Re: Why the atonement?
Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 9:35 pm
Paidion,
I found much to agree with in your lengthy post on Sunday, March 29 @ 3:12pm. However, you wrote:
And finally He died as a human being. The identification was complete. After He was raised, He and His Father came to dwell within His people. Christ in us — infiltrated through our entire being, and we in Christ — infiltrated through His entire being. Christ has put on humanity, and we have put on Christ.
I have never understood, nor have you explained how, in your iterations on this subject Jesus' death on the cross made it possible for us, or enabled us, to be set free from the practice of sin. You only assert that somehow the enablement occurred. By what mechanism, or is it an unexplained mystery? I can readily understand when I read that "without the shedding of blood. there is no remission (forgiveness) of sin". I can further understand how God could "internalize" the cost of forgiveness through the death of His sinless Son. We have a substitute, as the sacrifices of the Old Testament foreshadowed. With me, I do not conceive of any forgiveness without cost. There is always a cost in some form or another.
In my view, salvation from the consequences of sin is:
1. Based on our own merit, or
2. Based on the merit of Christ, or
3. Based on no merit at all.
#1 can not be true; scripture informs us clearly that we are saved by grace.
#2 is true in my opinion, but if it is not true, nor is #1 true, then #3 must be true, or no one is saved at all. And if #3 is true, then all will be and are saved: believers, agnostics, and atheists.
I found much to agree with in your lengthy post on Sunday, March 29 @ 3:12pm. However, you wrote:
And finally He died as a human being. The identification was complete. After He was raised, He and His Father came to dwell within His people. Christ in us — infiltrated through our entire being, and we in Christ — infiltrated through His entire being. Christ has put on humanity, and we have put on Christ.
I have never understood, nor have you explained how, in your iterations on this subject Jesus' death on the cross made it possible for us, or enabled us, to be set free from the practice of sin. You only assert that somehow the enablement occurred. By what mechanism, or is it an unexplained mystery? I can readily understand when I read that "without the shedding of blood. there is no remission (forgiveness) of sin". I can further understand how God could "internalize" the cost of forgiveness through the death of His sinless Son. We have a substitute, as the sacrifices of the Old Testament foreshadowed. With me, I do not conceive of any forgiveness without cost. There is always a cost in some form or another.
In my view, salvation from the consequences of sin is:
1. Based on our own merit, or
2. Based on the merit of Christ, or
3. Based on no merit at all.
#1 can not be true; scripture informs us clearly that we are saved by grace.
#2 is true in my opinion, but if it is not true, nor is #1 true, then #3 must be true, or no one is saved at all. And if #3 is true, then all will be and are saved: believers, agnostics, and atheists.