I mean that what God, Who transcends time and space, does at any point of time and space, can apply by God’s choice to other portions of the spatio-temporal sequence.
That’s why something can be entirely completed and finished from God’s perspective (which is the primary and most important perspective upon which everything else depends), and yet from our perspective as natural creatures there can still be a progression to the fulfillment of that completion afterward. The latter doesn’t deny the former; the latter depends on the former.
If God only existed within our shared natural space/time, though, then it might (would?) be true to say there is a contradiction between Him having completely finished something already and there still being a progression to fulfillment of that completion sequentially afterward.
But then God wouldn’t really be God, only a god (of the Mormon sort perhaps). We wouldn’t be talking ontologically about supernaturalistic theism any more, or at least we wouldn’t be talking about the real God yet, but only about an entity we mistook for being the real God.
I have a vested interest, as a trinitarian Christian theist (or even merely as someone trying to talk about God Most High), in avoiding that.
Not that I deny this is God’s intention, too; but your distinction basically drains reconciliation of having any primary meaning of a relationship between people being restored. Whereas, I don’t think you’re going to find that term being used anywhere in scripture except in relation to personal relationships being restored between people. (I’m entirely sure there isn’t in the NT; I did a word-study on it years ago for the forum.)
Col 1 is the only even-distantly feasible exception. But that depends on reading a somewhat similar but substantially different meaning for two uses of that same term in close topical proximity. Certainly not impossible, if the context indicates so, but the contextual argument would have to be very strong. Whereas I think the contextual argument there runs entirely the other way.
(Meanwhile, you certainly aren’t getting that term application from Rom 8:19ff, for example. Even though it’s talking about your topic, Paul doesn’t use “concile” or “reconcile” or a cognate thereof when talking about the setting free of creation there.)
I recall (perhaps wrongly) you being quite anti-Calvinistic before (having converted from a Calvinistic soteriology), yet this is something a Calv would say: that God does not even intend to reconcile some people to Himself. I have heard some Calvs attempt to explain it on a line similar to this, too: He doesn’t even intend to try because He already knows they wouldn’t accept it. So why try to do something He knows He would fail at anyway? Thus God only even tries (and intends) to save those He knows He can 100% succeed at.
Arminians by contrast would strongly deny that God isn’t trying even for those people, and would strongly affirm instead that God does try (and intend) to save those persons, too, even though He already knows He won’t succeed. (With some Arms having a problem with why God would try anyway and using that as evidence for limiting God’s omniscience. Whereas on the other hand some Calvs would critique their Calv brothers for thereby undermining the omnicompetence of God, particularly in salvation from sin, which is a huge selling point for Calv theology at all.)
Anyway, maybe I’m misremembering (confusing you with ‘oxymoron’ perhaps?) and you’ve actually been a variety of Calvinist all the time; or maybe you’ve gone back to being Calv…? Because to deny God even intends to save some people from sin is categorically a Calv notion and not an Arm notion: Arminians per se of any variety would strenuously affirm God intends and so acts to save those people, too (even though He fails for whatever reason or reasons). That’s one of the big selling points for Arm theology at all.
(Arm evangelical selling point: we can trust that God really does intend and act to save everyone, even ‘you’. Calv evangelical selling point: we can trust that God really is capable of saving from sin whoever He intends to save, even ‘you’.)
Whosoever God intends to save but not anyone else? Or whosoever in all creation (per John 3:16)?
The former would be categorically Calv; the latter could be Arm or Kath (depending on what is also taught about God’s persistence to save or some lack thereof.)
I’m a very big fan of that concept, too. But I recognize there are limitations to how far He honors people’s choices. God doesn’t honor sin in any way, for example, even though He loves (and to that extent honors) the sinner. Sinners choose to be on par with God, but God couldn’t honor that choice even if He wanted to (which He doesn’t). Sinners choose to live free of any negative consequences to their sins; but God sure as hell doesn’t honor that choice either! Any punishment from God at all doesn’t fit into “honoring” those choices of sinners. Which, not incidentally, is why many Arminians (who often appeal to the concept of honoring choices) downplay or outright deny that God is actively punishing sinners at all (quite against practically every Biblical testimony on the topic).
Neither does God honor our choices to sin when He acts to any degree toward saving us from our sins, especially if He persists in any way in doing so. And just as I deny we earn God’s salvation from sin, I deny we earn His persistence to save us either. (But then some Arminians deny God’s persistence to save at all, in one or more ways.)
We’re actually in agreement here, except for “in this life”. By your statement, consequently, it isn’t yet a done deal for someone personally until they repent.
Except that you yourself just testified to it, practically in the same terms!
I think you’re reaching to find somewhere to disagree with me on. The verses you quote have nothing at all against “already/not-yet” per se, but they might have something against the not-yet continuing on after a certain point.
Or rather, they might have something in favor of the not-yet always continuing on, so that instead it is already/never! Which would be a typical Arm formulation in regard to any finally lost person (already saved and also never saved). Calvs on the other hand would split the already/never between the elect and the non-elect: the non-elect were never already (because God never even intended to save them), and the elect were never never (because God is competent enough to surely save whoever He chooses to save)!
Or, maybe the verses in question say something directly against the idea that “the last state which is worse than the first” is hopelessly final–while condemning people who would call Christ’s persistence to save even people who neglect His salvation, the work of the devil. (So long as such people hold to that belief, they certainly could not be saved from their own sins, even though Christ graciously provides their salvation, neither now nor in the age to come. But then, thanks to Christ’s continuing persistence to save even those who deny His persistence in saving sinners from sin, neither would their own situation be finally hopeless. The report of that incident in Matthew’s Gospel especially, doesn’t start and stop with 12:32 after all.)
Excellent! I’m glad we agree on that! (Since I said as much myself.)
This still leaves over the final enemy still to be defeated by testimony of 1 Cor 15, though.
Already, not yet! And not incidentally, an already/not-yet that is only fulfilled post-mortem!
But hint: the abolishment of death as the final enemy happens in 1 Cor 15 after the resurrection of the righteous.
Moreover, if unbelievers never eventually receive glorified or spiritual bodies (despite certainly being resurrected into some kind of body, but one without eonian life), then in fact physical death is never destroyed: because unbelievers continue living in physical (as well as spiritual) death.
An explanation of why physical death is the final enemy destroyed, that leaves physical death permanently undestroyed, is a self-refuting explanation.
St. Paul is using a technical term referring to the practice of sacrificing the first fruits of the harvest as a thanks offering to God; the gratitude is because ideally those first fruits are a promise from God that the rest of the harvest will certainly come in.
And yet strangely we’re still fighting against them–and non-universalists routinely affirm that Satan and his devils will finally win, leading unbelievers into (or succeeding in keeping them in) final and irrevocable spiritual death.
I certainly affirm the stripping happened, but the evidence indicates the fulfillment of that stripping won’t be complete until later. (Apparently after the resurrection, per 1 Cor 15!)
Agreed on both counts, although I would add that it’s more primarily up to Christ.
I apply the same concept in my novels: the rogue angels often find themselves flattened by the secret Christian in the group; but God decides when this does and does not happen, and one of the big challenges for the Christian is whether he’s going to trust and cooperate with God even when God doesn’t immediately crush the rebel angels in his presence, or whether he’s going to try to crush them himself–even if he succeeds in the latter, he would be rebelling against God by trying to go his own way and do things apart from Him.
(I wouldn’t have quoted Matt 28:18, which is about Christ’s total authority, as testimony that Christians have been given power and dominion over Satan and his devils. Luke’s testimony, notably, also includes a similar authority given to the apostles earlier in the story (in the previous chapter, paralleled in GosMatt and GosMark) after which (also paralleled in GosMatt and GosMark) the apostles totally fail, and not from lack of trying, to exorcise a demon from a young man. Apparently they thought it was primarily up to them whether they walked in this authority and power over the enemy or not. Fasting and prayer would have taught them to be more humble about it.)
Ours. As I suppose I already said.
Because ours is a rebellious spiritual death. Christ’s spiritual death wasn’t rebellious, thus had no need for abolishing. (As I also previously said.)
Seeing as how the Father gives life to the Son in any case (whether in the eternal self-existence of God self-begetting and God self-begotten, or at all levels of the life of the Son Incarnate, including His resurrection), I wouldn’t have any problem saying that the Father per se abolishes the spiritual death of the Son. But while the Son has the authority in Himself to abolish His own physical death, and even to be eonian life (thus to be spiritual life), if He abolished His righteous and loyal spiritual death (whether in God’s self-existent multi-personal unity or at any lesser level) He wouldn’t be surrendering to the Father anymore but trying to go His own way apart from the Father.
Which would be a very different kind of spiritual death: the kind that we as sinners need saving from. Maybe the Father could save the Son from that rebellious sinful spiritual death (assuming all reality, including God, didn’t instantly poof out of existence, although I fully expect it would if the Son schismed from the Father, breaking the unity of the self-existent Trinity upon which all reality depends for existence), but the Son could no longer be accurately called our Savior.
You may not agree that the Son’s spiritual death was righteous instead of rebellious, but you ought to be able to see that my position is at least logically coherent: I affirm the sinless Son dies a righteous spiritual death in faithful surrender to the Father, consequently I deny that the Son dies a sinful spiritual death, in rebellion against the Father.
On the other hand, if Jesus did abolish His own righteous spiritual death, we either couldn’t have the victory of sharing in it (and so in His resurrection and life), or we could only have the victory (if you cared to call it that) of sharing in His rebellious sinful death. Which, completely aside from the ontological problems of such a claim, is a ‘victory’ I could only imagine Satan as Satan gladly sharing in.
But I am not ignorant that “whoever are baptized into Christ Jesus, are baptized into His death, being entombed together with Him through baptism into death, so that, even as Christ was raised out from the dead ones through the glory of the Father, thus we also should be walking in newness of life.” (Rom 6:3-4)
I gladly and gratefully share the righteous spiritual death of the Son which God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) has graciously made available (instead of abolishing!), and graciously leads me to accept; and I reject the rebel spiritual death of sin which God abolishes in me through the righteous spiritual death of the Son (which and only which can empower the blood of His cross. Without the righteous spiritual death of the Son, there either would be no physical death, or the physical death would itself be sinful in rebellion of the Son against the Father.)
Literally becoming sin means literally becoming a sinner. If you are saying He literally became us as sinners, I think we have other problems to discuss. (But if you insist on that, I will note that God saved Him, or ‘him’ rather, post-mortem despite Christ dying a sinful death in literal rebellion against God. This is not a position that will lead anywhere but to universal salvation in the end, especially if Christ became us in our sins. )
Spiritual life from the Father. The Father is always giving spiritual life to the Son, and the Son is always giving it up to the Father. That’s what the loyal Father and the loyal Son do in relation to one another.
If you think the Father gave spiritual death to the Son to replace the spiritual life the Father gave to the Son and the Son gave back to the Father, then we have rather more fundamental disagreements somewhere. That would certainly not be a gospel to inspire us to have any faith in the Father, for one thing. But it would also be a schism of the substance of the Trinity.
Not coincidentally:
You have a very peculiar Bible if it reads there that Christ was separated from God spiritually and experienced the torment of hell. Because every version I have (including even the inferior so-called Textus Receptus as well as modern critical reconstructions, despite Acts having the most variant readings of any NT text) reads that Christ was not forsaken in hades (nor did His flesh experience decay). Nor is there even the slightest textual transmission variant issue I can find on this. Which shouldn’t be surprising since Peter (by Luke’s report) was quoting directly from David’s psalm again as he had already done. Which says the same thing, “for You shall not be forsaking my soul in the unseen”.
I recommend you find a better translation. Whichever version you’re reading is doing you no favors.
By the same principle, had Jesus experienced Adam’s sinful spiritual death, instead of the Son’s own righteous spiritual death, the Son would have needed saving from sin just like Adam, and so could not be the savior of anyone from sin (no more than Adam could be).
Whatever translation (or very loose paraphrase?) you’re using is misleading you again: there is nothing at 2 Cor 5:19-21 even testifying to Jesus dying, much less experiencing, as you quoted from your translation, “his own spiritual death”; nor about Christ being imputed with the sins of the world; although it does say that God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself not reckoning (or imputing as some translations have it) their offenses to them!
Isaiah 53, meanwhile, ironically contrasts our false beliefs (“we ourselves esteemed Him struck down and afflicted by God”) with the truth of the matter: He was bearing our sicknesses and pains because YHWH caused our injustices to collide in Him. (Literally to encounter Him.) He wasn’t bearing punishment from God, the prophet is quite clear about that being the wrong interpretation; He was bearing the sicknesses and pains we give when we’re being unjust. We pierce Him through with our transgressions (as sinful men pierced Him on the cross although He was innocent), we crush Him with our injustices (as He was beaten by sinful men before being hung on the cross). By oppression and unjust judgment He was taken away.
That is the sense in which YHWH “crushes” Him: it’s still by YHWH’s authority and permission (including the Son’s voluntary permission), so ultimately it’s still YHWH’s (including the Son’s) authoritative responsibility, but the action involved is to bear the abuse of sinners, not the punishment of God for sins the Son never did.
(I do affirm that the Son shares in the suffering of sinners, too, including the sufferings inflicted on sinners by the Son in judgment! But Isaiah is talking more about suffering along with victims of sin here, indeed as the chief victim of any sin by anyone anywhere. Still it is also true that the Son pours Himself out to death in being accounted, or reckoned, or imputed with the transgressors as well as with the victims of the transgressors. Which He does for the sake of the transgressors themselves. He Himself bears the transgressions of many transgressors yet intercedes for those transgressors.)