Me: Whenever a church only preaches the love and blessings of God in Christ without ever mentioning the need to repent and or the consequences of sin in the life of the believer, there is a good chance that is a hyper-grace church.
Me: We do not have to choose between repentance and grace as concepts. It's not an either/or situation. One does not exclude the other.
The fact that grace abounds does not mean repentance is no longer needed. Repentance represents the total shift of the whole man. God requires this, and it includes small repentances as well as large.
Steve: What's with term "hyper-grace?" Are we labeling people unnecessarily?
You are correct in saying it's not an either/or proposition, but by using the term hyper-grace it seems like you are saying we can have too much grace. That's like saying we can have too much love. Hyper-grace is actually a Biblical term, the Greek "ho charis HYPERperisseuō" literally means hyper-grace. (See the Mounce Interlinear NT)
"The grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." (Titus 2:11-12 NIV)
Grace teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness. Is this not repentance? This passage teaches that it is grace which inspires us to repent and thus helps us to overcome. To say you can have too much grace is tantamount to saying you can have too much overcoming.
How about overcoming the apparent need to label/judge others? 8|
Hyper grace is exactly what was described: Love and blessings only, without mentioning repentance and sin.
Karen: Maybe a better term than hyper-grace in this reference would be “cheap grace:” Grace, taught without the recognition of the free gift we didn’t deserve and how much it cost Jesus to carry our sin and take our punishment.
Me: I wouldn't go so far as to say Jesus was punished.
Nathanael: Why wouldn't you say He was punished? The Bible is pretty clear that He took on our sins at that cross. In other words, He took our punishment upon Himself...the punishment of death and separation. In fact, it was the only time in all of history where Jesus felt separation from the Father. "Father, why have you forsaken me?"
The difference is He choose to bear the punishment of our sins upon Himself. He was not punished for anything that He did. Is that what you were referring to Rich?
Steve: Howdy, I think you must talking about a matter of emphasis.
"NEVER" is such an absolute. Unless one has read, recorded and listened to EVERY word, one does not know and should not accuse, IMHO. Exaggeration is a lie (sin), right?
To find out for myself I've intentionally gone to churches where accusations were made about them never mentioning repentance. It became readily apparent that lies were perpetrated causing division in the body. The devil was well served.
Now, if we are talking about a matter of emphasis then there's room for healthy discussion on where the emphasis should be and why. Regarding such discussion, we should be the model of abounding grace. The worst model too often exemplified is that of the overly argumentative Christian who somehow missed Jesus' teaching about being a peacemaker.
The New Testament sees divisive behavior as grounds for dismissal. This gives me pause.
Me: Nathanael, Bearing our sins is not the same thing as punishment. He carried our sins to the cross, the Lamb who was slain. He bore our infirmities.
The OT sacrifices were not punished, they were killed on the altar.
Col. 2:13-14 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
This means He carried our sins to the cross and left them there. You would have to show me a Scripture where it says God punished Jesus.
Me: Steve, Since I did not use the word "never," and did not mention specific churches, you would have to tell me where I have said anything that is untrue.
We are talking concepts here. If there is an unbalance in teaching, where something is minimized, balance needs to be restored.
Nathanael: While scripture may not say word for word that He was punished for our sins. But let us look at the nature of sin.
Romans says the wages of sin is death. Now you might argue that this refers to the 2nd death. But remember, Jesus physical death was so that we wouldn't die the spiritual one.
We also know that sin separates us from God. We see this with Adam. We see this in the parable of the prodigal son. And again we see this on the cross. God is said to have turned away from His son. This is said to be so because of Christ's words "God, my God why have you forsaken me?" Even if God had not actually turned away, Jesus felt separation from Him.
You can see that Jesus physically went through what sin will cause spiritually for the unsaved...death and separation.
You compare Him to the sacrificial lamb, and you are right to do so. After all, the lambs killed were foreshadowing Christ death. But there are some differences too. I won't quote all the scriptures, because that would be a sermon in of itself, but you can easily look them up if you want to.
The lamb was not to labor; Jesus spent His life doing the will of the Father, which included 3 years of ministry (which is to work). Lambs could not have any blemishes or be tortured in any way. Jesus was whipped, beaten, spat on ECT. Lambs would be bound and carried up to the alter. Jesus had to carry His alter. The lamb had it's neck severed, leading to a fast death. Jesus' death was anything but fast.
Jesus went through a lot more than any lamb ever did. Because the sacrificial lamb was just a foreshadow and not able to offer any real atonement. Jesus is the only one who could bare our sins, along with the penalty (punishment), and atone us. Otherwise, why would He have died?
Me: Nathanael, I appreciate the thoughtful comments. Love the exchange.
Again, I have to take issue with the language used. You wrote: "Jesus physical death was so that we wouldn't die the spiritual one." Jesus did not die so that we wouldn't have to. He died, and then invites us to die with him and then rise to new life in resurrection power. We must die. We don't get to avoid death. We participate in His death, which opens the door to partake of His resurrection life.
You write: "Even if God had not actually turned away, Jesus felt separation from Him." This is a deduction. Or more specifically, an assumption, from Jesus quoting Psalm 22:1. But we know there were no chapter or verse divisions until Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, put the modern chapter divisions into place in around A.D. 1227.
Therefore, Jesus more likely was pointing to the entire Psalm as being fulfilled right before their eyes. There are several powerful messianic prophecies in this psalm, like Ps. 22:18: "They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.".
I believe He was teaching, pointing toward his messiahship, even as He hung on the cross.
But, if Father turned His face away, why do we read just a few verses later in Ps. 22:24: "For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help." This directly contradicts the idea that He was ever separated from Father.
You write, "Jesus went through a lot more than any lamb ever did." Yes, indeed. And that's the point. None of it was perpetrated by God, it was all at the hand of men. God was not punishing Him, it was unrighteous men perpetrating cruelty and hatred for the sinless one.
"Penalty" and "punishment" are not synonymous. The word "penalty," (paideuó: to train children, to chasten, correct) appears 13 times in the Greek. It is applied almost always to God's children, except for Luke 23:22, where Pilate tells what he would prefer to do to Jesus. There is no verse in the NT that refers to God punishing Jesus, sorry.
One last note: Jesus did not atone for our sins. He provided propitiation. The NIV incorrectly translates hilastérion this way. Atone is a Hebrew word (kaphar), which means "to cover over." Sins were not removed by atonement. That's why He. 10:4 says, "...because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins."
Propitiation, however, is the total removal of sin. Jesus didn't "cover over" our sin, He removed it completely. His is a greater work than atonement.
Nathanael: I appreciate your understanding of the different Greek and Hebrew words, truthfully I struggle with some English words lol. And I will gladly concede that point.
When I said spiritual death, I meant the second death (hell). We of course died spiritually with Christ.
While I believe that He took our punishment upon Himself and you do not, I believe that we can agree on this...that without His death on the cross, without His taking our sins, we would have no salvation. So, thank God that we are both saved by the blood of Christ and can discuss these things in search of better understanding.
I am thankful for having people like you. People that I can discuss, or even debate, with in a healthy way. Do you have any resources on the various Greek and Hebrew words that you can point me to, in order to get better understanding of them?
Me: I have basically been nit picking, and that sometimes leads to parsing of words and quibbling over minor points of doctrine. It can certainly yield fruit, but generally, it simply leads to division. Doctrinal accuracy has merit, but it is not an indicator of salvation.
My positions have morphed over the years (um, decades...). What we have been talking about is the result of me challenging my assumptions. We so often tend to accept the spoon-fed pronouncements of pastors and teachers, without bothering to read for ourselves. That's how I came to understand Psalm 22, for example. I just decided to read it through and not look for proof texts.
As far as study, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/1-1.htm is a great resource. Word meanings, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, and dozens of commentaries, are available there. There's even Bible translations to other languages (Spanish, Romanian, etc.)
Nathanael: awesome thank you brother. I was thinking about what you said with Psalms 22 and came to the conclusion that you may be right about why He said it. It was clearly written about the Messiah, and the Jewish people would have understood what He was saying. When it comes to Jesus, Billy Graham said He was either liar, lunatic or Lord. And just this one example would have been evidence against the idea of Him being a liar. A liar would start saying anything to save themselves, even if it would mean telling the truth. Then three days later, He would raise from the dead proving He was not a lunatic either, but in fact Lord. So wanted to thank you for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment