UniqueWebRev
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| | Re: Atonement / Temporal Hell View / Antinomianism | | Lazarus1719 wrote:
[b]IT LEADS TO THE TEMPORAL HELL VIEW [/b]
Quote:
If someone believes that Christ recieved the exact and literal penalty of the law, then it's inconsistent to believe in eternal hell. Christ died once. If he recieved the exact and literal penalty of the law, then sinners only deserve to die once. If the temporal suffering and one time death of Christ was the exact and literal penalty of the law, then sinners only deserve temporal suffering and one time death.
There is a great deal being said here that deserves further exposition. Due to the complexity of the post by Lazarus1719, this single paragraph needs to be looked at more closely, else we are in danger of losing ourselves in that complexity.
Because this subject is normally treated in a full exposition in a book devoted to the exploration of the topic, I feel that this forum is the wrong place for sweeping statements that must be then proved at length, losing the normal reader (me) in massive discussions of what seem to be be overwhelming generalizations.
So, for this one establishing paragraph, I'd like to take it line by line.
Quote:
If someone believes that Christ recieved the exact and literal penalty of the law, then it's inconsistent to believe in eternal hell.
The exact and literal penalty of not keeping the Mosaic law is to be cursed. Since Christ kept the law in absolute perfection, he had to be cursed another way. This was accomplished by the crucifiction, where Jesus was cursed for being hung on a wooden cross. KJV Deut. 21:23
Mankind, although being spiritually, and eventually physically dead, has been loved greatly by the Lord. God has gone out of His way to offer us His friendship through our faith and trust in Him. If God gives us, for love of us, a chance at eternal life, and then we throw it back in His face, I can see, in justice, that God has a right to give us an eternal death. If there were no second life available, there would be no need for a second death.
If that death is hell, as in fire and brimstone for eternity, when eternal life is relatively easy to obtain, and because God suffered greatly to arrange it for us, I can understand it. He's God, I'm not. I don't have to like it, and frankly, I don't. But I'm not in charge of the Universe, and I acknowledge the right of the One who is in charge to do whatever He wants, within His own law, and His tendency to mercy and compassion.
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Christ died once. If he recieved the exact and literal penalty of the law, then sinners only deserve to die once.
Jesus died to redeem us from the sin of Adam, not to redeem us from the Law. The Law was given that sin might become evident in all it's hideousness. Jesus was given by God that by grace, through faith in the death and ressurection of Jesus Christ, those who believed might be washed clean of all sin through Jesus's blood sacrifice of Himself that established a New Covenant, first fulfilling the Old Covenant of the Mosaic Law, and then wiping it out for those that would choose to walk in the New Covenant.
Technically, one could say that both Adam and Jesus died twice, spiritually, then physically. Adam died spiritually upon eating the forbidden fruit, and began to die in the body at the same moment. The fact that it took nearly a thousand years for Adam's body to finish dying is irrelevant. Adam died only once, but immediately in the spirit, and then later in the body.
Acting as our 'kinsman redeemer', being at one with all mankind in his lineage through Mary, Christ had the same sin nature that Adam received upon eating the fruit of the the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Only His Divine Spirit through the Most High enabled Him to live the Law perfectly although living as a man, and being tempted of all things just as any man would be.
Christ also died in the same manner as Adam, though rather more quickly, dying spiritually at about noon, and physically at about three in the afternoon. When Jesus cried out to God, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' KJV Matt. 27:46, Jesus was protesting the pain of the moment when God turned away from Him, just as God turned away from Adam, though Jesus deserved it not. When Jesus gave up the ghost, it was the finishing of His death, just like Adam, and in the same order.
The Old Covenant of the Mosaic Law was conditional. Before it lay other Covenants, probably equally conditional, such as the Adamic Covenant, where sacrifice in some manner showed faith and trust in God, and brought man back into God's favor. Then there was the Noahide Covenant, and the Abrahamic Covenant, all showing God tring to find a way to reconcile man to Himself.
Thus we have the New Covenant in Christ. Breaking the the command of God not to eat the forbidden fruit brought a curse on Adam, and the entire world, eventually leading to the death of man, since all the Adamic race is required to die for having the sin nature. Not believing in Christ leaves us to the Law, which no one can keep perfectly, and hence to death through the curse on Adam.
We are not the cause of our situation. Adam was. If God chooses to give us chance after chance, and we turn from Him, He has the right, in justice, to do as He pleases with us. I am grateful that He loves us so much, that He attempts to give us a way to get to Him without breaking His own laws. If we are so untaught as to merely know Him by His creation, so tortured and tormented in life as to reject His mercy, I have no doubt He takes that into account. But a second death, no matter the manner of it, if God has offered a second life, seems very just, knowing that even in His wrath, God will be as merciful as He can be and not break His own laws.
Quote:
If the temporal suffering and one time death of Christ was the exact and literal penalty of the law, then sinners only deserve temporal suffering and one time death.
Again, the penalty of the law is to be cursed. All mankind was already dead spiritually, and dying physically before the Law was given.
There is no point in a Law that conditionally blesses man for obedience if it did not carry eternal life with it. Not only were those that kept the law to be blessed on earth, but they were to receive everlasting life. But if they sinned, they would be blotted out of God's Book.
KJV Ex.32:33 33. And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of my book.
KJV Deut 29:21 20. The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and His jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.
If there was to be but one death for any man, why then did God speak of being blotted out of the 'Book of life'? Under the Law there was that 'Book of Life', and if man kept the law, he would not be blotted out of it. This speaks to an eternal life. And if a possibility of an eternal life, then a possibility of an eternal death for not keeping the law.
Yet it was by faith that Abraham was saved, under the Noahide Covenant, and so would be others saved by faith in God, such as King David, despite the breaking of the Mosaic Covenant.
And for those that believe in Jesus, they are granted freedom, through the action of the Holy Spirit, not only from the curse of the Law, but from the curse of our sin nature inherited from Adam, in that Jesus died to purchase it all for us. The Holy Spirit works on us to help us slowly turn from our sin nature, dying to the lusts of the flesh, mind and soul. But only in faith, through grace, do we obtain Jesus' righteousness, and avoid the second death.
KJV Rev.2:10b 'be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
11. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.'
In God's grace, He gives us the chance to avoid the second death through faith. He gave it to Enoch, to Noah, to Job, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, Elijah, and innumerable others, before the Law, and during it.
Deserving the 'second death' is a matter of God's justice, tempered by grace, through faith.
As for everlasting life or death, God has the right. He made us. He can unmake us. He can punish us for taking hold of a Covenant, then breaking it. But because of His love for us, He has gone out of His way to give us life through Jesus, if we will just take it, and strive to walk in Jesus' footsteps.
We will always fail. We are human, not Divine. God keeps His own Laws, but if He can find a loophole in His laws, or a way around them, such as the 'Kinsman Redeemer' concept, He will use it for love of us.
KJV Romans 9:15. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
17. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
19. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20. Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21. Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
22. What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23. And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24. Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25. As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
26. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
As for the rest of the post of Lazarus1719, there is little point in disputing it if the foundational statement has been rebutted, however faultily. Perhaps I take the Bible too literally, or too simplistically. If so, I take the promises of God too literally, and too simplistically as well. Consequently, in Jesus' righteousness, by my faith in Him, I'll take my stand.
Blessings,
_________________
Forrest Anderson
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