Biblical inconsistency?

OSV.com ^ | 07-25-18 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[Salvation]

Biblical inconsistency? Jesus does not negate himself but rather gives different teachings on following the commandments

Msgr. Charles Pope

7/25/2018

Question: In Matthew 5:19, Jesus rails against relaxing or changing even the least of the commandments, and yet verse 19 also says that if one does, “[he] will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” It seems the consequences should be “losing” the kingdom of heaven if Jesus is consistent with what follows in verse 20. Can you explain the seeming inconsistency? — Jim Flynn, via email

Answer: Two different teachings are being made here, hence it is not a matter of consistency.

In verse 19, the operative teaching is that while unrepented mortal sin excludes one from the kingdom of God, not all violations of the law are mortal. Even the Ten Commandments, while indicating grave sin in themselves admit of lighter matter.

For example, regarding the Seventh Commandment, stealing a large amount or something essential or irreplaceable is usually a mortal sin. However, taking something small or insignificant, while a sin, may not be a mortal sin that excludes one from the kingdom of God. Thus, if the Lord were to adopt your word, the condemnation might be too sweeping. It does not follow that if someone breaks the least of the commandments they necessarily lose the kingdom of God.

Further, you will note that there is a kind of parallelism or play of words at work here. The Lord is saying, in effect: “If you break even the least of my teachings, I am going to call you the least!” Preachers often use such sayings in order to be memorable.

For example, consider the following word stitch: “Say what you mean, and mean what you say. But don’t say it mean.” The word “mean” unites all three phrases, but in each case a slightly different sense of the word “mean” is used.

Here, the Lord is not only being careful not to imply that even small infractions would land us in hell, but he is also being artful, resourceful and memorable by his use of a parallelism.

As for verse 20, we encounter a different teaching: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Here we are dealing with the problem of minimalism. Though the Pharisees fancied themselves meticulous observers of the law, they were very minimalist in their application of it. Jesus said they were hypocrites because they followed exacting laws about small things, such as tithing, but neglected weightier matters of the law, such as justice and mercy (cf. Mt 23:23). It is one thing to pay tithes; this is good and required. But neglecting the poor and failing to feed and teach them is far more important to God.

Jesus will develop this teaching against minimalism in the verses that follow in the Sermon on the Mount. For example, he will teach that it is not enough to avoid murder; the command requires we let God banish vengeful hatred from our hearts. It is not enough to avoid acts of adultery; we must allow God to give us chaste minds and hearts. It is not enough to avoid excessive retaliation; we ought to avoid retaliation altogether.

Therefore, the message of verse 20 is a call to exceed the minimalist notions of the law. Grace equips us for more, and we are expected to attain more by that grace. The old law could not save. Only the “new law” of grace can save or make us sufficiently holy to enter heaven.

Thus verse 19 speaks of little things, verse 20 of weightier things.

[editor-surveyor]

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>> “Every person who dies believing Christ goes to Heaven” <<

Beliveing, or believing in?

John said “believing in,” which means living as he lived.

Paul told us that even Satan and his demons have intelluctual belief, and it is not enough.

Are you living as Yeshua lived?

That is the relevent question.
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[ravenwolf]

Not sinning is not going to get us into heaven.

Not sinning is not what makes us right with God.

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I tend to agree but i did not need a Bible teacher to convince me it was alright to sin, i did a good job of that on my own.

[ealgeone]

Paul told us that even Satan and his demons have intelluctual belief, and it is not enough.

An understanding of the Greek word for faith is required.

Are you living as Yeshua lived?

No.....because I cannot live a sinless life and neither can anyone else.

[imardmd1]

Jesus said water AND THE SPIRIT to Nic, as recorded in John 3.

Well, what I wrote is what the Greek says. "spirit" is anarthrous. "The" was added by the translators, putting some interpretation into the phrase. But that really does not matter too much. As Darby maintains, water is symbolic of the Word, over and over. Hearing of the Word and spiritual birth are inseparable.

[editor-surveyor]

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>> “No.....because I cannot live a sinless life and neither can anyone else.” <<

Wrong answer!

John wrote in his first epistle how we become sinless after sinning by confessing and repenting of our transgressions of the law (1John 1:9)

This is our sole path to the “Righteousness of Yehova” by which “all these things shall be added unto you.”

The word is explicit, but one must read it in belief.
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[editor-surveyor]

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Now that we have the original Hebrew words of John made available to us, we can dismiss the shenanigans of the sloppy Greek translators (Pharisees).
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[imardmd1]

OK, go read it. Who is the translator? I've got one, but it's just another uninspired translation by fallible translator/interpreters. As yours is, I'm sure.

At this point, you want a piece of the action to inject your irrelevant Roodianism? I'm not playing.

[editor-surveyor]

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No translator, copy of the original writing of John in his language, in the Vatican archives.

Get past the confusion of the Greek translations.
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[kosciusko51]

... however Paul is hard for most people to understand.

Peter said the same thing (2 Peter 3 NASB):

14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,

15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,

16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

[MHGinTN]

My copy has, "ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς· ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος, οὐ δύναται εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν. ... ὕδατος & Πνεύματος,

Born of water AND born of Spirit.

[MHGinTN]

5Jesus answered, ‘Verily, verily, I say to thee, If any one may not be born of water, and the Spirit, he is not able to enter into the reign of God; 6 that which hath been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which hath been born of the Spirit is spirit.

Being born from the water world of the womb is being born of flesh. Being born of the Spirit is God work, not flesh work. For Nic, Jesus clarified the water referred to the flesh birth. In another scene Jesus refers to water which needs no refilling, the Word. In the John 3 scene Jesus refers to that which is born of flesh, THEN that which is born of Spirit. At the well, Jesus asked for a drink of water, THEN used it as an analogy for the Word, the Gospel of God's Grace. Two different scenes, two different inferences.

[imardmd1]

Here is my translation in Post #216:

>> "Unless a human is born of water and spirit he is not able to enter The Kingdom of The God" <<

The phrase of concern in your Greek and mine is:

>> ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος <<

I dragged out my copy of Wittman's "THE GOSPELS: A Precise Translation" and here is his rendering of that phrase:

"Unless anyone ¹be born² by³ means of water⁴ and ⁵Spirit "
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Notes:

¹ subjunctive mode
² begotten
³ ablative of means when genitive case follows ἐξ
⁴ refer to Eph. 5:26
⁵ anarthrous (means without definite article)
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My hasty rendering was not the best way to present the enclitic indefinite pronoun "τις" as "human" because I followed the KJV translation "a man", when it should have been "anyone."

Also, "born" or "begotten" is in the punctilinear aorist tense (it happened).

As a further observation, ἐὰν here is followed by the subjunctive, which places it in the third class of conditional use, which means "if (and it may be so)"; thus the first four words may be translated:

"If (and it may be) anyone was not born . . ."

To conclude that phrase, the translation continues ". . . by means of water and Spirit . . ." as Wittman has done. The word for word rendering would be "If not anyone was born by ^{means of} water and Spirit . . ." is rather awkward, so the various translators have replaced "if not" with "except" (KJV) or "unless" for smoothness. However, I think the word-for-word is just a bit more correct in unifying water and spirit as two parts of one single birth operation.

Note that Wittman clearly brings in the reference to "τω λουτρω του υδατος εν ρηματι = the washing of the water by ^SpokenWord" regarding the symbolism of water in the phrase being considered.

I regret pestering you with this insistence on translation detail; but somehow once I get an idee fixe* in my noggin, it usually takes a stick of dynamite to dislodge it. Ask Elsie. And forgive me for boring you . . .
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* An idée fixe is a preoccupation of mind believed to be firmly resistant to any attempt to modify it, a fixation. The name originates from the French

[imardmd1]

Get past the confusion of the Greek translations.

More Roodianism--asinine.

Matthew/Levi the publican tax collector, Mark the well-educated wealthy son of estate-owners; Luke the college-trained physician. Beloved John the peer associate of the members of the Sanhedrin and accepted in its innermost chambers, Paul the apt theological student of ben Gamaliel and trained for 11 years for a doctorate in Greek/Gentile studies at the cosmopolitan college of his hometown Tarsus and Roman citizen as well--all were polyglot and able to read/write/translate several languages, including Hebrew, Aramaic, Koine, and Latin--were well-able to write the New Testament text in Greek, the common language of the Alexander-Hellenized business world, that the Gospel might be published in a tongue under direction of the Holy Spirit, an infallible, verbally inspired text for the enabling of evangelism to the Gentile world, who through the Cross were now by God permitted to enter the Holiest of All by the Blood of Christ.

These authors were able to read, write, translate and interpret the Scriptures as understood by first century citizens of all the Roman provinces better than any man alive today, including you or Rood. There may be a copy of a copy of a copy of Levi's Hebrew/Aramaic Gospel written before he himself translated it under the Holy Spirit's guidance, and stored in the Vatican, but so what? The essence of it translated into any language faithfully transforms the reader/hearer's mind into a vessel who by faith will be filed with the /holy Ghost as a comforter and teacher, moment by moment. Is that Hebrew copy helping its keepers get a leg up to understand Jesus or God any better? Or you? Yeah, I thought not.

It was in Greek that the New Covenant was written to supersede the fulfilled, now dead, no-longer-viable Mosaic/Davidic Covenant bound up in a limited close-held, almost secret language that nobody but the Jews could understand.

John the Apostle translated Hebrew and Aramaic into his Greek Gospel (Jn. 1:38, 42, and 9:7 for example). Paul conversed in Hebrew and Aramaic with the Jews, in Latin with the Italians, in Greek with the Greeks, and leaned very heavily on targums from the Hebrew Bible to teach in Greek to those having that common language.

And so forth. I'm not wasting time with you. Go read your Hebrew New Testament, if you can.

This thread is about the possible inconsistencies people would like to find in Jesus' teachings, not the numerous and obvious inconsistencies of your favorite idol, Roodius. Here, you are barking up the wrong tree.

[imardmd1]

No translator, copy of the original writing of John in his language, in the Vatican archives.
Get past the confusion of the Greek translations.

You keep trying to replace the body of genuine research on Bible history and texts with your phony speculations and presumptions from Roodianism. So here is a link to just about every legitimate and provable argument against you false theories, including the latest one that you (falsely) claim that the New Testament we have in Koine Greek is just a translation of supposedly "original" Hebrew texts personally written by the apostles or their friends.

Heres the link to the long paper that soundly refutes your falsehoods:

http://www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/spl_ChristOrMessiah.htm

Take note, all the Christian FRiends this has been pinged with.

[ealgeone]

Got an answer yet?

[ealgeone]

The concept of baptism is a different matter. You averred that the concept of original sin is not taught in scripture. In Romans 5:12-21, Paul writes that “by one man sin entered into the world” and “by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation.” As I mentioned, I am not sure what your understanding of what original sin is, but this teaching of Paul is my understanding of original sin.

This would then apply to Mary as well.

[ealgeone]

The church doesn’t charge for annulments anymore, you are misinformed. If that’s what you’ve been told, someone lied to you.

Are people living in adultery allowed in your church?

Sure. We have all kinds of sinners that attend church.

Where else should a sinner be?

However, we are forgiven because of our faith in Christ through His shed blood on the cross.

Roman Catholicism would not allow David and Bathsheba to attend based on your standards...nor Abraham, Solomon, Moses, etc, etc.

I guess I could be like you and the other trolls and spend my entire life attacking other Christians on their protestant threads, but fortunately I am not anti Christian. Most of my family is Baptist, one brother;s a minister, we get along.

Yet here you are again on another thread calling people names and attacking others. But I know you don't see the irony of this.

Why don’t you leave us alone and get along?

If all of this bothers you so much, why don't you go join ebb on his caucus threads. He couldn't handle the open forums either nor could he defend himself very well in these debates.

You'll be safe there with ebb. That way the two of you can argue with each other.....because based on the posts of you two it's just a matter of time before one of you will begin to argue with the other.

[nobamanomore]

Roman Catholicism would not allow David and Bathsheba to attend based on your standards...nor Abraham, Solomon, Moses, etc, etc.

No because they were all in the OT and dead. On top of that, it was your buddy that said they would be removed from church offices, etc, not me. They are in church, can’t receive communion.

If all of this bothers you so much, why don’t you go join ebb on his caucus threads. He couldn’t handle the open forums either nor could he defend himself very well in these debates.

It doesn’t make any difference, you break into Caucus posts daily.

In other words, pretty much every thing the master debator has said is a lie, which is standard for you.

[ealgeone]

It doesn’t make any difference, you break into Caucus posts daily.

Nope. I only post on those threads which should not have been caucus threads to begin with. You may note the caucus label was removed from the thread in question.

In other words, pretty much every thing the master debator has said is a lie, which is standard for you.

And again you just cannot help yourself can you?

You continue to prove my point.

You continue to ignore FR's admonitions against personal attacks. Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts.

In one of your posts you said you really didn't care about that. That says a lot about your character.

That would be pride. And IIRC pride is a "mortal sin" in Roman Catholicism. Per your denomination, you are now without benefit of Heaven if you were to die....unless you can get to the priest, confess, do penance, and the get to a Mass.

It must be a terrible feeling knowing you are without Heaven.

If I were you, I'd get to the priest right now.

[Elsie]

...once I get an idee fixe* in my noggin, it usually takes a stick of dynamite to dislodge it.

You ain't alone in this.

We ALL suffer from some type of Confirmation Bias.