29 Oct 19
@kellyjay saidHow long will it be before you are ignoring @pathtowardswholeness I wonder.
Welcome to the Forums, and RedHotPawn!
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29 Oct 19
6 edits
So what Jesus means in Matthew 26:28 is "for [these are My words] of the covenant, which is poured out for many for [FREEdom from] sins" which parallels what He said in John 8 about those who abide in His word being FREEd from committing sin.
By reading "freedom" everywhere "forgiveness" is written you hope to, I think, just make the Son of God just a martyr. Ie. in some sense the blood of say Bobby Kennedy or Mahatma Ghandi or Joan of Ark or Dietrich Boenhoffer or Abraham Lincoln just as much freed men from their sins.
Christians take this rather as pointing back to the propitiation sacrifices under the law of Moses. There God said without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22; comp Lev. 17:11)
When God saw the blood on the doorposts of the Israelites He said He would PASS OVER them in judgment.
Exodus 12:13 - "And the blood shall be a sign for you upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there will be no plague upon you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt."
Jesus was teaching that He, the Son of God, was that divine / human lamb whose blood will cause the infinitely righteous God to exempt the sinner from judgment. This is both internally freeing and externally freeing as well.
Internally it is liberating because the human spirit is made divine life BECAUSE of righteousness. This is deeply internal in the spiritual being of men and the world cannot give this.
"But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the [human] spirit is life because of righteousness." (Romans 8:10)
The human spirit becomes the divine and eternal ZOE life because justification from God has brought to the believer righteousness. This also has to do with the cleansing of the stain in his conscience which has haunted him and which he could never rationalize away, or suppress away, or ignore away.
"How much more" [then the blood of bulls and calves] will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14)
This cleansing of the conscience then affords a supernatural boldness to come into the very presence of God as never had been before.
Hebrews 10:19 - "Having therefore, brothers, boldness for ENTERING the Holy of Holies in the blood of Jesus." Certainly this too is FREEDOM.
I know that you would rather restrict the discussion to Matthew (selectively) because you hold a hope that you understand better the work of Christ then the writer of the book of Hebrews.
But even you lose the case by artificially limiting to Mathew and "Jesus only meant to free us with no appeasement to God involved."
"Let's see if we can make Jesus just a good typical martyr (the secular sense) rather than a divine propitiatory offering to the real God for man's sins."
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29 Oct 19
2 edits
Just making "forgiveness" into "freedom" doesn't do it. For one the resurrection is taught by Jesus in Matthew 28,29.
"For this is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. (v.28)
But I say to you, I shall by no means drink of this product of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of My Father." (v.29)
Jesus cannot do that unless from death He both rises again and arrives again to establish on the earth God's kingdom. His rising again from pouring out His blood in death is also a sign that God has accepted His sacrifice. We needn't go to Romans for this fact. I think we can see it also in Matthew.
"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes. And they will condemn Him to death. And deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised." (Matt. 20:18,19)
Of course God will do this as a miracle vindicating Him.
All of His going to Calvary to be on the cross is the purpose of His life. And the vindication of His death by resurrection seals that He was not deluded but truly the Mediator of the new covenant in which God, ... I sayGod says their sins and iniquities He will by no means remember any more.
The prophet Jeremiah in 31:31-34
"Indeed, days are coming, declares Jehovah, when I will make a NEW COVENANT with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I tool them by their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, ... But this is the covenant which I will make ...
I will put My law in their inward parts and write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be My people,
And they will no longer teach, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for all of them will know Me, from the little one among them even to the great one among them, declares Jehovah,
for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
By death and resurrection Jesus Christ became the initiator of this new covenant to all who will believe in Him and take it. God vindicated Him in this.
Your fight is against this divine and supernatural vindication from God.
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07 Nov 19
@KellyJay
By their fruiits you shall know them. Okay then, Christians are a bunch of of racist Trump supporters who have no qualms voting a liar and unrepentant sex offender into the highest office of the land. Glad we got that cleared away.
07 Nov 19
@americalost saidDon't be a bigot.
@KellyJay
By their fruiits you shall know them. Okay then, Christians are a bunch of of racist Trump supporters who have no qualms voting a liar and unrepentant sex offender into the highest office of the land. Glad we got that cleared away.
Not all Christians are conservative hypocrites. Most are, I'll give you that, but there are many who choose not to limit themselves in that way, and who actually choose to practice what Jesus preached.
07 Nov 19
@americalost saidI got news for you; TRUMP has nothing to do with Christianity any more than any other President, it is between us and God, not us who we identify with politically. You are barking up the wrong tree here. Political parties are not relevant; it is our hearts before God, not the labels we attach to ourselves or others. If you choose to hate others due to some label you put on them, you are not walking with God and are in danger of Hell for the hate you have.
@KellyJay
By their fruiits you shall know them. Okay then, Christians are a bunch of of racist Trump supporters who have no qualms voting a liar and unrepentant sex offender into the highest office of the land. Glad we got that cleared away.
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07 Nov 19
@americalost saidSir, your uncle is a Christian, your dentist, your delivery driver, the chap who once saved you from drowning, the doctor who treated you, your grandmother.
@KellyJay
By their fruiits you shall know them. Okay then, Christians are a bunch of of racist Trump supporters who have no qualms voting a liar and unrepentant sex offender into the highest office of the land. Glad we got that cleared away.
To link Christians in such a generalized way to racism or Trumpism is just plain silly and not something I suspect you would do in the real world. I know plenty of atheists who are racist Trump supporters, and indeed many Christians who are on the completely opposite end of such a spectrum.
Not a great start to your forum posting.
@kellyjay saidIt's interesting, though, that you were able to criticize Barack Obama for his character and behaviour on this forum and, by contrast, defend Trump against criticism of his character and behaviour [at least once in a conversation with me, and, if I recall correctly, several times on the Debates Forum], and yet I cannot remember you ever once criticizing any churches, or church figures, or pastors or other conservative Christian leaders for endorsing Trump, or for not criticizing him, or for suggesting that Trump DOES have a lot "to do with Christianity" in the US political domain. For you to feign a principled or disinterested stance on this issue is risible.
I got news for you; TRUMP has nothing to do with Christianity any more than any other President, it is between us and God, not us who we identify with politically.