The Evangelical Universalist Forum

2 Cor 5:19 and the only sin that is not forgiven in any age!

Theory? What do you think the OT sacrifices were a type and shadow of Aaron? What do you think the OT feasts were a type and shadow of Aaron? What did the Jew have to do when he committed sin in the OT? He had to go to find a spotless clean animal to bring to the High Priest to be sacrificed in his place to atone for his sin. Were the animals gulity of anything? No, but their is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood and the animals were a sin substitute for the guilty Jews who committed sin. The just for the unjust. Made to be sin, who knew no sin. Sound familiar? More on this below.

In Leviticus 16:29-34 we have another type of Christ called the “goat of atonement” and the “scape-goat” The priest took two goats. The first was killed and sacrificed for the sins of the people just like Jesus was on the cross. But the imagery is gets even more interesting. In the New Testament, Hebrews 9:11 goes on to say, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

The second goat of Lev 16, was the “scape-goat”. When someone says, “I am just a scape-goat”, we understand that this person is being unfairly blamed for some wrong another has committed. Again, Jesus fits the imagery. The Jewish priest placed his hands on this second goat which symbolized a transfer of all the sins of the people to the goat. Then the goat was taken out to the deep wilderness and released. In the same way Jesus suffered unfairly on the cross for sins He did not commit. He was innocent and sinless yet suffered as if He had sinned. Jesus is our scape-goat! Just as the scape-goat was driven into the wilderness. Jesus was crucified outside the gate of the city of Jerusalem. (bible.ca/D-blood-antitype.htm I do not endorse all of this webites doctrines)

Aaron, 2 Cor 5:19 says God is no longer “imputing” sin to our accounts. How can God do this? Because God is not mad at the world anymore. The sin barrier has been dealt with. Sin is no longer the issue; the price has been paid once and for all. God sent His only Son to bare our sin, become sin itself, and then judged Him without mercy for that sin. Now in order to partake in this salvation one must respond by faith to appropriate this grace into their lives. We are not condemned because of sin. We are condemned by our unbelief (John 3:18).

2Cor 5:21 " For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Do you see this, Aaron? Jesus was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin. Jesus was our sin substitute.

1 Peter 3:18 " For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. Jesus suffered for sin…the just fot the unjust…Who’s sin do you think he suffered for, Aaron?

Aaron, you’re walking a line that the Gnostic’s walked in 1John & 2 John. Who do you think John was warning us about in those books? False Gnostic prophets that denied Jesus was in the flesh… denying who Jesus said He was and did on the cross, etc. What was their fate? 1 John 5:16 " the sin unto death" that God said don’t bother to pray for because they crossed the line of no return. Sound familiar?

Aaron, as you can see, Jesus being our sin substitute is no Theory, but truth that has been establish in the word of God! Whether you accept it or not does not make God’s word change, my friend. His word is settled in Heaven, Forever! Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. ( Matt 24:35)

Btw, this is way off topic… lets bring it back to the OP. :wink:

Hm. Strange that I quoted it in more context than either you or Andrew Wommack did, then. :wink:

Your portions from Andrew Wommack certainly do not derive a position against universalism from 2 Cor 5:19. On the contrary, you (and Andrew) have to deny that in Christ God actually succeeds (or even really acts) to reconcile the world unto Himself. At most He reconciles Himself to the world (the opposite of what is stated in the scriptures). He may act to provide an mere opportunity to reconcile the world to Himself, in your theology, perhaps; but He doesn’t actually succeed in reconciling the whole world to Himself (and elsewhere you would deny that reconciling the whole world to Himself was even in His mind at all).

You also must have missed the place where Andrew wrote that God didn’t send His Son to give us some divine revelation of what we have to do to get right with God. He does, and did, for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. You have to offer instructions (like all the other founders of the world’s religions) about what we have to do to obtain salvation.

Andrew does too, eventually–indeed he has to go to the extent of saying that we must repent of our unbelief and not of our sins! Perhaps he doesn’t consider unbelief a sin, but either way he has to come up with some way for Jesus to save us from some hopelessness of God. Otherwise, Andrew would be a universalist! (And maybe an ultra-u.)

But Andrew’s article isn’t overly coherent anyway, so it’s probably just as well you don’t pay too much attention to it. :mrgreen: (That may be your fault, however, for compositing multiple articles together without noting who said what.)

Anyway, 2 Cor 5:19 certainly establishes that all sins are paid for by Jesus and sins are no longer being imputed (or reckoned) unto anyone’s account. You can’t find anything in that verse or nearby to make this come out to a testimony against universalism, though–apparently even in Andrew’s article, which is why you had to port in a paragraph from someone else about the sin against the Holy Spirit–which in turn has nothing to say (so far as you reported) about the testimony of 2 Cor 5:19.

The end result is a mere contradictory nullity: even you have to admit that one verse establishes (and strongly so) that all sins are paid for and not being imputed into anyone’s account; and then simply contradict yourself a moment later with “But there is one sin that is not included.”

As I wrote elsewhere: we can interpret Mark 3:28 in light of Mark 2:29 or we can interpret 29 in light of 28. One of these is to interpret in the spirit of the ministry of reconciliation (and I had exactly the contexts of 2 Cor 5:19 in mind when I wrote that), and the other simply is not.

Or, we read the contexts and added them up and discussed them in depth. Or anyway I did. :wink: (Though I suspect Justin was seeing what I talked about in detail.)

At any rate, it makes no sense to say that God is no longer imputing sin to our account and is not mad at the world anymore; and then to justify hopeless condemnation on the ground that we are still condemned in our sins until we repent (not even of our sins, apparently, but of unbelief!!–and yet you accuse the real Aaron of walking the line of gnosticism, salvation by knowledge), while elsewhere talking about grieving the Holy Spirit until He withdraws forever (when you aren’t talking about God respecting free will so much that He allows free will to be permanently destroyed by sin or else destroys it permanently Himself). The whole thing is a theological mishmosh.

It gets even worse when you have Jesus being slain unfairly as the scapegoat for our sins–mixing your metaphors since the scapegoat wasn’t slain at all–which apparently must mean that God (the Father) unfairly slew God (the Son) for something the Son never did wrong, and moreover judged the Son without mercy. Really? Without mercy? Then there could have been no resurrection of the Son!

At any rate, I see that in trying to make the sin against the Holy Spirit a hopeless cause, you have now had to come up with the idea that the sin against the Holy Spirit isn’t even sin, but only unbelief. Otherwise, people would be guilty of the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Instead they are guilty of a blasphemy that is unbelief but not sin, or something like that.

You would have been better off not to follow your sources in trying to make out that the problem is not sin but unbelief: but even you can tell that 2 Cor 5:19 talks about all sins being paid for and forgiven and not held against people. So God has to be hopelessly condemning people for something that isn’t sin, right?!

Wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong. As you yourself might have learned from not only reffing John 3:18 but going one step farther to verse 19. “Now this is the crisis: that the light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light, for the acts were wicked. For every one who is committing evil deeds is hating the light and is not coming to the light, lest his acts may be exposed.” Call it the sin of unbelief, as you were doing before, but don’t try to make out that the problem isn’t a lack of repentance from something other than sin, just so that you can dodge what 2 Cor 5:19 says (along with Mark 3:28, even more absolutely emphatically) about all sins being utterly forgiven and not being held against persons.

The genius who came up such a moronic phrase must have been St. Luke. Or St. Peter. Or St. John. Or St. Mark. Or John the Baptist. Or St. Paul. Or, who knows, maybe Jesus… :unamused:

Mark 1:4, Luke 3:3; John the Baptist comes preaching a baptism of repentance unto the sending away or pardon of sin. (He then challenges Pharisees and Sadducees coming down to be baptized to be producing fruit worthy of repentance, Matt 3:7-8, Luke 3:7-8.)

Acts 13:24; Paul agrees that John came preaching baptism of repentance, and later (38) talks about how through Jesus Christ is being announced to them the pardon of sins.

Acts 2:38: “Now Peter is declaring strongly toward them, ‘Repent and be baptized each of you, on the name of Jesus Christ, into the pardon of your sins, and you shall be obtaining the gratuity of the Holy Spirit.’”

Acts 3:19: [Peter preaching] “Repent, then, and turn about toward the erasure of your sins, so that season of refreshing should be coming from the face of the Lord.”

Acts 5:31: [Peter preaching again] “This Inauguator and Savior * God exalts to His right, to give repentance to Israel and the pardon of sins.”

Acts 8:22: [Peter to Simon Magus] “Repent, then, from this evil of yours, and beseech the Lord if, consequently, the notion of your heart will be forgiven you.”

Rom 2:3-4; “Yet are you reckoning on this, O man who are judging those committing such acts [the sins listed in the previous chapter] and are doing the same, that you will be escaping the judgment of God? Or are you despising the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, being ignorant that the kindness of God is leading you into repentance?” (Hardness of heart in regard to sin is mentioned as leading to indignation and fury from God shortly afterward.)

2 Cor 12:21 “Not again at my coming will my God be humbling me toward you; and I shall be mourning for many who have sinned before and are not repenting on the uncleanness and prostitution and wantonness which they commit.”

Luke 5:32; Jesus comes to call sinners to repentance.

Luke 13:2-5; Jesus affirms that those who have recently suffered calamities are not worse sinners than other people dwelling in Galilee and Jerusalem, yet if the ones who hear Him do not repent they shall likewise be perishing.

Luke 15:7: “I am saying to you that thus will be joy in heaven on one sinner repenting, than on ninety-nine just persons who have no need of repentance.” (In reply to Pharisees and scribes grumbling that Jesus receives and eats with sinners.)

Luke 17:3: “Yet if your brother should be sinning, rebuke him, and if should ever indeed repent, forgive him. And if he should ever be sinning against you seven times a day, and if he should ever be turning about seven times a day toward you, saying ‘I am repenting’, you shall be forgiving him.”

Luke 24:47: Jesus says that repentance for the pardon of sins is preached in His name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.

Rev 2:2-7: Jesus (by John’s report) sure isn’t exhorting the church of Ephesus to repent of unbelief! (If anything, He praises them on their superior levels of belief and even faithfulness under heavy blows.) The problem with the congregations of Pergamum and Thyatira and Laodicia aren’t that they need to repent of unbelief per se either. (Christ would actually prefer for the Laodicians to be cold toward Him than what they currently are!)

Rev 9:20: the acts of their hands of which the rest of mankind not killed in the calamities refuse to repent, are not only unbelief, but an obvious (and stereotypical) list of sins.

These texts are all rock-solid stable in the surviving copies, by the way. I could add several other examples where the term ‘repentance’ is not specifically in view but some other equivalent or related notion is being discussed. But that would quickly grow (even more!) tiresome.

In short, I recommend getting away from the notion that what God (supposedly hopelessly) judges a person for is not sin but rather “unbelief”. On the contrary, He judges for the sin of unbelief, too, but because it’s a sin, not because it’s unbelief. (On the contrary, God is disposed to “wink” at ignorant unbelief!–as Paul colorfully puts it during the Mars Hill forum.) Trying to get away from the total forgiveness of sin proclaimed in 2 Cor 5:19 by making out that God judges us for something other than sin, including the sin of unbelief, is not an accurate (much less a winning) strategy. It would be better to take that statement and its contexts as an already/not-yet predictive declaration: all the world shall be forgiven of their sins, and indeed from God’s perspective this has even already been completely accomplished. The only question is how God shall enact this total victory over sin and the reconciliation of all sinners to Himself historically, i.e. how long it will take and by what methods all sinners shall in themselves be reconciled to God as God reconciles and has reconciled us to Himself in Himself.

But as you (and your sources) are well aware: that would be some kind of universalism. :slight_smile: (Thus the attempt at trying to make the judgment of God come out to be for something other than sin.)*

Jason

Remaining in willful unbelief is the sin that Jesus said has no forgiveness. All sins are forgiven but the sin to blaspheme the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness in any age. Jesus did not die to take the ability to choose from you.

No where in those scripture references does it say for one to repent of their sins to be forgiven. It does say “Repent” which the biblical definition is “to change ones mind”. So, you can say to repent is to “change ones mind of Jesus”, but the bible never refers repentance as to repenting of their personal sins to receive forgiveness. Forgiveness is in Jesus, not repenting of your sins that he paid for.

When someone tries to add “repenting of sin” or emotionalism to the free gift of God he is saying that what Jesus Christ did for us is not enough. We cannot do anything about our sin. This is why Jesus Christ had to die on the cross as a substitute for us.

Notice that “Godly sorry” is not repentance but rather it works to repentance. In other words a person can become sorrowful of his sinful ways and then repent (change his mind about Christ.) Jesus Christ is always the object of salvation not turning away, refraining, quitting or whatever of sin. In Mark 1:15 Jesus said speaking to unbelievers in Galilee “Repent (metanoeo change your mind) and believe the Gospel.” It tells us right here what we are to change our mind about. The Gospel, not our sins. He was speaking to unbelievers who did not believe the gospel. We are condemned because of unbelief not because of our sins.

John 3:18 “He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already BECAUSE he has not believed in the name of the uniquely born Son of God."

Since we are condemned because of unbelief does it not follow that we should turn from our unbelieving mind and not our sins? We are not condemned because of sin. Repenting of sin prior to salvation is meaningless because God has already judged Jesus for them already. Sin has been dealt with. Changing your mind about Christ is repenting which is salvation. We partake of this forgiveness and salvation when we believe in Christ.

Sin is the pride of our heart against God as expressed through our lawless actions (including legalistic ones). This is beautifully laid out in Romans 1. Thus changing our mind about Christ and repenting of sin (which is also changing our viewpoint on sin - to let God deal with the root of it in our hearts) is one and the same. To say that sin is merely an individual action is legalistic in origin. And changing one’s mind about Christ in merely a theological sense is not repenting, it’s just changing your creed or mantra which if not accompanied by an understanding and change in the heart is just a meaningless statement.

Let’s lay these two versions out side by side:

A) God calls us not to repent of sins that we do but just change our theological statement.
B) God calls us to drastically be changed by viewing the overpowering revelation of His Son and come to an agreement with Him on sin, and thus to cease sinning.

Now, which one sounds more like the powerful sting and transformative reality of the gospel? :smiley:

Notice that “Godly sorry” is not repentance but rather it works to repentance. In other words a person can become sorrowful of his sinful ways and then repent (change his mind about Christ.) Jesus Christ is always the object of salvation not turning away, refraining, quitting or whatever of sin. In Mark 1:15 Jesus said speaking to unbelievers in Galilee “Repent (metanoeo change your mind) and believe the Gospel.” It tells us right here what we are to change our mind about. The Gospel, not our sins. He was speaking to unbelievers who did not believe the gospel. We are condemned because of unbelief not because of our sins.

I read that already. I don’t see how that’s relevant.

Not at all… Because when you understand that Jesus did not die to take away your ability to choose then there is no contradictory nullity. Jesus did not pay for a person who willfuly sins against the Holy Spirit has no love for God or any desire to be reconciled to Him…Jesus did not pay for a consistent and continual denial of the truth, hardening one’s heart against God and His revelation of Himself in Christ. In other words, Jesus did not pay for to blaspheme the HS. He said so himself. These are not isolated acts, but a condition of the soul.

Jesus paid for all the sins and blasphemies of the world… but one… Jesus said himself that all sins and blasphemies against Him and the Father are forgiven but their is one sin and blasphemy that will never be forgiven. Jesus distinctively separates this sin of blasphemy from all other sins. To blaspheme the HS with a consistent and continual denial of the truth to the point of ones heart hardening against God that he has no desire to repent but only to blaspheme and remain in unbelief. Examples: Romans 1:18-32 ; Rev 16:8-11; Hebrews 3:12-14; 6:4-6; 10:26-29; 1 John 5:16. There is no forgiveness when one reaches this point and is guilty of the eternal sin that has eternal consequences!

Pity I wasn’t given the free choice of whether to be born or not - that was just foisted off on me by God.

Nope, It wasn’t. That was foisted off by your parents by the law of genesis (Gen 1:28). :wink:

Yes it was - If God hadn’t set the whole thing going then there would be no problem - if your God is sovreign (even when that’s an embarrassment to you) then He ultimately has responsibility.

In the Old Testament if you didn’t put a rail around your roof and someone fell off the roof while you weren’t even there you were liable under the law for their injuries - even if they were dancing about recklessly.

The creator is responsible for the whole of His/Her/Its creation. That’s why UR works and ET doesn’t - because God fesses up to his responsibilities and puts everything right - even freeing the narrow minded fundamentalist from their prison shackles.

Aaron, if Jesus didn’t pay for that then he didn’t pay for anything. That’s the very essence of sin. But thank God that he did or we’d all be goners! :smiley:

But let’s examine this as if that’s not true. If Jesus didn’t pay to be able to influence our actions and come behind our actions so to speak into our motivations and cause us to love him so much that we cease sinning, then we can never become one with him or his Father. We are truly alone deep inside our soul, and to me that’s a horrific hell that no supposed heaven could ever dull the pain of.

Justin, you’re confused, my brother. I’m not going to keep repeating myself. Pray for discernment.

I’m guessing that’s your stock response to anything you don’t understand. Maybe you’re the one who needs to pray for discernment, brother. :wink:

After all, I’m the enlightened one here (boy, that’s fun to say - no wonder you do it so often! :wink: :stuck_out_tongue:)

As I noted before, even you admit that we are talking about a sin that has to be repented of here. Not merely technical unbelief, but an actual moral sin. I have certainly never once said that willful unbelief (whether remaining in it or otherwise) is not a sin, nor that God condemns us on a ground other than that willful unbelief is a sin. On the contrary, I rigorously affirm it!

Again, you’re affirming that the sin against the Holy Spirit is in fact a sin. Until it becomes a problem for your theology to acknowledge that the sin against the Holy Spirit is a sin. It certainly isn’t a problem for my theology! :laughing:

But then again, neither is it a problem for my theology to affirm and not deny that all sins and blasphemies however great they may be can and will be (and from God’s perspective already are) forgiven, while still affirming that in some way the sin against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. It’s simply a question of whether I trust in the eonian gospel, or whether I do not, as to which side of Mark 3:28-29 I interpret the meaning of in light of the other.

“Trust”, by the way, is another (and in many circumstances much more accurate) meaning for the Greek word typically translated “belief”. Do you trust the Holy Spirit to succeed in the eonian evangel, or at the very least to keep at evangelism without giving up hope so long as there are any persons still sinning? Or do you not trust the HS to do this?

Considering that I have never once EVER said so, you’re telling this to absolutely the wrong person. Consequently, when I trust the Holy Spirit to be powerful to save while (and including) keeping open the ability to choose repentance in a sinner, I am being entirely consistent in my theology.

Remind us again whose theology, between us, involves the ability to choose repentance being taken from us. Because that certainly isn’t my theology. I strongly affirm God’s competence and intention and active ongoing persistence to successfully protect that ability to choose forever.

How about you? Because when you start doing the same, then you can lecture other people about the ability to choose being taken away from anyone (sinner or otherwise). But you still won’t be able to lecture me on it: I was already there, and will still be there, and have been there for possibly longer than you’ve been a Christian at all. :wink:

Except everywhere (at least) I quoted from the scriptures.

At this point you’re only repeating what you quoted from those other people. How does ignoring everything I quoted from the scriptures (which I feel pretty safe in saying I could extend farther for a while) while just going back to repeat your copy-paste from someone else, count as having a responsible discussion on this topic??

Also the non-biblical definition; the word literally means “after-mind”. And yes, I am already very well aware of what metanoia means; and have been so (including as a universalist) for many years.

(It also has the connotation of resolution of one’s intentions. Which is why Jesus wasn’t repenting of His sins to be baptized with John’s baptism for repentance unto the remission, or sending away, or forgiveness of sins. He was acting in accordance with His resolve to accomplish all righteousness in the sending away of sins. For people who had sinned, though, John was preaching repentance in the sense of changing not only their minds as an intellectual choice but their hearts in their willed intentions–unto the sending away, or forgiveness, of sins. Which is only one of many scriptural testimonies to this concept that I quoted, but which you had to ignore. :wink: )

And the only way to avoid universalism from this (as you seem increasingly well aware) is to try to make out that God, the Holy and Righteous One, condemns us for something other than sin, even in the case of the SIN against the Holy Spirit.

For example. :wink:

Incidentally, the source that you’re repeating over again, rather than actually thinking about my reply (and maybe changing your mind), forgets to mention that metanoia is absolutely NOT “emotionalism”; and that the term which he is translating “change of emotion” is only used about 6 times in the NT. Whereas metanoia is used dozens of times.

He’s slurring things to make the two terms seem equivalent in meaning, because he thinks it’ll make his case look stronger. He is not doing you any favors along the way. :wink:

Leaving aside the reference to a substitutionary death (which many universalists agree with): no universalist at all is saying that what Jesus Christ did for us is not enough. The only people saying that are Arminians. (Even Calvs avoid that in their theology, at the cost of claiming that what Jesus Christ did was not for everyone.)

Repeating a copy-paste from someone else and underlining it this time, does not address all the positive scriptural citations I gave last time, much less refute them. Your source is reading an exclusion into an argument from silence that isn’t even silent.

But yes, for God’s sake, as well as for your own and for the people around you: I most certainly exhort you to change your mind and believe in the eonian gospel of Jesus Christ, rather than to keep persisting in believing something less than the eonian gospel! :slight_smile:

It isn’t about unbelief apart from sin, or even only about sinful unbelief (although that, too). It’s about sin.

Again, one of us is strongly affirming God’s competence, intention and persistent action to protect our ability to choose; and one of us is not. One of us, in other words, is affirming the ongoing evangelism of sinners to universal victory in freely given love; and the other of us is looking for ways to shut down that evangelism permanently, one way of which he has recently decided must be that God either fails to protect or never intended to protect the ability to choose repentance.

Even a blind person could figure out which of us is which at this point. :wink: (Even a willfully blind person could figure that out, even if he prefers to squint his eyes against it.)

Meanwhile, I suppose to try to protect your position you could heave back to Calvinism, and deny that Jesus does not pay for the sins of the whole world (as you earlier affirmed, proper to Arminianism) but only pays for some sins–not for the sins of the hopelessly damned which He never paid for at all.

For example. :mrgreen:

(Admittedly, I read that first before writing the paragraph leading into your quote there. But I could have predicted it, too. I made my previous comments about the Calv option before reading that, for example.)

He certainly didn’t say so Himself (i.e. that He did not pay for the sins of the whole world) anywhere you’ve bothered to mention so far. Good luck finding where He did say so Himself.

Rather, you’re trying to draw an inference to this (quite Calvinistic) concept as a way of resolving Mark 3:28 in favor of the superiority of Mark 3:29–i.e. in favor of the concept that where grace exceeds sin hyperexceeds–instead of the other way around.

I’ve already written extensively on Rev 16, and especially on the Epistle to the Hebrews. (The short answer being that you’re totally reading hopelessness of repentance into the continuing impenitence at that point of Rev 16, not even counting my extensive analysis about what the lead-in to that section means; and you should have chosen something other than the Epistle to the Hebrews for your evidence, since the author actually quotes at the culmination of his point in chapter 10 from the Song of Moses–where the point of God’s vengeance is precisely to lead His people to repentance and restoration, which He reveals He will be successful about.)

I’m pretty sure I’ve written at least a little on this forum about the sin unto death (1 John 5:16) and St. Paul’s warning that we had better not be expecting God to hopelessly zorch even the staunchest sinners, unless we want Him to extend no mercy to us instead for our sins (which you included in your scripture reference set–but unsurprisingly forgot to include in your theology. :wink: ) It might be time for me to revisit those, perhaps.

Until then, I will point out that I already quoted Rom 2:3-4 (in context of the verses you quoted from just prior) in my list of places where the scriptures talk about condemnation and repentance of sin, not merely of an unbelief that has no relation to sin (or even only sinful unbelief).

Aaron- doesn’t God command all men everywhere to repent?