The Ghost of Luther
May uprightness, wholeness, preserve me, for in You do I hope. Psalm 25:21 Robert Alter translation
Uprightness – “Two problems of ot theology concern the verb tāmam: self-righteousness and perfectionism. Illustrating the former, David expresses the resolve, ‘I will walk within my house with a perfect (tōm) heart’ (Ps 101:2b KJV, ASV margin and RSV ‘in the integrity of my heart’); cf. his not infrequent professions of righteousness (Ps 7:8 [H 9]; 18:20). Yet the connection with the nt Pharisaism remains one of ‘mere appearance’ (KD, Psalms, I, p. 72). ‘Some of these utterances are no more than asseverations that the speaker is innocent of particular crimes laid to his charge; others are general professions of purity of purpose. … Those who make them do not profess to be absolutely sinless, but they do disclaim all fellowship with the wicked, from whom they expect to be distinguished in the course of Providence’” (A. F. Kirkpatrick, Cambridge Bible, Psalms, I, p. lxxxvii).[1]
Remember Dwight Pryor’s comments on Augustine’s doctrine of sinful nature. That doctrine led to the reformed theological idea that men are inherently sinful, incapable of righteousness without the direct intervention of the Spirit and unable to attain holiness. Kirkpatrick’s concern about David’s use of tamam seems to stem from a theological commitment to the Augustinian-Lutheran dogma. David doesn’t seem to have any problem asserting that he is righteous, blameless and tom. By the way, neither does Paul. Are we to assume, on the basis of Luther’s dogma, that David spoke only “poetically” and that Paul was lying? Are claims of righteousness by men of faith in the Scriptures “mere appearances” rather than biblical truth? Perhaps more importantly, can you be righteous? I didn’t say, “Can God make you righteous?” That would plummet us back into the theory of imputed righteousness from Luther’s judicial view of law. I asked, “Can you become righteous through your own acts and decisions?” Of course, I am not suggesting that you don’t receive the help of the Father of Lights, but what I am asking is if you believe, as apparently David and Paul believed, that you can act in such a way that your behaviors are considered blameless before God. Well, can you?
If you answer, “No. Don’t you know that all men are sinners? Not one is righteous. We are all guilty before Him,” then you will have a big problem with this text, many of David’s other verses and the claims of Paul (and others). Of course, you can write them off as “mere appearances.” But if you do, then your standing before God becomes a passive judicial decision and you inherit all the problems Pryor mentions including no need for the resurrection and no need to incorporate obedience into your actions.
But if you answer, “Yes, I can be blameless before the Lord just as David and Paul,” then you accept an awesome responsibility. You imply that your standing does in fact depend on your obedience. That is not to say God didn’t rescue you or that Yeshua didn’t die for you. He did (and so did He). But it does imply that the job isn’t finished with the initiation into the Kingdom. You have work to do—lots of work, and this is the place where it must get done.
Topical Index: tamam, tom, upright, perfection, complete, Luther, Pryor, Psalm 25:21
[1] Payne, J. B. (1999). 2522 תָּמַם. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (974). Chicago: Moody Press.
What of the verses of For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? That is the typical one used to show us that we need forgiveness and have you ever had to teach a child and I mean a young one anywhere from about a year and a half to say two how to look you in the face and lie? I am not questioning we can learn to walk in righteousness but where do the things we tend to do that are wrong from the beginning fall into play? I never had questioned my own ability or the fact that I am a sinner who needs saving.
The topic is much more complicated than you think. Please consider listening to Pryor’s lectures on this, its history and influence. You and I are products of the Reformers, not the Hebrew text. As such we tend to read the verses through the eyes of Luther and the Roman view of law and appeasement. But Jews readers don’t see this. Their paradigm is different. If Paul sees the world through Jewish lenses, then shouldn’t we try to see it that way as well. It is not what WE think the text means that matters. It is was HE intended that matters. So go do some research. See where your ideas came from. Follow the trails, and be prepared to rethink what you consider so normal.
My answer? Yes I can.
Why?
Because I have choices to make just as the Messiah had choices to make. He made them perfectly. Myself–not so much. But the point is that I have choices to make and I have work to do in order to make good (righteous) choices. The shepherd knows this sheep and this sheep knows her shepherd but I still have to choose to follow.
Seems to me that this whole idea that I can’t help myself because I am born a sinner and therefore will be passive about my choices just makes for a whole bunch of sheep eaten by wolves. While we have choices, we also (and to our detriment) tend to make more excuses than a dog has fleas.
It is hard work to be righteous and therefore blameless before the Lord God but it is the whole point of working out ones salvation. And by the way, suffering is to be expected. It is, I believe, inherent in the race Paul speaks of running.
C. S. Lewis pointed out that, over centuries, well-meaning folks had taken a perfectly fine word, “gentleman” and, in the interests of egalitarianism, had broadened the use of it from its original meaning, which had to do with owning land, I believe, to being inclusive of anyone who had good manners. Well, the second usage rendered the first one rather moot, don’t you think?
This subject is seriously overdue in Christiandom, thank you, Skip, but I think the meanings and definitions and usages of terms have been mishandled and so fractured from their original or intended relations with each other, we may have to start completely over before we are all talking the same language again, much less applying them as instructed or needed.
‘Imputed righteousness’ is one of those grossly mangled terms. Yes, it is in Scripture. And no, I cannot do it. So Somebody has to. I tried and tried and tried to impute righteousness and can tell you I failed 100% of the time. BUT, I think I was poorly or incompletely taught. They say the devil is in the details. Yeah.
I have realized a few things. Let me try to list them. The first one is that I see I was designed and created to run on and to express love. That is my true identity. When I am in that place, I am being truly myself. In fact, I can see now that anything in me that does not look like love is NOT EVEN ME. BUT, as David lamented in Psalm 51, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; in sin did my mother conceive me.” Things in my generations joined me in my mother’s womb. My father, according to scripture, imputed sin to me, or else why would it be necessary to confess the sins of my fathers? Being shapen in iniquity means that that particular iniquity feels normal to me: it feels like me. I recognize now that the choices of my forbears gave certain things a legal right to reside in me. I know I did not choose to have messed up relations with my mother or my daughter, but in Mama’s generations, I have seen this play out over the previous 5 generations, no exceptions. As clearly as I saw it and hated it all my life, circumstances BEYOND MY CONTROL created the same in mine. The harder I tried to prevent the train I could see coming at me, the worse it seemed I failed. I see the predilection to alcohol and surrounding behaviors in the family associated with dealing with inebriated family members that cropped up full blown, too. The shame, for unknown reasons to me, that was in my dad, I felt land on my shoulders like a ton of bricks as a toddler. I knew it was his, and that I had done nothing shameful,but there it sat for me to carry. And carry it I did, in the name of ‘love’, as a dutiful child, for decades, until the day I recognized it as not being what the Mind of Christ would think, and so I decided to confess it as a sin of my father and renounce it in me, and it disappeared. Until then, I did not know what it was to not walk in shame.
And we are not even to the sins I agreed to and actively practiced in my life, but I can tell you that the vast majority of them I fell for the temptation to do because it either looked like love, or because I believed I had no other choice. I was never a willing sinner, and I believe the vast majority of us are not. To say that all we have to do is do right, is a statement I think almost all of us would agree to,just like Paul, most of the time. But the evil in my life, so much of it, was either collateral damage proceeding from the choices of people around me, or it was because I was thinking or practicing damaging thoughts and behaviors that were the best I could do. I was helpless to the extent that I could not see my proper relation to sin. Mostly because the vast majority of sin in my life did not even look like sin. Most of it, in fact, looked like righteousness. I tried my very best to obey God, and love myself and others. But I did not recognize that the methods and motivations I got handed were not righteous. Fear was the gas in my tank. I walked in faith that love was true, but fear trashed me in the name of that love every day. It ruined my health, too. Only so long adrenals can over-produce!
What was I missing? Many things. I did not know that until my relationship with my heavenly Father was addressed, nothing else was even possible. Until I could trust Him enough to take my broken heart to Him and let Him heal it, nothing I did worked. The next thing I could not see was that ‘assigning’ to myself the task of correcting sin I thought I could recognize in my life was not my part. My part was to WAIT (yes, there is that word) until the Holy Spirit convicted me. Otherwise, guilt would just trash me. How to tell the difference? Well, the Holy Spirit is gentle, and not condemning, and ALWAYS provides a ram in the thicket, which is to say, gives me a gracious way out; either by enlightening my understanding so that I can recognize the lies that are keeping me trapped,or by showing me the right incentive and behavior to have instead. Before, I thought I had to make all that stuff up. But, the most important thing I was missing, was what my part was. My part of righteousness is to repent. That is it. I was fighting evil directly before. And I was getting creamed. It was downright witchcraft, by my present definition of witchcraft,which is trying to fight evil directly. I thought, I guess, somehow, that I had to show up at those crossroads at midnight prepared to do deals. That is not my part! My part is to repent. When I see it, I hand it over. If faith is really a verb, then the rest of it consists of me faithing that the Godhead will figure out among Himself how to do the rest.
I firmly believe that what God hath joined together, let no man (or devil) put asunder. The big problem I see is that the Accuser loves to fracture the great plan of salvation, muddy the meanings just slightly, hand the fractured Body of Christ each a piece of it, and sit back while he watches us go at each other. This topic has to be one of his masterpieces. I think Skip has assigned himself a hard task of working at sorting it back out and putting it back together. All the pieces have to work together. I think that there is not a true fight about whether it is works or faith. That is like another fracture masterpiece of the enemy, along with a fractured Godhead, or a fractured human being, for that matter. You cannot take apart the Godhead and scuttle back to your corner with your favorite piece; either the Spirit (with the New Age), or the Son (with most evangelical Christianity) or with the Father (with the Muslims). I don’t think, at least the way the Torah teaches, that you can separate a person into pieces, like body, mind or spirit, and still even have a person (sorry, souls on clouds). Neither do I think we can safely separate the plan of salvation. It all has to work together, all at the same time. I think our part, or God’s part, for that matter, looks much less like breakdancing or rap, and much more like world-class tango,where each partner’s job is to show the other off to their best advantage, and when they are really good, you cannot tell who is leading, or perhaps even who is who….
Lots to reply to here. Perhaps others will enter the discussion. But here is my opening question: Who told you that your father “imputed” sin to you? Not Scripture, that’s for sure. No man is judged for the sins of his parents and God does not pass guilt from the wicked to the innocent. So where did you get that idea. That is Pryor’s whole point. It isn’t Scriptural, but it came from someplace.
Now we are engaging. Time to clean up some language.
No, I do know that I do not incur PUNISHMENT for the sins of my forbears. The language in Nehemiah 9 is confession, not repentance. I understand confession to be more along the order of taking responsibility before God for a sin that someone did. Even though I did not personally do it, the effects and fall out from it sure does put me in the line some kind of way if it is my blood relations, which would make sense if the smallest unit God recognizes is indeed a family unit. I become PREDISPOSED to that same sin, even if I do not choose it, and I am always free to say ‘no’. Predisposed,just means that there is a very good possibility that I will not refuse to participate in it,too; or even KNOW (there is that knowledge again) to do so, or see how. I know others’ sins will follow them to the Judgment. But if they thought somewhere that those sins only affected them, then they were dreaming. I don’t know the weight of sin, only Jesus does, but it is certain that their choices affected me in a negative way.
The way I read Deut. 28, that negative way is described as CURSES, which is not the same as punishment. The curses, the way I see them work in my life, are like sign posts that something is awry and needs attention. Well, a lot ended up awry in my life and got pretty noisy and rather hard to ignore. Those curses only last as long as it takes for someone somewhere to take responsibility and turn around. There is plenty of Scripture that teaches that. What is more difficult is to recognize where things went sideways. That takes asking and listening; discernment and a willingness to keep at it until something shifts. I have learned there is no penalty for guess-and-check, which has been a huge relief. But I almost perished there for a lack of knowledge. Ignorance is not bliss when you don’t happen to live in a Garden. Wait, perhaps it wasn’t bliss there, either!
I think you are a brave lady, Laurita, to share so deeply with the rest of us. I’m reading again the verse Skip has for today. Notice the last part of the sentence. “In YOU do I hope.” Maybe we can un-complicate this discussion of uprightness and sin by remembering where our focus should be. Yeshua said, “And this is eternal life that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” John 17:3. Nothing there about knowing ourselves, or our past, or our personal errors. Certainly there is merit in understanding what makes us tick. But there is a lot more in understanding what makes YHWH tick, what makes Yeshua tick!
My wife wrote in her praise journal about this very thing recently:
For me, for now, life presents two paths.
One–I am a sinner; I am nothing.
Two–You are my God, and I am Yours.
With the first, I fall.
With the second, I soar.
May you soar, Laurita.
Yes! It’s the focus! Christ in all and through all! I am so happy it’s not about me, but Him! His righteousness in me, His mind in me, proving what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Only Himself could possibly know what is His own will. I am pretty certain by now that I never could. But I don’t have to read His mind! He shares! I don’t have to guess what He thinks is the good and right application of that will written in that Word in any given moment: He gives it to me! And does it through me when I let Him!
I think it will always be a mystery to me how I am saved, but no less how I am sanctified..
Thank you and your wife just as much for sharing something that private and precious. That is an honor.
I read somewhere that the rabbis taught that righteousness was something to be obtained, like a piece of clothing. Babies are born naked and unashamed. they don’t understand rightly relating or loving sacrificially. They are wholly selfish, inclined to having their fleshly desires satisfied. Then there is our environment. Adam led Eve to temptation and delivered us all to evil. He transgressed the boundaries. He jumped the fence. We being his physical seed and therefore in him, jumped the fence, just as Levi in Abrahams loins paid tithe to Melchizedek. We find ourselves in world where sin and death reign, and its desire is for us. Without the intervention of Yeshua we stuck in the covenant of death, a kingdom where satan is loose and sin and rebellion are the dominant motivating forces. In the millenial reign of Christ satan is bound and sin is no longer as pervasive. Peace, prosperity, and longevity are the order of the day.
What?! Babies are wholly selfish? Is that the kind of description most people have of infants. Wholly selfish? Who taught you to think of an infant like that? Don’t they simply do what is necessary to survive? Don’t they simply pursue LIFE as best they can? Is that selfish?
Or another: We are the seed of Adam and therefore are “in him.” That is pure misinterpretation of the text. That was Pryor’s point about the mistranslation of the Geneva Bible. The text does NOT say “in him.” We did not sin IN Adam. He sinned. You sin. I sin. His choice does not make me sin and his guilt is not my guilt.
And again: Without Yeshua we are stuck in a covenant of death? Do you mean that without his pre-creation atonement? Hopefully you do not mean without his crucifixion since that leaves out all the righteous of the Tanakh. Are we “stuck” in a world of the covenant of death (what is that?) or do we choose to be disobedient while God exercises sovereignty over his eternal covenant with the righteous?
Skip, this is Joan, bretts wife, apparently you never had a two year old? or if you did, go ask your wife if that child had a sinful nature or a survivalist nature? look up on you tube, johnny, did you eat the sprinkels?
Laurita (above) uses the argument that men are born with a sinful nature and backs it up with David lamenting in Psalm 51, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; in sin did my mother conceive me.” But there is another explanation for this verse to reject that argument. It was his parents who were sinning when he was conceived, not David. A Google search for “Who is David’s mother?” will find many results. As an example, Bjorkbloggen.com says in part,
David had two half-sisters (1 Chron. 2:13-16), and the father was not Jesse but Nahash (2 Sam. 17:25) who was an Ammonite king (1 Sam. 11:1; 1 Sam. 12:12). David’s father was Jesse. Nahash showed much [favor] toward David (2 Sam. 10:2). David’s mother was most likely the second wife of Jesse, and the first wife of Jesse would have been considered superior to his second wife. This would explain why David’s half brothers viewed themselves as superior to David (1 Sam. 17:28-30), and this may also explain why David was not called before Samuel among the other sons, as he was possibly viewed as an illegitimate child (1 Sam. 16:11).
And this favorite verse of the “sinful nature” crowd might also be just what it claims to be – POETRY! It might just be hyperbole in poetic genre in order to make a vivid point. Do we think all of Shakespeare is historical fact? Don’t we realize that the poet takes license with the facts in order to create word feelings? The only way we read this verse as a proof text for sinful nature is to FIRST come to the text with the doctrine and then read it accordingly. If you read David’s poems AS POEMS, the doctrine does not emerge. And since the rest of Scripture does not support the idea that I am BORN sinful, why should I think that this single text does?
“Shapen in iniquity” is not a statement, I believe, of a sinning babe. But it is a picture of a baby that is predisposed to cartain sins; specifically, those that were unrepented of in his blood lines. Sin does not seem wrong to a child who is surrounded with and preceded by others to whom those sins do not seem wrong. That is a severe knock against the possibility of being able, much less being INSTRUCTED, to choose righteousness in those areas.
But it also carries another connotation. If a baby can be cursed by the sinful choices of those who came before, then there are going to be some severe weights laid on children who come from generations of unrepented sin. Curses are not sins, per se. They are more like RESULTS OF SIN. In fact, I have noticed that we have developed all kinds of snide remarks and sneers about offspring of certain family lines of behaviors. We have noticed that there is a high chance of certain, shall we say, disasters, in their forecasts. Not for nothing was there a standard sneer in Jesus’ time about “nothing good coming out of Nazareth”. Just sayin’.
How can someone as ugly as I am be righteous just by obeying? My answer today is, “No. Don’t you know that all men are sinners? Not one is righteous. We are all guilty before Him,” UNLESS God has transformed me before the creation of the world and, when the time was right, I turned myself to Him (at around the age of 6.) Yeah, that’s probably “it.” Maybe He chose me before the foundations of the world. Maybe, in the womb, I was His.
I’m not so sure I “have a big problem with this text, many of David’s other verses and the claims of Paul (and others).”
I think we don’t live Hebrew lives. I think we don’t know it all. We can study for the rest of our lives and we won’t completely grasp the huge “story-in-one-or-two-words” Hebrew language or way of life. Jews today don’t even live it… at least not as a country.
So… I keep learning… and I keep praying that YHVH will grow me as fast as He chooses, illuminating my way.
So much of the weight we carry in life is a Greek interpretation. Luther would have approved of the thought that repentance is first an action of the mind. But the Hebraic view of repentance is totally based on action: turn our steps off of the path we’ve been walking and begin walking on (or return to) the path of righteousness — DO the things we know to do according to Torah then the feelings of guilt, condemnation etc., will go away. Our feelings follow our behavior — we just don’t recognize it most of the time because we’ve all been taught the opposite: act on your feelings, follow your heart, discipline your mind. My part of righteousness is to act, to behave righteously — not to think right thoughts but to do right actions. Then the right thoughts will follow.
As parents we know this is true when we enforce rules for correct behavior upon our children even when their feelings don’t go along with it. I can recall making a son write thank you notes for gifts he thought were awful. But he needed to learn to express gratitude to the giver even if he didn’t feel it yet. Another son had to use his savings once for restitution – and trust me, he didn’t have the right thinking at first. Right actions precede right thinking.
We learn right and wrong behaviors from our families before we even know our thoughts. That’s why it feels “normal”. There’s an old story among health practitioners about the kid who presents with part of a pencil eraser in his ear. The father is livid, “Why would anyone stick a pencil in his ear?” But a few weeks later the dad comes back and (sheepishly) reports he’d recently done the same thing to himself. Neither the father or son realized the son was copying a behavior done without thought, almost reflexively. There was, however, another child in that family who, after being warned, didn’t imitate the behavior. The point of course, is that walking a particular path is not inevitable, for good or bad. We may fall into familial behaviors because of exposure – but once the right path is revealed to us we have a choice to make regarding how we will act, both for good and bad. The devil doesn’t make you do it.
Remember those multiple choice questions that your teacher wanted to be sure every kid got right? The teacher would tell you the right answer before the test, usually several times. Deut 30:19 is the Moshe multiple choice question about actions that God wants everyone to get right “. . .I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, that you may live, you and your seed, to love Jehovah your God, to listen (shema – hear and do) to His voice, and to cleave to Him. . .” The mitzvot address behaviors that were common among the families coming out of Egypt. But God doesn’t excuse them because of Adam’s “bad seed” or their ungodly Egyptian upbringing. He presents the path of righteousness, tells them (and us) the right answer and then calls them (us) to choose the right answer that He went to extremes to tell them (us) before the test! Hear and obey, then think about it.
~ David doesn’t seem to have any problem asserting that he is righteous, blameless and tom. By the way, neither does Paul ~
” Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight; so You are right in your verdict and justified when You judge,~ was David’s willing confession ~ and of course, we “looking back” as outsiders with 20/20 hindsight are witnesses to David’s direct disobedience to the clear commandment – You shall not murder. You shall not “covet” your neighbor’s wife and “you shall not commit adultery”- David was guilty on all three accounts, – He confessed his sins- (thank you God for all the “Nathans” in our lives) and received what he asked for- “forgiveness” and restoration of relationship with His Maker and Friend. Paul’s impassioned plea, was “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Paul, assuredly-consciously -tremendously struggled with the sin within (the yetser hara?”)
…(Romans 7.17) ~ So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.…But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.~
Paul came to recognize and realize (He too, “came to himself!”) and prayed, “I (too) am a sinner.” ~ O, wretched man that I am! ~- is not the cry of a happy camper!
Romans chapters six, seven and eight are a must-read trilogy for everyone. While it may be true, “sin shall no longer have dominion over you”- we do need to know how this is possible. There are steps for us to take! They are written for “whosoever will” in Romans chapters six, seven and eight.
It is too clear, from Adam and since Adam, – “all have sinned” applies to every man. Sinners R us. Sinners all, in need of a Savior. – Now, who might that be? Oh, btw.. ~ If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His Word is not in us ~ I believe it’s very clear.. (just the facts m’am) – ~ All have sinned” means exactly that. We need a Savior. ASAP. ~ Ask, and you receive.. ~ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness ~ (1 John 1.9)
Since David is capable of saying BOTH “Against you have I sinned” and “I am blameless,” perhaps the issue is not the SUMMARY of his life but rather the CONDITION of his life at the time of writing. With the Lutheran-Augustinian viewpoint, we tend to think of ourselves as INHERENTLY SINFUL, and therefore we view our lives and our identities in terms of our failures. But if God truly forgives, then today, the day that I have not disobeyed Him, I am blameless before Him. That is who I am NOW. And as long as I remain faithful, I continue to be blameless. My past does not determine my identity before Him. So while all men sin, it is not true that all men ARE sinners. There are righteous among us.
“So while all men sin, it is not true that all men ARE sinners. There are righteous among us..” Agreed, there are.., – and – we all may participate in this “right-relatedness”, but the question of the day (and of the ages!) is (and will always remain!) – How is any man “righteous” (or “rightly-related”) with God who has revealed Himself to be thrice-holy?
Paul, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and of the tribe of Benjamin “cried out” “O, wretched man that I am, -who shall deliver me?” Why? He realized his need for a Savior, One who was able to Deliver, – to save, to rescue, to redeem and to renew. A Savior who is? Christ the LORD.
The very Name of our Savior, THE Name above all names, Savior of ALL the nations, AND the only Name by which we all- (NO MAN comes to the Father, but by Me!) MUST be saved is YHWH is salvation, the Word incarnated in human flesh and bone. In the beginning was the LOGOS- (word-thought-idea). God had a plan and God still has a plan. It is unfolding before us, day-by-day.
(Paul’s prayer) ~ Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. (??) For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.…
~ As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes *in Him* will never be put to shame ~
Who is the Rock? And who is “The one who believes?” This, in reference to Who? *In Him?* Why? ~ Because God so loved (who?) the world.. The driving force behind it all? The love of God. God “so” loved..
God so loved, – He gave. “Benevolence towards another at cost to myself,” is the true definition of love. What was the cost of Calvary? What did our salvation/deliverance “cost?”
May we never forget the cross, nor the blood and breath of the Chosen One, freely spent for “whosoever will.” May we never forget the tslav of The Messiah. Salvation for all men, and for all time took place right there and right then, two millennia ago. Deliverance foretold, and then fulfilled- at Calvary.
Temple sacrifices, the blood of bulls and of calves is no longer needed, nor required.
~ For by one sacrifice (the offering of Himself upon the “altar” of the cross) He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy ~
…then He said, “BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. (This is the New Covenant in My blood) …By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, (our High Priest, a pries forever after the order of Melchizedek) having offered one sacrifice (the Sacrifice of His own blood) for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD,…
…If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; knowing (do we know this?) that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a Lamb unblemished and spotless,- the blood of Christ.
Any last words? Yes. “Tetalesti”- It is finished. Accomplished. Paid in full.
SM:”…incapable of righteousness without the direct intervention of the Spirit”
Skip and/or TW community, would you mind providing some clarity on this idea. Prior to this journey of challenging my Biblical paradigm, I came from a background where everyone needs to be baptized with the Holy Spirit with evidence of tongues although I think this was more necessary for the gifts of the Spirit as opposed to obeying the Lord. Because of the Spirit descending upon Yeshua and His ministry, Pentacost and other events in Acts and and the NT language of things like the fruit of the Spirit, individuals felt that this fervency to get everyone baptized with the Holy Spirit is justified. Although I am not trying to minimize the intervention of the Spirit, I just always wondered about the approach and the process. I think about men and women like David, Abraham, Daniel, Ruth, etc. who did something righteous in the eyes of the LORD without a specific reference to being filled with the Holy Spirit prior (not to say the Spirit wasn’t moving in their life). I think about people who have not necessarily “made a confession of faith” and have done righteous things (whether they recognize it or not) yet I see people teach we can’t do anything good without “confessing Jesus” and subsequently being filled with the Spirit. This does fit nicely in the inherited sin picture.
In summary, where is a good place to start with all of this?
Brett, I’ve done a lot of thinking and studying about the Holy Spirit, too. Skip said something not too long ago, but I don’t remember in which message. He said we shouldn’t think of the Spirit as a kind of commodity, something that we “have.” That helped answer a lot of questions. I can look back and see how God was working with me, long before I actually committed my life to Him. Maybe a good place to start is Romans 8:14: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” God leads. His Spirit is the power of God’s actions. Yeshua led His disciples by the same power. I wonder if God is leading more often than we realize? I wonder if sometimes people follow that lead without fully understanding? YHWH is a loving God. It stands to reason that He would present ample opportunities for people to follow His lead. Uprightness isn’t about what you have. It’s about Who you follow.
Yes! The Spirit is not a commodity.
That is so important to understand and modern church misses that. I never understood that either and so the words, “spirit filled” meant something different to me. What it meant is that it was something you could measure in a person by how they acted or spoke. If you didn’t do it right (not sure by whose standards) then you didn’t have enough Spirit.
I see Spirit as the action part of God. It is that which can lead people much like those conscience twangs will all get to help us know right from wrong. Trouble there is that many folks have dulled their consciences enough that they no longer feel anything!
I wonder too as I look back over my life, that God led me many times although I had not yet called him Lord of my life. I know I owe everything to Him. It is nothing short of His protection that I am even alive today.
Now the question is……where He leads, will I follow? 🙂
Brett T,
In your response to your inquiry about clarity, my suggestion would be to start doing the 613 commandments that apply to you, not to be “righteous” or be “filled with the spirt,” but rather just to simply obey as best you can. Read the first 5 books of the Bible. See if you can find the same things in the New Testament. Read the book Pagan Christianity, listen to some of Skip’s audio files and/or books. It will be a life long process, but the clarity will start to dawn on you, probably sooner than later.