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A rebel is one who sins without a
substitute. Granted all sin is spiritual rebellion, but God has decided
to plead the case of the righteous through the covenant of grace. The
authority that determines guilt does not originate from the condition of
the sinner but what God has said. The condition that brings a person to
innocence is through the creative word of God. Once we are saved we
enter into a relationship in which the voices of approval come from a
legal declaration of innocence. In this sense all of our new reality is
experienced as blameless.
This describes our motive in our hunger
for His word. Our desire is compared to a seed that is planted in the
ground. Just like the seed requires water to grow ..the water giving the
nourishment that creates new life, we now experience Gods legal
pronouncement of innocence in receiving deliverance. In each experience
in this life we are declared delivered by our positional blamelessness.
In receiving eternal life we hear the new word of salvation. We long for
a word of salvation which is the total description of who we are
positionally. The total word of God that cannot be broken This is why I
argue in a way that we find unity out of our doctrinal application.
The
covenant was applied in a way that forces us to look away from
ourselves. I do not mean it is an unhealthy force. But when we describe
the unity of doctrine it gives us the entire picture of how we apply the
authority of free grace. The covenant is Gods government being worked
out through His spoken word that has been over simplified for us to use
but translates into something that is more detailed than we could
understand. Who has known the mind of God and who has been His
counselor? Covenant faithfulness is all the thoughts of God that order
all things in creation both physical and meta physical that unify all
things. It is explained as God promising to be faithful, kind,
longsuffering and gentle , full of compassion and always forgiving
through doing all the work that is necessary so that all things bring
Him glory. This is why our lives are worked out as a result of this
success.
I do not think we can describe His word as a formula for
success or complete in a way that it can be magic speak. It is
simplified so that one word is the Spirit of all the words both revealed
or in the mind of God. But His covenant is all that God is both
revealed and mysterious that is how He works all things for His glory
and for our good. So when we pray He can use events as He sees fit in
the frame work of His covenant faithfulness. So in some ways we can read
the events in our language of faithfulness, kindness, longsuffering and
patient.
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Forums / Main Forum / Re: GTF quote of the day,and a comment-//
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on: February 12, 2014, 06:41:25 PM
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I'm going to have to swim back to the shallow end of the pool here. I tend to think in terms of a more simple model...
The
relationship between the King and a Citizen is different from the
relationship between Father and Child. The Child may continuously do
things that make the Father hurt or angry, he may do foolish,
self-destructive things, or worse, things that badly hurt the other
children, he may even decide to leave the household and never come back
(Prodigal Son reference), but his actions do not break the essential
filial bond of the Father-Child relationship.
That doesn't mean
that the Father doesn't hold the Child accountable; actions have
consequences. It just means the Father never stops loving the Child.
See
no offense Joker but I sincerely do not think like this. If God loves
us but it's dependent upon our being a certain way then His love is not
action it's emotional. At the same time it's a double condemnation
because as we have been taught that in order to love our brothers it
must be displayed in action. Who wants to say that God's love is not
displayed unconditionally in our success but we are held to a higher
standard? We might as well hope for a quick death instead of enduring
this impossible standard. God would be the ultimate slave master. First I
would never think like this because for me it would be a recipe for
losing. There is a reason why the nt writers faced a people who
were over confident. It wasn't thinking that the gospel was way to
inflict pain on their brothers. Even tho there was a simple miss
understanding of there saying they were part of the covenant by
bloodline yet the elect were as confident. After all it was the success
of the elect that got the rest of the nation out of trouble. I don't
know where this losing view of the gospel came from.
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353
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Forums / Main Forum / Re: GTF quote of the day,and a comment-//
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on: February 12, 2014, 05:33:35 PM
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So we are in involved in a complex restructuring of God's moral code.
This is my digression. In other words it is through man's moral code
that he calls good evil and evil good.
There is in this world... a
system, a mindset, a worldview that does exactly as you say Tom. But
the child of God does not, at least I don't think so. I know you don't. I
don't believe Mark does. Nor Jeff, or RR, or Gouda, or most others. So
I think this is a bit of a moot point. If the spirit of God lives in
you, you won't try to redefine God's moral code, I don't even know if it
is possible. I am not saying we are then forever without sin.
Our flesh will still conspire against our spirit, and sometimes win. But
when the spirit of God lives in you, you are acutely aware of said sin,
but more so that sin cannot separate you from being one with God in
Christ. So then, you rely on the love of God to sustain you more than
you believe that the sins in your flesh can condemn you. These
very points, I believe, are a huge stumbling block to "peace" in Christ,
and being one with God. This constant condemnation of ourselves for
falling short, not being further along, not understanding more, etc,
etc, act as the agent that separates us, by or own volition, through our
own choice, from the love of God.
Thanks Max, I believe in
God's absolutes. And as you say if He held His law against me then I
would be cast down. But the question is does His law then only show that
we fail? Some people say that His law shows us what we can do. But if
we are no longer under the law since Christ has fulfilled it then why
do we still stand as if it is held over us? My suspicion ie that we are
giving with one hand and taking it back with the other. So Pauls
admonition that no one can blame us comes with small print. We
fail to think correctly and the principles of our success as Christians
promise a complete salvation but then is nullified by suspicion that God
is not all together kind and forgiving. That somehow He must get our
attention with serious communication that involves pain. We are always
going back to square one. In most cases our experience of
salvation is a result of how we describe it. But the gospel doesn't
divide our lives to show us there is bad and good. Bad if we disobey and
good if we obey. Rather it shows us how to grow up and how to grow
down. Our relationship with Christ has already placed us in the position
of fully complete and having full acceptance as sons.In my opinion I do
not want to be complete in someone else's description of who I am.
Rather I want to think of my completeness from my own needs and His
communication of it. This is more important to me then how I measure
myself by some kind of standard. Because everyone's view of the
other guys completeness is not as wide as their own. This is why we can
only be genuinely nice to ourselves. This is how we think about the
effects of the gospel. There is nothing wrong with distinguishing it so
that we believe it is more important for our own personal survival to
not fully trust anyone else's view. God has given us a gift
where we can use His gifts in our interest for Him to meet us eye to
eye. After all He provided all of these gifts so that He might have
fellowship with us. He has not only given us the gifts so that we might
experience the positive effects of salvation but so that we might attack
the negative effects through His law speaking on our behalf. His
response to our pain is defending through the negative reactions of the
law. When we identify with Him we grow down by facing our own reactions.
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355
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Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Suffering alone
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on: February 12, 2014, 01:11:50 PM
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In
fact there is no man worthy enough to act as our moral guide. In some
ways since we are all corrupted in every part we subject each other to
contract our illnesses.
Who are you speaking of here MBG??? Man or a child of God? There is vast difference between the two.
Yes
I think that our true self is the perfect understanding of God meeting
our every need. I've been saying that God can handle everything every
persons inaccurate view of themselves with a pure intent to save
themselves in order to experience God meeting their every need. I define
sickness as anyone falling short of this kind of trust. We are
describing faith that rises up through one focus. This means the
language is how close we hold to this single line. Any other words as
self talk or interactive talk is a sickness.This is the distinction the
apostle was presenting about imaginations that set themselves up against
the knowledge of God. So we are describing a way through a particular
language how we view ourselves and our world. This language is in the
context of blessing or cursing. All of God's language to us is for the
purpose of creating our new self. Any tale we tell that miss represents
this is like an old wives tale. This is why it is important in using the
means of faith to come to the reality of this line between blessing and
cursing. When we experience mystery we experience the recreated new
self.
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358
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Forums / Prayer Requests / Re: Snowstorm crisis
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on: February 11, 2014, 08:23:28 PM
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They
are saying 8-12 possibly 14 inches of snow. The best we can hope for is
that it melts fast. This is going to be the biggest storm in a decade
or more. Stinks. Valentines day will be ruined for millions!!!
gman your sarcasm is amusing. We got 3 inches today. Looks like heavy snow tomorrow.
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359
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Forums / Theology Forum / Re: It is Because of My Sin...
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on: February 11, 2014, 08:17:00 PM
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Eric,
Tom, Jeff, and ML, (sorry, but it seems that we've both been gone for
so long that I now cannot recall your real name!), Just wanted you to
know that you are all such inspirations to me. This is what fellowship is all about - not the medium (the internet, etc.), but the fellowship
we have here. So many of us burned and burned-out by nomian theology
and preaching that we have come to the point where it is grace or nothing
for us. That is the life-transforming message of the gospel. No wonder
all of our resolutions and resolve end-up like clay pigeons in the
enemy's skeet range; We just don't want to admit that somewhere, deep
down inside of us, there is something that just does not trust the
concept of pure grace. Even though we say we want it and are
desperately seeking and crying out for it, there is always that little
innocuous cancer polyp of unbelief which ends up saying: "It can't
really be as good as that, can it?"
Our prayers for this are already laid-out in the gospel: "Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief!"
Thanks Casey, your writing always inspires me.
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Forums / Theology Forum / Re: R-rated Theology and Gematria, Another "Seed and Serpent" Thread
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on: February 11, 2014, 07:49:37 PM
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I'm
not exactly sure I understand what you just wrote brother, I might have
to read it over a few times (although I enjoyed reading it). But on
first pass most of it sounds like an agreement or explanation of how or
why this seems to work, including the hologram analogy.
If it was
meant as a refutation, try reading through my posts again (if you're
interested of course). From what I can tell, we are mostly saying the
same thing.
Part of the issue here, and why I have portrayed it
as "interesting" rather than "essential" is that this phenomenon is
dependent on the Hebrew. Using English or Greek gematria, while I
haven't looked into it and probably wont (life is short), very well may
not exhibit the same internal (holographic) coherence. If, however we
are open to the notion that the Hebrew alphabet is divine, from God, and
on a creative & energetic level, functioned as the building blocks
of what emanated forth as God spoke everything into existence, as the
ancient Israelites who helped bring the scriptures into the world do,
then much of this internal coherence, right down to the jot and tittle
should come as no surprise.
If we stay with the holographic analogy,
it can be seen (if we have eyes to see) that there is indeed "no room
for division", as it retains this signature, down to the smallest
"shard" (as in a shattered hologram). Much the same way that solar
systems resemble atoms.
The linear or narrative or literal
expression of scripture exhibits this same signature. But in a far more
"unpacked" and drawn out way. It can't be "skimmed". And indeed can be
unpacked and drawn out further, and further to seemingly infinite
degrees. If one has the time and ability of course (which actually
reminds me of what you do, with your patient, penetrating meditations
and reflections).
However, concerns about "rightly dividing" (and whether that is anything other than a potentially
helpful or harmful organizational/pedagogical scheme) and translation
and interpretation etc are well-founded - especially when we are working
solely with the Greek and English and haphazard uses of Hebrew.
This
is why I have argued repeatedly that whether or not we find the
"narrative", as such, appealing or easy to understand, it is very
important to regard it, or relate to it on its own terms, not through some socially constructed set of filters or principles,
or according to taste, and find the internal coherence within that
structure. It may shock us, it may comfort us, it may inspire us, it may
disturb us, but until the full spectrum of internal narrative coherence
is perceived, it won't be able to map onto how we were designed to
experience "reality" and indeed God, and can be devastating to our
reasoning abilities and capacity for compassion as expressed through
Lord Jesus Christ.
This, of course, is no easy feat. History is
rife with the effects of poorly and partially digested scripture,
contorted and distorted through almost infinite hardened layers of self
and delusion.
The "Good News" therefore, (or at least as far as
I'm concerned) is that (both scripturally and dynamically/spiritually)
we need only look to Lord Jesus Christ. And not only that, we need only
look to the "letters in red". This is where this "signature of God" is
most accessible and alive and burns away these scales of self, whether
we stay with the plain language or let it break us apart and re-form our
hearts and spirit.
(And btw, this is not a sideways strategy of
making this point in relation to any prior discussions or debates. It
has been my position for years).
Ml this is a very
interesting to read. I've thought so much about this that I feel like
I'm bleeding on the page.its the way I've been taught to reason. Im
not sure we can say that an image is three dimensional in Gods view. I
do not think Gods view is from a succession of understanding an image
but a prior knowledge of the end of the image. In this sense Gods view
is His exact replica of all His attributes. So if God has the ultimate
pleasure in His reality then there is no definition of what that is from
our view of future events. This is why the revealed language is only
appreciated when we go from the language to a sense there is no
boundaries of its power, structure, and description as we interpret it. These
words are supernatural. I believe they are part of an eternal
government that exist now that we will witness in the future and still
not fathom the understanding of it even to eternity. And yet God lowers
Himself to our very feeble and weak understanding of how we interpret
truth about ourselves and our world and uses our words as part of
forming this eternal government. In my opinion it is the most mysterious
activity that we do not think is important in this life. We are
preparing for a new world that we cannot understand or see with our
eyes. I cant understand how God respects us enough to view us as equal
in how He listens to us. There are a lot of dimensions that He must
create in order for us to say something we do not really understand and
by prior knowledge develop the future reality as if He said it Himself. I
think thats what He means when He says it comes from the mouth of
babes. When I desire something it is only personal to me in the
returns as an experience of His life that I cannot form by my view of
what I desire. This is why His revealed communication is a perfect
reflection of my true self. Because I experience the most real view of
myself that He forms in me beyond my view of the image. There is
something in me that is a life force that I cannot control but is
translated through my control. I can never imagine my future experience
because He defines it as He receives pleasure in His recreation.
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