul would agree with you? How do you see him as an abolitionist of sin when it seems to pervade all throughout his letters?

Nuwanda

Yes it does fit. He did not just "feel bad" about being a sinner. It was the sin that literally separated him from God, and the law made him aware of this. Being "baptized into His (Christ's) death" is explained in 6:4-14. It's a picture of dying to the old nature of sin that plagues all mankind and being raised into "life" with Christ. Jesus gives an analogy in another place that he who dies is free from the law (in that particular case, marriage). The image is picked up here demonstrating that when you are baptized into Christ's death you die to the old law and are raised into life with Christ, eternal life. The application is spiritual, but that goes without saying. New life with Christ is lived by faith in the work of Jesus whereby the requirements of the law were fulfilled through His sacrifice. The entire book of Romans starts and finishes this point so I won't belabor it since you've obviously read it.

Cheers.

Elijah

Well you have to talk about it to get rid of it or change its understanding. Sin exists in a form and people are slaves to that form of thought. When you say “sin” people have a mental construct of what you mean in context to what you are talking about. That construct differs from person to person and from situation to situation.

The mental construct of sin as a form of judgment on another person is the one we see so prevalent in today’s society is not the same construct that Jesus and Paul had of sin. They had a higher understanding of sin and human behavior, and they may have even differed somewhat.

When they talk of Jesus dying for our sins, it’s about changing the model of our understanding. We are supposed to imitate his behavior and be ignorant of evil and sin. Sin exists to Jesus more in a physical suffering way, you sit on your ass, you get fat, you get sick, you suffer in your sin, for not living how god intended. Sin has nothing to do with morality or judgment.

dongiovanni1976x

Do you base your unorthodox view upon scripture or revelation, or perhaps something altogether different??
My understanding is that the Jesus of the Gospels is not necessarily consistent on his idea of salvation, sin and morality; nor is he very consistent with Paul's idea...but I don't know of any scripture that supports what you are suggesting...(mind you that I do not respect the idea. It seems very tolerant in and of itself)

dongiovanni1976x

So would you say that since we are all born in the natural world with no understanding of the supernatural (because it is foolish to the natural man; 1 cor 2:14) and that in this natural state there is no one righteous and no one seeks God (Rom 3:10-12) and that to have your shackles lifted from the bondage of this natural state (i.e. being a slave to wickedness (Rom 6:16-18) you need God's mercy; and God only shows mercy upon whom he wills, Rom 9:15) and chooses some noble pots for this purpose and leaves others for dishonorable purposes (9:21)...THEN belief is only made possible by God's mercy so that the supernatural is made comprehendible and the bondage of the sinners will is enslaved to righteousness where s/he can no longer sin (1 John 3:9)
Do you agree with this?

Elijah

“All things are lawful to me” Paul said in 1Cor6:12 They used the word they just had a different understanding of it. Son of Man didn’t come to judge Man but the Rulers of Man. In order to forgive sin, truly forgive sin you have to understand it properly. Understand that there are actions that are harmful for you to do, but no place for the judgment of those actions by others. People buy into the sin concept they are sold by TV preachers of judging your fellow man on this or that and it’s not about judgment.

I think there are still plenty of tolerant Christians out there if you look around. When you talk to them and you ask how you “forgive” the answer you always get boils down to “people are stupid, they just don’t know any better.” How a tolerant Christian understands sin and forgiveness is different than how a Pat Robertson does.

“There is no sin except stupidity.” Oscar Wilde

Here is a couple of links in the area of what I’m talking about kind of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomianism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Perspective_on_Paul

Nuwanda

Basically you're asking me if I believe in predestination/Calvinism. The answer is no. Based on Calvinist teachings your conclusions would be correct, that belief is only possible if God chooses to give it to you. This of course creates many problems with other verses of scripture. Such as, God is "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2Pet 3:9). I believe, as the beginning of Romans makes clear, that all people have a knowledge of God, or the supernatural, "because what may be known of God is manifest in them" (Rom 1:19). Romans 1:21 tells why some do not believe. In short, they did not glorify Him as God, they were not thankful, and were eventually released to have their minds darkened by the lusts of their own hearts. People are not static puppets being acted on by God, not according to the Bible. Pure predestination doctrine does not fit Biblical teaching.

Chili

On the road to Damascus illumination came his way. Call it awakening or rebirth or even 'called to enter the race,' as Paul may have put it. We (the Church) his an icon on this wherein a very visible beam of light directly leads to Paul with the sun illuminating the entire background of this painting.

I would be carefull calling it a metaphor since death always is an illusion but I certainly understand what you mean by that. So no, the death of Paul was as real as death can ever be except that here only Saul the sinner died to set Paul the saint free (the ego died to set man free, or Jesus died to set Christ free). Slave to wickedness is a bit overblown because there are lots of good people in the world but it is true that because we are alienated from our own true self (there called Eden) that the ego (our sin nature) must busy itself trying to please the self via the senses to which there is no end on account of the great divide that exists between these two. And yes, the grace of God is the only way but it is not exactly true that children of God cannot sin prior to their death. It is after they die to their sin nature that it is impossible to sin . . . or the children of Israel would not have died as children of Israel.

IOW if Christians cannot sin they also cannot die since they have already died and this leads us to the second death wherein only the body is left behind since eternal life already belongs to God ("not me but Christ liveth in me").For sure, but I would have liked to see him write that we must as much as take Jesus from the cross and place ourselves upon it. I wrote an essay in which I compared Chaim Potok with James Joyce to show that Joyce actually described his own crucifixion in the last line of his "Portrait" with "Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead." It means "father into thy hands I commit my spirit" and he said this 3 days before May 1 when new life begins. It is a beautiful novel, but loaded.

dongiovanni1976x

If your working assumption begins with the premise that all the books in the Bible were divinely inspired and should be seen synoptically then I think you run into the dilemmas many theologicans have in the past. Paul did not author 2 Peter and so perhaps the better question would be, did Paul believe in a Calvinistic theology where some were God's elect and others were not. When looked at it this way you can see why such great minds as Augustine, Luther and Calvin himself all came to the conclusions they did.
Another way of looking at this would be to say that God's desire to see everyone repent will be fulfilled when every knee shall bow -etc; But it is very clear that although MANY may be called, only a FEW are chosen.

Chili

Yes but Luther and Calvin sure were not Gods elect and were not chosen. If you disagree, please tell me where I can find their resurrection story?