scrumpy

Since when is it justice to convict and sentence someone for a crime committed by others?

babelfish

kingjames1:

Some of the gyrations that I have to go through, mentally, when reading apologetics regarding Christ's substitutiary atonement are:

Jesus is God. But wait, here he is praying to God, so he's not God after all. He is God's son and God at the same time. He knows everything and can do anything, but just for this short time on earth, he willed himself to forgot a few things and gave up some of his omnipotence.

There is much that I don't get about this entire story. Like, if God went to all this trouble to kill and resurrect his son, including some necessary (albeit reviled) accomplices like the Roman government and Judas, why didn't Jesus continue his ministry after his resurrection? Why did he so hastily depart, after a mere month and a half or so of appearing to a favored few, via a very fishy-sounding ascension into the heavens? Why entrust the rest of his ministry to fallible human beings?

Wait, an answer is coming to me:

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kingjames1

babelfish

Again, I don't think your reduction of the issues to my single quote "this is a mystery" is accurate (it certainly doesn't represent my position), nor does it seem to even acknowledge what i have previously posted regarding your prior attempt at 'reductio ad mysterium'.

According to the New Testament, Jesus was God incarnate ("in the flesh," 1John). This was affirmed at Nicea and again at Chalcedon. Both councils confessed Jesus Christ as fully God and fully man.

In particular, Nicea explicitly affirmed Christ as the eternal Son, who is true "God of God," as well as truly human. Chalcedon was more precise in its understanding of the Son as the second person of the Trinity. The Triune God is one in essence (i.e. deity), but a multiplicity of persons (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

Jesus, as God incarnate, therefore prayed to the Father. There is no logical contradiction in this statement. Jesus can likewise 'send' the Holy Spirit, who is also God, to his disciples, just as the Father sent the Son into the world.

Neither is there is any logical contradiction in the "hypostatic union" (as articulated by the Council at Chalcedon), which constituted the singular person of Jesus Christ as both God and man.

The mystery of the incarnation then is not some ineffable event that cannot be articulated or discussed. The canons of christological orthodoxy as hammered out at Nicea, Ephesus and Chalcedon are carefully wrought doctrinal statements attempting to do justice to the full biblical (i.e. apostolic) picture of Jesus. And they seem to me to answer many of the questions asked on this discussion forum.

For a good overview of the history of the development of this doctrine, see Justo L. Gonzalez's "A History of Christian Thought," volume 1.

As far as Jesus' departure after the resurrection, may I suggest that you read the book of Acts (the second volume to the gospel of Luke), which is an account of the early church immediately after the ascension, and the book of Hebrews, which explains why Jesus' heavenly priestly ministry is far superior to any earthly ministry. If you are uninitiated in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, may I also suggest reading the Pentateuch as an introduction to some of the main themes, ideas, and concepts of the biblical worldview.

J.

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Sheep in the big city

Who cares how a bunch of religious fanatics 300 years after Jesus interpret the Bible.
I could drag a bunch of more knowledgable people out of the supermarket and 'affirm' that the bible is fiction any time.
If you want to make your points using quotes from the bible I can understand why a xtian would do that, but I don't get why you expect anyone to blindly accept the authority of those councils.

kingjames1

In reply to scrumpy

Scrumptious, man, good question.

The short answer is the doctrine of the union with Christ. The longer answer...

We must remember that Jesus was not a 'victim' of God's plan, but a willing participant (indeed, the main actor) in the work of redemption. Jesus says in John 10:11, 18 "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep...no one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again."

This means that Jesus in love for the Father (whose will he lived to fulfill) and for the objects of His redemption took upon himself the sins of His people in order that they might be saved. Note Paul's "I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me."
Jesus then accepted this substitutional role in establishing the justice and mercy of God in history.

Just previous to the quote above, Paul writes, "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me," Galatians 2:20. And at the end of his epistle to the Galatians, he writes, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world," 6:14.

In Romans, Paul writes, "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death...For we know that the old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died to sin has been freed from sin," 6:2, 5-7. Paul goes on to argue that this same union is the basis for the future resurrection of the saints ("if we died with him, we will also live with him").

All this is to say that, in Christ, believers were crucified for sin. Justice then was established by virtue of this spiritual union with Christ. When he died on the cross for sin, we died with him.

How can Paul say this though? Those who trust in Christ become united with him through faith, and hence his death becomes their own death to sin. The punishment he endured vicariously was directed to our sin "in him" by virtue of this union. And just as our sins were imputed to him on the cross (and he thus became the sin-bearer), so, through this union, his rightousness (both his righteousness before the law AND his enduring the full penalty of law against our sin) is imputed to us. As Paul argues, in Christ's crucifixion, he was crucified, and hence his sin punished and its power extinguished. On the otherside of the coin: Christ's righeousness before God became Paul's. This is what theologian's have called "the wonderful exchange."

But this isn't injustice - justice has been served. This is mercy.

This is what Paul means when he says our lives are 'hidden' with Christ's: "for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."

Moreover, this union is not 'retroactively applied', as though it were a generic credit to be arbitrarily appropriated. It is actually eternal. The apostle teaches that the believer's spiritual union with Christ (see Ephesians 1:3-14) is rooted "in Christ" from eternity past. This union, then, is established in eternal election in Christ, realized in actual union, when having believed the gospel, believers were "included in Christ" through the Holy Spirit, and will be completed on "the last day", in the final resurrection of the saints (i.e. "glorification").

...well that's the longER answer at any rate...

J.

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kingjames1

reply to sheep in the big city,

My point in noting the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon was not to cite some supposed authority on questions of christology, but to suggest that these questions have been addressed by intelligent people for nearly 1,600 years. I.e. the objections have been answered for some time now. There are other, more recent objections, by the way.
Your comment about finding more intelligent people in supermarkets betrays either an audacious ignorance of Church history and Christian thought, or a fierce hostility (perhaps both).

J.

Sheep in the big city

You are the one who makes an assumption about their intelligence, not me.
I wrote more 'knowledgeable', which is hard to dispute since everyone living today benefits from 1.5 millenia more of accumulated knowledge and is in a better position to judge the accuracy of the bible than say Leonardo da Vinci was (although he was probably more intelligent) and certainly than those councils 1700 years ago.
You say that the objections have been answered - I say they have not been answered in a satisfying way. The church has a habit of dragging age-old answers along (like the Ptolemaian(?) model of the universe or creationism) and in contrast to you I say that the age of those answers makes them less likely to be accurate - not more.

PS: english is not my native language - so if the word knowledgable I used in the other post implies low intelligence I was not aware of that

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kingjames1

I apologize if I misrepresented you. I suppose I understood your comment about people in supermarkets being "more knowledgeable" within the context of your charge that the church fathers were "religious fanatics." Typically, in America this term is synonymous with "dumbass." I'm not sure what you mean by "fanatic," however. So I am uneasy with such a broad label of the church fathers, some of whom were more intellectually capable than most today, in my humble opinion.

(This reminds me of a comment Alvin Plantinga made about the term "fundamentalist": as used by most today, it means little more than "sumbitch".)


Yes, I am assuming their intelligence, or rather, it is my conclusion in reading some of the church fathers whose works were pertinent to the councils that they were intelligent men. Do you disagree?

Your claim that more knowledge = better ability to judge the veracity of the New Testament, or whatever, is also questionable. Most people do know more "stuff" today (on average) than did the average schmoe 1,600 year ago, like the earth revolves around the sun and that there may be aliens abducting and impregnating people. However, I do not follow your logic that that in itself renders them any more capable of judging the veracity or coherence of the biblical text. In fact, my impression is that, on average, the American/European is more biblically illiterate than was the average European person 500 years ago. Having little or no knowledge of the doctrinal and biblical issues, in my judgment, does render a person incompetent to make such conclusions. Moreover, certainly those closest to the apostolic witnesses (e.g. some of the apostolic fathers - so-called - were direct disciples of the apostles) would have a better vantage regarding the historicity of some of the New Testament accounts. It seems distance can also create obscurity of vision...

Beware of the modern myth that we are smart, and everyone else before us (i.e. the so-called "premoderns") was more or less, stupid. But bless their hearts, confused by superstitions and silly metaphysical notions though they were, they did the best they could.

J.

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Sheep in the big city

Hmmm, I guess your argument about qualification on interpreting the Bible has some merit and that closeness in time and language could have been an advantage.
Still the very fact that you need intelligent people whose life is focused on the Bible to interpret it does not speak well for God's word to ALL the people.
Also, there are things that people today can judge better (like the bible calling a whale a fish and a bat a bird and other such things)
But again, maybe I was a little to hasty in dismissing your council-argument (even though for me personally it still does not do much)

babelfish

Hi kingjames1:

First I want to apologize for my unfriendly and sarcastic-sounding post earlier (the one about "it's a mystery"). I hadn't noticed how recently you registered. I'd also like to say welcome to the II boards, and that you seem like a very learned, as well as unflappable, individual.

It's a sad fact that, compared to the number of unbelievers on this board, the number of believers is very small. Therefore, it seems like they (the believers) usually end up responding to many different questions and challenges put to them by various posters on the same thread, as you are doing here. Let me say that, personally, I have rarely run across a believer who is as cool and knowledgeable as you seem to be.

That's all I want to say at this point.

Welcome!