Thank you for your kind words. And thank you for your patience and effort on my behalf. As usual, I will have to digest your post(s) to feel like I have done it (them) justice. So, of course, I can't fully answer it (them) now either.
Understood. . .I'm not expecting answers, I'm only presenting information, and feeling for you here.
Maybe the bits and pieces I present will jog something lose and open it up for you. . .and maybe not.
Aye, there's the rub.
All along, for many years, I've been arguing that what sin actually is, (i.e. opposition or rebellion to Omnipotent God), must be made right.
As in "paid for" by faith's
application of
Christ's payment for
all of one's sin.
Are we aware of
all the sin we've committed to which Christ's payment is applied?
Do we have to be aware of it for him to pay for it?
If my conception of those words has value as a notion, then there must be an accounting because of God's justice— that he would not be just to merely overlook sin, has been my claim.
Not understanding how anything is overlooked in the application by faith of Christ's payment for anyone's sin.
Are you viewing sin as a matter of God's
abhorence, to all of which man is not privy, or as a matter of his
justice?
Abhorence is undefined, justice is codified.
Lol, I get fringe thoughts trying to gain access to my head that Christ paid for all those sins pre-Sinai, so God doesn't count them! But that doesn't fit Romans at all, except for the mention alone that God doesn't count them.
As usual with me on reading Romans again, a hundred other things crowd my mind —how much more now, with the question unanswered for me concerning this 'legality', actual blame by God toward those who actually did sin, but without the law!
The equation seems to be lacking a few things, mainly:
1) How is their conscience, their individual and/or corporate commands by God, whether for individual occasions or for general policy, and (to my mind, anyway) any deed, thought, or mindset stemming from their enmity to God, not also law as Paul intends, though not formal?
Does Paul intend they be covenantal law? Does he not clearly state in
Romans 5:12-14 that they are
not law?
Not being covenantal law (
Genesis 2:17; Mosaic law), there was no death penalty attached to those commands at the time. Keeping in mind, however, that the death penalty from the get-go for
all is due to Adam (
Romans 5:18), not to their own sin.
If we are
born condemned by Adam's (imputed) guilt (
Romans 5:18,
as we are made righteous by Christ's imputed righteousness--
Romans 1:17,
Romans 3:20-21), everything else is window dressing, because we are headed to the gallows no matter what--with
or without our own sin accounted to us, if we don't trust on and believe in the blood of Jesus Christ (
Romans 3:25).
Because of Adam, our condemnation was in place before we ever sinned on our own. (
Romans 5:18)
Or, 2) from the negative of #1, Why does Paul not consider any deed that is by enmity with God an equal monstrosity as any deed done in rebellion to formal law?
One is covenant, and the other is not.
Is it Paul. . .or is it his revelation from Jesus Christ personally (
Galatians 1:11-12) that does not consider, and his trip to the throne of God in the third heaven (
2 Corinthians 12:1-8) that does not consider, and which "not considering" we are to receive and believe.
Would your question not really be, "why does God have two kinds of 'laws," covenantal under penalty of death (
Genesis 2:17; Mosaic law), and non-covenantal carrying no penalty of death?
(Btw, for whoever might be reading this, I understand that God wrote Paul's words, but I say 'Paul' because the format is Paul's reasoning).
Or is it
Jesus' reasoning revealed to Paul personally, or by the Holy Spirit?
I mean to say, I see Paul directly answering my definitions, in his discourse, particularly in vss 13 and 14, but not explaining away my questions —perhaps I should say, my instincts concerning the nature of sin and what Christ accomplished on the cross.
I'm not really seeing what your issue is there.
Would you share it with me when you get around to it?
You may be surprised, or you may identify with, my linking this whole thing, with rather some consternation to be overcome, with what God judges as sin, so differently from what man does, for eg: To one, to eat pork is monstrous 7 ways from Sabbath, but to another, 'do not call impure what God has made clean'. I feel like for this subject alone (if not for the sake of the question at hand), I need to be very careful how I think, and not adopt a blanket mindset that excuses me from what conscience has up til now condemned, or what might mislead another believer for me to even express wrongly.
However, our conscience is to be in-formed (formed from within) by the word of God.
A conscience that is not informed by the word of God is referred to as "weak faith" in the NT, for its failure to form itself according to God's revelation (
Romans 14:1-2) rather than according its personal notions not in agreement with that word.
And we are to accommodate those of "weak faith" by not scandalizing that faith.
But it is good for those of "weak faith" to strengthen their faith by receiving and believing NT
apostolic teaching which informs it.
You also touch here on what conscience "has up til now condemned" and "misleading another."
However, to inform your brother of the
apostolic teaching of the Christian faith is not
excusing him from no longer regarding what
he regards as sin, it is
informing his "weak faith" (
Romans 14:1-2) according to apostolic teaching that it may
grow in truth and apprehension of the true faith.
I see also, another implication, that is painful to me to dwell on: That if these sins were not counted against them, nor did Christ die to pay for those sins, did Christ then, for the souls pre-Sinai, die only to redeem them from Adam's sin?
I'm not understanding why there would be an exception of any sin?
All sin of the believer is paid for by faith in Christ's atonement, whether he is aware of that sin or not.
If I didn't know that eating bananas on Tuesday was sin, would God account sin to me for doing so?
If they didn't know it was sin to murder someone who had murdered their own, or to steal from someone in retaliation for their stealing from them, or to bear false witness against someone who was spreading lies about them, etc., would God account sin to them for doing so?
Sin against their conscience was their only "sin the world" (
Romans 5:13), and did not Christ pay for it for those who believe in him?
(After all, Adam's curse was placed on everyone subsequent to Adam, because all die, but that is not all it is, nor did Christ's death save anyone from physical death.
It saved those who believe in him from
permanent physical death
and from
eternal death (damnation).
Adam's curse also resulted in the soul's innate enmity against God, and while I understand that is part and parcel with every sin post Adam,
I have a hard time seeing Christ's payment having nothing to do with the results of that enmity for a certain group, because of a formality.
Is "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him" (Romans 4:8) just a formality, or is it a consequential
actuality?
The issue is the
innate enmity, not its actions.
Those between Adam and Moses were still God's enemies even though no personal sin was accounted to them. And
that is the issue between God and man. You are
born God's enemy,
by nature an object of his wrath. (
Ephesians 2:3)
Yes, I know it is not a mere formality, but that is where the schism in my instincts shows its ugly tear). Is there no condemnation, besides temporal consequences, for those who disobeyed God apart from the formal law?
Yes, there is our condemnation due to Adam's
imputed guilt which makes everything else pretty much irrelevant, because you can be condemned only once. any way.
We are letting the process of God imputing Adam's guilt to all mankind (
Romans 5:18), which is the cause of
everyone's sentence to eternal death, become confused with the consequences of personal sin in that process, which is just an add-on to our imputed guilt, where even the absence of personal sin would not alter our eternal destiny.
We are
born condemned,
by nature objects of wrath (
Ephesians 2:3), whether me move a muscle, have a thought, or not.
Only those to whom God applies Christ's payment for sin are exempt from that condemnation.
And, then, nowadays, for the person at enmity with God, who is unaware of the Sinai law, is their sin not actually accounted for, and if subsequently regenerated, are those sins not actually paid by Christ, since they were (presumeably) not counted against them to begin with?
All of which pales in light of being
born in condemnation (
Romans 5:18) and
by nature objects of
wrath (
Ephesians 2:3).
Also, I am wondering if other scripture, even if in Romans, confirms the point you make concerning the accounting of sins, pre-Sinai.
I'm not understanding why the exceedingly plain statements:
1) "
sin is not reckoned (charged)
when there is no law" (not being law),
Romans 5:13,
2) those between Adam and Moses
"did not sin like the transgression of Adam" (breaking a command),
Romans 5:14,
must be stated more than once to be true.
I ask the same about God's predestination of "
those he foreknew" (
Romans 8:29) being stated anywhere else in Scripture?
And the objects of God's wrath by whom his power is made known
for the sake of making the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy (
Romans 9:22-23) being presented anywhere else in Scripture?
You were able to swallow those, which most cannot.
Hang in there, my dear brother!