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Luther and Erasmus: The Controversy Concerning the Bondage of the Will
Protestant Reformed Theological Journal ^ | April 1999 | Garrett J. Eriks

Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD

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To: 1000 silverlings
The Hebrew word used definitely means a redeemer

The Greek word comes from the Greek-language OT written for Alexandrian Jews 200 years prior to Christ, the Septuagint (LXX), the same Old Testament quoted in 95% of the cases by the Apostles in the Gospels. I have no idea why you would be using the source the Gospels did not use.

Besides, the tense and the context of the whole sentence shows that Job is talkiing about the Holy One who is about to redeem/rescue him from his presentsufferings. Your version talks about the "latter day"? We are reading two diffreent stories here.

5,281 posted on 04/28/2006 11:22:33 AM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50

"May God bless you blue-duncan. What a wonderful idea!"

The Holy Spirit has ways beyond our understanding to bring the family around to what He thinks is important for the times. God bless you too and lead you to a rich supporting partner so that you can fulfill His will with joy!


5,282 posted on 04/28/2006 11:33:19 AM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: blue-duncan
The Holy Spirit has ways beyond our understanding to bring the family around to what He thinks is important for the times.

Amen to that.

5,283 posted on 04/28/2006 11:40:55 AM PDT by MarMema (Buy Danish, support freedom)
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To: All
Old Georgian proverb...

"A man who had no horse yearned for a saddle"

5,284 posted on 04/28/2006 11:42:53 AM PDT by MarMema (Buy Danish, support freedom)
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To: MarMema; kosta50

"Amen to that."

You can join Kos and me and that makes 2 or 3 gathered in His name and that becomes dangerous for the enemy. Just as your home page demonstrates.


5,285 posted on 04/28/2006 11:53:18 AM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: kosta50; qua; Dr. Eckleburg; annalex

I respond to this ping with trepidation, because I have no desire to get into a major discussion, especially on a topic that has been hashed out extensively already --granted, that describes this entire thread. :-)

That said, I will pick up on something that both qua and Kosta have alluded to in different ways. Kosta (jokingly, I hope) referred to himself as a "heretic" for not believing certain things. Qua alludes to his perception that Kosta's portrayal of OT - NT (dis)continuity is perhaps not the consensus view of Orthodoxy.

It certainly is not, although that does not at all make Kosta a heretic! :-)

The Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles all contain ample evidence that Christ and the Apostles portrayed the Christian faith as being in direct continuity with the faith of Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and all the prophets. The fact that Christ "came unto his own, and his own received him not" does not change this self-understanding.

The writings of the fathers, early or later, continue this self-understanding of the Church as the New Israel and as the genuine continuity with the faith of the patriarchs and prophets. Christ overturned, according to this view, the perverted Judaism of his day, but stood in continuity with the faith that he himself, as the "He Who Is", instilled into the Hebrew people through revealing Himself to the patriarchs and prophets.

St. Athanasius stood "contra mundum" while the whole world was Arian, yet he was the one who was right. So also the fact that a majority of Jews (certainly the vast majority of the leadership of that particular time) did not know their own Scriptures and recognize and accept Christ and the teachings of the Apostles does not change the fact that the Christian Church was and is the continuity of the faith of the patriarchs and prophets.

According to this understanding, post-Christian Judaism (or the Judaism of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes who were contemporaries of Christ) is not the place to look if one wants to understand the pre-Christian faith of the Hebrew patriarchs and prophets.

Again, I have painted with broad brush-strokes, but this is the traditional self-understanding of Christianity as I understand it from the New Testament and the writings of the Fathers. One can agree or disagree with this self-understanding, and I am unaware of anything that would indicate that disagreeing would make someone a heretic, but it is impossible (to me) to deny that this is the traditional consensus self-understanding within which all of the Scriptures are interpreted in the Orthodox Church.

I would also add that Kosta is precisely correct in stating to qua that the faith articulated at Chalcedon and the other ecumenical councils was there from the very beginning. Where qua is missing the boat is his seeming insistence that a faith unarticulated in specific terminology must be a faith that doesn't exist -- i.e. that a belief articulated with precision for the first time is a belief that has only newly sprung into being.

Most self-evidently, qua does not apply this standard to his own faith, since the specific formulations of the Reformation are no-where to be found in those exactly exposited forms anywhere in the Scripture -- yet he clearly believes that those formulations are exactly the same faith taught by the Apostles.

When I am asked "where is ______ in the Bible?", I like to answer that it is in the opening words of the Acts of the Apostles: "...until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen. To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God."

Everything has followed that: the recording of the events in the life of Christ and the recording of many of his words in the Gospels; the recording of the action of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles in the early Church in the Acts; the exposition in the Epistles of what Christ taught the apostles...

From the very beginning, everything was understood and interpreted in the light of this knowledge of Christ -- this is why when a replacement was being chosen for Judas Iscariot, the Apostles insisted that this person had to have been one "of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us..."


5,286 posted on 04/28/2006 12:30:46 PM PDT by Agrarian
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To: 1000 silverlings
No, by praying, we are merely being obedient servants. We are not interceeding on anyone's behalf. We have no power, only Christ has earned that office

Correct, we are being obedient to Scriptures, which tell us to pray for the sake of others. By interceding for others, we are fulfilling our command to love others. We have the power to ask God for favors, He is our Father!

Regards

5,287 posted on 04/28/2006 12:39:35 PM PDT by jo kus (I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart...Psalm 119:32)
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To: Agrarian

Very useful post, Agrarian.

Let me underscore one point, perhaps a bit self-servingly as a Catholic. It is a very common misunderstanding of the Church that she creates dogmata through her councils. While the Catholic Church is rather strident in formulating doctrine whenever a need for one is felt, and does so even in absence of the Orthodox sister Church, the self-understanding of the Church is that it is not a new teaching but an elaboraton of the faith of the fathers. Doctrines are promulgated when they are challenged (most recently, by the Reformers) or when an extraneous development requires pastoral intervention (as with various technoliogical innovations).


5,288 posted on 04/28/2006 12:47:56 PM PDT by annalex
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To: Agrarian; qua; Dr. Eckleburg; annalex
Kosta (jokingly, I hope) referred to himself as a "heretic" for not believing certain things

I don't profess my dubts and my ingorance as truth so I guess that makes me one -- a little bit. :)

5,289 posted on 04/28/2006 2:27:41 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: Agrarian; qua; Dr. Eckleburg; annalex
The Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles all contain ample evidence that Christ and the Apostles portrayed the Christian faith as being in direct continuity with the faith of Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and all the prophets

I don't think that the Jews who rejected Jesus believed that He was starting a new religion. They did not reject His beliefs; they rejected and still reject the notion that a meshiach is God. To them that's like the LDS saying that Jesus' brother is Satan, or that Blessed Theotokos conceived by the "Holy Spirit overshadowing her" (implying it was a carnal union), as understood in biblical terms elsewhere.

Without His divnity Christianity would to this day remain a Jewish sect.

5,290 posted on 04/28/2006 2:44:08 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50; qua; Dr. Eckleburg; annalex

"They did not reject His beliefs; they rejected and still reject the notion that a meshiach is God."

Of course. That is not what was at issue. I was responding to qua's comment to you (pinging several others of us): "What is clear is that, at least in your position although it isn't clear that it is the consensus opinion, there must be a radical discontinuity with the revealed religon of the Old Testament Jews."

If one believes that the Judaism of the Pharisees and their successors down to the modern day represents the true religion of the patriarchs and prophets (which is what I think he was taking you to be saying -- I'm not as sure that this is what you were meaning to say), then qua would be right about this radical discontinuity.

My post was meant merely to address the "consensus" part of qua's statement by pointing out the traditional Orthodox Christian self-understanding of continuity to the best of my ability. Subsequent polemics with Judaism, beginning with the NT and continuing into the patristic era, were consistent in the assertion that Christianity was what represented the true continuity with the faith of the patriarchs and prophets. One can agree or disagree with this self-understanding but it is what it was and is.

The Christian tradition indicated that there was sufficient evidence in the Scriptures that the Messiah would be God. It does not indicate that this was something that should have been clearly anticipated, but does indicate that when considered in the light of the words and acts of Christ, that it was there for all to see and understand. The acts of Christ recorded in the Gospels are clearly meant to demonstrate Christ's divinity.

Beyond that, to someone who knew the Scriptures, his acts would reflect to the sensitive and seeking soul that Christ was the very Lord God of the OT. He controlled the winds and waves of the sea just as the Lord God did at the parting of the Red Sea. He multiplied the loaves and the fishes, recreating the manna from heaven in the wilderness with which he fed the children of Israel. He healed the sick, raised the dead -- going so far as to raise the 4-days dead Lazarus to make sure that it was clear that there was no mistake about it, etc... He did things only God could do. He preached with an authority that only God could have.

When the apostles proclaimed him their "Lord and God," they were doing so with an eye-opening sense of "so this is what the prophets were talking about!"

We have discussed some of the differences between the LXX and the MT of the OT, and some of the points at issue in later polemics between Judaism and Christianity over the text of the OT were precisely passages which in the LXX were more clear in presaging the Godhood of the coming Christ.

The evidence according to the New Testament is that the Jewish leadership (secular and religious alike) didn't want a Messiah -- God or not. Herod tried to kill him as soon as he was born, the religious leadership responded to his raising of the 4 days dead Lazarus by plotting Christ's execution. That fundamental stance of disbelief and hardness of heart set them down a path that made them unable to see what was before their eyes.

One can choose to believe or disbelieve the accounts of the Gospels and the traditions of the Church in these matters. I am certainly unable to prove them, and I certainly can understand why subsequent Judaism would reject all of this. I'm just saying that this is how Christianity understood and understands itself with relationship to the faith of the patriarchs and prophets.


5,291 posted on 04/28/2006 3:53:13 PM PDT by Agrarian
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To: annalex; blue-duncan; jo kus
It is true that there is no plain scripture for the Holy Trinity either. The difference , of course, is that the Holy Trinity was taught by the Church as early as there was a Church.

I was trying to say that while the Trinity is not explicitly put forth in scripture, there is still scriptural support that it is true, independent of Tradition. For example, I think there is a reason we are not taught to Baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and Paul. The truth of the Trinity is not dependent on Tradition, but on reasonable inference on what is in scripture.

The Lutheran solas, on the other hand, were never taught by the Church.

If they had been there never would have been a need for them. :) We disagree on whether the Church is the only source of truth.

5,292 posted on 04/28/2006 3:56:10 PM PDT by Forest Keeper
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To: Agrarian; qua; Dr. Eckleburg; annalex
Of course. That is not what was at issue. I was responding to qua's comment to you (pinging several others of us): "What is clear is that, at least in your position although it isn't clear that it is the consensus opinion, there must be a radical discontinuity with the revealed religon of the Old Testament Jews."

I certainly did not make a judgment as to which side of the coin is heads and which is tails. I merely stated the Jewish position that the "anointed" one, or meshiach, (which is not synonymous with the "savior") is not supposed to be God Himself but a warrior king, anointed by God (like all Jewish kings). This warrior king was to establish peace and harmony in the world, build new Jerusalem, and make all the people of the world believe and worship the God of the Jews.

I must assume that Moses, Jacob, Isaac and so on all believed the same thing, unless pre-Christ Judaism believed in something radically different.

In addition to that, Judiasm never taught that man needs to be saved. It still doesn't. I must assume that Moses and all the Prophets beieved likewise, and considered Israel to be have been saved in Exodus, for which they celebrate a thanksgiving feast known as the Passover. No other salvation is taught.

The term the "World to Come" (known to the Orthodox anc Catholic in the Symbol of Faith, aka The Creed), is used in Judaism to denote the earthly world as established by the human warrior king meshiach when he comes.

Which of the rigtheous OT Jews believed otherwise? If they did not believe otherwise, then Christianity is not a continuation of their faith, but a totally new religion, which is what the Jews claim. The issue is not whether we believe in the same God, but over the role and meaning of the "anointed" one.

Again, I am not making a judgment. I am merely making known both sides of this issue.

5,293 posted on 04/28/2006 4:42:32 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: Forest Keeper
The truth of the Trinity is not dependent on Tradition, but on reasonable inference on what is in scripture.

Scripture is a part of the Tradition, so if anything is scriptural then it is also traditional. I agree that the easiest reading of the Scripture is trinitarian reading; however, there are lower-t traditions out there that read the Scripture in a non-trinitarian way. The situation is different with Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura, for which there is no plain-text support whatsoever, and there is a plain-text denial of both.

We disagree on whether the Church is the only source of truth.

We do, and once again the Scripture bears me out (1 Timothy 3:15).

5,294 posted on 04/28/2006 4:57:03 PM PDT by annalex
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To: kosta50; Agrarian; jo kus
Incidentally, I don't know if this is reflected in the Catechism, but I heard from the apologists of Catholic Answers Live radio program (which has excellent credibility overall) that Catholicism simply is Messianic Judaism. The same logic would, of course, apply to Orthodoxy.
5,295 posted on 04/28/2006 5:24:11 PM PDT by annalex
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To: annalex; Agrarian; jo kus
I heard from the apologists of Catholic Answers Live radio program (which has excellent credibility overall) that Catholicism simply is Messianic Judaism. The same logic would, of course, apply to Orthodoxy

Yes, Orthodoxy would fall into that too? What is missing, however, is any evidence that all the OT righteous did not believe in Judaism, or better yet -- that the modern-day Judaism is not the Judaism of the OT righteous.

In other words, one would have to show that the meshiach of the rabbinical (post-Jamnia) Judaism, is different from the meshiach that Moses, Isaiah, Isaac and so on believed in, if they believed in one to begin with!

5,296 posted on 04/28/2006 8:10:58 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: annalex; Agrarian; jo kus

Please ignore the question mark in the first sentence in my previous post.


5,297 posted on 04/28/2006 8:12:05 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50; Dr. Eckleburg; jo kus; HarleyD; qua; AlbionGirl; blue-duncan; 1000 silverlings; ...
So, are you now saying that one must believe in God the Father and God the Son to be saved?

Yes, absolutely and categorically. I confess that I am mystified that you would ask. :

Acts 4:10-12 : 10 ... then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 He is " 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

---------------

Where does it say in the OT that one must be baptized to be made righteous before God? Or is that part of the OT you selectively reject?

"Baptism" has different meanings, but in the sense I think you mean, I don't know of anywhere in the Bible that says that baptism CAUSES righteousness. I thought that's what you all believed.

My point was to show that their kingdom of God could be taken away from them even though they believed. To me that suggests that they were saved but were about to lose it.

As I think Jo Kus has correctly pointed out, we see the concept of "salvation" very differently. But regardless, one clue I look to in guessing whether the Pharisees were saved is how Jesus spoke to them. It was almost always negative, wasn't it? He even openly called them hypocrites. To me, this matches pretty well with how He spoke to other people we are led to believe were lost.

Where did the righteous OT Hebrews come from? Did they accept Christ? If Adam and Eve could be saved, I think there is hope for more than you believe.

Righteousness came from God-given faith. Yes, they accepted Christ as a future Messiah. I do not condemn people from OT times because they didn't have the same understanding of Christ that we have, but still, to believe in the one true God is to believe in the person of Jesus the Christ.

5,298 posted on 04/28/2006 8:54:41 PM PDT by Forest Keeper
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To: jo kus; HarleyD; Dr. Eckleburg; blue-duncan
As to Sola Fide, the Scripture says quiet clearly, faith without works is dead. And CATHOLICS twist Scriptures?

Well, yes, but that is a separate issue. As we have discussed, we define faith itself very differently. My understanding of your view is that faith is ULTIMATELY man-generated. That is free will. In addition, after free will faith is achieved or demonstrated, there is also the requirement of free will works (deeds) in order to achieve salvation after death on earth. You believe that one can have true faith, but not persevere. I completely disagree with that because I see faith as being solely a gift from God to the elect. With that faith comes also love and perseverance.

Anyone can say he has faith. It seems that you would accept that assumption and then look for works. I would never take the assumption.

The Scriptures THEMSELVES are Tradition.

So the words of men are equal to the words of God? Your three-legged stool just lost a leg. :)

As to Satan in the desert, he ALSO used Scriptures...

He ALSO used scriptures??? Let's take a look:

Matt. 4:4 : Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (See Deut. 8:3)

Matt. 4:7 : Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" (See Deut. 6:16)

Matt. 4:10 : Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'" (See Deut. 6:13 and 10:20)

It sure looks like He used a lot of scriptures here, but not much Tradition. In fact, NO tradition. What else do you think He used?

Paul calls the Bereans worthy because they, unlike the Thessalonians, were open to Paul's message!

So your interpretation is that when Paul praised the Bereans because they tested his say-so against scripture he didn't really mean that. Instead, he only meant to praise them because they gave Paul an honest hearing. I see. That silly scripture has confounded me again.

Acts 17:11 : Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

---------------

ALL Scripture reading is based on a particular traditional background reading, just like you read Scriptures with a tradition that claims that man has no responsibility for his actions and God condemns people without knowing if they would reject Him or not...

Putting aside your total error concerning our belief about man's responsibility, now I may understand why you keep talking about our supposed belief that God condemns people without knowing if they would reject Him or not. Until this minute I haven't understood why you have been pushing this. Is this an "order of salvation" issue? Are you talking about Supralapsarianism vs. Infralapsarianism? I'd be happy to comment, but I'd like to know first if I'm on the right track. :)

FK: "Note also that it is axiomatic to you that the Church is the only authority on earth to interpret scripture."

I never said that only the Church can interpret Scriptures! I do it all the time.

You're dodging. :) I never said you couldn't interpret scripture either. I said that you think the Church is the only Authority, and gave you credit enough that you would not claim to be an Authority.

If I decided that God was a Duality rather than a Trinity, I would no longer be a Catholic. If I said that as a Protestant, what would happen to me? Nothing. I am the ultimate authority in Protestantism. If "the Spirit" leads me to believe their are only two persons in the Godhead, who are you to tell me I am wrong?

Protestantism is not monolithic. There is no club to be kicked out of. So what? Individual Protestants are not the authority in Protestantism, God always is. Not the Church, but God. If you were a Protestant and you felt that the Spirit had led you to believe that there were only two persons in the Godhead, then I would strongly counsel you, and show you the truth of what you must believe in as a Protestant, the Bible.

For example, I have the freedom to consider that Genesis 1 did not scientifically happen the way described. Or that Jonah was literally swallowed by an actual whale. YOUR fundamental stance PREVENTS that! And YOU tell ME that I am told how to interpret all of Scriptures? Come on, now.

What? Whose fundamental stance are you talking about. Mine as an individual? Mine as a Protestant? Mine as a Southern Baptist? In none of these cases am I told how to interpret scripture. None. You, OTOH, are commanded on how to interpret. You claim there are only a dozen or so verses set in stone, but that ignores the Catholic lens which you must peer through for any understanding. That lens affects ALL SCRIPTURE. Effectively, then, you have drastically less freedom than you attempt to portray.

5,299 posted on 04/29/2006 4:04:38 AM PDT by Forest Keeper
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To: kosta50
You have still not answered my question why were the righteous OT Jews, the "elect" ones predestined from eternity to be saved, condemned and sent to hell (and Elijah wasn't!)

If you are referring to your 5133, I had no idea what you were talking about then, and I still do not now. Who has ever said that the OT Jews who were of the elect were sent to hell? I will be happy to try to answer any question, but I really have no clue where you are coming from.

5,300 posted on 04/29/2006 4:48:42 AM PDT by Forest Keeper
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