Certainly God knows when we sin. You are misled to think that your Southern Baptist lady friend is the definitive theology for her tradition or the protestant or any gospel. Yet if God says he will never remember our sins, then what is in view? I understand that they are forgotten from his hand of justice so that we need NOT (sorry-edit) fear condemnation. But certainly the Sovereign God knows all and remembers all as it relates to our care. So if you or I have a particular sin problem he most lovingly knows all about it and cares for us properly. So if I am safely hidden in Christ and free from fear of condemnation, that certainly does not mean that God is unaware that I am a sinner still. God addresses our sin quite frequently in the Scriptures. Yet we also see that Jesus condemns no one and so in Christ we are free from the condemnation we deserve as a sinners.
One could possibly argue that our sin is absolutely unknown to God the Father and known to God the Son since we are in Christ and Christ is presently transforming creation in a glorious love gift back to the Father, 1 Corinthians 15:25-28. However, to say that Christ knows about our sin and the Father does not goes further than I would argue. The key point is that in Christ our sin is hidden from God the Father’s hand of justice and so we are free from condemnation.
Thanks St. M - so MUCH weight seems to hang on getting this particular doctrine - this thread - absolutely correct that I fear it will continue on, as it has for about 2 centuries with no resolution - and accomplish nothing but antagonizing one another.
But sometimes a fight is good for the soul, I suppose…
While Balthasar was a decent theologian, he certainly had blinders on. For instance, since he found it hard to bear witness to Paul but easier to Jesus Christ, this proves he just didn’t “get it.” Christ, according to the flesh, i.e., according to what He said while on earth, is and should be different than what He shared with Paul to give to the nations AFTER His ascension. Balthasar is just a misguided Catholic. That is why he found it hard to witness to Paul.
And again I affirm that Paul doesn’t say a word about “striving to rest fully in Christ’s righteousness alone.”
Paul doesn’t say it in Philippians 3:7-12, and so why re-quote the verse?
The difference is that the attempt to be righteous by trying to keep the law, is self-effort, and if self-effort succeeds, then what was the purpose of Christ’s death? Self-effort does sometimes succeed, but not consistently.
The practical righteousness of which I wrote, is that which comes about in the person who trusts in Christ so that he receives the grace of God to enable him to live righteously. Consider the words of the apostle Paul:
For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and to live sensible, righteous, and devout lives in the present age, expecting the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of the great God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; encourage and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. (Titus 2:11-15)
Paul says here that our Saviour Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good works. He died for the very purpose of purifying people and enabling them by God’s grace to be zealous for good works!
Isn’t that quite different from self-striving to fulfill the Mosaic law? Through Christ’s death the grace of God appeared for the salvation of all people! What did Paul say that grace would do? Make us positionally righteous in God’s sight even though we continue in sin? No. Paul said that that grace would TRAIN us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and to live sensible, righteous, and devout lives in the present age. Since it TRAINS us, then we have a part in it. We must coöperate with this enabling grace of God in order to be trained to live righteously.
You seem to think that “δικαιοω” (often translated as “justify”) means to be counted as righteous in God’s sight. But that word frequently means to be made righteous. So yes, obedience is the fruit of being made righteous by God’s by God’s enabling grace which comes about through Christ’s death. But we have a part in this by trusting in Christ to be able to impart this grace, and then by coöperating with that grace. We cannot achieve this by mere self-effort, and God will not make it happen without our coöperation. But “working together with Him” (2 Cor 6:1) we will not be receiving the grace of God in vain; that is we will not be deceiving ourselves into thinking we have received God’s grace when we haven’t.
So self-effort will not make us righteous, and God won’t make us righteous unilaterally, but working together with Him, we CAN become righteous.
Then God will see our actual righteousness rather than merely looking at a supposed cloak of Christ’s righteousness that was thrust upon us.
Holy Fool, thank you for your chart comparing the meaning given to “justification” by five different faith groups. It is very helpful.
The word “justification” is seldom used in the Orthodox Church. We much more often speak of “theosis/deification”, which is a process (of which justification is a part) that begins with baptism and lasts our whole life.
In general, I notice that Protestantism tends to be more Pauline in its terminology, while the Orthodox Church is more Johannine in its terminology.
Paul is not talking about his personal experience in Romans 7; he is talking about the person who strives to do right—apart for the enabling grace of God. Such a person “serves the law of God with his mind” but “with his flesh serves the law of sin.”
For Paul wrote in chapter 6:17,18 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
So if those to whom he was writing had been set free from sin and have becomes slaves o righteousness, he would hardly be saying in the very next chapter that he himself was a hopeless slave of sin.
Then in Romans 8, Paul provides the solution to the dilemma of those who strive for righteousness but are slaves of sin and death: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Notice Paul doesn’t say that God sent his own Son as a human being to die in order to “justify” us (in the sense of counting us righteous when we’re not) but in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.
I believe that the law to which he refers is the law of Christ that He taught in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. For example, we can fulfill the law of Christ to love our enemies and do good to them, through the enabling grace provided by Christ through his death. This enabling grace is appropriated through faith.
The reason I think this is not a reference to the Mosaic law is that Paul said in verse 4, “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.”
The concept of salvation that you espouse is not the gracious gift that has been given. The gracious gift that has been given is Christ’s deliverance from sin and the enablement to live righteous lives (with our coöperation, of course).
The angel’s words to Joseph: Matthew 1:21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
SAVED FROM THEIR SINS! Not counted as saved from their sins while they still continue to sin.
I also stand in agreement with Paidion and Geoffrey. Yes, God may be in all of us. However, we are not “in Christ” until we do the things that Christ did, that is obey the righteous laws of God. In this we are also righteous as He is righteous. As Paidion has mentioned, there are two laws being spoken of in the New Testament. One is the spiritual law, the other being the legal law. The legal law is there for those who have not yet come into the spiritual law. For example, those who murder, steal and harm others should be condemned under the legal law. When we follow the spiritual law, we do not do these things. So, in this sense we are freed from the law. These laws should remain separate, “Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”. However, they have a way of becoming mixed. When this happens, we end up with a problem. For if we follow some of these legal laws which men add to over time, whether we know it or not, we are actually breaking the law of God. For example, it was against the Jewish law to work on the Sabbath. When Jesus helped someone on the Sabbath, he was condemned under the said law. According to God, we are to help those in need. Should we let a man lay there and die in a ditch because it is the Sabbath? Of course not! For we would be going against God.This happens even in the legal systems of today. For example, should believers be forced to pay for someone’s abortion? Also, if the church is forced to marry a gay couple according to the law, this would be contrary to God. Throughout history we see that many were, by law, forced to worship other gods.When people stand up to the truth about it,they are condemned by the powers that be. Jesus came to “purify the law” and show us the way of righteousness according to God, and in doing so, He was condemned for it.
I do not deny that the work of Christ is transforming and helps us to practically leave sin. I have said the same above. However, I have also said that no one leaves this life perfectly without sin. And at the heart of the gospel I have also said that the cross has made atonement for all of our sin. Paidon, what do you think the word ‘atonement’ means? Please be fair. Your arguments against me keep suggesting that I am saying that God does not care if we sin. That is certainly not what I am saying! Romans 12:1-2 makes it clear that the application of the good news is to ‘be transformed’. However, you strongly object to Romans chapter 1-11 which makes the point that we are justified, made right in God’s eyes, through faith.
Maybe next time please use quote marks when quoting Balthasar so there won’t be any future misunderstanding.
I didn’t say Balthasar was a misguided Catholic. I said he had blinders on.
I am curious what you think Paul was getting at in using Abraham as an example of our faith and God reckoning us righteous just for believing Him in Romans 4?
As to Romans 4? That turns out to be a minefield, as this thread amply illustrates.
As a practice, I try not to develop a dogma out of a verse; and I try to let what is clearest be the guide to getting a handle on what is troublesome. I’ve witnessed a lot of bad blood between Christians, caused by wrangling over minutiae, which is cuased by what I consider to be an insufficient understanding of ‘inspiration’ and ‘revelation’, which leads to faulty hermeneutics.
Hey lets drill this down to the basics and answer this question, if Christ did not die as a sacrifice of atonement for the entirety of the sins of the entirety of mankind then what does his death even mean? The question relates directly to the original question of the post, because certainly there could be no argument that God sovereignly willed to die for our sins independent from man’s will, even against man’s will for we crucified him, but what we meant for evil, God meant for good.
Well… just to make sure I’m “fair” I won’t answer you at present, except to say that the Greek words so translated mean “means of mercy.” I will refer you to a quote of a chapter of a book I began writing years ago. (By the way, my forum name is “Paidion” not "Paidon).
The following Greek words are translated as “atonement”:
ἱλασμος (1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10) and ἱλαστηριον (Rom 3:25, Heb 9:5).
