In Romans, Paul says that "as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5.19). Everyone seems to agree all people are sinners and that in the first part of the sentence, "many" means all people. Adam's disobedience caused all people to become sinners. However, the same word and the same construction is used in the second part of the sentence. Why do we say in this case that "many" is only some and not all people? Why was Adam's disobedience more powerful to make everyone a sinner than Jesus's obedience is to make everyone righteous?
In 1st Timothy, Paul said that God "will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2.4). Why do we not take this at face value? People say that just because God wills it, or prefers it, that doesn't mean it will happen. Why not? Why would God want something to happen but then not bring it about? Some will argue that some people won't be saved because they will not accept the salvation that God offers. If this is true, then those people's unholy and less than perfect will is going to overpower God's holy and perfect will. However, in Ephesians 1.11 Paul calls God "him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will." Apparently Paul believed that whatever God wills, God gets.
It seems that the predominant view in Christianity makes the goodness and perfectness of God and his son less powerful than the evil that lies in mankind.
Mugsy: 2001-2014
9 years ago
5 comments:
I think you make an excellent case here JMG. My answer to why "It seems that the predominant view in Christianity makes the goodness and perfectness of God and his son less powerful than the evil that lies in mankind", is we are human and limited. We seek justice but want grace and this conflict makes it hard to believe that some very evil people are saved too. I freely admit there are people I cannot fathom being saved and inherently hope they don't. Not a Christ like attitude, but very human. Those that torture children, Hitler, etc.
I think it is just as hard for humans to conceive that God requires nothing from us. There a many places in scripture that make the case that He does require actions and attitudes of us. However, are those requirements part of salvation?
The bottom line is it doesn't matter if our thoughts on the matter are incorrect, because we are not the ones that will make the decision on who is saved or not, regardless of how much we want to be (this statement can be clouded by the scripture talking about righteous men judging angels, but we won't go there). God's plan for salvation will be the one executed regardless of whether we understood it or not.
If we all focused on living like Christ and leave the rest to God, then who gets in and who doesn't has no relevance. But the underlying problem with many Christians is debating that which cannot be fully understood or answered is much easier than living like Christ. So, we particpate in the former rather than struggle with the latter.
We seek justice but want grace and this conflict makes it hard to believe that some very evil people are saved too.
I think you've hit on something there. When we are hurt or see other people hurt, we want to see that those who did the hurting are punished (that's justice in our view), but when we do something to hurt someone else we want grace. We know the things that we struggle with, and we want God and others to realize that when we sin we are struggling. However, we don't really want to grant that consideration to others, especially those we perceive as especially evil. But aren't we all struggling against the same evil influence? What if real justice (this word shares the same Greek root as "righteousness") is actually the elimination of the evil influence that causes us all to struggle? When that influence is eliminated, everybody can experience peace.
Bring on the peace!
AMEN!!
I might add that those of us who profess to know Christ have the responsibility of spreading that peace.
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