Serving Zion
Seek First His Kingdom & Righteousness
It was not God's cruelty though (look at Matthew 27, especially verses 22-26).
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Couple of questions
- Thread starter confusedmanxx
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Good questions. There is clearly more to the story because what little there is in the traditional belief leaves much to be desired.
*The Son of God will forever be both human and divine.
*The narrative of Satan dragging God all over the place and offering him what was already his isn’t accurate.
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JoeP222w
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Please explain what you mean by "dual nature".
Jesus is the Son. He is fully God. Jesus does not worship Himself. However the Son is in perfect union and communication with the Father.
Your wording is strange. Are you saying Satan "black mailed" Jesus? Because that is simply not true.
When Jesus became incarnate, He emptied Himself, but that did not mean He stopped being God. Moreover, Jesus never gave into the Devil's temptations. Jesus never worshiped Satan.
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ViaCrucis
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The Son always brings glory to the Father. That didn't become true when He became human, that has always been true, and will always be true.
And, yes, Jesus Christ is forever the Incarnate God-Man.
Satan didn't have that authority, nor did God give the devil that authority. The devil's promise, like all his promises, are empty because he's a liar.
-CryptoLutheran
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Dual nature = double minded = sin.
That would be in agreement with Gnostic beliefs, that the living God is evil.
is that what you are saying/asking?
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ViaCrucis
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Most Christians don't subscribe to the Penal Substitution theory of the Atonement. (c.f. Theories of the Atonement).
-CryptoLutheran
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NW82
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You're assuming that Satan had that authority to begin with, no where in scripture does it say he does. Scripture does say he is a liar and a thief, so operating on facts of the Christian faith, would it not be reasonable that Satan was lying; in that saying he would give something away that he really didn't have control over to begin with?
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If I say to you that I'll give you a million dollars if you bow down to me, that isn't blackmail. I'm taking nothing away from you.
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First of all, I am not all-knowing - I do not claim to understand all the mysteries of the Lord. However, and I know a lot of people do not agree with me on this, I believe that Jesus was God in flesh, but I also believe that he was trying to set an example us. There is a duel-nature. But he was still God in flesh.
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FatalHeart
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I'm sure God is allowed creative licensing with His words if you are. It's not always literal, but could be referencing Jesus in the bowels of his ancestors much like Levi is mentioned with Abraham. Whether you deem sacrificing His Son as cruel or not, here we are. I think He says to Job, "Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Everything belongs to me." So is this about who God is or who God is to you? As the Creator, it's all His. Whether you accept the salvation He has provided and the rewards for following Him or not, He will go on forever. I think it says, "It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them." With the power of God at your disposal and Him as your friend, I don't think I'll mind watching. He even makes me a better person for knowing Him anyway.
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FatalHeart
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ViaCrucis
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Well, the way is narrow...
I realize the winking emoji means you probably aren't being entirely serious. But even if suggesting this as should be recognized as deeply problematic, as it suggests that our salvation is ultimately up to us getting our theological t's crossed and i's dotted properly. Now, as a Lutheran, that's certainly a problem as the material principle of the Evangelical (Lutheran) Reformation is the doctrine that we are freely justified by God's grace alone, through faith, on Christ's account alone. To present any human effort as a necessary contribution on our part--even the contribution of "believing the right things"--means that our justification is not a free gift, but a thing to be earned through our own effort and merit.
I don't know how your tradition deals with that, but again as a Lutheran that is a problem, because it amounts to a fundamental rejection of the Gospel as Gospel.
That aside, the problems of Penal Substitution have been discussed many times before, not least of which is the quite valid criticism that if Penal Substitution is treated as a literal understanding of what transpired on the cross, and is taken as the exclusive, or even dominant, understanding of Christ's atoning work then the essence of what is being communicated is that God is first and foremost angry, vindictive, and cruel; and Christ's work centers chiefly in the act of appeasing and abating the vindictiveness and cruelty of God. In other words, taken to its natural course, and as popularly conceived, Penal Substitution says that the thing we are being saved from is, in fact, God Himself.
I'll leave you to consider why that might be a problem.
-CryptoLutheran
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FatalHeart
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Why is there a problem? Vindictive? To what, sin? Of course. Cruel? To what? Imperfection? Of course. Angry? Over what? Evil? Of course. "Give her double the torment she gave you." "To hate evil -that is wisdom." Do you not understand that He would be wise in hating us? We are, after all, evil, right? We needed a Savior, right? We didn't earn it, right? That's why God making a way is referred to as mercy and grace. These are both things that acknowledge the unworthiness of the recipient, as in, it would be justified if He did not give it to us. "There is no one good, no, not one." Is God wrong in saying this? "Who has given to Me that I should repay him?" Is God wrong in saying this? "They have altogether become worthless." Is God wrong in saying this? "Unless you repent you will all perish." Is God wrong in saying this? "saving them from, in fact, God Himself." Yes. A righteous, holy, and justified God that doesn't exist for us, but us for Him, and we screwed it up, and He doesn't have to love us.
"What?! Doesn't have to love me?! GOD IS LOVE. HE HAS TO LOVE EVERYONE."
No. There is no Bible verse saying God has to love everyone or that God loves everyone the same or that God does nothing but love everyone or that when God loved people He continued to love the world to salvation. In fact, there is no real reason to believe that the love we consider to be love has anything to do with the character of God, seeing as the Bible teaches that in our flesh we are cut off from the Holy One and blinded to His face. "But the fruit of the Spirit is kindness! And God described Himself as kind." That doesn't mean He has to be kind. We don't deserve grace. We can't earn grace. We aren't worthy of grace. We will never be worthy of grace. He has chosen to be gracious. It isn't due from Him. If He was ever against us, it would be righteousness because He would be good for condemning us. He would be justified in tormenting us. He would be right in hating us. It would be love for Him, whatever He chooses to do because God is love. He isn't bound by a personal sense of propriety or any culture's judgment of His ways. We are evil. Forgive me if I am wrong, but that's why Jesus died on the cross, because we were evil. He made a way when there was no way to bring us to Himself. He is the One who makes us worthy. He is the One who withholds His righteous hand. And He was justified by the fall of Adam. And He was justified by our sins. In fact, all of His judgments are right. So when He creates you, or someone else, or Satan, and dooms them to an eternity of torment and pain, does He do it because He is cruel or because He is right? He is right. He is justified. He is holy and to be feared. Common Christianity has no reverence for God. But their lip service will not save them from the sins they have sown, that's the meaning of "daith without deeds is dead." Israel often thought that they could live as they pleased, ignorant of the laws of God, because they called themselves descendants of Abraham. But the promise was for his Seed, and his Seed is the Holy Spirit, and those who know God obey God.
But I would also that we remember the thief on the cross. It's not like he was worried about being baptized, understanding what TULIP stands for, or wondering whether or not he was going to be faithful in going to mass, and Jesus still saved him because in essence he was trusting in Jesus as his only way to God, regardless if what his understanding of the blood was, or whatever you want to say about it. So God works with us, but we must be careful because, "He who does not sow with me scatters." "Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' and again, 'The Lord will judge his people.' It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
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ViaCrucis
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"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access through faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from wrath. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in god through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." - Romans 5:1-11
While looking at this text so I could quote it here, I remembered that Romans 5:9 is interesting because a lot of translations, including the ESV which I'm using here, read "saved by Him from the wrath of God". But a number of years ago when looking at this in the Greek there is no "of God" in the text. And so, to double check, I looked at a comparative parallels from different versions of the Greek text (https://biblehub.com/texts/romans/5-9.htm) and, sure enough, all of the critical editions read the same:
πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον δικαιωθέντες νῦν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ σωθησόμεθα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς.
It reads sothesometha di autou apo tes orges, "shall be saved by Him from wrath". Out of curiosity I figured I'd see how the ancients would have understood this, would they like many modern Protestants have interpreted this as "the wrath of God", or did they see it differently. Here is what St. John Chrysostom says in his commentary on Romans 5:9,
"And what he has said looks indeed like tautology, but it is not to any one who accurately attends to it. Consider then. He wishes to give them reasons for confidence respecting things to come. And first he gives them a sense of shame from the righteous man's decision, when he says, that he also 'was fully persuaded that what God had promised He was able also to perform;' and next from the grace that was given; then from the tribulation, as sufficing to lead us into hopes; and again from the Spirit, whom we have received. Next from death, and from our former viciousness, he makes this good."
It would seem that Chrysostom understands apo tes orges to refer to our own rage, our own viciousness. This would then force us to understand the subsequent statement "For if while we were enemies" to be comprehended not as God being at enmity against us, but we being at enmity with God--which is, indeed, what Paul says elsewhere in Colossians,
"And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him," (Colossians 1:21-22)
It is God, out of His great love for us that He has turned toward us in grace, in Christ, to redeem and save us; to rescue us. Justifying us freely by His grace, giving us faith, rescuing us from our own hostility and enmity, and in His loving kindness making us beloved children.
-CryptoLutheran
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