A question on Total Sanctification

[circuitrider]

Basically we have to undo 150, 200 years of tradition! Because I agree we should be precise in our terms, and use the terms from the Bible. So if sin is not an "all encompassing" word, or if "intentional, unintentional" don't really get to the heart of the matter, then we should preach and teach this, and anytime we read books or listen to stuff that talks about sin we'll have to do the mental switch to "OK, that's actually talking about transgression...ok, this book uses the word "sin" in different ways..." Man, this'll be a hard sell to lay people and theologians set in their ways.

Actually I think Dave is making too much distinction in the translation. He isn't the first person to read Hebrew. Anyone who is a professional theologian has had Hebrew and Greek in seminary and knows the different variant translations of different words. And if you don't there are plenty of theological dictionaries that do that. For example for New Testament the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament parses every Greek word in the Bible. I have the twelve volume set in my office.

 

[RomansFiveEight]

The theology was well articulated previously by GraceSeeker and Circuitwriter so there's no need for me to reiterate. But I will touch on 'missing the mark', because that had some confusion earlier in the thread.

Sin in the greek is "Hamartia", a greek term (ἁμαρτί&#945. And it does in fact mean to miss the mark. If you were an archer in a competition, and you missed the "Bullseye", the would say "Hamartia", missed the mark. Likewise in the greek, frequently "Hamartia" is used and then translated "sin" in English translations. Personally, I think that we are to understand Hamartia as a metaphor, and not a distinction from other definitions of sin. Simply, Hamartia, missing the mark, is falling short of who God knows we can be. Which fits in-line with the definition of transgression, with disobeying God, etc. We must be careful not to get lost in translation, and miss metaphors and figures of speech. I might, in a sermon, say "When we as humans mess up". "Mess up" is clearly understood by most english speakers as to fail at something, in this context, to fail at least in part, at righteousness. Say 2,000 years from now someone digs up fossilized mp3's of my sermons, and is so woefully misguided as to believe I was someone of theological significance (Lord help that generation). They might really get lost in the term "Mess up". "Oh, he means to throw dirt 'mess' skyward 'to heaven'", or something really weird. Because of a lack of understanding of 21st century English, by speakers of 41st Century Klingon (or whatever we're speaking by then), when I didn't mean anything other than to sin.

 

[GraceSeeker]

I think that there are other ways that sin is alluded to in the scriptures than just the metaphor from archery. Owing a debt comes to mind. As others have cited, I don't have time to publish all my research, but a simple Strong's concordance can help to correct what I think is a misunderstanding. Even the application of the archery metaphor has to be understood as just that, a metaphor, and not made to do more work than intended.

 

[RomansFiveEight]

I think that there are other ways that sin is alluded to in the scriptures than just the metaphor from archery. Owing a debt comes to mind. As others have cited, I don't have time to publish all my research, but a simple Strong's concordance can help to correct what I think is a misunderstanding. Even the application of the archery metaphor has to be understood as just that, a metaphor, and not made to do more work than intended.

Yes. As I said, I wasn't intending to really get into the discussion all the way; since you and circuit rider said everything I'd have to say and more. Simply that there was a comment over whether or not "miss the mark" was correct and that question seemed to get glossed over in the thread so I wanted to touch on it briefly.

Absolutely though. "Hamartia" is amongst the metaphors used to describe sin. It isn't likely intended to be an all-inclusive understanding of sin.

 

[GraceSeeker]