Salvation before Jesus

[hedrick]

Well, I guess Sola Scriptora will just have to remain a conundrum since it doesn't address this issue at all.

I think it does. Paul's letters are to churches. In Rom 2 he implies that people outside will be judged based on what they do with what they know. This is the approach behind the Catholic position. In 1 Cor he says we're not to judge those outside the Church. That's God's job. In the end every knee will bow to Christ, and he will give it all to God.

Jesus says we are the light to the world, the leaven to the bread. But he doesn't say we are or should be the whole world or the whole loaf. In John he speaks of other sheep not in our fold. I think he called us to be his agents in reconciling the world to God. It's interesting that you don't see in his teaching polemic against non-Jews, as e.g. you see in the Prophets.

 

[Duvduv]

I am not sure I understand what you are asking about the polemics. To my mind the creation of Christianity was to afford the Constantine empire with a monotheistic-friendly religion as an alternative to historical paganism, but at the same time to establish it as superior to Judaism. That accounts for the ambiguity and at times hostility toward Judaism that we find in the Gospels and Epistles.

 

[lesliedellow]

That accounts for the ambiguity and at times hostility toward Judaism that we find in the Gospels and Epistles.

Judaism and Christianity seem to have been in conflict because they were in conflict. That is obvious from even the most superficial reading of the New Testament. Or is that too simple for you?

 

[Duvduv]

And therefore, what is the specific problem or issue? Christianity was created as the successor to Judaism for the gentiles of the new empire.

 

[lesliedellow]

And therefore, what is the specific problem or issue? Christianity was created as the successor to Judaism for the gentiles of the new empire.

The problem was that Jesus had a nasty habit of criticising the Jewish leadership, which upset both them and their Roman overlords, so they crucified him. From that point on the relationship between groups like the Pharisees and the nascent Church was only set to get worse.

And I am still waiting for you to name one single historian who would give house room to your idiotic ideas.

 

[Duvduv]

Thank you for your tolerant comments, Lesliedellow, without a shred of substantive argument, only with argumentum ad hominem. No way to discuss issues. Shall I accuse you of idiotic ideas of believing in some young unmarried 33 year old kid to be your savior and God as a form of idol worship? Where do you want to take this? I haven't resorted to argumentum ad hominem and I don't see why you have to either. All you do is get upset because i may not accept the traditional Church dogma about the emergence of Christianity.

 

[lesliedellow]

I haven't resorted to argumentum ad hominem

You haven’t done anything, except make an art form out of special pleading.

 

[Duvduv]

That's your opinion, however, I was merely insisting on substantive discussion and not argumentum ad hominem. And I don't consider "historians" to carry any infallibility or priest-like status. It's up to them to determine the significance of the absence of corroborative evidence from the 1st century. And if they make hypotheses without analyzing the age of ink and parchment, that's not my problem.

 

[lesliedellow]

That's your opinion, however, I was merely insisting on substantive discussion and not argumentum ad hominem. And I don't consider "historians" to carry any infallibility or priest-like status. It's up to them to determine the significance of the absence of corroborative evidence from the 1st century. And if they make hypotheses without analyzing the age of ink and parchment, that's not my problem.

Look up the definition if special pleading.

The archaeologists didn't know what they were ding when they dated P52 - no evidence for that.
The correspondence between Pliny and Trajan might have been a forgery - no evidence for that.
Every single piece of Christian literature dating from the second century was forged by the Church - no evidence for that.

Maybe I should use a similar approach to "prove" the Battle of Trafalgar never happened, or that the American Constitution was written no earlier than 1900 - after all, every single piece of evidence to the contrary, I hereby declare to be a forgery.

 

[food4thought]

I am sorry I did not reply. I was carrying the subject over to other threads. I meant mainly the latter, but since you mention it, we can consider the former as well.

The subject of what Jesus was doing before His Incarnation is pretty clear from the Gospel of John:

John 1:1-14 NASB In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He was in the beginning with God. (3) All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (4) In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. (5) The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it... (10) He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. (11) He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. (12) But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, (13) who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (14) And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Before the Incarnation, the Word was in perfect fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit! During the Incarnation, the eternal Word of God was made flesh so that we could safely see the face of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and know the love that God has for us through the Incarnation of His Son.

That said, Jesus' sacrifice was efficacious before His Incarnation and sacrifice. Observe...

1 Peter 1:20-21 NKJV He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you (21) who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

and

Revelation 13:8 NKJV All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Jesus' sacrifice was always the plan. What can we discern from these things? God always knew what He was going to do, and God reckoned that Jesus was sacrificed for our sins from the very beginning. Therefore He was able to apply the sacrifice of Jesus to all who had faith regardless of whether they heard the name of Jesus or not.

Hope this helps;
Michael

 

[Duvduv]

There is no such thing in sacrifice such as the Yom Kippur atonement metaphor or Passover lamb metaphor from Judaism gor a sacrifice to be effective before it occurs...And the gospels fail lto mention how the sinner obtained salvation before Jesus appeared and was crucified. It's only your interpretation of a partial reference in John alone.

 

[AvgJoe]

According to the narrative of all self-identified Christian denominations there was no Jesus before the first century AD, with the assumption that Christianity existed in the first century, long before the days of Constantine and Eusebius. So naturally the question arises: what was the salvation for human beings (including Jews) for all the millennia before he arrived? Where was the grace and atonement for mankind to be saved from eternal damnation before the year 33 AD?! In addition, since it took quite a while for the world to know about his salvation, what happened to mankind who never heard about him even AFTER he was in the first century?

The basis of salvation in every age is the death of Christ; the requirement for salvation in every age is faith; the object of faith in every age is God; the content of faith changes in the various ages. In other words, no matter when a person has lived, their salvation is ultimately dependent on the work of Christ and a faith placed in God, but the amount of knowledge a person had concerning the specifics of God’s plan has increased through the ages via God’s progressive revelation.

www.gotquestions.org/progressive-revelation.html

 

[Duvduv]

The problem is that none of these hypotheses are found in the scriptures of Christianity, where they should be. The bottom line is that they say nothing about the atonement for sinners before first century. There was no sacrifice of the Christ in the previous several thousand years.

 

[HypnoToad]

The problem is that none of these hypotheses are found in the scriptures of Christianity, where they should be. The bottom line is that they say nothing about the atonement for sinners before first century.

False, false, false. One really has to wonder just how many times it has to be pointed out to you.

Does the New Testament express how ANYONE is saved? Yep.
John 14:6 - "No one comes to the Father except through me." - Jesus.

So, first we see the NT explicitly stating that EVERYONE is dependent on Jesus. Nowhere is there any restriction whatsoever that limits this to people after Jesus' ministry.

Does the New Testament mention how people in the Old Testament achieved righteousness before God? Yep.
Romans 4:3 - "For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”"

So, second, we see it's dependent on belief on God (faith).

Third, you already admitted that God is not bound by time - post #42.

Put all three together - ALL are saved by Jesus' atonement, through faith in God, and no time restriction.

 

[Duvduv]

It's OK. Just keep dancing around the fact of the missing doctrinal explanation in the Christian scriptures. It just is not explained.

 

[hedrick]

I see the point. John 14:6 is all very well, but John doesn't really say how to apply this to people in the OT.

I know of two places, both in Paul.

* Rom 4 says Abraham was justified by faith.
* Rom 3:25 says “He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed;”

Neither really says that those before Jesus somehow believed in and were saved through him.

As far as I can tell, most Christians do think some non-Christians can be saved, certainly including those in the OT.

They also think, because of passages like John 14:6, that salvation is only from Christ.

So something like the “anonymous Christian” idea is an understandable speculation.

Still, it seems like something as a computer programmer I’d call a hack. I don’t think Jesus or Paul needed it. I think they both thought non-Christians would be OK if they lived as God wanted. (No, I don’t mean works in the sense Paul rejected.)

For John, I have my own speculation. The Word has always existed. He become flesh with Jesus. But he was always with us, and thus was available to people before Christ. John 1 seems like a sufficient basis for this. John's concept of the Logos came from Jewish speculative thought originally, so there's a Jewish basis to this, though of course not to the Word becoming flesh.

 

[HypnoToad]

It's OK. Just keep dancing around the fact of the missing doctrinal explanation in the Christian scriptures. It just is not explained.

Wow. Just wow.

Here's how this thread has gone:
1. Duvduv asks for doctrinal explanation.
2. Duvduv receives a bunch of explanation with supporting Scripture.
3. Duvduv ignores it, insists no explanation/Scripture was given, asks for explanation/Scripture.
4. Duvduv receives more explanation w/ Scripture.
5. Duvduv ignores it, insists no explanation/Scripture was given, asks for explanation/Scripture.
6. Duvduv receives yet more explanation w/ Scripture.
7. Duvduv ignores it, insists no explanation/Scripture was given.

At this point, no more reasoning is possible with you, because you simply have chosen to be unreasonable. I'm not going to waste anymore time.

 

[Duvduv]

No, what happened was that I wondered how Christianity explains how sinning humans acquired atonement from Jesus' sacrifice before he was in the world of the 1st century, and all I get are hypothetical metaphorical and homiletical suggestions.

 

[ToBeLoved]

I am not sure I understand what you are asking about the polemics. To my mind the creation of Christianity was to afford the Constantine empire with a monotheistic-friendly religion as an alternative to historical paganism, but at the same time to establish it as superior to Judaism. That accounts for the ambiguity and at times hostility toward Judaism that we find in the Gospels and Epistles.

It is really much simpler than that.

We believe Christ is the Messiah, Judaism doesn’t.

Shows how much you don’t understand about Christianity or even the New Testament

 

[Uber Genius]

The point is faith in God worked before 33 AD, so logically it can work after 33AD. I have asked this question for years and never got a logical answer to it!
Besides, he wasntw slaughtered like an animal that is sacrificed so the metaphor doesn't fit, especially since the atonement animal on Yom Kippur was a goat.

Did Abraham worship in the tabernacle? Did he fulfill the law of Moses? Of course not he lived at a different time. Likewise what would have happened if Moses decided to walk into the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle using your logic that since God operated a certain way at an earlier time he was under no obligation to obey God? That's right, he would be dead.

God's strategy for humans has changed over time and Jesus has fulfilled the law. God commands all men everywhere to repent and confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Point is you can no more reject that command than a Jew born in David's day could arbitrarily reject the law because it had only been in force for 400 years.