# Lifestyles & Discussion > Peace Through Religion >  Jesus gave His will over to the Father

## jmdrake

It's right there in the Bible.  Some weak Christians are unwilling to accept that because they want to remake god in their own image.

*Luke 22:42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."*

It is not a sin to have a free will.  It is not a sin to want your own will.  It is a sin not to surrender your will to Jesus.

----------


## Smart3

I'm not sure how this is free will. God is still sovereign in this scene.

----------


## Sola_Fide

Jesus, who is God, wasn't teaching us here to be holy and follow the Lord, no.  No, according to the twisted mind of a cultist, the sovereign and holy Lord of the universe, _could_ sin.

I've tried to have patience with jmdrake in the past, but I've lost it with this one.  If this isnt the clearest indication that Seventh Day Adventism is heresy, I dont know what is.

----------


## jmdrake

> Jesus, who is God, wasn't teaching us here to be holy and follow the Lord, no.  No, according to the twisted mind of a cultist, the sovereign and holy Lord of the universe, _could_ sin.


You can't actually bring yourself to address the Bible verse can you?




> I've tried to have patience with jmdrake in the past, but I've lost it with this one.  If this isnt the clearest indication that Seventh Day Adventism is heresy, I dont know what is.


Then put me on ignore.  Or better yet ask to be banned.  You have violated forum rules for more than anyone else.  This has nothing to do with Seventh Day Adventism and everything to do with reading the Bible as written.  Jesus said "not My will but Thy will."  The only logical conclusion is that, at that moment at least, He had a different will.  Having a different will from God is not a sin.  Not surrendering that different will is.

----------


## Dr.3D

> You can't actually bring yourself to address the Bible verse can you?
> 
> 
> 
> Then put me on ignore.  Or better yet ask to be banned.  You have violated forum rules for more than anyone else.  This has nothing to do with Seventh Day Adventism and everything to do with reading the Bible as written.  Jesus said "not My will but Thy will."  The only logical conclusion is that, at that moment at least, He had a different will.  Having a different will from God is not a sin.  Not surrendering that different will is.


Yep, it's not like He was talking to himself.

----------


## Sola_Fide

God "cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone" as the book of James says.  Jmdrake says that God can be tempted by evil, therefore He is not saved.  Charging God with sin is the unpardonable sin, which makes me fear for his soul.

----------


## jmdrake

> God "cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone" as the book of James says.  Jmdrake says that God can be tempted by evil, therefore He is not saved.  Charging God with sin is the unpardonable sin, which makes me fear for his soul.


Are you sure you want to hang your hat on a proof text like that?

Hebrews 4:15 _For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin._

----------


## jmdrake

> Yep, it's not like He was talking to himself.


Blasphemer!  You will be consigned to Sola_Fide/Aquabuddha (SF's original handle) hell!  You will be here right along with rape victims who got married before the deaths of their rapists and the prophet Hosea!

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Are you sure you want to hang your hat on a proof text like that?
> 
> Hebrews 4:15 _For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin._


Of course He did not sin.  God cannot sin. He was tempted by Satan.  He was not tempted to sin.

You don't know what you're talking about. You are not a Christian sir, and you do not understand the nature of God.

----------


## Sonny Tufts

> Yep, it's not like He was talking to himself.


Lady Claire Gurney: How do you know you're God? 

Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney, 14th Earl of Gurney: Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself. 

(From 1972's _The Ruling Class_, a delicious black comedy about an English aristocrat who thinks he's Jesus.)

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Lady Claire Gurney: How do you know you're God? 
> 
> Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney, 14th Earl of Gurney: Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself. 
> 
> (From 1972's _The Ruling Class_, a delicious black comedy about an English aristocrat who thinks he's Jesus.)



As an atheist, this is no different than what you believe.  You believe you are god and you believe that you are your own final authority.  No difference at all.

----------


## Sonny Tufts

> As an atheist, this is no different than what you believe.  You believe you are god and you believe that you are your own final authority.  No difference at all.


You really haven't a clue, do you?  No, I do not think I am Jesus.  I have no power to raise the dead or change water into wine.  Unlike you, I am not arrogant enough to claim I know the fate of everyone who doesn't agree with my views.

Incidentally, if you had seen the film you would have discovered that Jack is "cured" of his delusion that he is God, with disasterous results.  You remind me of Jack in the second half of the movie.

----------


## pcosmar

> God "cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone" as the book of James says.  Jmdrake says that God can be tempted by evil, therefore He is not saved.  Charging God with sin is the unpardonable sin, which makes me fear for his soul.


And yet Jesus was tempted,, Three times. 

Jesus was God. And he was also Man. Born of flesh with *all* that means.

Matthew 4:1-11

He did not sin,, but he was in fact tempted.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> And yet Jesus was tempted,, Three times. 
> 
> Jesus was God. And he was also Man. Born of flesh with *all* that means.
> 
> Matthew 4:1-11
> He did not sin,, but he was in fact tempted.


Jesus was tempted by evil.  He was not tempted to sin.

Do you not know the difference?  Is this board so spiritually illiterate that we have to go over this?  God cannot sin.

----------


## BetterCallSaul

can't you not say "cannot" about omnipotence?

----------


## jmdrake

> Jesus was tempted by evil.  He was not tempted to sin.


LOL.  You said he wasn't tempted at all.  You are a bad liar.




> Do you not know the difference?  Is this board so spiritually illiterate that we have to go over this?  God cannot sin.


The difference between evil and sin is.....?



And of course you won't answer the most obvious question.  Why did Jesus have a different will from His Father at this crucial juncture?

----------


## jmdrake

> And yet Jesus was tempted,, Three times. 
> 
> Jesus was God. And he was also Man. Born of flesh with *all* that means.
> 
> Matthew 4:1-11
> 
> He did not sin,, but he was in fact tempted.


Blasphemer!  Everyone who does not accept the gospel of Aquabuddha is doomed to hell!

----------


## Sola_Fide

> can't you not say "cannot" about omnipotence?


Yes you can.  You, as an atheist, have the same unbiblical objection that the cultist who started this thread has.

Omnipotence does not mean that God can do _anything._  God cannot do some things.  He cannot sin.  He cannot deny Himself.  He cannot be illogical. This is what the Bible says.

God can do everything He wills to do.  God can do everything that is in His nature to do.

Since God is holy, He cannot sin.

----------


## BetterCallSaul

well I can do everything that it is in my nature to do.  So god's like a super-levelled up human?

----------


## Sola_Fide

> well I can do everything that it is in my nature to do.  So god's like a super-levelled up human?


Google to find out what fallacy you are committing right now.

----------


## BetterCallSaul

Are you saying that I can't do whatever it is in my nature to do?  I am sure that anything that I do originated in my neuro/bio chemistry, which is by nature my nature.  So you're saying that god is like a bigger, badder, more long-living human then right?

----------


## otherone

> Google to find out what fallacy you are committing right now.


It wouldn't be "Ad Hominem", as that seems to be your specialty.

----------


## eduardo89

> As an atheist, this is no different than what you believe.  You believe you are god and you believe that you are your own final authority.  No difference at all.


How is that any different to you and your private interpretation of scripture and the faith? You've made yourself your own final authority, even though you mask your own authority on matters of faith and morals as "biblical."

----------


## eduardo89

> Since God is holy, He cannot sin.


But as you claim He creates people and forces them to rape, murder, and steal in order to send them to hell. Since they have no free will, then what your god does sin by proxy for his amusement.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> How is that any different to you and your private interpretation of scripture and the faith? You've made yourself your own final authority, even though you mask your own authority on matters of faith and morals as "biblical."


How is that not any different than you believing that man in "the church" is the final authority of Scripture?

God's Word is the final authority.  You deny that.

----------


## eduardo89

> How is that not any different than you believing that man in "the church" is the final authority of Scripture?


I do not believe any man is the final authority. The Holy Spirit guides the Church, therefore it is God who always has final authority. 




> God's Word is the final authority.  You deny that.


Where have I ever denied that? It is you who puts himself as the final authority. That is why Protestantism always leads to moral relativism, disunity, and atheism. Just look at the state of Protestant ecclesial communities: women and homosexual ordained as priests and bishops, widespread acceptance and encouragement of contraception, homosexual 'marriage,' novel and crazy theological ideas, tens of thousands of denominations, etc.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> But as you claim He creates people and forces them to rape, murder, and steal in order to send them to hell. Since they have no free will, then what your god does sin by proxy for his amusement.


For His _amusement?_  A phrase that is to be expected from an unbeliever like yourself.

God decrees all things for His _glory,_ including some sins, as is evident in the crucifixion.  God has a good reason for the evil that He plans.  God does not commit the evil, He decrees it.  God has a good reason for the evil He decrees.

Your position would mean that there is purpose-less evil, which is a far bigger problem for your position.

----------


## otherone

> Where have I ever denied that? It is you who puts himself as the final authority. That is why Protestantism always leads to moral relativism, disunity, and atheism. Just look at the state of Protestant ecclesial communities: women and homosexual ordained as priests and bishops, widespread acceptance and encouragement of contraception, homosexual 'marriage,' novel and crazy theological ideas, tens of thousands of denominations, etc.


 _ Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
     Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes!
     The dead rising from the grave!
     Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!_

Actually, I'm pretty sure that Sola Fide is just Gordon Clark's meat puppet, so don't accuse him as being his own authority...

----------


## Sola_Fide

> I do not believe any man is the final authority. The Holy Spirit guides the Church, therefore it is God who always has final authority. 
> 
> 
> 
> Where have I ever denied that? It is you who puts himself as the final authority. That is why Protestantism always leads to moral relativism, disunity, and atheism. Just look at the state of Protestant ecclesial communities: women and homosexual ordained as priests and bishops, widespread acceptance and encouragement of contraception, homosexual 'marriage,' novel and crazy theological ideas, tens of thousands of denominations, etc.


Are you KIDDING ME?

You are going to indict Protestantism for _homosexuals ordained as priests???_ *You ridiculous perverts have INSTITUTED homosexuality and child rape in your evil "church".*

I am still in shock that you actually typed that.....wow...

And of course I don't endorse any of those theologically liberal denominations anyway.

----------


## TER

> Why did Jesus have a different will from His Father at this crucial juncture?


Hi jmdrake.  I know this question wasn't addressed to me, but it is a theologically important topic so I hope you don't mind if I chime in.  Great controversy arose in the past regarding whether Christ has one or two wills. (see the Monophysite controversies of the early centuries).   According to the Fathers of the Church, Christ, Who is perfect and complete God and perfect and complete Man, indeed has two wills, a human will and a divine will.  His human will always was in perfect obedience to His divine will, thus when we see the agony in Gethsemane, we are witnessing this in play.

----------


## eduardo89

> Hi jmdrake.  I know this question wasn't addressed to me, but it is a theologically important topic so I hope you don't mind if I chime in.  Great controversy arose in the past regarding whether Christ has one or two wills. (see the Monophysite controversies of the early centuries).   According to the Fathers of the Church, Christ, Who is perfect and complete God and perfect and complete God, indeed has two will, a human will and a divine will.  His human always was in perfect obedience to His divine will, thus when we see the agony in Gethsemane, we are witnessing this in play.


If I recall correctly, the condemnation of Monophysitism by the Council of Chalcedon is what made Oriental Orthodox break away from the Church.

----------


## Sonny Tufts

> God does not commit the evil, He decrees it.


A distinction without a difference.

----------


## BetterCallSaul

Have you guys ever argued with a hardcore nazi?  Sola-Fide says the same things about God that they say about Hitler.

----------


## eduardo89

> Have you guys ever argued with a hardcore nazi?  Sola-Fide says the same things about God that they say about Hitler.


Yeah, my dad is a hardcore Nazi. But he's more same in his praises of Hitler than Sola is in defending his religion.

----------


## TER

> If I recall correctly, the condemnation of Monophysitism by the Council of Chalcedon is what made Oriental Orthodox break away from the Church.


The breaking away of the Oriental Orthodox from the rest of the Church sadly dates to this era and because of this controversy. It was the first major break in the history of the Church, well before the Great Schism.  It is an important christological topic regarding the Person of Jesus Christ and how He restores our nature and saves us. 

 Many theologians and historians believe most of the theological differences between the two Churches today are in fact semantics and that the faith regarding the two wills of Christ are actually the same (indeed, the Copts and other Oriental Churches get offended when they are called Monophysites, instead preferring the term Miaphysite).  This subtle difference is because they profess to believe Christ has two wills in one nature.

----------


## erowe1

> It's right there in the Bible.  Some weak Christians are unwilling to accept that because they want to remake god in their own image.
> 
> *Luke 22:42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."*
> 
> It is not a sin to have a free will.  It is not a sin to want your own will.  It is a sin not to surrender your will to Jesus.


I don't think that means that Jesus's will was anything different than the Father's, just that it was because it was the Father's will that he died, not because it was his own.

I don't see how it relates to the concept of free will either way. However, if it does mean that Jesus's death was the result of his free will, then a corollary must be that free will decisions can be predestined, since the cross was predestined.

----------


## Dr.3D

> A distinction without a difference.


Guess he can't say God allows it.   Instead.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> A distinction without a difference.


You still don't understand.  God has a _ good_  reason for the evil that He decrees.

You have no argument against Christianity.

----------


## BetterCallSaul

You are a good one actually.  A lot of people can rather effortlessly conclude, "Well obviously I wouldn't be a christian...listen to that horrible dick over there."

----------


## erowe1

> If I recall correctly, the condemnation of Monophysitism by the Council of Chalcedon is what made Oriental Orthodox break away from the Church.


This is a good illustration of what's wrong with both the RC and the Eastern Orthodox approaches to theology. They both have these rigid lists of hundreds of doctrines that you can't deny lest you be a heretic, even dealing with really specific speculative things like Jesus having one will or two.

I don't know if I'm a monophysite or not. But if Jesus has two wills, then they both are identical, since the human will of Jesus never wills anything different than the divine will does. It's like two identical circles occupying the exact same place. Are they really two after all or just one? And somehow, the way I answer that question is supposed to determine if I'm anathematized.

----------


## TER

> I don't think that means that Jesus's will was anything different than the Father's, just that it was because it was the Father's will that he died, not because it was his own.
> 
> I don't see how it relates to the concept of free will either way. However, if it does mean that Jesus's death was the result of his free will, then a corollary must be that free will decisions can be predestined, since the cross was predestined.


According to the teachings of the Fathers, Christ's human will willingly took up the cross in perfect obedience to the Father's will.  His perfect obedience is what cancels out the first disobedience of Adam.  By this, our human nature (which includes our human will)  is restored in righteousness with God and how the curse of Adam was overcome.

----------


## erowe1

> According to the teachings of the Fathers, Christ's human will willingly took up the cross in perfect obedience to the Father's will.  His perfect obedience is what cancels out the first disobedience of Adam.  By this, our human nature (which includes our human will)  is restored in righteousness with God and how the curse of Adam was overcome.


I agree with that. It's easy to see where the fathers got the idea too, since it's in the Bible.

----------


## TER

> This is a good illustration of what's wrong with both the RC and the Eastern Orthodox approaches to theology. They both have these rigid lists of hundreds of doctrines that you can't deny lest you be a heretic, even dealing with really specific speculative things like Jesus having one will or two.
> 
> I don't know if I'm a monophysite or not. But if Jesus has two wills, then they both are identical, since the human will of Jesus never wills anything different than the divine will does. It's like two identical circles occupying the exact same place. Are they really two after all or just one? And somehow, the way I answer that question is supposed to determine if I'm anathematized.


The Church has proclaimed such teachings in response to the growing false teachings which were spread by people teaching wrong things about Who Christ is and how we are saved by Him.  You may not find these to be important, but they are very important in maintaining the apostolic faith, because ultimately it affects our worship.  If Christ did not have a human will, then our human will is not saved.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> According to the teachings of the Fathers, Christ's human will willingly took up the cross in perfect obedience to the Father's will.  His perfect obedience is what cancels out the first disobedience of Adam.  By this, our human nature (which includes our human will)  is restored in righteousness with God and how the curse of Adam was overcome.


Yeah.  So....what?  That is in agreement with Scripture. So what?  

That means you disagree with jmdrake.

----------


## eduardo89

> This is a good illustration of what's wrong with both the RC and the Eastern Orthodox approaches to theology. They both have these rigid lists of hundreds of doctrines that you can't deny lest you be a heretic, even dealing with really specific speculative things like Jesus having one will or two.


I disagree. There are certain matters of faith and moral that simply cannot be disagreed with if you are to remain a Christian and the Church has an obligation to forcefully denounce those who are teaching falsehoods and leading people astray.  When you begin denying one small part of the Truth you deny the whole Truth

----------


## erowe1

> I disagree. There are certain matters of faith and moral that simply cannot be disagreed with if you are to remain a Christian and the Church has an obligation to forcefully denounce those who are teaching falsehoods and leading people astray.  When you begin denying one small part of the Truth you deny the whole Truth


I agree that there are such matters, namely in the Gospel itself.

But do you really think that Jesus having two wills is one of those (as the 3rd Council of Constantinople claims)? And if you do, then why do you count orthodox Christians as being essentially in the same fold as Roman Catholics (IIRC)?

----------


## erowe1

> The Church has proclaimed such teachings in response to the growing false teachings which were spread by people teaching wrong things about Who Christ is and how we are saved by Him.  You may not find these to be important, but they are very important in maintaining the apostolic faith, because ultimately it affects our worship.  If Christ did not have a human will, then our human will is not saved.


I agree that Christ had a human will. But that's not all the monothelite controversy was about. I'm pretty sure both sides of that affirmed that he was fully human and had a human will.

----------


## eduardo89

> I agree that there are such matters, namely in the Gospel itself.
> 
> But do you really think that Jesus having two wills is one of those (as the 3rd Council of Constantinople claims)?


As TER pointed out, unless Jesus had a human will in addition to His divine will, then human nature could never be restored in righteous. If Christ did not have a human will, then our human will is not saved.




> And if you do, then why do you count orthodox Christians as being essentially in the same fold as Roman Catholics (IIRC)?


Eastern Orthodox and Catholics both accept the Sixth Ecumenical Council as infallible and condemn the heresies of Jesus having one nature and one will. 

I don't agree with everything Eastern Orthodoxy teaches, but I do believe they are a part of the One True Church, but currently suffer from an imperfect communion with the rest of the Church. I, and the Catholic Church, fully recognize the validity of their priesthood and Sacraments and I do believe that their imperfect communion with us is closer than that of any other Christians.

----------


## eduardo89

> I agree that Christ had a human will. But that's not all the monothelite controversy was about. I'm pretty sure both sides of that affirmed that he was fully human and had a human will.


Monothelitism teaches that Christ had one will, but two natures. He was fully human but did not have a human will.

----------


## TER

> I agree that Christ had a human will. But that's not all the monothelite controversy was about. I'm pretty sure both sides of that affirmed that he was fully human and had a human will.


They did affirm that fore the most part, which is why reunion is possible.  The trouble arose when other breakaway heresies began to be developed, namely Eutychianism and Apollinariasm, which started to take sway in certain regions and which were completely unorthodox in doctrine and against the christological understands of Who Christ is and how He saves us.  These may seem like esoteric points, but one error leads to more errors, and it is the charge of the Church to maintain the apostolic faith.

----------


## eduardo89

> They did affirm that, which is why reunion is possible.  The trouble arose when other breakaway heresies began to be developed, namely Eutychianism and Apollinariasm, which started to take sway in certain regions and which were completely unorthodox in doctrine and against the christological understands of Who Christ is and how He saves us.


From what I've read Eutychianism came first and was condemned at the Fourth Council. Later on, monothelitism was developed as sort of "compromise" to try and bring back Christians in Syria and Armenia. Monothelitism was denounced as heretical by the Sixth Council. Both are strains of monophysitism, but differ slightly.

----------


## TER

> From what I've read Eutychianism came first and was condemned at the Fourth Council. Later on, monothelitism was developed as sort of "compromise" to try and bring back Christians in Syria and Armenia. Monothelitism was denounced as heretical by the Sixth Council. Both are strains of monophysitism, but differ slightly.


I think you are right.  It has been a few years since I studied the christological controversies of that time period.  What I was referring to was the beginning of the Monophysite (not the monotheism) controversies.

----------


## Sonny Tufts

> You still don't understand.  God has a _ good_  reason for the evil that He decrees.


Ah yes, the old "the end justifies the means" excuse.

If you don't think the biblical God commits evil, you should reread Exodus 12:29.  And please spare me any rationalization that murdering babies isn't evil.

----------


## Sola_Fide

This is a fine discussion we are having, but the question posed in this thread "can God sin?"

Let's everyone grow some balls and put your answer out there.

----------


## matt0611

> This is a fine discussion we are having, but the question posed in this thread "can God sin?"
> 
> Let's everyone grow some balls and put your answer out there.


I don't believe so. God is perfectly holy and sinning would go against his nature. Seems illogical to me.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Ah yes, the old "the end justifies the means" excuse.
> 
> If you don't think the biblical God commits evil, you should reread Exodus 12:29.  And please spare me any rationalization that murdering babies isn't evil.


You don't have a biblical or logical argument against Christianity sir.  You have an _emotional_  reaction.  That means nothing.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> I don't believe so. God is perfectly holy and sinning would go against his nature, seems illogical to me.


Exactly.  God cannot sin.

----------


## erowe1

> They did affirm that fore the most part, which is why reunion is possible.  The trouble arose when other breakaway heresies began to be developed, namely Eutychianism and Apollinariasm, which started to take sway in certain regions and which were completely unorthodox in doctrine and against the christological understands of Who Christ is and how He saves us.  These may seem like esoteric points, but one error leads to more errors, and it is the charge of the Church to maintain the apostolic faith.


I think both Eutyches and Apollinarius came before the monothelite controversy.

This is what I mean about how picky these things get. Even in the early christological controversies, Eutyches, Nestorius, and Apollinarius, were all just trying to make honest attempts at wrapping their minds around something that's beyond human comprehension. They never repudiated the Gospel or any clear teaching of the Bible (at least not in the teachings for which they were condemned). And now RC and Orthodox churches have these rigid boundaries around their members' thoughts, where they tell them, "We've already figured this out for you. Don't try to figure it out yourself, or you might get it wrong and get anathemetized."

Take monophysitism. I don't think I am one. But I have a problem affirming as some kind of positive claim that Jesus has two distinct natures. The language of that itself irks me, since if he has two natures, then the union of those two natures can itself be described as a single nature. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong. But it's silly to tell Christians they have no right to say such a thing.

----------


## otherone

> This is a fine discussion we are having, but the question posed in this thread "can God sin?"
> 
> Let's everyone grow some balls and put your answer out there.


Can God violate his own Will?  It's a stupid question.

----------


## eduardo89

> This is a fine discussion we are having, but the question posed in this thread "can God sin?"
> 
> Let's everyone grow some balls and put your answer out there.


God can do anything logically possible which does not conflict with His nature.

----------


## erowe1

> Ah yes, the old "the end justifies the means" excuse.
> 
> If you don't think the biblical God commits evil, you should reread Exodus 12:29.  And please spare me any rationalization that murdering babies isn't evil.


It's not evil for God himself. It's not even really murder when God does it, since every single one of us dies at the time God appoints for us, which is always his prerogative. Murder is evil for us precisely because we aren't God.

At any rate, we don't need the Bible to see that God's creation has evil in it. It's all around us. Putting our heads in the sand and saying that it's just impossible for evil to exist in God's creation doesn't do anyone any good.

----------


## TER

> I think both Eutyches and Apollinarius came before the monothelite controversy.
> 
> This is what I mean about how picky these things get. Even in the early christological controversies, Eutyches, Nestorius, and Apollinarius, were all just trying to make honest attempts at wrapping their minds around something that's beyond human comprehension. They never repudiated the Gospel or any clear teaching of the Bible (at least not in the teachings for which they were condemned). And now RC and Orthodox churches have these rigid boundaries around their members' thoughts, where they tell them, "We've already figured this out for you. Don't try to figure it out yourself, or you might get it wrong and get anathemetized."
> 
> Take monophysitism. I don't think I am one. But I have a problem affirming as some kind of positive claim that Jesus has two distinct natures. The language of that itself irks me, since if he has two natures, then the union of those two natures can itself be described as a single nature. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong. But it's silly to tell Christians they have no right to say such a thing.


People have a right to say whatever they want.  They don't, however, have the right to make up their own doctrines about who God is which is against the witness of the Church and then demand to receive sacramental communion from that Church.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> God can do anything logically possible which does not conflict with His nature.


That's correct.  God cannot sin because it is not in His nature.  Ellen G. White has led jmdrake away into error.  I have spent hours and hours trying to correct Ellen G. White's heresies on these boards.

----------


## eduardo89

> People have a right to say whatever they want.  They don't, however, have the right to make up their own doctrines about who God is which is against the witness of the Church and then demand to receive sacramental communion from that Church.


That's how I see it. 

I would also add that the Church has an obligation to denounce those who misrepresent the Truth in order to preserve the Truth. It's for this reason that the Church does not allow those who, for example, do not accept in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist to receive Communion. The first and foremost reason for this is to protect the sanctity of the Eucharist.

----------


## Theocrat

> It's right there in the Bible.  Some weak Christians are unwilling to accept that because they want to remake god in their own image.
> 
> *Luke 22:42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."*
> 
> It is not a sin to have a free will.  It is not a sin to want your own will.  It is a sin not to surrender your will to Jesus.


Jmdrake, did Pharaoh have a free will back in the book of Exodus, during the time of Moses' visitation upon him?

----------


## eduardo89

> That's correct.  God cannot sin because it is not in His nature.  Ellen G. White has led jmdrake away into error.  I have spent hours and hours trying to correct Ellen G. White's heresies on these boards.


I agree with you here Sola. God cannot sin.

----------


## erowe1

> People have a right to say whatever they want.  They don't, however, have the right to make up their own doctrines about who God is which is against the witness of the Church and then demand to receive sacramental communion from that Church.


Since your church claims that excluding people from its sacramental communion amounts to excluding them from Christ himself, that's a pretty big deal. It's essentially saying, "In addition to the Gospel of the apostles, you also have to believe all these hard-to-understand appendixes that we've added to it."

----------


## erowe1

> It's for this reason that the Church does not allow those who, for example, do not accept in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist to receive Communion. The first and foremost reason for this is to protect the sanctity of the Eucharist.


Can you imagine the apostles trying to impose this on their churches full of recent converts from all varieties of paganism?

When it comes to guarding doctrine, I think there's a place for churches to have standards that go beyond the gospel itself for those who teach authoritatively in the church. But to tell ordinary Christians, "We control your access to God's grace in the sacraments, and we will take that away from you if you say any of the hundreds of things we've anathematized, including things that are far removed from the Gospel itself, including matters of history, such as what happened to Mary's body after she died," is to add to the Gospel.

----------


## otherone

> Can you imagine the apostles trying to impose this on their churches full of recent converts from all varieties of paganism?


What apostle did that?

----------


## erowe1

> What apostle did that?


None. That's my point.

----------


## TER

> Since your church claims that excluding people from its sacramental communion amounts to excluding them from Christ himself, that's a pretty big deal. It's essentially saying, "In addition to the Gospel of the apostles, you also have to believe all these hard-to-understand appendixes that we've added to it."


 (1 Corinthians 11:23-29)

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread
and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.
A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.
*For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.*

the prohibition from giving the Holy Eucharist to those who publicly profess teachings contrary to the Church is to protect the person from further judgement and condemnation

----------


## TER

> What apostle did that?


Most of the Apostles in the first centuries converted even entire cities which were pagan to Christianity.  And those newly batpized and illumined submitted themselves to the Church which is the Body of Christ and partook of the Holy Eucharist for their sanctification.  This is how Christianity spread according to the will of God.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> the prohibition from giving the Holy Eucharist to those who publicly profess teachings contrary to the Church is to protect the person from further judgement and condemnation


Right, but if your "church" denies the gospel, what does that do to the communion?  Sorry for being so blunt.

----------


## eduardo89

> Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God....*They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ*, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes


- Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans




> We call this food Eucharist, and *no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true* and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus


- Justin Martyr, First Apology 66, 151 A.D

----------


## TER

> Right, but if your "church" denies the gospel, what does that do to the communion?  Sorry for being so blunt.


Well, for starters, do they believe the Eucharist to be the real Body and Blood of Christ as He said it was?

----------


## eduardo89

> Right, but if your "church" denies the gospel, what does that do to the communion?  Sorry for being so blunt.


It is you that denies the Gospel when you deny what Christ Himself said about the Eucharist.

----------


## Theocrat

> (1 Corinthians 11:23-29)
> 
> For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread
> and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
> In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
> For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
> Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.
> A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.
> *For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.*
> ...


TER, you're my brother, but I must correct you on your use of that passage because you've taken it out of its context. The question we must first ask is how were Christians "eating and drinking without discerning the body," given the context of Paul's epistle. Verses 20-22 give us the answer, which tells us that,




> When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. For in eating, every one taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in, or despise ye the church of God and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.


The people of God were at the Lord's Table, eating and drinking in selfishness. They were not loving each other as they ought, preferring one before another. The Table had nothing to do with barring people that "professed teachings contrary to the Church," for Paul mentions that nowhere in the text. He does state in Verse 19 that, "For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." But Paul then doesn't go on to say that heretics must be barred from the table. Condemnation for eating at the table in an unworthy manner comes in Verses 32-34:




> But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come.


So, that passage is about table manners at the Lord's Supper, not some method of Church discipline due to disagreement with some teachings (though there are other passages for dealing with that in other places in Scripture).

----------


## erowe1

> (1 Corinthians 11:23-29)
> 
> For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread
> and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
> In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
> For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
> Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.
> A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.
> *For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.*
> ...


It's pretty clear that Paul's talking about eating and drinking in an unworthy manner, not about withholding it from certain people based on their beliefs.

It's also pretty clear that this doesn't include any group of people having authority over anyone else to exclude them from the church or from any means of grace. Notice "he should examine himself" is not "the bishop should examine him."

----------


## erowe1

> - Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans
> 
> 
> 
> - Justin Martyr, First Apology 66, 151 A.D


Right. You definitely see these ideas as early as Ignatius. But no earlier. The apostles knew nothing of them. As for me, I'd rather steer clear of these recent innovations that have only been around for 1900 years.

----------


## eduardo89

> Right. You definitely see these ideas as early as Ignatius. But no earlier. The apostles knew nothing of them. As for me, I'd rather steer clear of these recent innovations that have only been around for 1900 years.


St. Peter appointed Ignatius to the episcopal see of Antioch and he was a disciple of St. John, so they probably would have known about these "innovations."

----------


## TER

> So, that passage is about table manners at the Lord's Supper, not some method of Church discipline due to disagreement with some teachings (though there are other passages for dealing with that in other places in Scripture).


Theocrat, that is your interpretation and what you may believe, but is not what the earliest Christian believed, what the Church Fathers taught and what 2000 years of Christianity has defended.  I have chosen their interpretation and witness over yours.

----------


## erowe1

> St. Peter appointed Ignatius to the episcopal see of Antioch and he was a disciple of St. John, so they probably would have known about these "innovations."


1) What's your basis for this claim?

2) Even if it were true (which I doubt), the conclusion doesn't follow. Someone appointing someone as a bishop in AD 60 would not entail an endorsement of something that bishop would later say in AD 110.

----------


## TER

> Right. You definitely see these ideas as early as Ignatius. But no earlier. The apostles knew nothing of them. As for me, I'd rather steer clear of these recent innovations that have only been around for 1900 years.


They knew the Apostolic teachings better then you.  Why should I choose your interpretation and beliefs over theirs?  These two great Fathers of the Church did not make things up!  Their entire life was to defend the apostolic teachings handed down to them (which in the case of St. Ignatius, was but a generation or two later).

----------


## eduardo89

> They knew the Apostolic teachings better then you.  Why should I choose your interpretation and beliefs over theres?  These two great Fathers of the Church did not make things up!  Their entire life was to defend the apostolic teachings handed down to them (which in the case of St. Ignatius, was not a generation later).


You can add my name to this post, erowe, as a response to your questions.

----------


## Theocrat

> Theocrat, that is your interpretation and what you may believe, but is not what the earliest Christian believed, what the Church Fathers taught and what 2000 years of Christianity has defended.  I have chosen their interpretation and witness over yours.


There is no subjective interpretation needed. The passage is pretty clear, so we should let it speak on its own authority, in the plainest reading of the text. The phrase "is not what the earliest Christian believed, what the Church Fathers taught, and what 2,000 years of Christianity has defended," is not only vague and full of assumptions about when the Church was first established, but it is not even a rational rebuttal that refutes the language and understanding of the text in which I quoted.

Do you have any citations from Scripture that would, maybe, show how my reading of 1 Corinthians 11 is false? We must compare Scripture with Scripture, my brother. That is our final authority, not church councils, which do err and have erred in history.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> They knew the Apostolic teachings better then you.  Why should I choose your interpretation and beliefs over theirs?  These two great Fathers of the Church did not make things up!  Their entire life was to defend the apostolic teachings handed down to them (which in the case of St. Ignatius, was but a generation or two later).


You shouldn't choose any interpretation that is an unbiblical innovation.  This should be obvious to every Christian.

----------


## eduardo89

> You shouldn't choose any interpretation that is an unbiblical innovation.  This should be obvious to every Chistian.


Then we shouldn't chose any of your interpretations. And you should accept that the Eucharist is Christ's Body and Blood.

----------


## erowe1

> They knew the Apostolic teachings better then you.


Who did? And how do you know?

It's not like the apostles' teachings are some long lost thing we have no access to. All we have to do is check them.

In the case of Ignatius, the teachings of his that he actually attributes to the apostles may well all be things I agree with (though I don't recall for sure). It's the things he teaches that he doesn't even pretend to have gotten from them, such as much of what he says about bishops, that I reject.

----------


## jmdrake

> I don't think that means that Jesus's will was anything different than the Father's, just that it was because it was the Father's will that he died, not because it was his own.
> 
> I don't see how it relates to the concept of free will either way. However, if it does mean that Jesus's death was the result of his free will, then a corollary must be that free will decisions can be predestined, since the cross was predestined.


Hello erowe1.  What I see is you reinterpreting scripture to fit a predetermined belief.  And yes, I could be wrong.  I don't think so though.  "Not by will, but yours be done."  There is no room to reinterpret "not my will."  Jesus isn't saying "Okay Father.  I'm gladly going along with what you say.  I don't have a will."  In fact Jesus specifically asks the Father "take this cup away from Me."  Jesus didn't want to go through with Calvary, but submitted Himself to His Father's will.  And remember, at this point Jesus was not omniscient.  Don't forget that He had recently told His disciples that He didn't even know the date of His return.  Only His Father knew that.

----------


## jmdrake

> According to the teachings of the Fathers, Christ's human will willingly took up the cross in perfect obedience to the Father's will.  His perfect obedience is what cancels out the first disobedience of Adam.  By this, our human nature (which includes our human will)  is restored in righteousness with God and how the curse of Adam was overcome.





> I agree with that. It's easy to see where the fathers got the idea too, since it's in the Bible.


Ummmmm.....that's what I was saying in the OP.  At least that's what I think I was saying.  Maybe I needed TER to reinterpret the gospel according to jmdrake.  

And that brings me back to my original point.  What made Jesus obedience as a human so great?  The fact that He, like Adam, had the *possibility* of failure.  Oh sure, I know that Jesus knew before He became incarnate that He would ultimately triumph.  But at that moment in Gethsemane, and those times in the wilderness, when He had laid down his omniscience, He was faced with the same choice that Adam was faced with, yet He faced it without sinning.

----------


## jmdrake

> Yeah.  So....what?  That is in agreement with Scripture. So what?  
> 
> That means you disagree with jmdrake.


Wrong.  It means that you, Sola_Fide, do not understand scripture because you don't understand that what TER said fits exactly with what I said.  Jesus gave His will over to the Father.  Yes.  That's the same as saying "Christ's human will willingly took up the cross in perfect obedience to the Father's will."  That doesn't mean that His human will was not tempted to sin as you have falsely claimed.  Being tempted is not the same as sinning.

----------


## GunnyFreedom

It's not uncommon for a person's body to have a will distinct from the same person's mind.  Thus we say "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."  My mind says I want to go out for a three mile run.  My body says PSSHT in your dreams!  Nevertheless, I am still just the one person.  On person composed of mind, body, and soul; in the same manner as God is a single Being of Father, Son, and Spirit.  We are, after all, made in the image of God.  That includes His triune nature.

----------


## Sola_Fide

We have to get down to the reason that jmdrake, as a Seventh Day Adventist, would advance this view.  Ellen G. White (who jmdrake looks to as an authority that is equal to the Bible) said that Jesus was not God from all eternity.

She taught in her book Spirit of Prophecy that Christ _became_ God, not that He was God from all eternity:




> "The great Creator assembled the heavenly host, that he might in the presence of all the angels confer special honor upon his Son. The Son was seated on the throne with the Father, and the heavenly throng of holy angels was gathered around them. The Father then made known that it was ordained by himself that Christ, his Son, should be equal with himself; so that wherever was the presence of his Son, it was as his own presence."

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Ummmmm.....that's what I was saying in the OP.  At least that's what I think I was saying.  Maybe I needed TER to reinterpret the gospel according to jmdrake.  
> 
> And that brings me back to my original point.  What made Jesus obedience as a human so great?  The fact that He, like Adam, had the *possibility* of failure.  Oh sure, I know that Jesus knew before He became incarnate that He would ultimately triumph.  But at that moment in Gethsemane, and those times in the wilderness, when He had laid down his omniscience, He was faced with the same choice that Adam was faced with, yet He faced it without sinning.


This is a completely anti-Christian, heretical view of Jesus.  This is the kind of subordinationism that Millerites share with Jehovah's Witnesses.

----------


## jmdrake

> This is a completely anti-Christian, heretical view of Jesus.  This is the kind of subordinationism that Millerites share with Jehovah's Witnesses.


You are contradicting yourself.  First you try to agree with TER, probably because erowe1 agreed with him and you kind of want to keep him on your side.  Then you turn around and call the view "heretical."  The problem is that you really share the view of Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses that if Jesus humbled Himself as Paul said He did, then He isn't God.  I take the view that Jesus was so awesome that He could be Satan with both hands tied behind His back.  Let me guess.  You believe Jesus, while on earth, was omniscient and that if He wasn't omniscient then He wasn't God?

----------


## jmdrake

> We have to get down to the reason that jmdrake, as a Seventh Day Adventist, would advance this view.  Ellen G. White (who jmdrake looks to as an authority that is equal to the Bible) said that Jesus was not God from all eternity.
> 
> She taught in her book Spirit of Prophecy that Christ _became_ God, not that He was God from all eternity:


A) Ellen White herself didn't believe she was an authority equal to the Bible so to believe that would be to disbelieve Ellen White.  

B) The teaching Ellen was giving at that point is not that Jesus became God, but that was the point that the Father explained to the angels what was already true which is that Jesus was God.  

If you had a lick of sense you would see your logical error.  When Jesus came to earth, people didn't initially recognize Him as God.  Not even His own disciples initially recognized that.  That doesn't mean He didn't become God until the truth of his godhood was revealed to them.

----------


## jmdrake

Bump

----------


## Theocrat

> Bump


Post #65?

----------


## jmdrake

> Post #65?


Why don't you study the entire issue, instead of proof texting, and find out for yourself?

http://www.apologeticspress.org/apco...1&article=1205

Compare 1 Samuel 6:6 with Romans 1:28.  God leaving you to your own devices because you rejected His is not the same as you not having free will.

----------


## TER

Theo, this topic has already been addressed by the Fathers of the Church.  There is no evil in God. Evil is rather the lack of God, and the absence of being itself.   For God is life, and in Him we have eternal life.  By His Name, and by His Love, which is love above anything the human mind can conceive of.  In God springs forth all good, for God can do no evil.  

The verse you are referring too, namely that 'God hardened the heart of the Pharaoh', means exactly that.  God hardened him in order to bring him to repentance.  God hardening the heart of the Pharaoh does not mean that He gave evil to him or caused evil to Him.  You are inferring God to be evil here when it isn't there.   You are judging God to be evil in a sentence when it makes no such claim.

God, of course, as the Almighty Creator, could have us do something against our will.  God is sovereign over all things and His power is everlasting.  No one is debating that God cannot control our bodies and cannot enter our minds, for He is the Uncreated Mind of the Universe and the Source of All Things.  

This God has been revealed by Jesus Christ.  

And even such a God can be as good and as loving as the God revealed to us by Jesus Christ and written about in the Gospels.  A God Who would save Israel.  A God Who would be mocked and criticized and hated.  A God Who ascended the Cross beaten and bloodied.  A God Who would suffer death in order to reverse the curse of Adam and abolish the power of death.  A God Who would lose a Son to heal the tears of those who have children and mourn over them.  A God Who became all things in order to restore all things.

Our God is One Who waits for us every day by his window, like the father of the prodigal, waiting and hoping for our return.  To see us again. And when we humble ourselves and realize how we have foolishly squandered the gifts He has given us. When we see our sins and the fruits of our sins before us, and then _'come to mind'_ THAT IS make a willful ascent of our mind and our body towards our Father Who loves us, AND GET UP from the depths of our inequities and sins and transgressions and turn to Him.  Doing this, we find He loves us too.  But we must get up from the filth we are in and put firmly our mind and hope and will towards Him who loves us and gave us plenty.  And God, like the father of the prodigal, runs out to greet us, and rejoices with us, and celebrates with us in the joy of the return of the long lost son and of his journey home. 

Such a God gave the Pharaoh what he needed in the hopes the sinful Pharaoh might repent and change his evil ways.  Just as the father of the prodigal allowed his son his share of the inheritance and gave him the freedom to make his own willful choices.  God is THAT powerful, to give him everything he needed, in undefiled and pure divine love, divine mercy, and divine justice.  Likewise, to us, God allows us affliction in order to restore us and allows us sickness in order to heal us.  God chastises those He loves:

My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor detest His correction;
For whom the Lord loves He corrects,
Just as a father the son in whom he delights.
_-Proverbs 3:11-12 (New King James Version)
_


We all must bear our cross, for Christ warned us about this.  We must follow Him, be obedient to Him.  For if the Pharaoh wanted to do right, then the struggles he was facing would have been the right and just medicine in order to finally have him stop being a cause for evil.  And God gave him many chances, not only one.  The God of Israel is a God of mercy.  The hardening of the Pharaoh should have been his cause to then do good, instead, he took these experiences to cause more evil.  He was softened to his passions of anger and malice and hate.  

But in the other spectrum, a carpenter's hands are hardened by the working and the toil of the hands.  Yet from such hands come works of divine beauty and wonder.  Such power and ability.    

God refines us to shine in His light, and just as gold is purified in the fire, and made pure by the burning of the impurities., God purifies us to reflect His light. 

And God is a consuming fire.  He is an everlasting Light.  And Light casts out all darkness.  For there is no darkness where there is light.  And the Light is there for any who choose to find it and those who seek for it.  

Instead, we sinners look elsewhere and in dark places, and live in darkness.  To such a life will will inherit.  And to the same measure we may have fought against it.  

God gives us what we need for our salvation, all we have to do is ask of Him and He will answer.  All we have to do is seek for Him, and we will learn answers.  


"Our Father, Who is in Heaven,
Hallowed is Your Name,
Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us today, our daily bread,
and forgive our trespasses, AS WE forgive those we trespass against.

And lead us not into temptations,
but deliver us from the evil one.  Amen."

----------


## Theocrat

> Why don't you study the entire issue, instead of proof texting, and find out for yourself?
> 
> http://www.apologeticspress.org/apco...1&article=1205
> 
> Compare 1 Samuel 6:6 with Romans 1:28.  God leaving you to your own devices because you rejected His is not the same as you not having free will.


How did Pharaoh have a free will, if God hardened his heart? Did Pharaoh have a choice in the matter? If so, then where do we find such a choice from Pharaoh to decide whether he would allow God to harden his heart or not in the context of the book of Exodus? (Think about that, with Proverbs 21:1 in mind.)

----------


## torchbearer

if Jesus is god, did he give his will to himself?
and was it really a sacrifice for Jesus to "die" if we was really just getting his ticket back home to his father?
I mean, his death would have been a sacrifice if god would indeed lose his son.

----------


## TER

> if Jesus is god, did he give his will to himself?
> and was it really a sacrifice for Jesus to "die" if we was really just getting his ticket back home to his father?
> I mean, his death would have been a sacrifice if god would indeed lose his son.


Jesus is God, and the Creator of the world, and His will is His own.  How He 'gives His will to Himself' is probably beyond human understanding.

Yes, it really was a sacrifice when Jesus died, because He felt the pain, the suffering, and the torment involved in this torture and felt acutely the separation of the soul from the body (which is an unnatural human state).

----------


## torchbearer

> Jesus is God, and the Creator of the world, and His will is His own.  How He 'gives His will to Himself' is probably beyond human understanding.
> 
> Yes, it really was a sacrifice when Jesus died, because He felt the pain, the suffering, and the torment involved in this torture and felt acutely the separation of the soul from the body (which is an unnatural human state).



but if I knew for certain that at the end of a day of torture, i'd be king of everything, that wouldn't be much of a sacrifice.
just speaking frankly, though i know such a thought must by offensive.
If God had sacrificed his son in such a way that he'd never have him back again, i'd be impressed.
He SACRIFICED his only son. gave him up forever, to redeem our sins.

You don't hear people saying, God sent his son to endure some sick torture for a couple days for our sins?
When I brought this topic up in religious studies at LC, my professor was at least honest enough not to throw bull$#@! answers my way, he encouraged everyone to think about what i had said.

----------


## TER

> but if I knew for certain that at the end of a day of torture, i'd be king of everything, that wouldn't be much of a sacrifice.
> just speaking frankly, though i know such a thought must by offensive.
> If God had sacrificed his son in such a way that he'd never have him back again, i'd be impressed.
> He SACRIFICED his only son. gave him up forever, to redeem our sins.
> 
> You don't hear people saying, God sent his son to endure some sick torture for a couple days for our sins?
> When I brought this topic up in religious studies at LC, my professor was at least honest enough not to throw bull$#@! answers my way, he encouraged everyone to think about what i had said.


The sacrifice of Christ was that He as the pure and undefiled lamb, sinless and without guile, would experience the torments and sufferings of mockery, torture, and death.   Christ would willingly do this in order to save us from eternal death and grant us a means to recommune with God.  Now, are you saying that this wasn't enough?  That such blameless suffering and death was not enough to impress you?  Should He have been eternally punished for the sins of men?

----------


## torchbearer

> The sacrifice of Christ was that He as the pure and undefiled lamb, sinless and without guile, would experience the torments and sufferings of mockery, torture, and death.   Christ would willingly do this in order to save us from eternal death and grant us a means to recommune with God.  Now, are you saying that this wasn't enough?  That such blameless suffering and death was not enough to impress you?  Should He have been eternally punished for the sins of men?



none of that makes sense.
none of the above was necesary to absolve us of sin. even original sin.
So what if the perfect human-god could live right and be punished?
should it not matter more that one of us imperfect beings would have done the same out of love for a caring and interventionist god with a hand protecting our every move but chose us to die for him?
none of it makes sense. no matter how much you say it. god creating a human version of himself sent to endure torture in order for you to absolved of sins that happened in a place in time you had nothing to do with...
it doesn't make sense.

I'm not even arguing that there was a jesus who went through these things...
I'm just taking a step back and looking at the logic that is being sold.

----------


## TER

> none of that makes sense.
> none of the above was necesary to absolve us of sin. even original sin.
> So what if the perfect human-god could live right and be punished?
> should it not matter more that one of us imperfect beings would have done the same out of love for a caring and interventionist god with a hand protecting our every move but chose us to die for him?
> none of it makes sense. no matter how much you say it. god creating a human version of himself sent to endure torture in order for you to absolved of sins that happened in a place in time you had nothing to do with...
> it doesn't make sense.
> 
> I'm not even arguing that there was a jesus who went through these things...
> I'm just taking a step back and looking at the logic that is being sold.


St. Athanasios the Great once said 'God became man, so that we men might become like gods'.  Our salvation is our partaking in the divine, in the eternal.  To find true life back in the eternal and loving presence of God, and sharing (by His grace) the joys and attributes of the divine nature.

Because of the sin of our forefather, namely the Ancestral Sin, our human nature which we inherit has been cursed by the sting of death.  Thus, all men who were ever born would eventually suffer this fate on account of us sharing in the same human nature.

Our present condition of corruption is on account of sin (that is, the willful separation from Him Who is the Source of our life and being).  This separation was so great, and so intimate in our inherited nature, that nothing we could have ever have done could have restored us to our original condition.  The only way to break then this curse was for God Himself to put on our nature in order to restore it and cure it.  This was the work of Christ, Who humbled Himself out of love, condescended Himself so that He might raise us to Him restored and transfigured.  Only through Christ is our human nature (all of it, including our flesh and passions) restored and given the ability to partake in the divine nature.

----------


## erowe1

> none of that makes sense.
> none of the above was necesary to absolve us of sin. even original sin.


What do you base this claim on?

----------


## torchbearer

> St. Athanasios the Great once said 'God became man, so that we men might become like gods'.  Our salvation is our partaking in the divine, in the eternal.  To find true life back in the eternal and loving presence of God, and sharing (by His grace) the joys and attributes of the divine nature.
> 
> Because of the sin of our forefather, namely the Ancestral Sin, our human nature which we inherit has been cursed by the sting of death.  Thus, all men who were ever born would eventually suffer this fate on account of us sharing in the same human nature.
> 
> Our present condition of corruption is on account of sin (that is, the willful separation from Him Who is the Source of our life and being).  This separation was so great, and so intimate in our inherited nature, that nothing we could have ever have done could have restored us to our original condition.  The only way to break then this curse was for God Himself to put on our nature in order to restore it and cure it.  This was the work of Christ, Who humbled Himself out of love, condescended Himself so that He might raise us to Him restored and transfigured.  Only through Christ is our human nature (all of it, including our flesh and passions) restored and given the ability to partake in the divine nature.


I promise i got all of that spill growing up.
None of still makes sense.
Is God's power limited by trivial rules of protocol?
Is God's love limited by the hoops in which we jump?

I am not against the idea of something greater than myself. I am not against listening to what others propose in that manner.
But what you are saying is a crock, just like the other sects of god worshipers on this planet.

It is possible that the problem is these societies cling to old books written in terms of a limited understanding of an earlier people, and by doing so, they have blinded themselves to knowing the truth of their creation by not accepting the new knowledge they are privileged to know.

I say this because I think people are making a mistake. Not that I am Right, but that people have cut themselves off from finding out the certainty of their truth by clinging to tribal stories in such a way that they attack any thought outside it.

if your eternal soul depended on it, would you want to know the truth? would just take someone's word on faith with something so precious and dire be sane?

----------


## GunnyFreedom

> if Jesus is god, did he give his will to himself?


Sorta and sorta not.  Have you ever experienced a phenomena where your _mind_ wanted to go on a 3 mile run but your _body_ did not?  Did your body ultimately submit to the will of your mind and then go on that run?  That's basically what happened.  If you aren't a runner there is bound to be something of a similar nature.  In that scene especially, think of the Father as the mind of God, and the Son as the body of God.  Your body may not always want to do what your mind wants it to do, but you are no less a singular person for it.




> and was it really a sacrifice for Jesus to "die" if we was really just getting his ticket back home to his father?
> I mean, his death would have been a sacrifice if god would indeed lose his son.


Well, the real sacrifice was that He was _born_.  Until that moment the entire universe could have been destroyed or continued on to it's heat death unredeemed and having no part in eternity.  Now, God Himself became a part of this reality, therefore some part of this reality must necessarily therefore survive.

Having knowledge of eternity is faint comfort for the flesh in the act of dying.  It wasn't a dramatic play, it was a real death, because His birth was a real birth.  Yeshua had been hanging out on the Earth from the very start.  He ate with the elders on the mountain with Moses even.  That was a different physical reality than having actually been born a man, living, suffering, and dying as a man.  An angel, maybe, that comes down out of heaven can suffer as Messiah did but never actually feel pain, and return to heaven like some grand experiment, but the be born a man and live a man, death was as real for Yeshua as it is for you and I.  You may argue that He had some assurances that we don't but I disagree, because I (and other eternal-minded believers) have the same assurance, but do not welcome being crucified any more than you.

----------


## torchbearer

> What do you base this claim on?


post before this reply.

----------


## torchbearer

> Sorta and sorta not.  Have you ever experienced a phenomena where your _mind_ wanted to go on a 3 mile run but your _body_ did not?  Did your body ultimately submit to the will of your mind and then go on that run?  That's basically what happened.  If you aren't a runner there is bound to be something of a similar nature.  In that scene especially, think of the Father as the mind of God, and the Son as the body of God.  Your body may not always want to do what your mind wants it to do, but you are no less a singular person for it.
> 
> 
> 
> Well, the real sacrifice was that He was _born_.  Until that moment the entire universe could have been destroyed or continued on to it's heat death unredeemed and having no part in eternity.  Now, God Himself became a part of this reality, therefore some part of this reality must necessarily therefore survive.
> 
> Having knowledge of eternity is faint comfort for the flesh in the act of dying.  It wasn't a dramatic play, it was a real death, because His birth was a real birth.  Yeshua had been hanging out on the Earth from the very start.  He ate with the elders on the mountain with Moses even.  That was a different physical reality than having actually been born a man, living, suffering, and dying as a man.  An angel, maybe, that comes down out of heaven can suffer as Messiah did but never actually feel pain, and return to heaven like some grand experiment, but the be born a man and live a man, death was as real for Yeshua as it is for you and I.  You may argue that He had some assurances that we don't but I disagree, because I (and other eternal-minded believers) have the same assurance, but do not welcome being crucified any more than you.


I don't know anything about the last part, as no god has sought to have such a personal relationship with myself.
Call me Thomas, and condemn me for such.
But if God gave me reason, why would he not want me to use it?

----------


## erowe1

> post before this reply.


All I see there is assertions of things that you flat out made up. Do you have any basis for your religious beliefs?

----------


## torchbearer

> All I see there is assertions of things that you flat out made up. Do you have any basis for your religious beliefs?


Is God's power limited by trivial rules of protocol?
Is God's love limited by the hoops in which we jump?

----------


## erowe1

> Is God's power limited by trivial rules of protocol?
> Is God's love limited by the hoops in which we jump?


No. The rules that limit God's power and love are properties of his own character as God.

----------


## TER

> Is God's power limited by trivial rules of protocol?
> Is God's love limited by the hoops in which we jump?


What trivial rules of protocol?  Obeying His commandments?

----------


## torchbearer

> What trivial rules of protocol?  Obeying His commandments?


Why did his son have to go through the pageant of dying on a cross for him to forgive original sin?
Was he prohibited by a higher protocol from absolving those sins and loving us again?

----------


## torchbearer

Does God even have to follow his own Rules?
If that was the case, he could never rescind a prior law....

I think human story failed, we try to make sense of it.

----------


## TER

> Why did his son have to go through the pageant of dying on a cross for him to forgive original sin?
> Was he prohibited by a higher protocol from absolving those sins and loving us again?


Well, these are excellent questions, and difficulty ones as well.  We can only tell what God has revealed to us.  Did Christ have to die on the Cross in order to destroy death?  Who knows but God?  We are only repeating what God in Jesus has revealed to us.  Could He have destroyed death and sin another way and restored us in our original nature?  Who knows but God?  Who knows the mind of God and the reasons of God?  That is where faith comes in, to believe and trust in Him, that these things are for our salvation.

----------


## erowe1

> Does God even have to follow his own Rules?
> If that was the case, he could never rescind a prior law....
> 
> I think human story failed, we try to make sense of it.


God has a nature. He is defined as what he is. There aren't other rules that are prior to him and that transcend him that he has to follow. He and the rules that define him are united just like you and your nature are united.

As for rescinding laws, that depends what kind of laws you're talking about. If you're talking about eternal moral principles, then you're right, he can never rescind them. If you're talking about commands that are occasional by their very nature, like the terms of contracts, then there's nothing apparently eternal about those to begin with.

----------


## torchbearer

> Well, these are excellent questions, and difficulty ones as well.  We can only tell what God has revealed to us.  Did Christ have to die on the Cross in order to destroy death?  Who knows but God?  We are only repeating what God in Jesus has revealed to us.  Could He have destroyed death and sin another way and restored us in our original nature?  Who knows but God?  Who knows the mind of God and the reasons of God?  That is where faith comes in, to believe and trust in Him, that these things are for our salvation.




well, my questions in this thread were serious.
it was hard for me to take such a look at what my tribal story was...
I've tried so many ways for it to make sense... but i can't make it sit well with me with any version.

but for me, when i remove the details of a book- and look to the cosmos, i don't get the same creeped out feeling i get from infomercial american christianity.

obviously, i can be completely wrong about everything. i always hold that as a possibility.

but i do not believe jesus had to die for us to be forgiven of an ancestral sin. God is more powerful than some protocol of lamb sacrifice to himself.
i do not believe all of man was condemned for what those people did to jesus....
 but if i was god, i wouldn't have a high opinion of humanity for their treatment of my son.
and i promise you, if the jesus of the gospels appears in the US today, he'd be given a proper waco.
he'd be against our entire system of usury. he'd be branded a terrorist and burned inside his home.

----------


## erowe1

> but i do not believe jesus had to die for us to be forgiven of an ancestral sin. God is more powerful than some protocol of lamb sacrifice to himself.


I think you're judging too literal of a view of the atonement. Talking about Jesus as a sacrificed lamb is like a scientific model of something. It approximates what's really going on for the sake of discussion. But it's not the thing itself. It's trying to understand something that is beyond us by likening it to something that's within our experience (or, in the case of animal sacrifices, within ancient Israel's experience).

God has revealed himself. He's done this in various ways. But the most important way is through Jesus Christ, who was crucified and rose again. In order to understand God the way he wants us to understand him, we have to understand him in light of that revelation of himself.

----------


## torchbearer

> I think you're judging too literal of a view of the atonement. Talking about Jesus as a sacrificed lamb is like a scientific model of something. It approximates what's really going on for the sake of discussion. But it's not the thing itself. It's trying to understand something that is beyond us by likening it to something that's within our experience (or, in the case of animal sacrifices, within ancient Israel's experience).
> 
> God has revealed himself. He's done this in various ways. But the most important way is through Jesus Christ, who was crucified and rose again. In order to understand God the way he wants us to understand him, we have to understand him in light of that revelation of himself.


I'm not sure why, its been awhile since I studied the prophecies...
But the sacrifice of the lamb was important in tradition.
The first covenant was made when Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac. 
The New covenant was to be made with the sacrifice of Jesus. like the lamb at the alter.
As if there was a cosmic rule that a blood sacrifice was required to make a contract with god.
This isn't me making crap up, this is taught in several different christian sects.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> if Jesus is god, did he give his will to himself?
> and was it really a sacrifice for Jesus to "die" if we was really just getting his ticket back home to his father?
> I mean, his death would have been a sacrifice if god would indeed lose his son.





> Jesus is God, and the Creator of the world, and His will is His own.  How He 'gives His will to Himself' is probably beyond human understanding.


He doesn't "give His will to Himself".  That would mean that there is some kind of division of wills in the Trinity and that is not Biblical.  The Father and the Son have ONE will.




> Yes, it really was a sacrifice when Jesus died, because He felt the pain, the suffering, and the torment involved in this torture and felt acutely the separation of the soul from the body (which is an unnatural human state).


That is not the reason that it was painful or a sacrifice for Jesus to die for sins.  Notice how you have entirely focused on His physical pain as if that really mattered in the grand scheme of things.  The reason that Jesus' death was so horrible is that Jesus took the wrath of God for the sins of the elect.  He took the judgement for those sins.

----------


## torchbearer

^^^ these guys put the icing on the cake.
the elected. lulz.

----------


## Christian Liberty

> God "cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone" as the book of James says.  Jmdrake says that God can be tempted by evil, therefore He is not saved.  Charging God with sin is *the unpardonable sin*, which makes me fear for his soul.


Are you suggesting that God is now unable to save him?*  Isn't that itself a blasphemy?

I don't see how Jmdrake said that Jesus sinned here.  All I saw him say was that he had a free will.  I don't see how the verse in question has the slightest bit of anything to do with the question of whether Jesus could have sinned or not (For the record, I agree with you that the answer is no).  Obviously, Jesus did give his will over to his father, as the verse says, but I fail to see how that has anything to do with whether Jesus could have sinned or not.

I also agree with jmdrake that "God cannot be tempted" didn't apply to Jesus on earth, obviously.

*Jmdrake- to be clear, I'm not actually saying you aren't saved here.  I just know that Sola_Fide thinks that, hence the context of the question.

----------


## Christian Liberty

> Blasphemer!  You will be consigned to Sola_Fide/Aquabuddha (SF's original handle) hell!  You will be here right along with rape victims who got married before the deaths of their rapists and the prophet Hosea!


I'm curious if Sola_Fide supports execution for rape.  Considering his theological system, he'd better or else he's an awful person




> Of course He did not sin.  God cannot sin. He was tempted by Satan.  He was not tempted to sin.
> 
> You don't know what you're talking about. You are not a Christian sir, and you do not understand the nature of God.


If he wasn't tempted to sin, what was he tempted to do?  Of course he was tempted to sin.  Of course, he couldn't actually do so, but that doesn't change the fact that he was tempted to do so.




> Jesus was tempted by evil.  He was not tempted to sin.
> 
> Do you not know the difference?  Is this board so spiritually illiterate that we have to go over this?  God cannot sin.


You're talking to someone who you believe is unregenerate.  With that belief being taken into consideration, why the crap would this surprise you?

That said, I'm a 5-point Calvinist and I still don't understand what the crap you're getting at here.  So yes, I do think we need to go over it.

----------


## torchbearer

> Are you suggesting that God is now unable to save him?*  Isn't that itself a blasphemy?
> 
> I don't see how Jmdrake said that Jesus sinned here.  All I saw him say was that he had a free will.  I don't see how the verse in question has the slightest bit of anything to do with the question of whether Jesus could have sinned or not (For the record, I agree with you that the answer is no).  Obviously, Jesus did give his will over to his father, as the verse says, but I fail to see how that has anything to do with whether Jesus could have sinned or not.
> 
> I also agree with jmdrake that "God cannot be tempted" didn't apply to Jesus on earth, obviously.
> 
> *Jmdrake- to be clear, I'm not actually saying you aren't saved here.  I just know that Sola_Fide thinks that, hence the context of the question.


Jesus did Sin when he initiated violence against the money changers.
the money changers may have been immoral(or not) in their charging for the conversion of moneys... but they weren't attacking people. violence was not required, yet they got their property $#@!ed up by an appropriately pissed of human god called jesus.

----------


## erowe1

> I'm not sure why, its been awhile since I studied the prophecies...
> But the sacrifice of the lamb was important in tradition.
> The first covenant was made when Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac. 
> The New covenant was to be made with the sacrifice of Jesus. like the lamb at the alter.
> As if there was a cosmic rule that a blood sacrifice was required to make a contract with god.
> This isn't me making crap up, this is taught in several different christian sects.


I agree that it was important. I'm just saying that I don't think you can insist on a one-to-one correspondence between the spiritual reality of what Jesus accomplished and the earthly type that depicts it. They are analogous, but they are not identical.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> ^^^ these guys put the icing on the cake.
> the elected. lulz.


Uh huh.  But when the Bible teaches exactly what we are talking about, what are you going to do about?  Keep worshiping the idol you've created in your mind? Or repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation from God's wrath against your sin?

----------


## erowe1

> Jesus did Sin when he initiated violence against the money changers.
> the money changers may have been immoral(or not) in their charging for the conversion of moneys... but they weren't attacking people. violence was not required, yet they got their property $#@!ed up by an appropriately pissed of human god called jesus.


If you did that to people in your house, would it be a sin?

----------


## torchbearer

> If you did that to people in your house, would it be a sin?


if it were my property i was trashing, yes.
if it were their property i was trashing, no.
since the landlords of that property allowed them to be there it was a sin.
If Jesus had a problem with that, he should have taken it up with the rabbi that gave them permission to be there.
Jesus was not perfect. He was human. Otherwise, there would be no point for him being born human if he had no chance to fail.

----------


## torchbearer

> Uh huh.  But when the Bible teaches exactly what we are talking about, what are you going to do about?  Keep worshiping the idol you've created in your mind? Or repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation from God's wrath against your sin?


you worship an Idol created by Rome called the Bible.
the most clever of Idols that keeps you from knowing your creator by keeping your allegiance to stories.

----------


## Christian Liberty

> You are a good one actually.  A lot of people can rather effortlessly conclude, "Well obviously I wouldn't be a christian...listen to that horrible dick over there."


Sola_Fide doesn't speak for all Christians.



> I disagree. There are certain matters of faith and moral that simply cannot be disagreed with if you are to remain a Christian and the Church has an obligation to forcefully denounce those who are teaching falsehoods and leading people astray.  When you begin denying one small part of the Truth you deny the whole Truth


Yeah, but the RCC doesn't get most of those from the Bible.



> As TER pointed out, unless Jesus had a human will in addition to His divine will, then human nature could never be restored in righteous. If Christ did not have a human will, then our human will is not saved.
> 
> 
> 
> Eastern Orthodox and Catholics both accept the Sixth Ecumenical Council as infallible and condemn the heresies of Jesus having one nature and one will. 
> 
> I don't agree with everything Eastern Orthodoxy teaches, but I do believe they are a part of the One True Church, but currently suffer from an imperfect communion with the rest of the Church. I, and the Catholic Church, fully recognize the validity of their priesthood and Sacraments and I do believe that their imperfect communion with us is closer than that of any other Christians.


Do you believe that if EO's persevere in their Orthodox faith until the end that they will be saved?




> This is a fine discussion we are having, but the question posed in this thread "can God sin?"
> 
> Let's everyone grow some balls and put your answer out there.


Nope.  His human will was tempted, but as he is divine he could not actually sin.




> Jmdrake, did Pharaoh have a free will back in the book of Exodus, during the time of Moses' visitation upon him?


Define "Free Will."  God clearly hardened his heart somehow.




> I agree with you here Sola. God cannot sin.


I so want to sig that first sentence






> You shouldn't choose any interpretation that is an unbiblical innovation.  This should be obvious to every Christian.


Just out of curiosity, considering Ignatius knew the Apostle John, why do you believe he came to the (erroneous, IMO) conclusion he did regarding the Eucharist?

That said, also remember that transubstantiation and real presence aren't really the same thing.  Lutherans and Presbyterians (Possibly some Reformed Baptists as well, IIRC) believe in the real presence, but no Protestant believes in transubstantiation.




> Jesus did Sin when he initiated violence against the money changers.
> the money changers may have been immoral(or not) in their charging for the conversion of moneys... but they weren't attacking people. violence was not required, yet they got their property $#@!ed up by an appropriately pissed of human god called jesus.





> If you did that to people in your house, would it be a sin?


Classic response.  You've got it.

----------


## Christian Liberty

> if it were my property i was trashing, yes.
> if it were their property i was trashing, no.
> since the landlords of that property allowed them to be there it was a sin.
> If Jesus had a problem with that, he should have taken it up with the rabbi that gave them permission to be there.
> Jesus was not perfect. He was human. Otherwise, there would be no point for him being born human if he had no chance to fail.


Jesus is God.  He doesn't need the rabbi, he has authority himself, over everything.

You're confusing the libertarian legal system with an all encompassing morality, and EPICALLY here.

----------


## erowe1

> you worship an Idol created by Rome called the Bible.


Rome didn't create the Bible.

----------


## Theocrat

> Define "Free Will."  God clearly hardened his heart somehow.


The point of my question is to show that the account in Exodus clearly shows that Pharaoh did not give his will over to God so that God could then harden Pharaoh's heart. God told Moses, ahead of time, that He was going to harden Pharoah's heart, and Pharaoh could do nothing (that is, exert "free will") to stop God from hardening it.

----------


## TER

> well, my questions in this thread were serious.
> it was hard for me to take such a look at what my tribal story was...
> I've tried so many ways for it to make sense... but i can't make it sit well with me with any version.
> 
> but for me, when i remove the details of a book- and look to the cosmos, i don't get the same creeped out feeling i get from infomercial american christianity.
> 
> obviously, i can be completely wrong about everything. i always hold that as a possibility.
> 
> but i do not believe jesus had to die for us to be forgiven of an ancestral sin. God is more powerful than some protocol of lamb sacrifice to himself.
> ...


Torchbearer, how God saves us in Jesus Christ is also a revelation of God's own nature, namely that of divine love.  That God would come down and put on our fallen nature and suffer the same emotions and temptations and pain, even unto death on a cross, reveals to us God's great love for us.  For that is the great revelation by Jesus about the nature of God, namely that God is love.

----------


## GunnyFreedom

> none of that makes sense.
> none of the above was necesary to absolve us of sin. even original sin.
> So what if the perfect human-god could live right and be punished?
> should it not matter more that one of us imperfect beings would have done the same out of love for a caring and interventionist god with a hand protecting our every move but chose us to die for him?
> none of it makes sense. no matter how much you say it. god creating a human version of himself sent to endure torture in order for you to absolved of sins that happened in a place in time you had nothing to do with...
> it doesn't make sense.
> 
> I'm not even arguing that there was a jesus who went through these things...
> I'm just taking a step back and looking at the logic that is being sold.


Well, 2d mathematics looks illogical on a line, and 3d math can look illogical how it intersects a plane or a line.

This is why I talk about eternal-minded vs temporal-minded.  You look at the math and it doesn't compute.  It wouldn't compute because you are missing (at least!) three whole dimensions that describe the eternal realm.  Is it a rectangle or a triangular prism?  The 2d mind may not be equipped to grasp 3d math.  Likewise, the temporal mind may not be equipped to grasp eternal logic.  It's not a matter of ignorance or dim-wittedness, it's a matter of operating from a completely different framework.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> I also agree with jmdrake that "God cannot be tempted" didn't apply to Jesus on earth, obviously.


Listen to the difference here:

Jesus was _tempted_ on earth by Satan.
Jesus was not _tempted_ to sin.

Do you see the difference between the two statements?   There is a profound difference between the two.

Jmdrake thinks free will means God can sin, and man can do good.  But what does the Bible say?  God can't sin and man can't do good.

----------


## otherone

> As if there was a cosmic rule that a blood sacrifice was required to make a contract with god.
> This isn't me making crap up, this is taught in several different christian sects.


It's not just christian, sacrificing to the god(s) is common to most primitive religions.  We joke now about throwing a virgin into the active volcano to pacify the angry god within.  It's a simple idea; a business deal, a quid pro quo arrangement, "If you heal my leprosy, I'll build a church in your name. If I pass this test, I'll start going to church on Sundays.  If our attack on the neighboring village is successful, I'll sacrifice 5 extra goats to you."

----------


## Christian Liberty

> Listen to the difference here:
> 
> Jesus was _tempted_ on earth by Satan.
> Jesus was not _tempted_ to sin.
> 
> Do you see the difference between the two statements?   There is a profound difference between the two.
> 
> Jmdrake thinks free will means God can sin, and man can do good.  But what does the Bible say?  God can't sin and man can't do good.


If he wasn't tempted to sin, what was he tempted to do?

Satan tempted Jesus Christ to sin, but he couldn't actually have given in to that sin because he's God, if that makes sense.

I'm not sure if you actually disagree with me or if I'm just tripping on the semantics.

----------


## moostraks

> It's not just christian, sacrificing to the god(s) is common to most primitive religions.  We joke now about throwing a virgin into the active volcano to pacify the angry god within.  It's a simple idea; a business deal, a quid pro quo arrangement, "If you heal my leprosy, I'll build a church in your name. If I pass this test, I'll start going to church on Sundays.  If our attack on the neighboring village is successful, I'll sacrifice 5 extra goats to you."


Yep and this is a stumbling block to many folks regarding Christianity because it is barbaric. I have reasoned the need is not His but ours. If He is Love and we are to reconciled then we must in turn grasp the idea of what we are receiving by being willing to give.

----------


## jmdrake

> How did Pharaoh have a free will, if God hardened his heart? Did Pharaoh have a choice in the matter? If so, then where do we find such a choice from Pharaoh to decide whether he would allow God to harden his heart or not in the context of the book of Exodus? (Think about that, with Proverbs 21:1 in mind.)


I already explained that.  But you are wilfully blind.  Paul lays out exactly what happens when someone actively rejects truth.  God *then* gives them over to a reprobate mind.  You can have free will and then lose it.  Just ask any alcoholic or serious drug addict.  And of course you only read the verses of the Bible that you *think* agree with you.  You refuse to engage the first "I" (investigation) of the five "I" method of any Bible student (proper investigation).  Why did Samuel warn the people against hardening their hearts like Pharaoh did if that was solely God's doing?  Seems like Samuel was lying?  Or maybe you just don't understand the Bible as well as you think you do?

----------


## jmdrake

> Listen to the difference here:
> 
> Jesus was _tempted_ on earth by Satan.
> Jesus was not _tempted_ to sin.


LOL.  You are such a hoot!  Satan was tempting Jesus to play tiddlywinks?  Let us know when you get back on your medicines.




> Do you see the difference between the two statements?   There is a profound difference between the two.


Your "logic" depends on Satan wanting Jesus to do something other than sin.  That's just stupid.




> Jmdrake thinks free will means God can sin, and man can do good.  But what does the Bible say?  God can't sin and man can't do good.


You are rejecting the Bible.  The Bible says "Jesus was in all points tempted as we are,  yet without sin."  Jesus was tempted to sin.  Jesus didn't sin.  That's the Bible.  You have to twist the Bible to the point where it is unrecognisable to support your twisted worldview.

----------


## jmdrake

> If he wasn't tempted to sin, what was he tempted to do?


Exactly!  Sola_Fide wants to pretend I'm the "blaspheming heretic" here, but even people who believe in election as he does understands that Jesus was tempted to sin.




> Satan tempted Jesus Christ to sin, but he couldn't actually have given in to that sin because he's God, if that makes sense.


And yet, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the prayer Jesus gave made it clear that a part of Him wanted to give in.  Remember, Jesus wasn't operating in full "God mode" at that point.  Look at Matthew 24:36 _"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father._

Sola_Fide is acting like a Muslim with his argument.  Muslims are unable to understand that Jesus laid down His divinity to fight Satan on the same terms that Adam fought Satan on and lost.  Jesus fought Satan on those terms and won.  In SF's mind that means saying Jesus wasn't God.  That's the same mistake Muslims make.




> I'm not sure if you actually disagree with me or if I'm just tripping on the semantics.


He's tripping.  Period.

----------


## Christian Liberty

> Exactly!  Sola_Fide wants to pretend I'm the "blaspheming heretic" here, but even people who believe in election as he does understands that Jesus was tempted to sin.


I don't think I believe in it "As he does."  Sola would probably fit as high, maybe even ultra-high, on the Calvinism chart.  I'd classify myself as "moderate."

http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/wher...m-chart-20840/







> And yet, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the prayer Jesus gave made it clear that a part of Him wanted to give in.  Remember, Jesus wasn't operating in full "God mode" at that point.  Look at Matthew 24:36 _"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father._


He wanted to give in, but he still couldn't, because if he were to give in he couldn't have saved the elect as he was predestined to do.



> Sola_Fide is acting like a Muslim with his argument.  Muslims are unable to understand that Jesus laid down His divinity to fight Satan on the same terms that Adam fought Satan on and lost.  Jesus fought Satan on those terms and won.  In SF's mind that means saying Jesus wasn't God.  That's the same mistake Muslims make.


The terms were similar in that both Adam and Jesus lacked a sin nature, but they were different because Adam was not God.




> He's tripping.  Period.


I was trying to be charitable.

----------


## erowe1

> And yet, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the prayer Jesus gave made it clear that a part of Him wanted to give in.


I disagree. Jesus didn't pray for anything contrary to what he came here to do. The Father gave him exactly what he prayed for when he came back to life.




> During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.


Hebrews 5:7

----------


## jmdrake

> I disagree. Jesus didn't pray for anything contrary to what he came here to do. The Father gave him exactly what he prayed for when he came back to life.


You can disagree all you want.  You aren't disagreeing with me though.  You are disagreeing with the Bible.  Jesus said "If it be your will, let this cup pass from me."  It was clearly not God's will for the cup to pass from Jesus.  But Jesus wanted it to.  Jesus was praying in the will of the Father, which is why He said "If it be your will."  But clearly he wanted the cup to pass or he wouldn't have prayed that prayer.  Let the Bible interpret itself.  Don't impose your own will on the word of God.

Edit: Also I didn't say Jesus prayed contrary to what he came here to do.  That is a straw man argument.

----------


## erowe1

> You can disagree all you want.  You aren't disagreeing with me though.  You are disagreeing with the Bible.  Jesus said "If it be your will, let this cup pass from me."  It was clearly not God's will for the cup to pass from Jesus.  But Jesus wanted it to.  Jesus was praying in the will of the Father, which is why He said "If it be your will."  But clearly he wanted the cup to pass or he wouldn't have prayed that prayer.  Let the Bible interpret itself.  Don't impose your own will on the word of God.
> 
> Edit: Also I didn't say Jesus prayed contrary to what he came here to do.  That is a straw man argument.


God did let the cup pass from Jesus, when he rose from the dead.

At no point has the will of Jesus ever been anything different than the will of God the Father. His prayer at Gethsemane does not say that it was, nor does any other passage. To say that it does is to impose your own will on the word of God.

John 4:34 - "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work."

----------


## jmdrake

> God did let the cup pass from Jesus, when he rose from the dead.


 Ummm....no.  Jesus drank the cup.  He went through the trial.  

_Mark 10:38 "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"_

Once again you are reinterpreting the Bible to try to force fit it into your belief system. 




> At no point has the will of Jesus ever been anything different than the will of God the Father.


What part of "Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done" do you *not* understand?  Again, you are using circular reasoning, having a preconceived notion of what you think must be true, ignoring what the Bible actually says, and attempting to impose your will upon it.




> His prayer at Gethsemane does not say that it was, nor does any other passage. To say that it does is to impose your own will on the word of God.


I'm quoting His prayer as written.  You are ignoring what is written and stating your own opinion.  *Nevertheless NOT MY WILL but THINE be done*.




> John 4:34 - "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work."


Yep.  That in no way changes what I'm saying.  All of us are fed by doing the will of the Father.  That doesn't mean we always want to do it.  The difference is Jesus always ultimately did the will of the Father whether He, in His humanity, wanted to do it or not.

----------


## erowe1

> Ummm....no.  Jesus drank the cup.  He went through the trial.


And then it passed. Just like he prayed, as Hebrews 5:7 says.




> What part of "Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done" do you *not* understand?.


No part. I understand it fine. Jesus is saying that the reason he wants to be rescued from death is not because it's his will (although it is), but because it's the father's will.




> I'm quoting His prayer as written.  You are ignoring what is written and stating your own opinion.  *Nevertheless NOT MY WILL but THINE be done*.


You're quoting it and then claiming that it says Jesus's will was something different than the Father's, which it doesn't say. It's you who are imposing something on the text that isn't there.




> Yep.  That in no way changes what I'm saying.  All of us are fed by doing the will of the Father.  That doesn't mean we always want to do it.  The difference is Jesus always ultimately did the will of the Father whether He, in His humanity, wanted to do it or not.


He not only always did the Father's will, he always wanted to.

----------


## jmdrake

> I don't think I believe in it "As he does."  Sola would probably fit as high, maybe even ultra-high, on the Calvinism chart.  I'd classify myself as "moderate."
> 
> http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/wher...m-chart-20840/


I wouldn't want to claim Sola_Fide either.    Seriously though, my point is that SF cannot honestly pass this off as "jmdrake believes X because he is a Seventh Day Adventist and not a Christian" when people who, in general, accept the "gospel" as he sees it agree at least somewhat with the point I'm making.  He falls back on his ad hominems whenever he is losing an argument, which is quite often.  And for the record, SF goes beyond hyper-Calvinism.  You weren't around for this, but there was a point where he kept making the "jmdrake just doesn't understand the Bible" claim....so I started quoting John Calvin and some of SF's other "heros" to prove my point, without telling him who I was quoting.  He would attack the "blasphemous" comments I was making...only to find out the source was Calvin or Spurgeon or Luther or someone else.  At first he would try to say I was "misquoting" them or "taking them out of context."  I wasn't doing anything of the sort.  I was quoting entire articles.  So...when it became clear that John Calvin didn't always agree with Sola_Fide's interpretation of the Bible, Sola_Fide started questioning John Calvin's salvation.  SF really is a character.




> He wanted to give in, but he still couldn't, because if he were to give in he couldn't have saved the elect as he was predestined to do.


See post #90.  I acknowledge that Jesus, prior to His incarnation, still had omnipotence and knew that ultimately He would be victorious.  But He lacked that omnipotence in the Garden of Gethsemane.




> The terms were similar in that both Adam and Jesus lacked a sin nature, but they were different because Adam was not God.


Jesus freely laid down His God attributes (omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience) when He came to earth to be our savior.  

_Philippians 2:6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
_





> I was trying to be charitable.


That was nice of you.

----------


## erowe1

> Jesus freely laid down His God attributes (omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience) when He came to earth to be our savior.


Then who was upholding every molecule of the universe, if not God the Son?
(Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3)

Those are attributes of his divine nature, but not his human nature. But he has never not been divine.

----------


## jmdrake

> And then it passed. Just like he prayed, as Hebrews 5:7 says.


Hebrews 5:7 doesn't say the cup passed from Jesus.  You just added that for your own edification.  It said God heard him.  And God did.  God also heard David when David was praying that his son from Bathsheba would not die.  In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus didn't say "Father if it be your will, let me be resurrected from the dead."




> No part. I understand it fine. Jesus is saying that the reason he wants to be rescued from death is not because it's his will (although it is), but because it's the father's will.


No.  Jesus wasn't saying that at all.  You are re-writing the Bible.  




> You're quoting it and then claiming that it says Jesus's will was something different than the Father's, which it doesn't say. It's you who are imposing something on the text that isn't there.


I'm not making any "claim" about the text.  That is what you are doing.  And you are being dishonest about that.  I'm quoting the text as written.  "Not my will, but thine be done."  You are taking those clear words and rewriting them to "Father it is your will that I not die" or something to that effect.




> He not only always did the Father's will, he always wanted to.


Part of Him did not.

----------


## jmdrake

> Then who was upholding every molecule of the universe, if not God the Son?
> (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3)


Did you even read the verses you are quoting?  Apparently not.  Hebrews 1:3 is talking about *After he had provided purification for sins*.




> Those are attributes of his divine nature, but not his human nature. But he has never not been divine.


Explain why Jesus told His disciples He didn't know the day or the hour of His own return.  Or are you going to reinterpret that verse in the Bible to suit your own needs as well?

----------


## erowe1

> Hebrews 5:7 doesn't say the cup passed from Jesus.


It says God heard his prayer. That means he granted what he asked for.




> In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus didn't say "Father if it be your will, let me be resurrected from the dead."


Yes he did. Not in those exact words. But that's how the cup passed from him.




> No.  Jesus wasn't saying that at all.  You are re-writing the Bible.


Nowhere does the Bible indicate that Jesus wasn't saying that. 




> I'm not making any "claim" about the text.


So you're not claiming that the text shows Jesus's will to have differed from the father's?

It doesn't. But I was sure you were claiming that.

----------


## erowe1

> Did you even read the verses you are quoting?  Apparently not.  Hebrews 1:3 is talking about *After he had provided purification for sins*.


I think the correct punctuation of that verse puts a period before the word "After." So that clause goes with the next sentence.

But still, how do you answer the question? Obviously the universe continued to exist when Jesus was on the earth.




> Explain why Jesus told His disciples He didn't know the day or the hour of His own return.  Or are you going to reinterpret that verse in the Bible to suit your own needs as well?


That had to be his human nature.

----------


## Dr.3D

Darn, everybody knows the cup consisted of being tortured and put to death.  That's why He was perspiring so profusely.

----------


## jmdrake

> I think the correct punctuation of that verse puts a period before the word "After." So that clause goes with the next sentence.
> 
> But still, how do you answer the question? Obviously the universe continued to exist when Jesus was on the earth.


Do you believe God the Father was incapable of holding together the universe while Jesus was on earth?  Because that's what you seem to be saying.  In John 5:30 Jesus said "Of my own I can do nothing."  He never said "Without me, the Father can do nothing."  Again, Jesus was capable of humbling Himself and laying aside His power in order to be our perfect sacrifice.




> That had to be his human nature.


And it's that same human nature that didn't want to go through with the cup of death on the cross.  But He loved us enough, and trusted His Father enough, to go through it anyway.  He drank the cup.  It did not pass from Him.

----------


## Christian Liberty

> I wouldn't want to claim Sola_Fide either.  Seriously though, my point is that SF cannot honestly pass this off as "jmdrake believes X because he is a Seventh Day Adventist and not a Christian" when people who, in general, accept the "gospel" as he sees it agree at least somewhat with the point I'm making. He falls back on his ad hominems whenever he is losing an argument, which is quite often. And for the record, SF goes beyond hyper-Calvinism. You weren't around for this, but there was a point where he kept making the "jmdrake just doesn't understand the Bible" claim....so I started quoting John Calvin and some of SF's other "heros" to prove my point, without telling him who I was quoting. He would attack the "blasphemous" comments I was making...only to find out the source was Calvin or Spurgeon or Luther or someone else. At first he would try to say I was "misquoting" them or "taking them out of context." I wasn't doing anything of the sort. I was quoting entire articles. So...when it became clear that John Calvin didn't always agree with Sola_Fide's interpretation of the Bible, Sola_Fide started questioning John Calvin's salvation. SF really is a character.


I'll have to look some of that up.  I probably agree with Sola more than most others here, but he's still significantly more radical than me.  I honestly don't know enough about SDAism to really judge it one way or another.




> See post #90. I acknowledge that Jesus, prior to His incarnation, still had omnipotence and knew that ultimately He would be victorious. But He lacked that omnipotence in the Garden of Gethsemane.


I suspect that he knew he'd be victorious.  I don't think he ever really thought that there might be a way out of being crucified, for instance.  But I can agree that Jesus was not omniscient (I believe you meant omniscience rather than omnipotence based on context) while on earth, after all, he didn't know when the Father was coming back.




> Jesus freely laid down His God attributes (omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience) when He came to earth to be our savior. 
> 
> _Philippians 2:6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
> _


Which translation do you use here?  I'll have to look at the context again.  IIRC based on the context, it has nothing to do with whether or not he could have sinned.

----------


## Eagles' Wings

> God did let the cup pass from Jesus, when he rose from the dead.
> 
> At no point has the will of Jesus ever been anything different than the will of God the Father. His prayer at Gethsemane does not say that it was, nor does any other passage. To say that it does is to impose your own will on the word of God.
> 
> John 4:34 - "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work."


I have never heard this before, erowe.  It actually gives me goose bumps and makes complete sense.  I had always struggled with this.  Will you please expound and tell why Jesus would have cried out in pain at feeling abandoned by His Father.  Mt. 27:46

----------


## presence

Nimitta maatram bhava sabyasaachi














also

_Nimitta matram  bhava savyasachin_
_nimitta-matram bhava savya-sacin

_

----------


## erowe1

> Do you believe God the Father was incapable of holding together the universe while Jesus was on earth?


Not incapable. But it would be contrary to his nature. That is a role of God the Son. He is the mediator between the Father and creation. He has never not been that. He cannot be taken out of the equation. 




> And it's that same human nature that didn't want to go through with the cup of death on the cross.  But He loved us enough, and trusted His Father enough, to go through it anyway.  He drank the cup.  It did not pass from Him.


The problem is, the Bible nowhere says that. As far as I can tell, the only evidence you've mentioned is the prayer at Gethsemane, which does not say that Jesus didn't want to die on the cross or that his will was any different than the Father's.

Even in his human nature, Jesus never willed anything that was contrary to God's will.

----------


## erowe1

> I have never heard this before, erowe.  It actually gives me goose bumps and makes complete sense.  I had always struggled with this.  Will you please expound and tell why Jesus would have cried out in pain at feeling abandoned by His Father.  Mt. 27:46


A very important point about Matthew 27:46 is that Jesus is quoting from Psalm 22. When you read that Psalm as a Christian, you can see in it a perfect picture of Jesus's suffering on the cross. So, instead of showing Jesus in a moment of weakness, it shows that even in his agony he was still teaching, and doing so profoundly and cogently. The abandonment Jesus experienced was not some rift in the trinity, it was the experience of suffering the loss of God's physical blessings, which is what that phrase refers to in Psalm 22.

----------


## GunnyFreedom

> A very important point about Matthew 27:46 is that Jesus is quoting from Psalm 22. When you read that Psalm as a Christian, you can see in it a perfect picture of Jesus's suffering on the cross. So, instead of showing Jesus in a moment of weakness, it shows that even in his agony he was still teaching, and doing so profoundly and cogently. The abandonment Jesus experienced was not some rift in the trinity, it was the experience of suffering the loss of God's physical blessings, which is what that phrase refers to in Psalm 22.


This is the same teaching as Southern Baptists.  And I agree with it.

----------


## Eagles' Wings

> A very important point about Matthew 27:46 is that Jesus is quoting from Psalm 22. When you read that Psalm as a Christian, you can see in it a perfect picture of Jesus's suffering on the cross. So, instead of showing Jesus in a moment of weakness, it shows that even in his agony he was still teaching, and doing so profoundly and cogently. The abandonment Jesus experienced was not some rift in the trinity, it was the experience of suffering the loss of God's physical blessings, which is what that phrase refers to in Psalm 22.


Thank you very much.

----------


## jmdrake

> Not incapable. But it would be contrary to his nature. That is a role of God the Son. He is the mediator between the Father and creation. He has never not been that. He cannot be taken out of the equation.


So you honestly believe that Jesus was not omniscient while on earth, and yet God the Father was leaving the existence of the universe to a non omniscient being?  And you base this belief on.....?  Sorry but you seem to be making stuff up as you go along.




> The problem is, the Bible nowhere says that.


Yes it does.  Jesus clearly told the disciples that they would drink from the same cup he drank from.  They were all tortured for their faith.  You just seem to have a problem accepting the Bible for what it actually says.




> As far as I can tell, the only evidence you've mentioned is the prayer at Gethsemane, which does not say that Jesus didn't want to die on the cross or that his will was any different than the Father's.


Jesus clearly said "Not my will, but thine be done."  What do you think "not my will" meant?  Do you understand what the conjunction "but" means?

----------


## torchbearer

not one retort i've read in here was an original thought.
most of them i had been taught as a way to rebuke thinking any deeper about a subject in which it is sinful to even question.

Gunny will give me some original thoughts from time to time, but the rest of the lot- rinse and repeat,

----------


## jmdrake

> A very important point about Matthew 27:46 is that Jesus is quoting from Psalm 22. When you read that Psalm as a Christian, you can see in it a perfect picture of Jesus's suffering on the cross. So, instead of showing Jesus in a moment of weakness, it shows that even in his agony he was still teaching, and doing so profoundly and cogently. The abandonment Jesus experienced was not some rift in the trinity, *it was the experience of suffering the loss of God's physical blessings, which is what that phrase refers to in Psalm 22.*


And that was the cup that Jesus asked to be taken from Him.  It was not taken from Him.  He drank it.  Being raised from the dead three days later in no way diminishes the suffering Jesus experienced.

----------


## erowe1

> And that was the cup that Jesus asked to be taken from Him.  It was not taken from Him.  He drank it.  Being raised from the dead three days later in no way diminishes the suffering Jesus experienced.


Yes, being raised did diminish it, compared with the alternative.

Acts 2:24



> But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

----------


## jmdrake

> I'll have to look some of that up.  I probably agree with Sola more than most others here, but he's still significantly more radical than me.  I honestly don't know enough about SDAism to really judge it one way or another.


SF's obsession over my being SDA is really a red herring.  We disagreed long before he knew that because I understand the truth that God is universal love.  That is not a believe that is unique to Seventh Day Adventism nor is it a belief in universal salvation, nor is it a belief that teaches salvation by works.  I almost wish I hadn't mentioned that, because Sola_Fide, whenever he is losing an argument with me, puts his brain in gear and goes on the "It's because you are an evil Seventh Day Adventist" kick.  It's really stupid and beneath him and the dignity of this forum.




> I suspect that he knew he'd be victorious.  I don't think he ever really thought that there might be a way out of being crucified, for instance.  But I can agree that Jesus was not omniscient (I believe you meant omniscience rather than omnipotence based on context) while on earth, after all, he didn't know when the Father was coming back.


You're right.  I meant "omniscience", though Jesus also said that He relied on His Father for power.  (Which makes erowe1's argument about Jesus holding the universe together at a time where, according to His own words, He was not all-knowing, was relying on His Father for power, and was not omnipresent either.  After all, after His resurrection, Jesus told Mary that He had "Not yet ascended to my Father.")




> Which translation do you use here?  I'll have to look at the context again.  IIRC based on the context, it has nothing to do with whether or not he could have sinned.


I just Googled and grabbed the first thing that came up.  But it's NIV.  Here's the KJV version.

_Philippians 2:6-7
King James Version (KJV)

6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:_

Bottom line, yes Jesus pre-existed as God.  But for our sake he took on the limitations of humanity.  Not the fallen sinful nature, but a nature where he wasn't exercising His God power for His own benefit.

----------


## jmdrake

> Yes, being raised did diminish it, compared with the alternative.
> 
> Acts 2:24


No it didn't.  You're talking about what happened after the cross.  (Being in the grave).  I'm talking about what happened on the cross.  You are really grasping at straws here.  Answer this question.  What "cup" do you think Jesus was telling the disciples that they would drink as well?  And why would Jesus say "Not my will but thine be done?"  Obfuscate all you want.  Play word games all you want.  But at the end of the day you still have to answer the question, what will was Jesus negating in His prayer "not my will?"

----------


## erowe1

> (Which makes erowe1's argument about Jesus holding the universe together at a time where, according to His own words, He was not all-knowing, was relying on His Father for power, and was not omnipresent either.  After all, after His resurrection, Jesus told Mary that He had "Not yet ascended to my Father.")


I never said there was ever a time that God the Son was not all-knowing or omni-present. He has always been both of those. At no time has he ever not possessed his nature as fully God, not even as a baby in a manger. His human body is not omnipresent. But his presence isn't confined to where his body is. He is still 100% human right now in Heaven, and his human body is there, and he is also 100% God and omnipresent. Even when he was on earth, he was at that same time in Heaven (John 3:13).

His dependence on the Father is also something that has always been true of him in his divine nature. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father.

Jesus's human nature does not possess the incommunicable divine attributes that only God has (though his divine nature does). But his human nature does possess all the moral attributes of God, which are communicable to humans. Jesus's human nature is not, and never has been, any less than perfectly morally good. He has never desired to sin. His will, even when strictly speaking of his human nature, has always been in complete agreement with the Father's will. Nowhere does the Bible say otherwise.

----------


## erowe1

> It is not a sin to want your own will.  It is a sin not to surrender your will to Jesus.


Isn't this surrender of your will itself an act of your will?

If that's the case, then it's still you acting completely in accordance with your own will.

Jesus didn't do the Father's will because his arm was twisted. He did it because he chose to do it. He himself willed to do it. His will was to do his Father's will.

----------


## jmdrake

> I never said there was ever a time that God the Son was not all-knowing or omni-present.


It doesn't matter whether *you* said it or not.  *Jesus* said it.

_Mark 13:32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

John 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God._





> He has always been both of those. At no time has he ever not possessed his nature as fully God, not even as a baby in a manger. His human body is not omnipresent. But his presence isn't confined to where his body is. He is still 100% human right now in Heaven, and his human body is there, and he is also 100% God and omnipresent. Even when he was on earth, he was at that same time in Heaven (John 3:13).


_John 3:13 No one 28  has ascended 29  into heaven except the one who descended from heaven – the Son of Man. 30_ 

Sorry, it doesn't say what you think it says.  You must think the Bible was written in King James' English where you get the translation _And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven._

Here's the actual Greek.

 3:13 καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀναβέβηκεν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν εἰ μὴ ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβάς, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. 

See the word for word transliteration here:

http://biblehub.com/lexicon/john/3-13.htm

----------


## jmdrake

> Isn't this surrender of your will itself an act of your will?


Yes.




> If that's the case, then it's still you acting completely in accordance with your own will.


In accordance with *part* of your will.  As I have said throughout this thread *part* of Jesus didn't want to drink the cup.  




> Jesus didn't do the Father's will because his arm was twisted. He did it because he chose to do it. He himself willed to do it. His will was to do his Father's will.


Straw man argument.  I never said Jesus' arm had to be twisted.  That is not what surrendering your will means.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> It doesn't matter whether *you* said it or not.  *Jesus* said it.
> 
> _Mark 13:32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
> 
> John 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God._
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Hahaha...what a shameful person you are. Using the same arguments that Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and subordinationists of all kinds use against the Trinity.   Ellen G. White had taught you well.

----------


## erowe1

> It doesn't matter whether *you* said it or not.  *Jesus* said it.
> 
> _Mark 13:32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
> 
> John 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God._
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Since you read Greek, check a critical edition of the text. There's a textual variant there, where the last phrase is "the Son of Man who is in Heaven." I'm guessing that the number 30 in what you copied and pasted probably goes to a footnote that talks about this. 

I shouldn't have relied on something textually suspect like that. I happen to think the longer reading there is the more likely to be original (along with the KJV and NKJV, and many ancient witnesses), since it's the more difficult reading and thus the more likely to have been troublesome to a scribe, and since it's the reading that's more likely to give rise to the other one than vice versa. But obviously a lot of scholars go with the shorter reading, and I can't prove them wrong.

Those other verses about Jesus not knowing something or not being somewhere are again only true of his human nature. They say nothing about his divine nature.

Just as his human body was not in heaven while he was on the earth, so also it is not on the earth now while he is in heaven. But he's still omnipresent in both earth and heaven. His being at the right hand of the Father doesn't prevent him from being everywhere else. It just means that his human body isn't everywhere else.

----------


## jmdrake

> Hahaha...what a shameful person you are. Using the same arguments that Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and subordinationists of all kinds use against the Trinity.   Ellen G. White had taught you well.


Ummm...no.  *YOU ARE THE MUSLIM!*  Christians understand that Jesus had the power to humble Himself and still be God.  Muslims think there is a problem with Jesus humbling Himself and still being God.  Go worship at a mosque.  That's where you belong.

----------


## jmdrake

> *Those other verses about Jesus not knowing something or not being somewhere are again only true of his human nature. They say nothing about his divine nature.*


I think you've finally got it!  Yes.  Jesus' human nature didn't want to "drink the cup."  I've said that.  TER said that.  Others have said that.  Jesus' human nature had to be subjegated and surrendered to the will of the Father.  "Not my will, but thine be done."  Going by that you can read the text as it is actually written, instead of trying to impose on the text something that is not there.

----------


## erowe1

> Jesus' human nature didn't want to "drink the cup."


Nowhere does the Bible say that.

Jesus, even in his human nature, willed to do God's will. He went to the cross willingly.

Jesus did want the cup to pass, and he prayed for it to pass, and this was God's will, and it did pass. God granted what he prayed for (as Hebrews 5:7 says).

To claim that Jesus's prayer shows that his own will (even in his human nature) was for something other than what God the Father willed, is to impose something on the text that isn't there.

----------


## jmdrake

> Nowhere does the Bible say that.


You simply deny what the Bible actually says.  I've seen you do that before.  Just because you can't wrap your head around Jesus saying "Father if it be thy will let this cup pass from me" doesn't mean the Bible doesn't say what it says.  And you've even contradicted yourself, claiming at one point that Jesus didn't "Drink the cup" because he "rose from the grave" and then claiming He didn't say He didn't want to drink the cup.




> Jesus, even in his human nature, willed to do God's will. He went to the cross willingly.


He was willing to do what He didn't will to do.  That's the point.  "Not my will, but thine be done."  Once again, what do you think that means?  Don't give me any more crap about what you claim it doesn't mean.  What do those specific words mean?

----------


## presence

> He was willing to do what He didn't will to do.  That's the point.  "Not my will, but thine be done."  Once again, what do you think that means?  Don't give me any more crap about what you claim it doesn't mean.  What do those specific words mean?


_Nimitta matram  bhava savyasachin_

----------


## torchbearer

> Nowhere does the Bible say that.
> 
> Jesus, even in his human nature, willed to do God's will. He went to the cross willingly.
> 
> Jesus did want the cup to pass, and he prayed for it to pass, and this was God's will, and it did pass. God granted what he prayed for (as Hebrews 5:7 says).
> 
> To claim that Jesus's prayer shows that his own will (even in his human nature) was for something other than what God the Father willed, is to impose something on the text that isn't there.


there really was no point to any of it if it was pre-ordained, guaranteed not to fail.
it is absolutely meaningless.
God is just playing the DVD of his favorite movie which he scripted and created. you are nothing but a meatpuppet acting out his script for his amusement.
maybe you were lucky enough to be part of the very few cast members he chose to keep with him after his movie is over.

----------


## matt0611

> there really was no point to any of it if it was pre-ordained, guaranteed not to fail.
> it is absolutely meaningless.
> God is just playing the DVD of his favorite movie which he scripted and created. you are nothing but a meatpuppet acting out his script for his amusement.
> maybe you were lucky enough to be part of the very few cast members he chose to keep with him after his movie is over.


Why is it meaningless just because things are pre-ordained and that there is a destiny?

Leaving God out of the picture for sake of argument...what if it was scientifically proven that future events are determined from the state of present events? Chemical reactions in people's brains leading to their thoughts and determining what they would think and do next. Everything would be predetermined from the beginning of time. Would that make things meaningless just because there in an inescapable destiny for all of us? I don't see why it would. Would you stop living your life if that were the case?

----------


## torchbearer

> Why is it meaningless just because things are pre-ordained and that there is a destiny?
> 
> Leaving God out of the picture for sake of argument...what if it was scientifically proven that future events are determined from the state of present events? Chemical reactions in people's brains leading to their thoughts and determining what they would think and do next. Everything would be predetermined from the beginning of time. Would that make things meaningless just because there in an inescapable destiny for all of us? I don't see why.


its meaningless because it had no chance to fail.
It is as meaningless as watching the World Wide Wrestling Federation and thinking the outcome really means anything.
Its all scripted.
Meaningless.

Had Jesus had the opportunity to fail, but despite his human urges chose god's will... that means something.
His actions would be redeeming.
Otherwise its just theater for the enjoyment of the sick joker god.

----------


## matt0611

> its meaningless because it had no chance to fail.
> It is as meaningless as watching the World Wide Wrestling Federation and thinking the outcome really means anything.
> Its all scripted.
> Meaningless.
> 
> Had Jesus had the opportunity to fail, but despite his human urges chose god's will... that means something.
> His actions would be redeeming.
> Otherwise its just theater for the enjoyment of the sick joker god.


Why do things have to have a chance of failure to be meaningful?

It was always Jesus's destiny to go to the cross at that exact moment that he did. He was slain from the foundation of the world after all.

----------


## otherone

> its meaningless because it had no chance to fail.
> It is as meaningless as watching the World Wide Wrestling Federation and thinking the outcome really means anything.
> Its all scripted.
> Meaningless.


Interesting.  That makes Judas the "lamb of God".  He's the one who actually was sacrificed for salvation to occur....
Are there any churches of Judas?

----------


## erowe1

> You simply deny what the Bible actually says.  I've seen you do that before.  Just because you can't wrap your head around Jesus saying "Father if it be thy will let this cup pass from me" doesn't mean the Bible doesn't say what it says.


Is that the only evidence you have that Jesus's will (even in his human nature) was ever contrary to the Father's? Because that passage doesn't say that. You're imposing it on the text.




> And you've even contradicted yourself, claiming at one point that Jesus didn't "Drink the cup" because he "rose from the grave" and then claiming He didn't say He didn't want to drink the cup.


I never said Jesus didn't drink the cup, I said it passed from him when he rose again. I agree that he did not want to remain dead. God the father did not want him to remain dead either. The father gave him exactly what he prayed for (as Hebrews 5:7 says).




> He was willing to do what He didn't will to do


If he did something willingly, that means he willed to do it. He was not coerced. It was his will. If it hadn't been his will, then that would mean that he was forced by someone else against his will.

ETA: Notice not only Matthew 26:39, which is the main verse I think you're relying on, but also Matthew 26:42. There Jesus says, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done." So, in order for the cup to pass, Jesus had to drink it. He didn't pray not to drink it. He prayed for it to pass, which could only happen if he did drink it. His entire prayer, including the part about the cup passing, was for God the Father's will to happen.

----------


## erowe1

> there really was no point to any of it if it was pre-ordained


How do you know this?

----------


## matt0611

> Interesting.  That makes Judas the "lamb of God".  He's the one who actually was sacrificed for salvation to occur....
> Are there any churches of Judas?


There are churches of almost anything, so probably.

----------


## torchbearer

> Why do things have to have a chance of failure to be meaningful?


Without the chance of failure, its just a play. all the losers were written into the play, your life was given to damnation for the purpose of giving a production to a bored diety. the winners were pre-scripted... and no one had a choice in their role.
they just played a part, with no meaning to any sacrifice, as none of it was really needed to any particular outcome.
If I already know at the end of the play, that for certain, i am given everything i ever wanted, regardless of who i really am... it doesn't matter.
Its just a sick game/movie, and you might as well just sit there and let the interventionist god move you to your designated point in time and space to say the lines he wrote for you.
You are already damned. Just give the joker god a good performance before you take a bow.

----------


## torchbearer

> How do you know this?


If

----------


## erowe1

> "Not my will, but thine be done."  Once again, what do you think that means?  Don't give me any more crap about what you claim it doesn't mean.  What do those specific words mean?


They mean, that the reason Jesus prayed for that was not that he was praying for what he himself willed (though he did will it), but for what the Father willed.

----------


## erowe1

> If


That's what I mean.

How do you know what you said?

How do you know that if it was preordained there would be no point?

----------


## torchbearer

> That's what I mean.
> 
> How do you know what you said?
> 
> How do you know that if it was preordained there would be no point?


because there is nothing you can do about it.
it is preordained.
therefore, no point. just play your part as the meatpuppet pre-destined to fail.

----------


## erowe1

> because there is nothing you can do about it.
> it is preordained.
> therefore, no point. just play your part as the meatpuppet pre-destined to fail.


Earlier you said it was pointless because it was predestined not to fail. Now you say it's pointless because of being predestined to fail. Which is it?

And if both failing and succeeding are pointless, then it really has nothing to do with being pre-ordained, since everything is going to be one of those things even if it's not pre-ordained, which just gets us back around to being pointless.

And I still don't know how you know that any of those things would be pointless. Is this another religious doctrine you just made up?

----------


## Dr.3D

I understand what torchbearer is saying.  It's not like anything would glorify God if there were no chance of Him not being glorified.   If that were going to be the case, God could very simply have created a world where there was no evil and everybody worshiped Him all the time.

----------


## torchbearer

> Earlier you said it was pointless because it was predestined not to fail. Now you say it's pointless because of being predestined to fail. Which is it?
> 
> And if both failing and succeeding are pointless, then it really has nothing to do with being pre-ordained, since everything is going to be one of those things even if it's not pre-ordained, which just gets us back around to being pointless.
> 
> And I still don't know how you know that any of those things would be pointless. Is this another religious doctrine you just made up?


its the same. the script has fail written in, and has no fail written in... for the same exact reason- its meaningless as a choice- since it was never really a choice.

----------


## erowe1

> I understand what torchbearer is saying.  It's not like anything would glorify God if there were no chance of Him not being glorified.   If that were going to be the case, God could very simply have created a world where there was no evil and everybody worshiped Him all the time.


Right. So somehow, it must be the case that his choice to make this world in which there is evil, is a good choice that does glorify him.

But earlier, it seemed like that was precisely what Torchbearer couldn't stomach. On the one hand, God can't be a God who creates a world with evil in it. On the other hand, he can't be a God who doesn't do that. TB is like a child in the marketplace calling out to his fellows, "We piped a song for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge for you and you did not mourn."

----------


## erowe1

> its the same. the script has fail written in, and has no fail written in... for the same exact reason- its meaningless as a choice- since it was never really a choice.


This is just another unsubstantiated assertion that gets back to my same question. How do you know this?

1) How do you know that something pre-ordained was never really a choice?
2) Even if it never really was a choice, how do you know that would make it meaningless?

----------


## Dr.3D

> Right. So somehow, it must be the case that his choice to make this world in which there is evil, is a good choice that does glorify him.
> 
> But earlier, it seemed like that was precisely what Torchbearer couldn't stomach. On the one hand, God can't be a God who creates a world with evil in it. On the other hand, he can't be a God who doesn't do that. TB is like a child in the marketplace calling out to his fellows, "We piped a song for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge for you and you did not mourn."


God is glorified when people freely choose to worship Him.  He is not glorified when people are programmed to worship Him.

----------


## torchbearer

> This is just another unsubstantiated assertion that gets back to my same question. How do you know this?
> 
> 1) How do you know that something pre-ordained was never really a choice?
> 2) Even if it never really was a choice, how do you know that would make it meaningless?



What is the definition of is is?

----------


## torchbearer

> God is glorified when people freely choose to worship Him.  He is not glorified when people are programmed to worship Him.


/sarcasm
how do you know god is glorified? how do you know freely choosing to worship is freely choosing to worship?

The debate last ditch effort of someone who has nothing to answer to a previous question.

----------


## otherone

> God is glorified when people freely choose to worship Him.  He is not glorified when people are programmed to worship Him.


I'm getting confused.  It seems as if neither god nor man has free will.

----------


## torchbearer

> I'm getting confused.  It seems as if neither god nor man has free will.


according to some in this thread, the bible is all that ever was, ever will be... etc. the Bible is their god.
poor sods.

----------


## erowe1

> God is glorified when people freely choose to worship Him.  He is not glorified when people are programmed to worship Him.


1) What do you base this on?
2) Are freely worshiping him and being programmed to worship him mutually exclusive? If so, how do you know?

----------


## erowe1

> I'm getting confused.  It seems as if neither god nor man has free will.


I don't even know what the expression "free will" means when most people use it.

Do you believe in free will? If so, what do you mean by that?

----------


## Dr.3D

> /sarcasm
> how do you know god is glorified? how do you know freely choosing to worship is freely choosing to worship?
> 
> The debate last ditch effort of someone who has nothing to answer to a previous question.


Guess I'll go to my lab and make some little robots to worship me.  That would make me feel like I've accomplished something.  Of course if I had made them so they could choose between worshiping me or my dog and they still worshiped only me, I would feel even better that I had been chosen above my dog.

----------


## torchbearer

> 1) What do you base this on?
> 2) Are freely worshiping him and being programmed to worship him mutually exclusive? If so, how do you know?


I'm going with Sola's mythology. 
we are meatpuppets.

----------


## otherone

> I don't even know what the expression "free will" means when most people use it.
> 
> Do you believe in free will? If so, what do you mean by that?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

----------


## torchbearer

> Guess I'll go to my lab and make some little robots to worship me.  That would make me feel like I've accomplished something.  Of course if I had made them so they could choose between worshiping me or my dog and they still worshiped only me, I would feel even better that I had been chosen above my dog.


good example.
Jesus may have been divine, but he was also human.
It means more that satan could have actually tempted him, but he refused out of love for his father... than to refuse because it was scripted for him to do so.

----------


## erowe1

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will


That article only illustrates my point.

Do you believe in something you call free will? If so, which version in that article do you believe in?

----------


## otherone

> That article only illustrates my point.


What point?

----------


## jmdrake

> Is that the only evidence you have that Jesus's will (even in his human nature) was ever contrary to the Father's? Because that passage doesn't say that. You're imposing it on the text.


I'm not imposing anything on the text.  I'm quoting it.  You have yet to give an alternate interpretation.  At least not a logical one.  Feel free to do so.  If you don't I will simply assume that you are afraid of the truth.




> I never said Jesus didn't drink the cup, I said it passed from him when he rose again. I agree that he did not want to remain dead. God the father did not want him to remain dead either. The father gave him exactly what he prayed for (as Hebrews 5:7 says).


You are imposing on the text what it does not say.  Hebrews 5:7 says nothing about anything passing from Jesus.  It says that God heard Jesus prayer.  It's laughable that you falsely accuse me of doing what you are clearly doing with regard to imposing something on the text.  Still, are you claiming that Jesus was praying that He not remain dead because He wasn't sure that it was His Father's will that He be resurrected?  Again, you can't get around "nevertheless, not my will but thine be done."




> If he did something willingly, that means he willed to do it. He was not coerced. It was his will. If it hadn't been his will, then that would mean that he was forced by someone else against his will.


People all the time willingly do what they at least in part don't want to do without coercion.  There are a lot of people who don't want to exercise, yet do it willingly because they desire the ultimate outcome.




> ETA: Notice not only Matthew 26:39, which is the main verse I think you're relying on, but also Matthew 26:42. There Jesus says, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done." So, in order for the cup to pass, Jesus had to drink it. He didn't pray not to drink it. He prayed for it to pass, which could only happen if he did drink it. His entire prayer, including the part about the cup passing, was for God the Father's will to happen.


Even there, you are still left with Jesus not wanting to drink the cup but doing it anyway.

----------


## erowe1

> It means more that satan could have actually tempted him, but he refused out of love for his father... than to refuse because it was scripted for him to do so.


I don't see how those things are mutually exclusive. For that matter, I don't see how it's even conceivable to have one without the other.

Where did Jesus's love for his father come from? Was it natural for him to love his father? If so, then he acted according to his nature, as all of us do 100% of the time.

Or, if there's no such thing as a nature, and our decisions just pop up within us without any cause, then how would that be love? It would just be a haphazard random meaningless event.

In order for our choices really to be ours, then it must be the case that we have natures that define us as us, and our choices in any given situation must be determined by those natures in conjunction with the environment in which the choice is made. So real choice demands determinism. Without determinism, everything is meaningless.

----------


## jmdrake

> They mean, that the reason Jesus prayed for that was not that he was praying for what he himself willed (though he did will it), but for what the Father willed.


LOL.  Nope.  Not at all.  You are imposing on the text what it does not say.  What do the words "Not my will" mean?  Just those words by themselves?  Just go by standard language interpretation.  Forget for a moment what you want to believe about Jesus.  What does the word "not" mean?  What does the word "will" mean?  What does the word "will" mean?

----------


## torchbearer

> I don't see how those things are mutually exclusive. For that matter, I don't see how it's even conceivable to have one without the other.
> 
> Where did Jesus's love for his father come from? Was it natural for him to love his father? If so, then he acted according to his nature, as all of us do 100% of the time.
> 
> Or, if there's no such thing as a nature, and our decisions just pop up within us without any cause, then how would that be love? It would just be a haphazard random meaningless event.
> 
> In order for our choices really to be ours, then it must be the case that we have natures that define us as us, and our choices in any given situation must be determined by those natures in conjunction with the environment in which the choice is made. So real choice demands determinism. Without determinism, everything is meaningless.


If I had no chance of failure, my win is meaningless.
Its "pro" wrestling.

----------


## erowe1

> I'm not imposing anything on the text.  I'm quoting it.  You have yet to give an alternate interpretation.  At least not a logical one.  Feel free to do so.  If you don't I will simply assume that you are afraid of the truth.


But in addition to quoting it, you're claiming that it shows Jesus's will to be different from the Father's, which it doesn't.

It's that claim which is an imposition on the text.




> You are imposing on the text what it does not say.  Hebrews 5:7 says nothing about anything passing from Jesus.  It says that God heard Jesus prayer.


That means God gave him what he prayed for.




> People all the time willingly do what they at least in part don't want to do without coercion.  There are a lot of people who don't want to exercise, yet do it willingly because they desire the ultimate outcome.


Your phrase "in part" is a huge hole. Whatever part of them doesn't want to do what they choose to do is obviously not the part that ultimately defines their will. If they willingly choose to do something, apart from coercion, that is their will. Any mixed feelings that go against that are obviously less than the determinative one.

I'm not saying Jesus felt no pain on the cross. But he did choose to suffer. That was what he wanted to do. The joy for which he was crucified outweighed the suffering. He endured the cross despising (i.e. thinking little of) its shame.




> Even there, you are still left with Jesus not wanting to drink the cup but doing it anyway.


Nowhere does the Bible say that.

----------


## jmdrake

> _Nimitta matram  bhava savyasachin_


From Google: http://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/sri...hings-that-you

_In our Bhagavad Gita, the "Song Celestial," Lord Sri Krishna taught us, Nimitta matram bhava savyasachin- "Become a mere instrument." In my case, I tell my students never, never to think that they are the doers, because only God is the Doer. They should only offer their gratitude to Him at every moment because He is acting in and through them to do something special for Him._ 

Are you saying this was taken from Hinduism?

----------


## jmdrake

> But in addition to quoting it, you're claiming that it shows Jesus's will to be different from the Father's, which it doesn't.


Define the word *not*.

Define the word *my*.

Define the word *will*.

I will copy and paste this until you actually do it.  No more games.  Define the words.

----------


## erowe1

> What point?


That there's not a clear definition for "free will."

----------


## jmdrake

> That there's not a clear definition for "free will."


Define the word *not*.

Define the word *my*.

Define the word *will*.

I will copy and paste this until you actually do it.  No more games.  Define the words.

----------


## otherone

> That there's not a clear definition for "free will."


There are simpler definitions, as you are well aware.  In your belief system, does either God or man have Free will?

----------


## erowe1

> Define the word *not*.
> 
> Define the word *my*.
> 
> Define the word *will*.
> 
> I will copy and paste this until you actually do it.  No more games.  Define the words.


I don't see the point of this, since I've already said what I understand the phrase to mean in the context we're talking about. But here, the following definitions are from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Not:



> A. adv. The ordinary adverb of negation, or negative particle.
>  I. Negating verbs.
> Not frequently modifies the verb when it logically negates another element, especially a universal expression such as all, always, every (and its compounds), etc. (see e.g. quot. ?a1439 at sense A. 2aα. ).
> Categories »
> 
>  1. Preceding a simple tense or form of a verb. Now usually (chiefly N. Amer.) with a subjunctive verb in a subordinate clause.
> Relatively common in 15th-cent. texts; subsequently often poet.
> 
> In quot. 1816   the speaker is German.
> ...


My:



> A. adj. The possessive adjective corresponding to I pron.
> For the functions of the possessive pronoun or adjective see his adj. 1.
>  1.
> Thesaurus »
> 
>  a. Of or belonging to me; of or relating to myself; which I have, hold, or possess.
> 
> c1175—1994(Show quotations)
> 
> ...


Will:



> I.
>  1.
> Thesaurus »
> 
>  a. Desire, wish, longing; liking, inclination, disposition (to do something). In mod. use coloured by or merged in sense 5.
> 
> OE—1896(Show quotations)
> 
> Thesaurus »
> ...

----------


## erowe1

> There are simpler definitions, as you are well aware.  In your belief system, does either God or man have Free will?


I honestly don't know.

It depends what the phrase means. And to me, it's anything but simple. Whatever those definitions are that you're talking about, if they're all that simple they're probably not very good.

I choose not to say anything positive about whether or not God or anyone has free will. If I have to use it because somebody else brings it up, I want to know what they mean by it.

I do believe that God has a nature, and that every choice he makes is 100% consistent with that nature, and there is a 0% chance that it will ever be other than what it is. Some would say that eliminates free will. Whatever definition they're using for that phrase would be one that I don't believe applies to God.

----------


## jmdrake

> I don't see the point of this, since I've already said what I understand the phrase to mean in the context we're talking about. But here, the following definitions are from the Oxford English Dictionary.
> 
> Not:
> 
> 
> My:
> 
> 
> Will:


And from those definitions there is no way to get to the translation of the text that you are intimating.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> There are simpler definitions, as you are well aware.  In your belief system, does either God or man have Free will?


The Bible teaches that neither God or man has a free will.

God is restrained by His holy nature, and man is restrained by sinful nature.  Neither are free.

Is God free to show mercy on who He wants to? Yes.  Is God free to carry out His sovereign purpose in His creation?  Yes.

----------


## otherone

> I do believe that God has a nature, and that every choice he makes is 100% consistent with that nature, and there is a 0% chance that it will ever be other than what it is. Some would say that eliminates free will. Whatever definition they're using for that phrase would be one that I don't believe applies to God.


Is there anything in scriptures that reinforces this?

----------


## jmdrake

> The Bible teaches that neither God or man has a free will.


There ya go.  So Theocrat's entire thread "Go does whatever He pleases" is blasphemy!




> Is God free to show mercy on who He wants to? Yes.  Is God free to carry out His sovereign purpose in His creation?  Yes.


How do you know that isn't all "preordained" too?

----------


## erowe1

> Is there anything in scriptures that reinforces this?


Yes. There are verses that make absolute claims about God's nature, and that appeal to that nature to say that he can be counted on to do or not to do something or other.

----------


## Christian Liberty

> There ya go. So Theocrat's entire thread "Go does whatever He pleases" is blasphemy!


Only if God pleases to sin.  Which is ridiculous.

That said, the two of you are good foils for each other

Hopefully people will see the two extremes and get a reasonable Reformed perspective out of it.

----------


## otherone

> The Bible teaches that neither God or man has a free will.


There's that pesky book again.  Man writes a book, god is shoved inside it, with no chance of escape.  You say God can't act outside his nature, what you actually mean is that God can't escape the parameters of what we understand his nature to be.

----------


## jmdrake

> Only if God pleases to sin.  Which is ridiculous.
> 
> That said, the two of you are good foils for each other
> 
> Hopefully people will see the two extremes and get a reasonable Reformed perspective out of it.


Arminianism is the reasonable reformed perspective.

http://evangelicalarminians.org/surv...ven-know-it-2/

_Over the centuries, Calvinists have so successfully vilified Arminianism that people who are Arminian are afraid to say so. This is true even though Arminianism is the default theological position of Christian Protestantism; indeed, many people are Arminian and don’t even know it, and even deny it. Arminianism is so widespread that even the strongest Calvinist churches are filled with Arminians. It is ironic, then, that people are afraid to say they’re Arminian; for example, many Independent and Southern Baptists are typically Arminian, but nonetheless often call themselves Calvinists!

The purpose of this survey is to help people who have an Arminian theology realize that they are Arminians and to help them understand that it is okay to be Arminian. The questions deal with the most pertinent issues which define Arminianism and distinguish Arminianism from Calvinism.

1. Do you believe that Jesus died for every human being?
• If you answered yes to the question, then at least you agree with one of the central tenets of Arminianism, and you would be generally unwelcome in Calvinist circles
• This is perhaps the most glaring issue which divides Calvinism and Arminianism
• Most Calvinists believe that Jesus died only for certain people, although there is some debate whether Calvin himself held this view
• If you believe that Jesus died only for those who would eventually believe, then you truly are a Calvinist and not an Arminian

2. Do you believe that humans are so depraved that they can do nothing to earn salvation and that they cannot choose to believe in Jesus without the intervention of God’s grace?
• If you answered yes, then you agree with Arminius and Arminianism
• Calvinists affirm the same doctrine, but often claim that Arminians do not, despite near, if not complete unanimity among Arminian theologians in affirming the doctrine

3. Do you believe that a person can resist the convicting power of God’s grace?
• If you answered yes, then again you affirm another one of the central tenets of Arminianism, as reflected in Jesus’ words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather your children together…but you were not willing” (Matt 23:37)
• Calvinists argue that God has determined which individuals will believe; to make their faith possible, he calls them to salvation in such a way that their own wills are overpowered so that they cannot possibly resist the call to salvation
• Arminians believe that God truly wants every one to believe; but when God enables a person to believe, he does so in such a way that the individual still can resist the convicting power of the Spirit–faith is not a necessary outcome of God’s enabling grace

4. Do you believe that you are born again when you put your faith in Jesus?
• If you answered yes, then you hold to a major tenet of Arminianism and you probably are not a Calvinist
• Calvinists believe that God must first give a person new life to enable faith; without first being made to share the new life, they think that a person cannot believe
• Arminians argue that people are not given the gift of the new life until they believe
• Arminians hold that when a person believes, he is united with Christ and only then does he partake of the new life and is born again; a person does not share in the new life without first being united with Christ by faith, for “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)

5. Do you believe in election?
• If you answered yes, then you might be an Arminian
• Calvinists believe in an election independent of faith
• Arminians believe that election is “in Christ;” i.e., anyone who is “in Christ” is elect, but that faith is essential to become united with Christ. Therefore, election is conditioned upon faith

6. Do you believe in predestination?
• If you answered yes, then you might be an Arminian
• Arminians assert that believers are predestined to final salvation, not that people are predestined to believe

7. Do you believe in eternal security?
• The issue is whether people who truly believe in Jesus for salvation can possibly shipwreck their faith and forfeit their salvation, or conversely, once people have genuinely put their faith in Christ, whether their final salvation is unconditionally guaranteed
• If you answered yes and do believe in eternal security, you might be an Arminian
• There is some question of whether Arminius himself ever actually taught that believers may make shipwreck of their faith and so forfeit their salvation
• The Remonstrants—the early Arminians, people who sided with Arminius in the theological debates of 17th century Holland—originally took no position on this issue, though they ultimately came to the conclusion that believers can make shipwreck of their faith and so perish
• If you answered no and don’t believe in eternal security, then you affirm something which many Arminians strongly affirm, and you certainly would not be welcome in the Calvinist camp
• The official statement of faith of the Society of Evangelical Arminians only affirms that “persevering in faith is necessary for final salvation,” without commenting further on the possibility of making shipwreck of one’s faith.
• All Calvinists believe in unconditional eternal security (some without qualification and some because they think that faith and its continuance is due to unconditional election).
• Most Independent and Southern Baptists base their claim to be Calvinists on this sole issue and the traditional inclusion of the possibility of apostasy for genuine believers as an essential part of Arminian theology. However, in light of uncertainty among early Arminians on this issue and the fact that such Baptists agree with the Arminian position against the Calvinist one on every other point of disagreement, eternal security should not be a determining factor in the question of whether one is an Arminian or a Calvinist

8. Do you believe in the penal satisfaction view of the atonement?
• If you answered yes or if you answered no, you might be an Arminian
• The penal satisfaction view of the atonement asserts that Jesus’ death entailed a payment for sin. It assumes that the justice of God requires that sin be punished and that the just wrath of God was diverted away from deserving sinners and poured out instead upon Jesus as their substitute
• This view is held by most Calvinists and by a majority of Arminians (especially those who claim the nomenclature “Reformation Arminianism”), although some Arminians reject the notion that God punished his Son Jesus
• Arminius affirmed the penal satisfaction view of the atonement

9. Do you believe that God exhaustively knows the future?
• If you answered yes, you might be an Arminian
• Calvinists and most Arminians believe that God exhaustively knows the future.
• Some Arminians think that a denial of this doctrine is a rejection of basic Christian Theism, and that those who deny the doctrine cannot therefore be Arminian
• The Society of Evangelical Arminians affirms the doctrine, and one cannot belong to the society unless one is in agreement with it

10. Do you believe in the sovereignty of God?
• If you answered yes, then you might be an Arminian
• All Calvinists and all Arminians affirm the sovereignty of God, but they differ on God’s endowment of freedom to human beings
• Some Calvinists define sovereignty as God ordaining and predetermining all things and events, so that human choice is merely an illusion
• Some Calvinists don’t explicitly deny human freedom, but attempt to redefine it to fit their view of sovereignty
• Arminians affirm basic free will and that humans really do make genuine choices, undeniably affirming human culpability in sin
• The Arminian view of Sovereignty is that God has the power and authority to do anything he wants, and nothing can happen unless he does it or allows it;
• Arminians believe that God is sovereign enough to endow his creatures with free will
• The Arminian view of Sovereignty and human freedom is motivated by its understanding of the character of God as being holy so that 1) God is not the author of evil; and 2) humans are culpable for their sins

In summary, you can be an Arminian and believe
• the doctrine of unlimited atonement (Jesus died for everyone)
• the doctrine of total depravity (people are incapable of believing in Jesus apart from the intervention of God’s grace)
• the doctrine of resistible grace (God dispenses grace in such a way that people may resist his convicting grace)
• the doctrine of election (all those who are “in Christ” are elect)
• the doctrine of predestination (believers are predestined)
• the doctrine of eternal security or the alternative view that true believers can turn from their faith and so perish as unbelievers
• the doctrine of the penal satisfaction atonement (God punished Jesus for the sins of the world)
• the doctrine of omniscience (including that God foreknows the future perfectly)
• the sovereignty of God (God can do whatever he wants, including endow humans with a free will)

As I stated earlier, the default position of Christian evangelicalism is Arminianism. And as can be seen in this brief outline, it is okay to be Arminian._

----------


## Christian Liberty

_



			
				1. Do you believe that Jesus died for every human being?
			
		

_
Nope

end test...

----------


## Christian Liberty

> _If you answered yes, then again you affirm another one of the central tenets of Arminianism, as reflected in Jesus’ words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather your children together…but you were not willing” (Matt 23:37)_


BTW: I believe this verse does disprove some of the more radical forms of Calvinism.  Specifically, I do believe that God does desire the Salvation of the non-elect in some sense, as per that text.

Also:

http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/wher...m-chart-20840/

I'd pretty much fit under "moderate" on that chart.  I'm guessing Sola_Fide is ultra high.  Take a look at that chart and notice the subtle differences.

----------


## erowe1

> And from those definitions there is no way to get to the translation of the text that you are intimating.


That's just not true.

First of all, I'm not offering a translation, just an interpretation. There's nothing about the standard English translations that disallow my interpretation.

Second of all, you neither translate nor interpret by stringing together dictionary definitions of individual words. You pay attention to idioms, whole phrases, and contexts.

For example, in Matthew 26:39, we have a "not...but..." construction. And we know from our study of language (both Greek and English) that this construction does not always entirely negate the first element, but sometimes just tones it down.

Consider the following examples, which are listed in the paragraph of Blass, Debrunner, and Funk, which is an excellent grammar of New Testament Greek, that talks about this point.

Mark 9:37



> “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”


Matthew 10:20



> for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.


John 12:44



> And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me.


Acts 5:4



> You have not lied to men but to God.

----------


## erowe1

> And from those definitions there is no way to get to the translation of the text that you are intimating.


That's just not true.

First of all, I'm not offering a translation, just an interpretation. There's nothing about the standard English translations that disallow my interpretation.

Second of all, you neither translate nor interpret by stringing together dictionary definitions of individual words. You pay attention to idioms, whole phrases, and contexts.

For example, in Matthew 26:39, we have a "not...but..." construction. And we know from our study of language (both Greek and English) that this construction does not always entirely negate the first element, but sometimes just tones it down in comparison with the second element.

Consider the following examples, which are listed in the paragraph of Blass, Debrunner, and Funk, which is an excellent grammar of New Testament Greek, that talks about this point.

Mark 9:37



> “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”


Matthew 10:20



> for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.


John 12:44



> And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me.


Acts 5:4



> You have not lied to men but to God.

----------


## jmdrake

> That's just not true.
> 
> First of all, I'm not offering a translation, just an interpretation. There's nothing about the standard English translations that disallow my interpretation.


But there is something about standard English that prevents you from honestly saying "The Bible doesn't say Jesus said He would go with the Father's will and not His own" when the Bible clearly says that.  It's fine for you to say "Well sure the Bible says that, but I interpret it a different way" than for you to obstinately keep claiming it doesn't say what it literally says.




> Second of all, you neither translate nor interpret by stringing together dictionary definitions of individual words. You pay attention to idioms, whole phrases, and contexts.


And there is no idiom or phrase that gets you to your desired interpretation.  I tell you what.  Post a single commentary, Calvin or otherwise, that gives the interpretation that you are claiming.




> For example, in Matthew 26:39, we have a "not...but..." construction. And we know from our study of language (both Greek and English) that this construction does not always entirely negate the first element, but sometimes just tones it down in comparison with the second element.
> 
> Consider the following examples, which are listed in the paragraph of Blass, Debrunner, and Funk, which is an excellent grammar of New Testament Greek, that talks about this point.
> 
> Mark 9:37
> 
> 
> Matthew 10:20
> 
> ...


Let's see.  Where did Jesus say "Father, drinking this cup is what I want to do.  Nevertheless it's not my will but yours?"  Quote the chapter and verse.  Otherwise you are blowing smoke because the construction doesn't match your examples.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> That's just not true.
> 
> First of all, I'm not offering a translation, just an interpretation. There's nothing about the standard English translations that disallow my interpretation.
> 
> Second of all, you neither translate nor interpret by stringing together dictionary definitions of individual words. You pay attention to idioms, whole phrases, and contexts.
> 
> For example, in Matthew 26:39, we have a "not...but..." construction. And we know from our study of language (both Greek and English) that this construction does not always entirely negate the first element, but sometimes just tones it down in comparison with the second element.
> 
> Consider the following examples, which are listed in the paragraph of Blass, Debrunner, and Funk, which is an excellent grammar of New Testament Greek, that talks about this point.
> ...


Wow.  Thanks Erowe 1.  I love getting in to these debates when you're around because its like I get a free Bible study.  You should write a book soon and make some money for it.

----------


## jmdrake

> Wow.  Thanks Erowe 1.  I love getting in to these debates when you're around because its like I get a free Bible study.  You should write a book soon and make some money for it.


There's a sucker born every minute.

----------


## Dr.3D

Anybody care to give a good reason as to why Jesus was perspiring so heavily at that time?

----------


## Sola_Fide

> There's a sucker born every minute.


Sir, you don't understand Christianity and you don't know how to do hermeneutics.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> Anybody care to give a good reason as to why Jesus was perspiring so heavily at that time?


Because He was about to be executed and face the wrath of the Father for the sins of the elect?  That would cause anyone to sweat.

----------


## jmdrake

> Sir, you don't understand Christianity and you don't know how to do hermeneutics.


I understand and explained what was wrong with erowe1's examples and how they didn't fit the text he was trying to apply them to.  But you don't care about that because he agreed with you.  All you are looking for is self-justification, not truth.

Edit: I also understood hermeneutics well enough to get you to question John Calvin's salvation.  But that really should have lead you to question your own.  Again, all you care about is self justification.  You do not care to be justified by Jesus.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> I understand and explained what was wrong with erowe1's examples and how they didn't fit the text he was trying to apply them to.  But you don't care about that because he agreed with you.  All you are looking for is self-justification, not truth.
> 
> Edit: I also understood hermeneutics well enough to get you to question John Calvin's salvation.  But that really should have lead you to question your own.  Again, all you care about is self justification.  You do not care to be justified by Jesus.


Hahaha

----------


## erowe1

> the construction doesn't match your examples.


Yes it does. It's the same construction.

----------


## erowe1

> But there is something about standard English that prevents you from honestly saying "The Bible doesn't say Jesus said He would go with the Father's will and not His own" when the Bible clearly says that.


No it doesn't clearly say that.

Notice how you changed the order of the phrases.

I have never denied what the text literally says. Nor do I have any problem with any actual quotation that has been given of it. I just deny that it says that Jesus willed anything different than the Father. It simply does not say that.

And if your only evidence from the Bible that Jesus ever willed anything against the Father's will, or that he did not will to be crucified, is that verse, then you have zero evidence.

----------


## Dr.3D

Matthew Henry Notes says "_he fell on his face, and there prayed that, if it were the will of God, this cup of suffering, this bitter cup, might be removed from him._"
I guess he agrees with jmdrake on that.

----------


## erowe1

> Anybody care to give a good reason as to why Jesus was perspiring so heavily at that time?


Luke 22:44 says, "And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground." It looks to me like the agony and fervent prayer are the reason.

----------


## erowe1

> Matthew Henry Notes says "_he fell on his face, and there prayed that, if it were the will of God, this cup of suffering, this bitter cup, might be removed from him._"
> I guess he agrees with jmdrake on that.


I think that's probably the most common interpretation. I just think most people are adding something that's not there. Hebrews 5:7 is really helpful to me in understanding it.

ETA: Your post inspired me to read all of what Matthew Henry said about this passage. It was very edifying. And while he does say that the cup in fact did not pass, he also says a lot of mitigating things about that which agree very much with the points I've been making. In fact, it's hard for me to see how he could recognize those things and not conclude that the cup did pass, since the suffering was shortened by the resurrection. There are too many tidbits to quote. But if anyone wants to read it, it's at the following link:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc5.Matt.xxvii.html

----------


## TER

> not one retort i've read in here was an original thought.


So is that how you base what the truth is?  By how original and unique a thought is?   Getting the same consistent belief on something is worth less and of little significance then an original idea to your liking?  So, the judge of truth is therefore your mind and what's to your liking?  Perhaps, my friend, that is where your confusion lies.  This is not a contest to see how many unique and interesting theological and philosophical points one can make in life.  Truth is not a construct of the human imagination!  Truth is found in the humble and loving heart.  This is the great secret revealed by Christ to the whole world.  This is the way toward all truth and light.

Our search for the truth begins on our knees in prayer to God.

Any 'theologizing' done without humility and prayer is what is worthless and of little significance.  We should not be seeking what is best for our minds, but what is best for our eternal souls.  And prayer is what illuminates the soul and gives faith to the soul.  Prayer is what is most needed.

----------


## Eagles' Wings

> So is that how you base what the truth is?  By how original and unique a thought is?   Getting the same consistent belief on something is worth less and of little significance then an original idea to your liking?  So, the judge of truth is therefore your mind and what's to your liking?  Perhaps, my friend, that is where your confusion lies.  This is not a contest to see how many unique and interesting theological and philosophical points one can make in life.  Truth is not a construct of the human imagination!  Truth is found in the humble and loving heart.  This is the great secret revealed by Christ to the whole world.  This is the way toward all truth and light.
> 
> Our search for the truth begins on our knees in prayer to God.
> 
> Any 'theologizing' done without humility and prayer is what is worthless and of little significance.  We should not be seeking what is best for our minds, but what is best for our eternal souls.  And prayer is what illuminates the soul and gives faith to the soul.  Prayer is what is most needed.


Well said.

----------


## jmdrake

> Yes it does. It's the same construction.


It's not the same construction.  You are twisting the Bible for your own aims.  Here is the same construction.

_Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven._

----------


## jmdrake

> No it doesn't clearly say that.


Yes it does.




> Notice how you changed the order of the phrases.


 Notice how you picked passages where Jesus was expounding on something He already said as opposed to negating it.  It's you that is making the change.




> And if your only evidence from the Bible that Jesus ever willed anything against the Father's will, or that he did not will to be crucified, is that verse, then you have zero evidence.


John Calvin agrees with my interpretation.  Can you find a single well known Bible commentator that agrees with you?  Sola_Fide doesn't count.

----------


## jmdrake

> I think that's probably the most common interpretation. I just think most people are adding something that's not there. Hebrews 5:7 is really helpful to me in understanding it.
> 
> ETA: Your post inspired me to read all of what Matthew Henry said about this passage. It was very edifying. And while he does say that the cup in fact did not pass, he also says a lot of mitigating things about that which agree very much with the points I've been making. In fact, it's hard for me to see how he could recognize those things and not conclude that the cup did pass, since the suffering was shortened by the resurrection. There are too many tidbits to quote. But if anyone wants to read it, it's at the following link:
> http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc5.Matt.xxvii.html


The suffering wasn't at all shortened by the resurrection.  Jesus already knew that He would be raised on the third day.  Again, find a single commentator that agrees with your position.

----------


## erowe1

> The suffering wasn't at all shortened by the resurrection.  Jesus already knew that He would be raised on the third day.


Of course he did. It was the Father's will, and he was praying according to the Father's will, just like he explicitly says.

The Father heard his prayer, just as Hebrews 5:7 says, and the suffering did pass at the time of the resurrection, as Acts 2:24 says, and as Jesus and the Father both knew would happen.




> Again, find a single commentator that agrees with your position.


Sure, I will. It's interesting that you're the one asking for this, since you usually scoff at people appealing to commentators for support of their position.

----------


## jmdrake

> Of course he did. It was the Father's will, and he was praying according to the Father's will, just like he explicitly says.
> 
> The Father heard his prayer, just as Hebrews 5:7 says, and the suffering did pass at the time of the resurrection, as Acts 2:24 says, and as Jesus and the Father both knew would happen.


The cup He spoke of was His own death.  That did not pass.  Hebrews 5:7 doesn't say that it passed.  If Hebrews 5:7 is your evidence, then you have no evidence.




> Sure, I will. It's interesting that you're the one asking for this, since you usually scoff at people appealing to commentators for support of their position.


Actually I often find commentators who you support that agree with me.  I scoff at the fact that you aren't even consistent in your inconsistency.

----------


## erowe1

> The cup He spoke of was His own death.  That did not pass.


Yes it did, when he was resurrected (Acts 2:24).




> Hebrews 5:7 doesn't say that it passed.  If Hebrews 5:7 is your evidence, then you have no evidence..


It says God heard him and rescued him from death. Jesus' prayer was to be rescued from death, and that did happen.

----------


## erowe1

I knew I'd have no problem finding commentaries with this view, because I had a friend in seminary who wrote his thesis on this exact question, and he was the one who convinced me of this position. I can probably get his thesis too.

As for commentaries, my favorite commentary on Hebrews has long been this one by Hughes. I'm not surprised to see that Hughes came through here and defends the exact interpretation of Jesus's prayer that I've been defending here in his comments on Hebrews 5:7. He also mentions Herveus defending this view in a commentary on Hebrews from the 12th century. I think it's only available in Latin. Hughes also mentions Weust and Lang among modern commentators who agree with him. I don't have access to their commentaries right now.

Also, in the journal, _Expository Times_, in the 1914-15 volume, Alfred Garvie (then principal of New College, London), defended a very similar view, where the cup did pass, but in his communion with and confidence in the Father on the cross itself (p. 550).

In the 4th century, Gregory of Nazianzuz also wrote about Jesus's prayer in Gethsemane, and while he doesn't explain how the cup passed, he explicitly argues that Jesus's prayer shows that his own will was identical to the Father's. I find this significant, given that Greek was his native language. He explains it as meaning, "Not to do my own will, for what is mine is not distinct from what is yours but belongs to both you and me, who have one will as we have one Godhead." (Oration 4.12).
I found the English of that in this book.

I also think that I can argue that Justin Martyr took this view way back in the mid-second century, but it will require more writing and explanation than I have time to give at the moment. It concerns _Dialogue with Trypho_ 99 and 106.

Finally, what is probably the most exhaustive modern scholarly commentary on Matthew is Davies and Allison. I can't find their view of how and when the cup passed. But they interpret it as eschatological judgment more generally rather than just the cross. And they cogently defend the view that the three times Jesus prayed in Matthew 26, his prayers are always for the same thing, and that, just as his will and the Father's will are completely integrated in v. 42, they must be in v. 39 also (vol. 3, p. 498).

----------


## jmdrake

> Yes it did, when he was resurrected (Acts 2:24).
> 
> 
> It says God heard him and rescued him from death. Jesus' prayer was to be rescued from death, and that did happen.


That's simply you reading into the verse what Bible what you want to be there.

----------


## TER

*The Agony of Gethsemane*

On the Meaning of Christs Prayer & His Obedience in the Garden

by Patrick Henry Reardon

Perhaps no part of the Gospel narrative of the Lords Passion manifests more dramatically what St. Paul called the weakness of God (1 Cor. 1:25) than the account of Jesus trial in the garden. Indeed, when the pagan Celsus, late in the second century, wrote the first formal treatise against the Christian faith, he cited that Gospel scene in order to assault the doctrine of Jesus divinity: Why does he shriek and lament and pray to escape the fear of destruction, speaking thus: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me?

Celsus greatly oversimplified the story of course. Refuting him in the following century, Origen remarked that the Gospels do not claim that Jesus lamented ( oduretai) his coming death and that Celsus failed to note that the foregoing prayer of Jesus was immediately followed by the words, Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done, a sentiment demonstrating our Lords piety and greatness of soul, his firmness, and his willingness to suffer.

Needless to say, all Christians are at one with Origens critique of Celsus on this point, but they should also consider the force of that pagans blasphemous attack. Although Celsuss malice ( kakourgon) denied him access to the true meaning of the agony in the garden, that dolorous event at least instructed this unbeliever with respect to Jesus full humanity. In fact, Celsus reasoned, Jesus in the garden was so utterly human that he could not possibly have been divine.

Even as we reject that heretical conclusion, we also recognize that the fullness of Jesus humanity was most manifest in that event described by the Epistle to the Hebrews as the days of his flesh (5:7). In the Lords experience in the garden, we perceive the most profound inferences of the doctrine of the Incarnation.

Indeed, this is the very reason that the early Church made no secret of the Lords agony in the garden. In all the Gospels except John, Judass treachery toward Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed (1 Cor. 11:23) is preceded by an account of our Lords prayer in the garden, which thus becomes the opening scene of his sufferings.

In the comments that follow, it is my purpose to examine these Gospel accounts, along with the parallel narrative in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in order to reflect theologically on the significance of the trial and prayer of Jesus in the garden and the special, mysterious place that Holy Scripture recognizes in that event in the accomplishment of our redemption.

*The Mystery of Sadness*

Interpreting the death and resurrection of Jesus in the light of biblical literature (cf. 1 Cor. 15:34), the early Christians savored the contrast between the disobedience of Adam and the obedience of Christ. They perceived that whereas the first man attempted, in rebellion, to become Gods equal, the second, being in the form of God, did not regard being equal to God a usurpation [ harpagmos], but he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in shape as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death (Phil. 2:68, my translation).

In the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul further elaborated the disparity between Adam and Jesus, observing that, as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Mans obedience many will be made righteous (5:19).

It is very important to bear in mind the traditional contrast of the obedient Jesus with the disobedient Adam when we come to the Gospel accounts of our Lords struggle at Gethsemane, the place of his betrayal. The very name of this place (Mark 14:32; Matt. 26:36) means olive garden, abbreviated to simply a garden by John (18:1).

This garden of Jesus trial was, first of all, a place of sadness, the sorrow of death itself. My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, said he, even unto death (Mark 14:34; Matt. 26:38). This sorrow unto death is common to the two gardens of mans trial, the garden of Adam and the garden of Jesus.

In the garden of disobedience, the Lord spoke to Adam of his coming death, whereby he would return to the dust from which he was taken. That curse introduced mans sadness unto death. Thus, in the Septuagint version of this story the Lord tells Eve, I will greatly multiply your sorrows ( lypas), and in sorrows ( en lypais) you will bear your children. And to her husband the Lord declares, Cursed is the ground for your sake; in sorrows ( en lypais) you shall eat of it all the days of your life (Gen. 3:16,17,19).

It is common to think of our Lords prayer in the garden in reference to his fear, but it is significant that the accounts in Matthew and Mark emphasize his sadness more than his fear. Jesus said in the garden, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful ( perilypos), even unto death. The context of this assertion indicates that Jesus assumed the primeval curse of our sorrow unto death, in order to reverse the disobedience of Adam. In the garden, Jesus took our grief upon himself, praying with vehement cries and tears (Heb. 5:7). In the garden he bore our sadness unto death, becoming the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief (Is. 53:3,4).

Thus, St. Ambrose of Milan, commenting on the agony in the garden, says of Jesus: Nowhere do I wonder more at his piety and majesty, because it would have profited me less if he had not assumed my own feelings ( nisi meum suscepisset affectum). Therefore, the One that had no reason to sorrow for himself sorrowed for me, and leaving aside the enjoyment of his eternal divinity, he is afflicted with the weariness of my infirmity. He assumed my sadness ( suscepit tristitiam meam), in order to confer on me his joy, and in our footsteps he descended even to the sorrow of death ( ad mortis aerumnam), in order to recall us to life in his own footsteps.

In the garden Jesus returns to the very place of Adams fall, taking on himself Adams sorrow unto death. Thus, Ambrose regards Christs assumption of mans sadness in the garden as integral to the Incarnation itself. He comments, Therefore, I confidently use the word sadness, because I preach the Cross, because he did not assume the appearance of the Incarnation, but its truth. Consequently, he had to take on grief ( dolorem suscipere), in order to overcome sadness ( tristitiam), not to exclude it. The praise of fortitude does not belong to those who bear the numbness, but rather the pain, of wounds.

The commiserating Christ bears in the garden, then, the very sorrow incurred by fallen mankind. In this garden scene St. Cyril of Alexandria places on the lips of Jesus the following explanation of his grief: What vinedresser, when his vineyard is desolate and laid waste, will feel no anguish for it? What shepherd would be so harsh and stern as to suffer nothing on account of his perishing flock? These are the causes of my grief. For these things am I sorrowful.

*The Mystery of Prayer*

Besides the accounts in the Synoptic Gospels, the Epistle to the Hebrews also refers to the Lords prayer in the garden. It is there that we read of Jesus, who, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and was heard because of his godly fear, though he were a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered (5:78).

In this precious text, the reference to vehement cries and tears explains how the early believers knew about this event. It was among those things, as the author says, confirmed to us by those who heard him (2:3). The first apostles were immediate witnesses to the event, some of them only a little farther off (Matt. 26:39), about a stones throw (Luke 22:41). These disciples could hear those vehement cries, and they were able to see his kneeling posture (Mark 14:35).

All this happened, says Hebrews, in the days of his flesh, an expression indicating Jesus condition of human weakness, willingly assumed so that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb. 2:14).

The object of Jesus prayers and supplications, Hebrews tells us, was deliverance from death. This feature of his prayers corresponds to the Gospel accounts in which Jesus prays that he be spared the cup of his coming sufferings (Matt. 26:39,42) and that the hour might pass from him (Mark 14:35).

It was in this hour, says Hebrews, that Jesus learned obedience by the things which he suffered, a parallel to the Gospel accounts in which Jesus, in his agony, submits his own will obediently to that of his Father (Matt. 26:39,42; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42). As we have seen, the Apostle Paul preserves part of a hymn that speaks of Jesus obedience unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8).

These prayers and supplications of Jesus are themselves sacrificial, because Hebrews says that he offered them ( prosenegkas). They are priestly prayers. That is to say, Jesus sacrifice has even now begun. The Lords Passion is a seamless whole. Already we perceive in his prayers and supplications the true essence of sacrifice, which is the inner oblation of oneself to God.

The Book of Hebrews insists, furthermore, that these prayers and supplications of Jesus were heard on high, precisely because of his godly fear, which is to say, his godly piety and reverence ( evlabeia; reverentia in the Vulgate). Jesus obedient reverence is exactly what we find in the Gospel accounts of the agony.

In what sense, then, was Jesus heard when he offered these prayers and supplications? Properly to answer this question, it is useful to remember a principle of all godly petition: Now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us (1 John 5:14). Jesus prayed explicitly according to Gods will; indeed, it was the very essence of his prayer. Therefore, his prayer was heard according to Gods will. He was not delivered from death in the sense that he avoided it, but in the sense that he conquered it, that he was victorious over death, that in his own death he trampled down death forever.

This is to say that Jesus resurrection and glorification were the Fathers response to his prayer in the agony. It was in answer to his prayer, Thy will be done, that Jesus, having been perfected . . . became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him (Hebrews 5:9). This was Gods will, the will that Jesus prayed would be done. He was thus made perfect through sufferings (2:10). It was because Jesus became obedient unto death that God also has highly exalted him (Phil. 2:9). The Paschal victory over death was the Fathers reply to the prayers and supplications offered by the true High Priest in the days of his flesh.

*Prayer & the Will of God*

From these reflections it is clear that our Lords prayer at Gethsemane illustrates the mystery of prayer itself. This illustration is worthy of further comment.

Times out of mind we have been told by some sincere Christians that the promise given by Jesusthe promise that his Father will grant us whatsoever we ask in his name (John 16:2324)is absolute and allows of no exceptions. I have even heard some Christians, citing this text, go on to remark that even the addition of if it is thy will bespeaks a want of sufficient faith, inasmuch as it suggests that the person making the prayer is failing in confidence that his prayer will be answered. That is to say, a prayer containing an if, because it is ipso facto hypothetical, expresses an inadequate faith. What the believer should do, I have been told, is simply name it and claim it.

What the Bible has to say about petitionary prayer, however, is contained in many biblical verses, all of them worthy of careful regard. For example, should we say that the Apostle Paul, when he prayed three times that the Lord would remove from him the thorn in his flesh, the angel of Satan sent to buffet him (2 Cor. 12:8), was wanting in faith because this severe affliction was not taken away?

If this was the caseif the Apostle to the Gentiles really was so deficient in personal faithit is no wonder that he was obliged to leave Trophimus sick at Miletus (2 Tim. 4:20). Poor ailing Trophimus, languishing there on his sickbed; he should have been prayed over by a person with a sounder, fuller, more unfailing faith, not that slacker Paul, a man apparently deficient on the subject of faith.

The truth of the subject, however, is quite different. The addition, if it is thy will, is neither a limitation imposed on our confidence nor a restriction laid on our prayer. It expresses, rather, a constitutive feature of true prayer and an essential component of faith. The real purpose of prayer, after all, is not to inform God what we want, much less to impose our will on him, but to hand ourselves over more completely, in faith, to what God wants. The purpose of prayer, even the prayer of petition, is living communion with God. The man who tells God, then, Thy will be done, does not thereby show himself a weaker believer but a stronger one.

After all, was Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, weak in faith when he added the Thy will be done to the petition Take this cup from me? Did he not, rather, give us in this form of his petition the very essence of true prayer?

If it is thy will, then, is not a limit on our trust, but an expansion of it. It does not denote a restriction of our confidence but an elevation of it. It is an elevation because in such a prayerThy will be donewe grow in personal trust in the One who has deigned, in his love, to become our Father. Indeed, when Jesus makes this prayer in the garden, the evangelists are careful to note exactly how he addressed Godnamely, as Father. Indeed, they even preserve the more intimate Semitic form, Abba.

The will of God in which we place the trust of our petition is not a blind, arbitrary, or predetermined will. It is, rather, the will of a Father whose sole motive (if this word be allowed) in hearing our prayer is to provide loving direction and protection to his children. According to thy will is spoken to a Father who loves us because in Christ we have become his children.

All of this theology was contained in Jesus prayer in the garden, by which his own human will was united with the will of God. Jesus, in praying for the doing of Gods will, modeled for us the petition contained in the prayer that he gave us in the Sermon on the Mount. This prayer, which significantly begins with Our Father, goes on to plead that his will may be done.

*Obedience & Authority*

We earlier reflected that in the Lords agony, we perceive the most profound inferences of the doctrine of the Incarnation, the enfleshing of Gods eternal Son.

Jesus in the garden subjected to the Father, not only the assent of his will, but also the disposition of his flesh. In this regard, the author of Hebrews places on the lips of the Son, when he came into the world, the words of the psalmist, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, But a body you have prepared for me./ In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure./ Then I said, Behold, I have comein the volume of the book it is written of meto do your will, O God (10:57; Psalm 40 [39]:68).

A body you have prepared for me, says the incarnate Word to his Father. We may contrast this to the Hebrew text of Psalm 40:6, which reads, Sacrifice and offering you did not desire; my ears you have opened. Perhaps relying on the Septuagint (as reflected in its three earliest extant manuscripts), the author of Hebrews changes ears to body. He thereby asserts that Jesus in his very body, and not simply in the assent of his will, accomplished our redemption.

This assertion must not be disregarded, lest we fall into serious doctrinal error. It has sometimes been alleged that our redemption was really wrought, not on Golgotha, but in Gethsemane, when Jesus explicitly submitted his will in obedience to the will of the Father. Some Eastern theologians, in particular, overreacting to a Western juridical soteriology, attempted to spiritualize redemption, even to moralize it. They advanced the theory that Jesus purchased our redemption, not by the immolation of his body on the Cross, but by his internal, spiritual sufferings in the garden.

According to this view, redemption was essentially accomplished by the obedient human wills deliberate submission to the divine will. Indeed, some have attempted to bolster this thesis through the biblical assertion that the true sacrifice acceptable to God consists in an internal immolation of the heart (Psalm 51 [50]:1617).

This exaggerated theory, it must be said, does not correspond to biblical soteriology, according to which we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ (Heb. 10:10). A full Christian view of redemption will insist that it happens in the body. To separate the suffering and death of Christ in the body from the internal obedience of his will to the Father does violence to the Holy Scriptures. Indeed, it does violence to the Incarnation itself, whereby he himself likewise shared in [flesh and blood] that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (2:14).

The submission of Jesus will led directly to the immolation of his body and the libation of his blood. His agony in the garden pertains, thus, to a single purpose, extending from his assumption of our flesh all the way to its ascent, finally, into heaven. The Church knows of no redemption apart from what Gods Son accomplished in the flesh.

*The Physicians Perspective*

When we speak of our Lords agony ( agonia) to describe his prayer in the garden, we are borrowing the expression from St. Luke (22:44), the only New Testament writer to use this word. There are two other distinctive features in Lukes version of this event.

First, Luke omits the threefold form of Jesus prayer found in Mark and Matthew. His version, therefore, is shorter.

Second, the traditional form of the Lukan text contains certain details not found in the other two Synoptics. To wit, Then an angel appeared to him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. Then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground (Luke 22:4344). These particulars about the bloody sweat and the comforting angel we know only from Luke.

Because the older, reputedly more reliable manuscripts of Luke do not contain these verses, some scholars argue that they were not part of the original form of Luke. For two reasons, nonetheless, I believe this judgment is too hasty.

First, given the considerable textual differences among the Lukan manuscript traditions (in the Last Supper story, for instance), I am not convinced there really was a single original form of Lukes Gospel. It seems to me not unreasonable to suspect that Luke himself may have left it to us in more than one form. (This consideration, let me add, seems applicable to other New Testament authors as well. Since many writers produce more than one version of their works, why would this be off-limits to the divinely inspired writers?)

Second, this impression of more than one original Lukan text is strengthened by the fact that the passage in question (Luke 22:4344), though not found in the earliest manuscripts, was very well known from the earliest times. In truth, these Lukan features appear so soon after his Gospels composition that it seems downright rash to claim they were not part of the original text.

For instance, about halfway through the second century, St. Justin Martyr wrote: According to the Memoirs [ apomnemonevmata, Justins common expression for the Gospels], which I say were composed by the Apostles and their followers, his sweat fell down like drops of blood while he was praying.

This citation, as old as any extant manuscript of Luke, shows that Justin was familiar with the disputed verses. Shortly after Justin, moreover, St. Irenaeus of Lyons also wrote of the bloody sweat, as did Hippolytus of Rome, who mentioned, as well, the angel who strengthened Jesus. Later, Epiphanius of Cyprus and others followed suit.

*Bloody Obedience*

For these reasons, and because this passage has long been received in the Church as integral to the Lukan text, my comments on these verses will presume Lukes authorship of them. Let us consider more closely, then, the Lords bloody sweat and the angel who strengthened him.

First, there is the sweat of blood, a condition called hematidrosis, which results from an extreme dilation of the subcutaneous capillaries, causing them to burst through the sweat glands. This symptom, mentioned as early as Aristotle, is well known to the history of medicine, which sometimes associates it with intense fear. It is not without interest, surely, that only the evangelist who was also a physician mentions this phenomenon.

Unlike Mark (14:34) and Matthew (26:38), Luke does not speak of Jesus sadness in the garden scene, but of an inner struggle, an agonia, in which the Lord prayed more earnestly. The theological significance of this feature in Luke is that Jesus internal conflict causes the first bloodshed in the Passion. His complete obedience to the Father in his prayer immediately produces this initial libation of his redemptive blood, the blood of which he had proclaimed just shortly before, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you (Luke 22:20).

Prior to the appearance of his betrayer, then, the Lord already begins the shedding of his blood. He pours it out in the struggle of obedience, before a single hand has been laid upon him. In Luke, the agony in the garden is not a prelude to the Passion, but its very commencement, because Jesus stern determination to accomplish the Fathers will causes his blood to flow for our redemption.

Second, there is the angel sent to strengthen the Lord during his trial. Luke, in his earlier temptation scene, had omitted the angelic ministry, of which Matthew (4:11) and Mark (1:13) spoke on that occasion. When Luke did describe that period of temptation, however, he remarked that the devil, having failed to bring about Jesus downfall, departed from him until an opportune time (4:13). Now, in the garden, that time has come, and Jesus receives the ministry of an angel to strengthen him for the task.

This is one of those angels of which Jesus asks Peter in the Gospel of Matthew: Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? (26:53) This angelic ministry was ever available to him, but now Jesus is in special need of it.

In Lukes literary structure, this ministering angel stands parallel to Gabriel at the beginning of the Gospel. In the earlier case, an angel introduces the Incarnation; in the present case, an angel introduces the Passion. Very shortly, angels will introduce the Resurrection (24:4).

_The non-Scriptural references are, in order, to: Origen, Contra Celsum 2.24; Ambrose, Homiliae in Lucam 10.56; Cyril of Alexandria, Homiliae in Lucam 146; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 103.8; Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 3.22.2; Hippolytus, Fragments on Psalms 1 [2.7]; Epiphanius, Ancoratus 31:45; and Aristotle, Historia Animalium 3.19._

----------


## erowe1

> In what sense, then, was Jesus “heard” when he offered these prayers and supplications? Properly to answer this question, it is useful to remember a principle of all godly petition: “Now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14). Jesus prayed explicitly according to God’s will; indeed, it was the very essence of his prayer. Therefore, his prayer was heard according to God’s will. He was not delivered from death in the sense that he avoided it, but in the sense that he conquered it, that he was victorious over death, that in his own death he trampled down death forever.


Exactly. Except that I would mention the resurrection specifically. I assume this author means to imply it.

----------


## jmdrake

> Originally Posted by TER
> 
> In what sense, then, was Jesus “heard” when he offered these prayers and supplications? Properly to answer this question, it is useful to remember a principle of all godly petition: “Now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14). Jesus prayed explicitly according to God’s will; indeed, it was the very essence of his prayer. Therefore, his prayer was heard according to God’s will. He was not delivered from death in the sense that he avoided it, but in the sense that he conquered it, that he was victorious over death, that in his own death he trampled down death forever.
> 
> 
> Exactly. Except that I would mention the resurrection specifically. I assume this author means to imply it.


David prayed according to God's will when he asked if God would spare the life of his son born to Bathsheba.  David's will was not for his son to die.

----------


## erowe1

> David prayed according to God's will when he asked if God would spare the life of his son born to Bathsheba.  David's will was not for his son to die.


No he didn't. God's will was to do the opposite of what David prayed for.

God did not "hear" David's prayer, in the sense that the idiom "hear prayer" is used throughout the Bible.

----------


## erowe1

> Again, find a single commentator that agrees with your position.


Was this serious? Or did I waste my time hunting down those commentaries in the library just to call a bluff.

----------


## erowe1

> It's not the same construction.  You are twisting the Bible for your own aims.  Here is the same construction.
> 
> _Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven._


All of my examples were the same as this. We could add this one to my list, since again the first element is only toned down in comparison to the second rather than negated, except that the word "every" in the first part makes it different. Notice, though, the second element has an implied "also" here. In that respect it's the same as the examples I gave and Jesus's prayer in Gethsemane.

----------


## jmdrake

> All of my examples were the same as this.


No they weren't.  You're examples were the opposite.  

Really, your logic is failing you badly.

Here is one of your examples:

_“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”_

A not A but B 

My example:

not A but B

For my example to fit your example it would have to say:

"Everyone who says Lord Lord will be saved.  Not everyone who says Lord Lord will be saved but he who does the will of my Father."

I will break this down completely so that you will have no honest room for argument (though you probably will still try to argue).

“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name A(welcomes me); and whoever A(welcomes me) does not A(welcome me) but B(the one who sent me.)”

versus

"Not A(everyone who says Lord Lord will be saved) but B(he who does the will of my Father.)"

----------


## erowe1

> No they weren't.  You're examples were the opposite.  
> 
> Really, your logic is failing you badly.
> 
> Here is one of your examples:
> 
> _“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”_
> 
> A not A but B 
> ...


I'm not sure where you're getting this. All the examples I gave are "not A but B." Jesus's prayer is also "not A but B." Your example from Matthew 7:21 is also "not A but B." I could add more. I think Mark 7:15 also fits the pattern:



> there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.


Once again, as I understand it, Jesus was not saying that there is absolutely no way to be defiled by eating, but that the kind of defilement that comes from within a man is what matters more than the kind of defilement that enters him from without.

In all of these "not A but B" constructions, the meaning is "not only A, but also B" or "not so much A as B." There's no reason that the "not A but B" part of Jesus's prayer could be read the same way. We certainly can't based some huge theological conclusion, like that Jesus willed for or prayed for something contrary to the Father's will, from a single verse that doesn't have to be taken that way, when there's no other passage of the Bible to support it.

----------


## jmdrake

> I'm not sure where you're getting this. All the examples I gave are "not A but B." Jesus's prayer is also "not A but B." Your example from Matthew 7:21 is also "not A but B." I could add more. I think Mark 7:15 also fits the pattern:


Not it wasn't.  You either don't understand logic or you are simply avoiding the truth.  Again:

“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name A(welcomes me); and whoever A(welcomes me) does not A(welcome me) but B(the one who sent me.)”

The "A" is "welcomes me".  The B is "the one who sent me."  The pattern is clearly "A" then "not A" then "but B".  

Edit: But somehow I knew you'd do that.  You would say "3 * 4 = 11" if you thought that would help you prove your point.

----------


## erowe1

> Not it wasn't.  You either don't understand logic or simply aren't being honest.  Again
> 
> Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name A(welcomes me); and whoever A(welcomes me) does not A(welcome me) but B(the one who sent me.)
> 
> The "A" is "welcomes me".  The B is "the one who sent me."  The pattern is clearly "A" then "not A" then "but B".  You're just playing silly games at this point and not fooling anyone but yourself.
> 
> Edit: But somehow I knew you'd do that.  You would say "3 * 4 = 11" if you thought that would help you prove your point.


All you're doing is expanding that example out to include more. But it still ends with "not A but B" and that "not A but B" means not only A but also B. Same with the other examples. The other As and Bs before that aren't part of the construction I'm talking about.

All I was showing with those examples is that the "not A but B" construction can be read that way. Clearly it can. And there's no reason it can't be in Matthew 26:39.

----------


## jmdrake

> All you're doing is expanding that example out to include more. But it still ends with "not A but B" and that "not A but B" means not only A but also B. Same with the other examples. The other As and Bs before that aren't part of the construction I'm talking about.


  Using your "logic" saying 8 + 7 * 3 = 7 * 3 since both expressions end in "7 * 3".




> All I was showing with those examples is that the "not A but B" construction can be read that way. Clearly it can. And there's no reason it can't be in Matthew 26:39.


If you believe that it's okay to add to Matthew 26:39 what is not there then I suppose so.  If you believe in reading the Bible as it is actually written then you can't.

----------


## erowe1

> Using your "logic" saying 8 + 7 * 3 = 7 * 3 since both expressions end in "7 * 3".
> 
> 
> 
> If you believe that it's okay to add to Matthew 26:39 what is not there then I suppose so.  If you believe in reading the Bible as it is actually written then you can't.


Not just my logic, but the logic of anyone who's studied the grammar of New Testament Greek.

All I'm saying, and all I need to say to make my point is that the "not A but B" construction doesn't have to mean an absolute negation of the first element. All the examples I gave prove this point. You don't need to add anything to the verse to show that it is not saying that Jesus's will is something different than God's will.

If we ask the simple question, "Must the words of Matthew 26:39 mean that Jesus's will is different than God the Father's?" then the answer is clearly, "No, they don't have to mean that."

And if that small point there is the point you dispute, then not only will just one commentator agree with me, but not a single one will disagree.

The way you're trying to compare this to mathematical equations shows why you're having so much trouble with this. Human language doesn't work like mathematical equations, where everything means the same thing every time it appears. The language of the Bible is no exception.

----------


## Dr.3D

> CJB Matthew 26:39 Going on a little farther, he fell on his face, praying, "My Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me! Yet- not what I want, but what you want!"
> (The Complete Jewish Bible 1998)


This interpretation seems to make it pretty clear.

----------


## erowe1

> This interpretation seems to make it pretty clear.


I don't really think that translation has to be read a single way either. But even if it did, that wouldn't be an argument. If something is ambiguous in Greek, then translating it into unambiguous English doesn't change the Greek, it just eliminates interpretive options available to the reader.

----------


## TER

§ 110. The Doctrine of Two Wills in Christ. 

from *History of the Christian Church, Volume IV: Mediaeval Christianity*

The Monotheletic or one-will controversy is a continuation of the Christological contests of the post-Nicene age, and closely connected with the Monophysitic controversy.   The name Monotheletism is derived from _μόνον_ and _θέλημα_, will. The heresy, whether expressive of the teacher or the doctrine, always gives name to the controversy and the sect which adopts it. The champions of the heretical one-will doctrine are called (first by John of Damascus). _Μονοθεληταί_, or _Μονοθελῆται_, Monotheletes, or Monothelites; the orthodox two-will doctrine is called Dyotheletism (from _δύοθελήματα_), and its advocates _Δυοθελῆται_, Dyothelites. The corresponding doctrines as to one nature or two natures of the Redeemer are termed Monophysitism and Dyophysitism.

This question had not been decided by the ancient fathers and councils, and passages from their writings were quoted by both parties. But in the inevitable logic of theological development it had to be agitated sooner or later, and brought to a conciliar termination. 

The controversy had a metaphysical and a practical aspect. 

The metaphysical and psychological aspect was the relation of will to nature and to person. Monotheletism regards the will as an attribute of person, Dyotheletism as an attribute of nature. It is possible to conceive of an abstract nature without a will; it is difficult to conceive of a rational human nature without impulse and will; it is impossible to conceive of a human person without a will. Reason and will go together, and constitute the essence of personality. Two wills cannot coexist in an ordinary human being. But as the personality of Christ is complex or divine-human, it may be conceived of as including two consciousnesses and two wills. The Chalcedonian Christology at all events consistently requires two wills as the necessary complement of two rational natures; in other words, Dyotheletism is inseparable from Dyophysitism, while Monotheletism is equally inseparable from Monophysitism, although it acknowledged the Dyophysitism of Chalcedon. The orthodox doctrine saved the integrity and completeness of Christ’s humanity by asserting his human will.  This benefit, however, was lost by the idea of the impersonality (anhypostasia) of the human nature of Christ, taught by John of Damascus in his standard exposition of the orthodox Christology. His object was to exclude the idea of a double personality. But it is impossible to separate reason and will from personality, or to assert the impersonality of Christ’s humanity without running into docetism. The most which can be admitted is the Enhypostasia, i.e. the incorporation or inclusion of the human nature of Jesus in the one divine personality of the Logos. The church has never officially committed itself to the doctrine of the impersonality.

The practical aspect of the controversy is connected with the nature of the Redeemer and of redemption, and was most prominent with the leaders. The advocates of Monotheletism were chiefly concerned to guard the unity of Christ’s person and work. They reasoned that, as Christ is but one person, he can only have one will; that two wills would necessarily conflict, as in man the will of the flesh rebels against the Spirit; and that the sinlessness of Christ is best secured by denying to him a purely human will, which is the root of sin. They made the pre-existing divine will of the Logos the efficient cause of the incarnation and redemption, and regarded the human nature of Christ merely as the instrument through which he works and suffers, as the rational soul works through the organ of the body. Some of them held also that in the perfect state the human will of the believer will be entirely absorbed in the divine will, which amounts almost to a pantheistic absorption of the human personality in the divine. 

*The advocates of Dyotheletism on the other hand contended that the incarnation must be complete in order to have a complete redemption; that a complete incarnation implies the assumption of the human will into union with the pre-existing divine will of the Logos; that the human will is the originating cause of sin and guilt, and must therefore be redeemed, purified, and sanctified; that Christ, without a human will, could not have been a full man, could not have been tempted, nor have chosen between good and evil, nor performed any moral and responsible act.* 

The Scripture passages quoted by Agatho and other advocates of the two-will doctrine, are Matt. 26:39 (“Not as I will, but as Thou wilt”); Luke 22:42 (“Not my will, but thine be done”); John 6:38 (“I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me”). For the human will were quoted Luke 2:51 (“he was subject” to his parents); Phil. 2:8 (“obedient unto death”), also John 1:43; 17:24; 19:28; Matt. 27:34; for the divine will, Luke 13:34; John 5:21. 

*These Scripture passages, which must in the end decide the controversy, clearly teach the human will of Jesus, but the other will from which it is distinguished, is the will of his heavenly Father, to which he was obedient unto death. The orthodox dogma implies the identity of the divine will of Christ with the will of God the Father, and assumes that there is but one will in the divine tripersonality. It teaches two natures and one person in Christ, but three persons and one nature in God. Here we meet the metaphysical and psychological difficulty of conceiving of a personality without a distinct will. But the term personality is applied to the Deity in a unique and not easily definable sense. The three Divine persons are not conceived as three individuals.* 

The weight of argument and the logical consistency on the basis of the Chalcedonian Dyophysitism, which was acknowledged by both parties, decided in favor of the two-will doctrine. The Catholic church East and West condemned Monotheletism as a heresy akin to Monophysitism. The sixth oecumenical Council in 680 gave the final decision by adopting the following addition to the Chalcedonian Christology:    Actio XVIII., in Mansi, XI. 637; Gieseler, I. 540 note 15; Hefele, III. 284 sq.

“And we likewise preach two natural wills in him [Jesus Christ], and two natural operations undivided, inconvertible, inseparable, unmixed, according to the doctrine of the holy fathers; and the two natural wills [are] not contrary (as the impious heretics assert), far from it! but his human will follows the divine will, and is not resisting or reluctant, but rather subject to his divine and omnipotent will. For it was proper that the will of the flesh should be moved, but be subjected to the divine will, according to the wise Athanasius. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of the God Logos, so is also the natural will of his flesh the proper will of the Logos, as he says himself: ’I came from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the Father who sent me’ (John 6:38). … Therefore we confess two natural wills and operations, harmoniously united for the salvation of the human race.”   Agatho quotes Scripture passages and testimonies of the fathers, but does not define the mode in which the two wills cooperate.

The theological contest was carried on chiefly in the Eastern church which had the necessary learning and speculative talent; but the final decision was brought about by the weight of Roman authority, and Pope Agatho exerted by his dogmatic epistle the same controlling influence over the sixth oecumenical Council, as Pope Leo I. had exercised over the fourth. In this as well as the older theological controversies the Roman popes—with the significant exception of Honorius—stood firmly on the side of orthodoxy, while the patriarchal sees of the East were alternately occupied by heretics as well as orthodox. 

The Dyotheletic decision completes the Christology of the Greek and Roman churches, and passed from them into the Protestant churches; but while the former have made no further progress in this dogma, the latter allows a revision and reconstruction, and opened new avenues of thought in the contemplation of the central fact and truth of the divine-human personality of Christ.

----------


## TER

The heresy that there is only one will in in the incarnate Christ is called monothelitism and arose from the Monophysite heresy (which said that there was only one nature in Christ). Christ distinguishes his will from that of his Father in John 6:38, Matt 26:39, etc. Christ's relationship of obedience to the Father only makes sense if Christ has a human will. 

St. Athanasius said in his treatise _On the Incarnation_ in 365 AD, "And when [Christ] says, "Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me; yet, not My will be done, but Yours;" and "the spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak," He gives evidence therein of two wills, the one human, which is of the flesh, and the other divine, which is of God. That which is human, because of the weakness of the flesh, shrinks from suffering. That, however, which is divine, is ready. Then too, Peter, hearing about the passion, says, "Cheer up, Lord;" but the Lord, chiding him, says, "Get behind me Satan; you are a scandal to Me, because you are mindful not of the things of God but of the things of men." This too, then, is to be understood in the suffering; but being God and, in accord with the divine substance, really being not subject to suffering, He readily accepts suffering and death"

----------


## TER

*TWO ACTIONS AND TWO WILLS* 

In the sixth century some theologians, while confessing the two natures of Christ, spoke of Him as having a single divine-human 'action', a single energy. Hence the name of the heresy called Monoenergism. Again, at the beginning of the seventh century another movement arose, Monothelitism, which recognized in Christ only divine will by claiming that His human will was completely swallowed up by the divine. Apart from pursuing purely theological goals, the Monothelites hoped to reconcile the Orthodox with the Monophysites by means of a compromise.

There were two main opponents of Monothelitism in the middle of the seventh century: St Maximus the Confessor, a monk from Constantinople, and St Martin, the pope of Rome. St Maximus taught that there were two energies and two wills in Christ: 'Christ, being God by nature, made use of a will which was naturally divine and paternal, for He had but one will with His Father; being Himself man by nature, He also made use of a naturally human will which was in no way opposed to the Father's will'. The presence of the human will in Christ is especially evident in His prayer in the garden of Gethsemane: 'My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt' (Matt.26:39). This prayer would have been impossible had the human will of Christ been fully swallowed up by the divine.

For his determination to confess the Christ of the Gospels, St Maximus was subjected to cruel punishment: his tongue was cut out and his right hand amputated. Like St Martin, he died in exile. However, the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, 680-681, upheld completely St Maximus's teaching: 'We preach that in Him (Christ) there are two natural wills and desires, and two natural energies without confusion, without change, without division, without separation. These two natural wills are not opposed to each other... but His human will submits itself to the divine and omnipotent will'. As a fully human person Christ possessed free will, but this freedom did not mean the choice between good and evil. The human will of Christ freely chooses only the good: there can be no conflict between His human and divine wills.

In these ways the mystery of the divine-human person of Christ, the New Adam and Saviour of the world, was made manifest in the theological experience of the Church.

----------


## erowe1

I don't explicitly accept monotheletism. And I'm fine with saying Jesus had both a human will and a divine will. I absolutely agree that he was, and had to be, fully human.

But I don't accept that he, even in his human will, ever willed for something against his father's will. In that respect I agree with what you posted above, TER, which I quoted, and with Gregory of Nazianzus, as well as some other Greek fathers I'm sure. His will, including his human will, was to be crucified. He, as a human, went to the cross willingly.

----------


## Sola_Fide

> I don't explicitly accept monotheletism. And I'm fine with saying Jesus had both a human will and a divine will. I absolutely agree that he was, and had to be, fully human.
> 
> But I don't accept that he, even in his human will, ever willed for something against his father's will. In that respect I agree with what you posted above, TER, which I quoted, and with Gregory of Nazianzus, as well as some other Greek fathers I'm sure. His will, including his human will, was to be crucified. He, as a human, went to the cross willingly.


Thank you Erowe for clarifying this.  The human nature was not _divine_, but it was _perfect._   There was not a unity of _being_ in the natures, but there was a unity of _will._

----------


## TER

From the 6th Ecumenical Council: “And we likewise preach two natural wills in him, and two natural operations undivided, inconvertible, inseparable, unmixed, according to the doctrine of the holy fathers; and the two natural wills [are] not contrary (as the impious heretics assert), far from it! *but his human will follows the divine will, and is not resisting or reluctant, but rather subject to his divine and omnipotent will.*"

----------

