Chief end of man

[bling]

The indwelling of the HS in you or the indwelling of the HS in others on this thread who disagree with you?

The Holy Spirit does not disagree with himself so at least one other spirit must be involved.

 

[ViaCrucis]

That Love makes us righteous

How? In your theology how does that love make us righteous?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[bling]

Correct me if I'm misunderstanding you: Are you saying that the righteousness we have before God is our own righteousness which we live through our love before God in response to His forgiveness?

So we are righteous before God based on our actions?

-CryptoLutheran

Once we have God's Love in us we can have the indwelling Holy Spirit. We just allow and partner with the Holy Spirit to do what is right (really allow him to do what is right), thus we are righteous. Our "actions" are allowing the Spirit to work in and through us.

 

[bling]

How? In your theology how does that love make us righteous?

-CryptoLutheran

Once we have God's Love in us we can have the indwelling Holy Spirit. We just allow and partner with the Holy Spirit to do what is right (really allow him to do what is right), thus we are righteous. Our "actions" are allowing the Spirit to work in and through us.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Once we have God's Love in us we can have the indwelling Holy Spirit. We just allow and partner with the Holy Spirit to do what is right (really allow him to do what is right), thus we are righteous. Our "actions" are allowing the Spirit to work in and through us.

Even if we are simply cooperating with God, it's still up to us to actually do the good works and do the righteousness, yes?

Or have I misunderstood?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[bling]

What stops a person from, at least hypothetically, always making the right decisions and living a holy life free from sin?

Is it at least possible, in the hypothetical, for a person to live a holy and righteous life free from sin?

-CryptoLutheran

You must Love to obey, and this required Love is not something you can learn, develop, earn or payback. This love is not instinctive (robotic) nor can it be forced on the person like with a shotgun wedding. It is a gift from God and the only way to obtain this gift is by Luke 7. We have to accept God's forgiveness of an unbelievable huge sin debt, but that also means we must first sin. God does not want us to sin and we hopefully do not want to sin, but it was not possible for Adam and Eve not to sin and it is not possible for us not to sin.

 

[concretecamper]

The Holy Spirit does not disagree with himself so at least one other spirit must be involved.

Agreed. I assume you believe you have the right Spirit. And I assume those who disagree with you believe they have the right Spirit. So who is correct?

 

[bling]

Even if we are simply cooperating with God, it's still up to us to actually do the good works and do the righteousness, yes?

Or have I misunderstood?

-CryptoLutheran

That is correct. We are doing the right thing.

 

[bling]

Agreed. I assume you believe you have the right Spirit. And I assume those who disagree with you believe they have the right Spirit. So who is correct?

We might both be wrong, but the Spirit will agree with scripture. I do not want to trust anyone else with my eternal life with God so I want to check with scripture myself.

 

[concretecamper]

We might both be wrong

Wow, that is dangerous to one's eternal soul.

 

[Hammster]

You do nothing worthy, righteous, glorious, and merit worthy, by being willing for selfish (thus a sinful reason) to humbly accept pure undeserved charity from you enemy (God). What have we done to be forgiven? It would be macho to take the punishment you fully deserve and not further pester the God you have severely offended.

You humbly accept and are rewarded.

 

[ViaCrucis]

That is correct. We are doing the right thing.

So the way a person is justified before God, that is, the way one has righteousness before God, is by doing the right thing.

This raises another question, in what way, if any, is justification related to salvation? Is it?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

We might both be wrong, but the Spirit will agree with scripture. I do not want to trust anyone else with my eternal life with God so I want to check with scripture myself.

In my mind the idea of rejecting the doctrine that defines the Reformation, namely the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone on Christ's account alone--which you have explicitly said you deny by rejecting the teaching of imputed righteousness--and yet not being in communion with either Rome or becoming Orthodox makes no sense to me.

Just to be clear, if the doctrine of Justification, as taught by the Reformers, is false, then the Reformation has no legs to stand on, and there's no excuse for not being in communion with Rome or at least converting to Orthodoxy.

The Reformation stands and falls on this alone: That a man is reckoned just before God on account of Christ, through faith which God grants and by which the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed as pure gift.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[bbbbbbb]

I have taken a lot of my research on this subject from Jewish Scholars (Some being Messianic Scholars) and especially some individuals I corresponded with in Jerusalem who had access to untranslated Hebrew writings.

The Jews are mostly wanting to understand why Jesse and David’s brothers treated him so poorly.

Psalms 51:5 is a problem translation for Jews and Christians, so this one verse takes a lot of explaining, but it also has to be consistent with all these verse in Psalms at least.

It has been decades since I did my study and I have many pages of notes.

This could all be a very poetic hyperbole David is using and he should be allowed some poetic license.

We have similar verses:

Psalms 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

Ps 22 Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.

On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God.

Ps. 139: 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.



I argue that a child is Innocent:

Spiritual consequences of sin cannot be transmitted from father to son but only falls on the one who committed the act: Ezek 18:1-4; 18-20; Jer 32:29-30

Sin is committed by individually breaking God's law: 1 Jn 3:4

The spoken and written gospel message is God's power for salvation: Rom 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:18

God said that the king of Tyrus was "blameless in your ways from the day you were created, until unrighteousness was found in you." Ezek 28:15

"God made men upright but they sought devices" Eccl 7:29 (plural can't refer only to Adam)

Jer 19:2-6 human sacrifices of children to Baal is called the "blood of the innocent"

Jesus teaches us that we must become as little children to enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 18:3- 4; Lk. 18:16-17)

Apostle Paul: Rom 7:9-11 "Once alive" "sin killed me"

Psalms 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

Ps 22 Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.

On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God.

Ps. 139: 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.



Looking Deeper into Psalms 51:5

This is a Hebrew poetic parallelism, with the second line of the verse saying the same thing as the first line in a slightly different way. The first verb, of which David is the subject, is in the Pulal tense (as is "made" in # Job 15:7 ), which is an idiom used to refer to creation or origins, and is the 'passive' form of Polel ("formed": # Ps 90:2 Pro 26:10 ). TWOT, #623, 1:270.

The subject is, as the verse clearly states, the 'circumstances' of his conception- the sexual union which produced him was an act of sin, and addresses the unrighteousness of his mother's act.

Read some of the English translation Psalms 51:5

KJV Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

YLT Lo, in iniquity I have been brought forth, And in sin doth my mother conceive me.

WEB Behold, I was born in iniquity. My mother conceived me in sin

RSV Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

KJV Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.

Granted some translators have a problem with the sin being David’s mother’s problem and will point to verses like these:

In PS 116:16, David refers to himself as "the son of thy handmaid", which would seem to testify to his mother's positive relationship with the Lord.

Psalm 86:16 Turn to me and have mercy on me; show your strength in behalf of your servant; save me, because I serve you just as my mother did. She sounds righteous to me.

Thus, they majorly change the translation to be David’s sin, But are these translations the result of preconceived ideas?

The wording seems to be saying: the sin is the mothers at conception.

What do we know which could show it to be David’s mother and a problem?

David had two half-sisters (Zeruiah, Abigail)…..:

1CHR 2:13-16 13 “And Jesse begat his firstborn Eliab, and Abinadab the second, and Shimma the third, 14 Nethaneel the fourth, Raddai the fifth, 15 Ozem the sixth, David the seventh: 16 Whose sisters were Zeruiah, and Abigail. And the sons of Zeruiah; Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three. 17 And Abigail bare Amasa: and the father of Amasa was Jether the Ishmeelite.”

Again the translators do not like the idea of these sisters only being David’s so the change the wording and meaning, but the better translations is:

KJV Whose sisters were Zeruiah, and Abigail. And the sons of Zeruiah; Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three.

Why might these two only be David’s sisters and not Jesse’s daughters: 2Sam 17:25 “And Absalom made Amasa captain of the host instead of Joab: which Amasa was a man’s son, whose name was Ithra an Israelite, that went in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, sister to Zeruiah Joab’s mother.”

Nahash is king of the Ammonites.

1 Chronicles 19:2 David thought, “I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent a delegation to express his sympathy to Hanun concerning his father. When David’s envoys came to Hanun in the land of the Ammonites to express sympathy to him,

Why did Nahash show kindness to David?

David’s Jewish mother seems to have been previously married to Nahash the Ammonite and later was the second wife of Jesse, this was not a “sin” most likely but later could have been perceived as a sin, thus Jesse not counting David as one of his sons and all his brothers treating him badly.

A lot more can be said, but it was not David being conceived a sinner, but his mother conceiving him could be perceived as a sin.

Now we can go further into scripture showing how David was treated and persecuted as an outsider by his family and loved only by his mother.

Looking at David’s Mother

Exodus 34:7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

Matthew 1:5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse

Torah specifically forbids an Israelite to marry a Moabite convert, since this is the nation that cruelly refused the Jewish people passage through their land, or food and drink to purchase, when they wandered in the desert after being freed from Egypt.

It is an interesting study, but there is no proof text scripture I can point to. I am convinced it was the wrongfully perceived sin of David’s mother’s conception.

If all individuals are innocent at birth, do they go to heaven if they perish prior to committing any sin? Who teaches them to sin? I hope it is not their parents. My parents, assuredly never taught me to sin. I seemed to have a natural knack for it.

 

[bbbbbbb]

In my mind the idea of rejecting the doctrine that defines the Reformation, namely the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone on Christ's account alone--which you have explicitly said you deny by rejecting the teaching of imputed righteousness--and yet not being in communion with either Rome or becoming Orthodox makes no sense to me.

Just to be clear, if the doctrine of Justification, as taught by the Reformers, is false, then the Reformation has no legs to stand on, and there's no excuse for not being in communion with Rome or at least converting to Orthodoxy.

The Reformation stands and falls on this alone: That a man is reckoned just before God on account of Christ, through faith which God grants and by which the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed as pure gift.

-CryptoLutheran

I agree with you completely. Thank you.

 

[BBAS 64]

We have the knowledge of good and evil, law written on our hearts (conscience). It came from the tree of knowledge past down to us from Adam and Eve. The information is available to us, but it is just information, so experiences through our life help us apply that information to ourselves. We are burden by our conscience (at least for a while, until we harden our hearts) by doing stuff that hurts others. The only true relieve from this burden comes with accepting God's forgiveness.

Good Day, Bling

Not so sure an appeal to the concise is a useful or profitable thing.

Tit 1:16 To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

I would remind you that nothing good comes from the heart of man:

Matt 15:17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

Not much hope in that combination.... But God.

In Him,

Bill

 

[bling]

Wow, that is dangerous to one's eternal soul.

Dangerous yes, but God judges the hearts of people not their knowledge. You do have to be real careful what you teach others, as the truth. I like to say: "At this point in my spiritual growth I believe_______." I like to ask questions more than give my answer, but want it only to be my answer.
Most issues are not salvation issues, but people can make them into salvation issues.
Take this thread: I would say most people who call themselves "Christians" do not know man's objective and only repeat what they have heard and cannot defend what they are thinking, but if they truly Love God and secondly others with all their heart, soul, mind and energy, they do not need to understand their objective.

 

[bling]

You humbly accept and are rewarded.

You are not "rewarded" for humbly accepting, you obtain the gift by accepting. Texas does not reward me a billion dollars, because I am humbly willing to accept the billion-dollar lottery, but if I won the lottery, I would need to accept the money.
There is no "value" over others, in being willing to accept the reward which everyone has "won" and just needs to accept, but it is a choice, and most will choose to continue to pursue the perceived pleasures of sin.

 

[bling]

So the way a person is justified before God, that is, the way one has righteousness before God, is by doing the right thing.

This raises another question, in what way, if any, is justification related to salvation? Is it?

-CryptoLutheran

You now bring up another huge topic, “Justification”.

You can do righteous acts, you can even be righteous for a time, but does that make you justified before God?

The Jews have a lot going for them, but now Paul in Romans chp. 3 is going to hit them with “Justification”. No one stood “justified” before God by the Law, yet Christians can stand justified, but what does that mean?

What are the differences between being righteous and being justified?

Some people in the Old Testament were described as righteous, but were any described as being justified? Acts 13:39 Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.

I do think some Old Testament people did stand before God justified, but none were described that way.

Jesus gives us just one example of a Jewish person being justified, which helps to define being justified before God:

Luke 18: The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

How could this tax collector be justified and what made him justified?

There is a huge difference between a criminal standing justified before a judge and a child justifiably comfortably hugging his dad.

I might describe the difference between righteous and justified as have to do with the moment: You can do a righteous act, you can from a moment and for a time be righteous, but standing justified before God has to do with your past life: knowing and acknowledging what you have done, knowing where you are at in God’s eyes, and approaching God correctly from the position you are in.

We want and God wants us to come to Him as his children, so what allows a rebellious disobedient child to run up to his father and comfortably hug him around the legs?

How can we be comfortable around God, when we have severely offended Him? To do it under the Law you would have to have perfectly obeyed the Law.

God can certainly and easily forgive us, but is that all it would take for you to feel comfortable before God?

A wonderful Loving parent can easily forgive their child, but, if at all possible, the parent will also see to and even participate with the child, in Loving discipline. If the child humbly accepts the loving discipline, they will be able to: put their offence behind them, feel the parent really Loves them, know how severe the offence was, become closer to the parent (especially if the parent participated with them in the discipline), even more not want to offend the parent again and now can feel justified.

The cross is foolishness to the nonbeliever, so it takes a lot to show the logic and benefit.

Paul repeats ideas and builds on the previous explanation, so the ideas in Romans’ 5 go back to Ro. 3:25 and even further back to Romans’ 1.

Paul in Ro. 3:25 giving the extreme contrast between the way sins where handle prior to the cross and after the cross, so if they were actually handled the same way “by the cross” there would be no contrast, only a time factor, but Paul said (forgiven) sinners prior to the cross where left “unpunished” (NIV), but that also should mean the forgiven “sinner” after the cross were punished.

From Romans 3: 25 Paul tells us: God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. …

Another way of saying this would be “God offers the ransom payment (Christ Crucified and the blood that flowed from Him) to those that have the faith to receive that ransom. A lack of faith results in the refusal of the ransom payment (Christ crucified).

God is not the undeserving kidnapper nor is satan worthy of a ransom, but the unbeliever is himself is holding back a child of God from the Father, that child that is within every one of us.

Paul goes on to explain:

Ro. 3: 25 …He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished

I do not like the word “unpunished” but would use “undisciplined”.

So, prior to the cross repentant forgiven people (saved individuals) could not be fairly and justly disciplined for the rebellious disobedience, but after the cross if we repent (come to our senses and turn to God) we can be fairly and justly disciplined and yet survive.

God and Christ would have personally preferred Christ’s blood to remain flowing through his veins, but it is I that need to have that blood outside of Christ flowing over me and in me cleansing my heart. I need to feel that blood and know it is cleansing me.

If you think about the crucifixion, you would realize, at the time Christ was on the cross, God in heaven out of empathy/Love for Christ would be experience an even greater pain than Christ. We as our Love grows and our realization of what we personally caused Christ to go through will feel the death blow to our hearts (Acts 2:37). We will experience the greatest pain we could experience and still live, which is the way God is disciplining us today and for all the right reasons because Loving discipline correctly accepted results in a wondrous relationship with our parent. (We can now comfortably feel justified before God.)

I use the NIV all though I do not like any translation, NIV does what I consider to be the best translation of the Greek word πάρεσις (paresis) which most just translate with “past over”, since the NIV translates it “left the sins committed beforehand unpunished”. The Greek word Πάρεσις is only found here in the Greek New Testament and not used at all in the Greek Old Testament, so it is difficult to translate, but really not that hard, since secular koine Greek manuscripts can be found using πάρεσις. It is used to describe when a lender, on rare occasions, does not put a debtor in prison to try and get some of his money back from friends and relatives of the debtor, before releasing him. So, in the context of Ro. 3:25 the forgiven sinners prior to the cross were not disciplined/punished for their sins but were just forgiven and let go. Since Paul is making his argument showing a huge contrast between Jews before and after the cross, those after the cross would have to go through some “punishment” or better expressed as some disciplining to be a contrast.

There are lots of excellent benefits from being disciplined, but prior to Christ’s crucifixion, there was no way to fairly/justly discipline a rebellious disobedient repentant child seeking forgiveness and allow the child to live. The disciplines were just too hard being banishment or physical death. By Christ going to the cross, we can now be “crucified with Christ”, empathetically. How severe of a disciplining is this for Christians and how would it compare to the pain and sorrow God went through while Christ was crucified?

Notice there is no language suggesting the sins are put on hold, rolled forward or dealt with later, but are “passed over”/left unpunished.

Here are some questions I used in my adult Bible class:

Roman 3 starting with Ro. 3:24

1. Prior to Christ going to the cross where some people forgiven of their sins and if so who, how and why?

2. (God “pass over sins” or as in the NIV “left the sins committed beforehand unpunished”) so which sins in the passage are these?

3. The OT gives lots of severe punishments for sins, so could/did “severe sins” go unpunished? Did God allow/want them to go unpunished? Why have these severe rules and punishments in the law?

4. Where the forgiven sins of those before the cross forgiven the exact same way as those after the cross?

5. If some sins where forgiven before the cross, was the cross needed to forgive sins?

6. From your own experience how hard was/is it for you to forgive the transgressions of your truly repentant child? Was/is there other action you have/had to see to that was harder to do? (What are/was it?)

7. Did you punish or discipline your children? (What would Dr. Dobson say?)

8. From your own experience with your children, if your child correctly accepted your most wise discipline and purely charitable forgiveness; was your relationship with your child better after or before the disobedience?

9. Is disciplining your child a learning maturing growing experience?

10. How could your rebellious/disobedient child stand “justified’ and “righteous” before you even today?

11. Look at the example Christ gives with the prodigal son (Luke 15: 11-32). Who is the kidnapper, what ransom was paid, who was set free, and could the son stand “justified” and/or “righteous” before the father?

12. Rev. 5: 9 “…and with your blood you purchased for God, persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.” Who did Christ pay the purchase price to?

13. What reason would Christ have for paying satan?

14. If God forgives our sins why would they still have to be paid for?

15. If Christ paid for our sins, why do they still need to be forgiven?

16. Atonement (propitiation) sacrifice can be for everyone with the ransom payment being offered but the kidnapper may refuse to accept the sacrifice, so it was made in vain for that kidnapper and the child is not freed?



35. RSV Ro 3:24 they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, NIV Ro 3:24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. How can we be “justified” like we kept the Law without keeping the Law?

What is the relationship between being justified and being righteous?

36. “Redemption” is an interesting word, so what does it mean here?

37. If we are being paid for and set free: who is hoping us captive, what are we being held from, what is the ransom being paid, who is being paid the ransom (who is the kidnapper), what value/benefit would this ransom have to the kidnapper, and how does “faith” play into this?

38. Verse 25 might help explain “redemption”, but v.25 is not easy to understand, so what does this verse mean?

39. If Paul is conveying the idea of a “ransom” which the context might suggest than it would be in keeping with other times Paul, Peter, Christ, John and the Hebrew writers use the analogy of a ransom in describing atonement or what happened with the crucifixion, so who is being paid off?

40. “sacrifice of atonement”, “atonement cover on the ark of the covenant”, “expiation”, “mercy seat”, “propitiation” and “propitiatory sacrifice”, all refer to what God put forward with Christ, so what was God doing?

41. What are we specifically putting our “faith” in to have this atonement take place or does it take place without involving our faith and some of us just do not receive it?

42. If we do not receive it does it take place for us? Is that similar to God’s Love, forgiveness and mercy?



43. Why are we even involved?

44. Is this to help make God righteous or to show the righteousness God already has?

45. This one little phrase of Paul: “because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” becomes a thorn in the flesh for most theories of atonement. So what does it mean?

46. What does it mean for God to “pass over sins” or as in the NIV “left the sins committed beforehand unpunished”? Does it mean accumulate them? Roll the sins forward? Forgiving the sins without doing something else that is needed and maybe can be accomplished with the cross?

47. Is God passing over and/or leaving the sins unpunished, mean all sins or just some sins and which ones did He pass over (leave unpunished)?

48. If you go back to the OT and see all the “punishments” there were for sins, does that look like God is passing over them?

49. There is a contrast in V.25 between what we have after the cross and what there was before the cross, so did Christ going to the cross solve the problem moving forward and/or did Christ crucifixion undo God’s passing over sin in the past?

50. If Christ by going to the cross eliminates God’s need to pass over sins than why did God ever pass over sins since “time” is not a factor (Christ went to the cross from the beginning of time), so what effect would Christ have on past sins God passed over?

51. V. 26 How is God shown as being right (fair/just) with Christ going to the cross? Is it fair/just to allow the innocent to be tortured, humiliated and murdered, and the guilty to go free?

52. V. 26 In what way do we become justified while those that were previously pasted over could not be justified?

And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.



Why I and others interpret the before being before Christ’s crucifixion and after:

1. The whole theme of Romans is the unification of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, with the Jews feeling they are more righteous than the Gentiles, mainly because they had the Law.

2. “Ro. 3: 21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify…. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile,” This is the context of Ro. 3:25.

3. “Ro. 3: 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” The all being both Jews and gentiles.

4. “Ro. 3: 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” The present time would mean after the cross and not after baptism.

5. After the Ro. 3:25 we have Paul picking right back up with: “27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” The contrast being discussed is between the Law and after the Law with what they now have with Christianity.” The Jews under the Law still had forgiveness but from Ro. 3:25 we see it did not have fair just disciplining (translated “punishment”) needed, which the cross provides Christians.

Being justified brings up the huge topic of atonement.

 

[bling]

In my mind the idea of rejecting the doctrine that defines the Reformation, namely the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone on Christ's account alone--which you have explicitly said you deny by rejecting the teaching of imputed righteousness--and yet not being in communion with either Rome or becoming Orthodox makes no sense to me.

Just to be clear, if the doctrine of Justification, as taught by the Reformers, is false, then the Reformation has no legs to stand on, and there's no excuse for not being in communion with Rome or at least converting to Orthodoxy.

The Reformation stands and falls on this alone: That a man is reckoned just before God on account of Christ, through faith which God grants and by which the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed as pure gift.

-CryptoLutheran

These are huge topics needing lots of words and definitions.
If I tell someone they are miraculously justified before God, by their believing what Jesus did, will that help them to comfortably feel justified before God?

Think about this:

There is a, one of a kind, Ming vase on your parent’s mantel that has been handed down by your great grandmother. You, as a young person, get angry with your parents and smash the vase. You are later sorry about it and repent and your loving parent can easily forgive you. Since this was not your first rebellious action your father, in an act of Love, collects every little piece of the vase and you willingly work together with your father hours each night for a month painstakingly gluing the vase back together. The vase is returned to the mantel to be kept as a show piece, but according to Antique Road Show, it is worthless. Working with your father helped you develop a much stronger relationship, comfort in being around him and appreciation for his Love.

Was your father fair/just and would others see this as being fair discipline? Did this “punishment” help resolve the issue?

Was restitution made or was reconciliation made and would you feel comfortable/ justified standing by your father in the future?

Suppose after smashing the vase, repenting and forgiveness, your older brother says he will work with your father putting the vase together, so you can keep up with your social life. Would this scenario allow you to stand comfortable and justified by your father?

Suppose Jesus the magician waved his hands over the smashed vase and restored it perfectly to the previous condition, so there is really very little for you to be forgiven of or for you to do. Would this scenario allow you to stand comfortable and justified by your father?

What are the benefits of being lovingly disciplined?

Suppose it is not you that breaks the Ming vase but your neighbor breaks into your house because he does not like your family being so nice and smashes the Ming vase, but he is caught on a security camera. Your father goes to your neighbor with the box of pieces and offers to do the same thing with him as he offered to do with you, but the neighbor refuses. Your father explains: everything is caught on camera and he will be fined and go to jail, but the neighbor, although sorry about being caught, still refuses. The neighbor loses all he has and spends 10 years in jail. So was the neighbor fairly disciplined or fairly punished?

How does the neighbor’s punishment equal your discipline and how is it not equal?

Was the neighbor forgiven and if not why not?