True love starts from the mind and stays in the heart, and so does the love of God. To grasp a sense of God's love, you must renew your mind to understand it first, before it burns in your heart.
It totally irks me when people take one small verse like Roman 5:9 and build a whole theology around it. Take the whole chapter Romans 5 and all the scriptures both OT and NT on this subject. Then it explain exactly what you have written Alice. God bless you my Sister in Christ. What powerful insight into exactly why Christ had to die.
God is all knowing and He still went ahead and created Lucifer.
God is all knowing and He still went ahead and create mankind (both male and female) even though Lucifer will device them and He had to die for them.
God is not caught flat footed or by surprise. He is the great I AM!!
You presented the same dilemma that Athanasius presents in his "On the Incarnation of the Word":
"For God would not be true, if, when He had said we should die, man died not. 4. Again, it were unseemly that creatures once made rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin, and turn again toward non-existence by the way of corruption . 5. For it were not worthy of God’s goodness that the things He had made should waste away, because of the deceit practised on men by the devil. 6. Especially it was unseemly to the last degree that God’s handicraft among men should be done away, either because of their own carelessness, or because of the deceitfulness of evil spirits.." OtIotW S:6
Did you hear that in the sermon you listened to, or did you simply reason your way to that dilemma?
You also presented a brilliantly simple variation of Eccl 3:14, which shows God's commitment to not allow anything to return to nothing. "God never recalls His Word." He is a well-spring of light, overflowing the darkness, which can never contain Him nor annihilate His work.
Two things to consider:
1) God's Word is eternal, and he has placed it in our hearts (Eccl 3). This makes us more than just creatures of time, which implies a power at work beyond a mere code of written law--something the Law itself points to, but does not comprehend in words.
"He gave them a further gift, and He did not barely create man, as He did all the irrational creatures on the earth, but made them after His own image, giving them a portion even of the power of His own Word..." Athanasius, OtIotW S:3
Note the prophetic otherances embedded in the Law and History, especially Deut 32 and II Chron 6, which tell us God has ordained all things ahead of time. He does not directly cause sin, but ordained the weakness which makes us susceptible to sin, and also ordained the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection to overcome that weakness with His power. I like your use of word "twist," because it indicates that God laid out a great drama, with brilliant and breathtaking twists in the plot. He is a master author, writing a beautiful, riveting story.
The interesting thing about Satan, is he is like an illiterate reader of God's story. He squalidly presumes on the written code as mere words, as if God's Law were as dead as Satan's own thoughts. Isaiah says of him, "Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you; for you said in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one besides me.'" (Isa 47:10). But God's Word is living, and is inextricably paired with God's Spirit, so that none can understand it apart from the Spirit's indwelling (I Jn 2:27) CS Lewis refers to this as the "deep magic" of the Law.
2) Be careful about interpreting Paul's use of "the Law" in Romans. The term is a synecdoche, standing for "The Law in itself, kept by a man in himself" (see reflexive pronoun in 2:19) or "The letter of the Law" (as if the Law were only words, and lacking the power of the Divine Word and Spirit). Paul is talking about a "veiled law" (II Cor 3:15), because he is addressing his argument against Judaizers (Rom 2:17), who were, like Satan, reducing the Word to mere words, as if they themselves had understanding apart from God. This maneuver is very popular in America, where variations of gnostic deism have been substituted for Christianity in churches.
When Paul is talking about dying to the Law in Chap 7 He is talking about dying to a mere written code, not talking about dying to the actual living Law, which draws power from the Word and the Spirit. There is a sense in which death to sin and death to the written code are one in the same: for when God gives us life,
life is not only resistant to sin (death, annihilation) but it is also not reducible to a written code. In chaps 2-7, Paul is not talking about the living Law inscribed by the Spirit on tablets of stone and tablets of human hearts, the first being a mirror to reflect the second (Jam 1:23-25), so that we uphold both (Rom 3:31)
Paul makes a stark contrast to the idea of the Law as mere words in Romans 8:2, when he uses the phrase, "The law of the Spirit of Life." He is doing two things in this statement
1) Referencing the promise of life in upholding the Law (Deuteronomy 30: 15-16). Christ was raised for our justification, i.e. for the fullness of life in which we receive the Living Law (same words + power to delight in and do them), and thereby receive the blessing of life. The path of life (Psa 16:11) is still the Law, the only path leading to Christ (Rom 10:4), complete with the power to understand, desire, and uphold the Law, because we are no longer under it, but with the Law as it's masters. (See Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 1).
2) Paul tells us that the Spirit is our legal counselor (paraklete), who is that voice behind us, telling us the way to go (Isa 30:21, Prov 1:3). She also is our life, the quickening of our souls and the very blessing by which we desire (Matt 5:6) and keep the law (Psa 106:3)
Romans 8 functions like another chapter of Proverbs, describing Wisdom, who is our tree of life (Prov 3:18, Rev 22:2). It is more beautiful than Proverbs, because we don't just wait at Wisdom's gates, but She has now made her dwelling with us, and will never leave or forsake us. She is the figure in Revelation 12, which people often call Israel or the church (The Bride in both cases). This overlooks John's statement, "the Spirit and Bride say, 'come!'" John is saying the same thing that Jesus said: the Spirit and the Bride are inseparable because he has been raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God the Father. This is why Wisdom/the Spirit suffers persecution in Revelation 12:13, just as the risen Christ suffers persecution in Acts 9:4. They have bound themselves to God's children, "flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones," spirit of God's Spirit.
Do you see the overwhelming beauty of this? We are no longer under the Law because we are the masters of the Law. As Paul says in Romans 8, "all things are ours because Christ is ours." "All things" certainly includes the Law. All we need to do, as Paul says, is "live up to what we have already attained."
How foolish to think that Satan, who is dead in his vain imagination, so that the Law is veiled to him as a mere collection of words, has any real power among the living, who are empowered by the Word, by the living Law.
Regarding wrath: the Scripture presents God's wrath as a tool/means for our growth and a means to drive us to him as our refuge. This is a central message in Scripture, The clear communication of Deut 32, which we will confess before Christ when we lay down our crowns before Him out of sheer delight in his deliverance to righteousness and life (Rev 15). God's wrath teaches righteousness (Isa 26:9-10), and is mixed with mercy (Hab 3:2) and comfort since we share in the fellowship of suffering with Christ, who shares in all our afflictions (Isa 63:9). The end of such affliction is a full hatred of sin (I Pet 4:1), as one would hate any disease that marrs beauty and life.
This is also true of those in hell, because hell is better than sin's annihilation (Matt 18:6), and makes even the rich man who ignored Lazarus, sane, honorific, and even thoughtful of others (Lk 16).
Thank you, Alice. You have challenged and inspired me to engage Scripture with careful inquiry. I'm having to work to keep up with you, like training for a marathon again. I'm a little exhausted, but thankful that you're taking the time to do this.
"He makes everything beautiful in its time."
May God continue to increase your knowledge and depth of insight, with all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that you might understand the height and depth of His love, and that your cup might overflow, filled to overflow in by the Wellspring of Life.
Epic
Thank you.! :0
It totally irks me when people take one small verse like Roman 5:9 and build a whole theology around it. Take the whole chapter Romans 5 and all the scriptures both OT and NT on this subject. Then it explain exactly what you have written Alice. God bless you my Sister in Christ. What powerful insight into exactly why Christ had to die.
God is all knowing and He still went ahead and created Lucifer.
God is all knowing and He still went ahead and create mankind (both male and female) even though Lucifer will device them and He had to die for them.
God is not caught flat footed or by surprise. He is the great I AM!!
Well reasoned, Alice. Renewing to the mind...
You presented the same dilemma that Athanasius presents in his "On the Incarnation of the Word":
"For God would not be true, if, when He had said we should die, man died not. 4. Again, it were unseemly that creatures once made rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin, and turn again toward non-existence by the way of corruption . 5. For it were not worthy of God’s goodness that the things He had made should waste away, because of the deceit practised on men by the devil. 6. Especially it was unseemly to the last degree that God’s handicraft among men should be done away, either because of their own carelessness, or because of the deceitfulness of evil spirits.." OtIotW S:6
Did you hear that in the sermon you listened to, or did you simply reason your way to that dilemma?
You also presented a brilliantly simple variation of Eccl 3:14, which shows God's commitment to not allow anything to return to nothing. "God never recalls His Word." He is a well-spring of light, overflowing the darkness, which can never contain Him nor annihilate His work.
Two things to consider:
1) God's Word is eternal, and he has placed it in our hearts (Eccl 3). This makes us more than just creatures of time, which implies a power at work beyond a mere code of written law--something the Law itself points to, but does not comprehend in words.
"He gave them a further gift, and He did not barely create man, as He did all the irrational creatures on the earth, but made them after His own image, giving them a portion even of the power of His own Word..." Athanasius, OtIotW S:3
Note the prophetic otherances embedded in the Law and History, especially Deut 32 and II Chron 6, which tell us God has ordained all things ahead of time. He does not directly cause sin, but ordained the weakness which makes us susceptible to sin, and also ordained the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection to overcome that weakness with His power. I like your use of word "twist," because it indicates that God laid out a great drama, with brilliant and breathtaking twists in the plot. He is a master author, writing a beautiful, riveting story.
The interesting thing about Satan, is he is like an illiterate reader of God's story. He squalidly presumes on the written code as mere words, as if God's Law were as dead as Satan's own thoughts. Isaiah says of him, "Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you; for you said in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one besides me.'" (Isa 47:10). But God's Word is living, and is inextricably paired with God's Spirit, so that none can understand it apart from the Spirit's indwelling (I Jn 2:27) CS Lewis refers to this as the "deep magic" of the Law.
2) Be careful about interpreting Paul's use of "the Law" in Romans. The term is a synecdoche, standing for "The Law in itself, kept by a man in himself" (see reflexive pronoun in 2:19) or "The letter of the Law" (as if the Law were only words, and lacking the power of the Divine Word and Spirit). Paul is talking about a "veiled law" (II Cor 3:15), because he is addressing his argument against Judaizers (Rom 2:17), who were, like Satan, reducing the Word to mere words, as if they themselves had understanding apart from God. This maneuver is very popular in America, where variations of gnostic deism have been substituted for Christianity in churches.
When Paul is talking about dying to the Law in Chap 7 He is talking about dying to a mere written code, not talking about dying to the actual living Law, which draws power from the Word and the Spirit. There is a sense in which death to sin and death to the written code are one in the same: for when God gives us life,
life is not only resistant to sin (death, annihilation) but it is also not reducible to a written code. In chaps 2-7, Paul is not talking about the living Law inscribed by the Spirit on tablets of stone and tablets of human hearts, the first being a mirror to reflect the second (Jam 1:23-25), so that we uphold both (Rom 3:31)
Paul makes a stark contrast to the idea of the Law as mere words in Romans 8:2, when he uses the phrase, "The law of the Spirit of Life." He is doing two things in this statement
1) Referencing the promise of life in upholding the Law (Deuteronomy 30: 15-16). Christ was raised for our justification, i.e. for the fullness of life in which we receive the Living Law (same words + power to delight in and do them), and thereby receive the blessing of life. The path of life (Psa 16:11) is still the Law, the only path leading to Christ (Rom 10:4), complete with the power to understand, desire, and uphold the Law, because we are no longer under it, but with the Law as it's masters. (See Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 1).
2) Paul tells us that the Spirit is our legal counselor (paraklete), who is that voice behind us, telling us the way to go (Isa 30:21, Prov 1:3). She also is our life, the quickening of our souls and the very blessing by which we desire (Matt 5:6) and keep the law (Psa 106:3)
Romans 8 functions like another chapter of Proverbs, describing Wisdom, who is our tree of life (Prov 3:18, Rev 22:2). It is more beautiful than Proverbs, because we don't just wait at Wisdom's gates, but She has now made her dwelling with us, and will never leave or forsake us. She is the figure in Revelation 12, which people often call Israel or the church (The Bride in both cases). This overlooks John's statement, "the Spirit and Bride say, 'come!'" John is saying the same thing that Jesus said: the Spirit and the Bride are inseparable because he has been raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God the Father. This is why Wisdom/the Spirit suffers persecution in Revelation 12:13, just as the risen Christ suffers persecution in Acts 9:4. They have bound themselves to God's children, "flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones," spirit of God's Spirit.
Do you see the overwhelming beauty of this? We are no longer under the Law because we are the masters of the Law. As Paul says in Romans 8, "all things are ours because Christ is ours." "All things" certainly includes the Law. All we need to do, as Paul says, is "live up to what we have already attained."
How foolish to think that Satan, who is dead in his vain imagination, so that the Law is veiled to him as a mere collection of words, has any real power among the living, who are empowered by the Word, by the living Law.
Regarding wrath: the Scripture presents God's wrath as a tool/means for our growth and a means to drive us to him as our refuge. This is a central message in Scripture, The clear communication of Deut 32, which we will confess before Christ when we lay down our crowns before Him out of sheer delight in his deliverance to righteousness and life (Rev 15). God's wrath teaches righteousness (Isa 26:9-10), and is mixed with mercy (Hab 3:2) and comfort since we share in the fellowship of suffering with Christ, who shares in all our afflictions (Isa 63:9). The end of such affliction is a full hatred of sin (I Pet 4:1), as one would hate any disease that marrs beauty and life.
This is also true of those in hell, because hell is better than sin's annihilation (Matt 18:6), and makes even the rich man who ignored Lazarus, sane, honorific, and even thoughtful of others (Lk 16).
Thank you, Alice. You have challenged and inspired me to engage Scripture with careful inquiry. I'm having to work to keep up with you, like training for a marathon again. I'm a little exhausted, but thankful that you're taking the time to do this.
"He makes everything beautiful in its time."
May God continue to increase your knowledge and depth of insight, with all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that you might understand the height and depth of His love, and that your cup might overflow, filled to overflow in by the Wellspring of Life.