Free will?

[footwasher]

Because the slave does not belong to the household, but a son does.

Blessings,
Lee

John 5:34Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

So the above is not talking about those who continue in immoral activity, but about those who do not drive away the slave woman and her son, who continue in being in a covenant that does not save from sin?

Galatians 4:30But what does the Scripture say?
“CAST OUT THE BONDWOMAN AND HER SON,
FOR THE SON OF THE BONDWOMAN SHALL NOT BE AN HEIR WITH THE SON OF THE FREE WOMAN.”

31So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman.

[thormas]

Yes, though God grants repentance (Acts 11:18), this is not an act of free will.

[quote[We all know or have seen in action some who call themselves 'Christian' who, in spite of that naming, are slaves to sin. Just as we have all witnessed many who are not Christian (Jew, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, agnostic and others) who are 'free' in God.

I don't think those who deny the Son have the Father (1 John 2:23), and it is the Son who sets people free (John 8:36), so we must be in Christ.


Well, slavery is a state as well, a state of sinfulness, from which we need deliverance. Self cannot cast out self, and we only can love God and our neighbor if, and because, he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Blessings,
Lee
[/QUOTE]

What is an act of free will is metanoia, the decision to 'turn' back to the Father (ala the Prodigal Son). However I agree the Father's forgiveness is grace, freely given, and all man has to do is accept.

I think there is only one Way and for Christians it has been 'revealed' in Christ, However the same Way calls or is presented to others. And all that matters is if one does the will of the Father, i.e. Love - no matter by what name they know him or even if they do not recognize or accept that God is.

"Self cannot cast out self" - that is an excellent line. And deliverance from self comes with or because of Love.

[lee_merrill]

I think there is only one Way and for Christians it has been 'revealed' in Christ, However the same Way calls or is presented to others.

But "no one who denies the Son has the Father (1 John 2:23).

And all that matters is if one does the will of the Father, i.e. Love - no matter by what name they know him or even if they do not recognize or accept that God is.

And we cannot love apart from the living presence of God: "The fruit of the Spirit is love..." (Galatians 5:22).

"Self cannot cast out self" - that is an excellent line. And deliverance from self comes with or because of Love.

Well, I think self is dealt with by the cross:

"Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment." (A.W. Tozer)

Blessings,
Lee

[thormas]

But "no one who denies the Son has the Father (1 John 2:23).


And we cannot love apart from the living presence of God: "The fruit of the Spirit is love..." (Galatians 5:22).


Well, I think self is dealt with by the cross:

"Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment." (A.W. Tozer)

Blessings,
Lee

From a Christian perspective but not from the perspective of other faiths and certainly not the understanding of (critical) scholarly Christian theologians. Fundamentalists perhaps but not others.

I would agree that we cannot love without God but then again God rains on all. So where there is love, there is God.

And self-centeredness is sin - one cannot be freed from sin except by love..........which again is God. It can be said that the destruction is love's destruction of sin or self-centeredness and thus there is 'new life.' I believe that love is not only the work of God, it is God and wherever there is love, there is God. Actually there cannot be any love (understood as agape or compassionate concern) without God.

I never thought of the cross as 'doing deadly work' (or judgement, but I get the idea) - rather it is loving work: the cross holds Love high, for all to clearly see. 'Behold the man'.........the Son of Love.

[lee_merrill]

I would agree that we cannot love without God but then again God rains on all. So where there is love, there is God.

Yes, but not all respond to God's love:

"Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned." (Hebrews 6:7-8)

And self-centeredness is sin - one cannot be freed from sin except by love..........which again is God. It can be said that the destruction is love's destruction of sin or self-centeredness and thus there is 'new life.' I believe that love is not only the work of God, it is God and wherever there is love, there is God. Actually there cannot be any love (understood as agape or compassionate concern) without God.

Indeed, love destroys sin. But love is not God, rather "God is love" (1 John 4:8), there's a crucial difference in these two statements!

I never thought of the cross as 'doing deadly work' (or judgement, but I get the idea) - rather it is loving work: the cross holds Love high, for all to clearly see. 'Behold the man'.........the Son of Love.

Yes, but there is more to the cross than a demonstration of God's love:

"The death of the cross was not natural, but violent. Such is the death of sin: it dies not of its own accord, as nature dieth in the aged; for if the Spirit of God did not kill it, it would live to eternity. Sin can live to eternity in the fire of God’s wrath; so that either it must die a violent death by the hand of the Spirit, or it never dies at all."

"Believers have communion with Christ in his death; they die with him: 'I am crucified with Christ' (Gal. 2:20); that is, the death of Christ has a real killing and mortifying influence upon the lusts and corruptions of my heart and nature. True it is, he died for sin one way, and we die to sin another way: he died to expiate it, we die to it when we mortify it. The death of Christ is the death of sin in believers; and this is a very glorious privilege; for the death of sin is the life of your souls; if sin do not die in you by mortification, you must die for sin by eternal damnation. If Christ had not died, the Spirit of God, by which you now mortify the deeds of the body, could not have been given unto you: then you must have lived vassals to your sins, and died at last in your sins: but the fruit, efficacy, and benefit of Christ’s death is yours for killing those sins in you which else had been your ruin." (John Flavel)

Blessings,
Lee

[footwasher]

Yes, but not all respond to God's love:

"Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned." (Hebrews 6:7-8)


Indeed, love destroys sin. But love is not God, rather "God is love" (1 John 4:8), there's a crucial difference in these two statements!


Yes, but there is more to the cross than a demonstration of God's love:

"The death of the cross was not natural, but violent. Such is the death of sin: it dies not of its own accord, as nature dieth in the aged; for if the Spirit of God did not kill it, it would live to eternity. Sin can live to eternity in the fire of God’s wrath; so that either it must die a violent death by the hand of the Spirit, or it never dies at all."

"Believers have communion with Christ in his death; they die with him: 'I am crucified with Christ' (Gal. 2:20); that is, the death of Christ has a real killing and mortifying influence upon the lusts and corruptions of my heart and nature. True it is, he died for sin one way, and we die to sin another way: he died to expiate it, we die to it when we mortify it. The death of Christ is the death of sin in believers; and this is a very glorious privilege; for the death of sin is the life of your souls; if sin do not die in you by mortification, you must die for sin by eternal damnation. If Christ had not died, the Spirit of God, by which you now mortify the deeds of the body, could not have been given unto you: then you must have lived vassals to your sins, and died at last in your sins: but the fruit, efficacy, and benefit of Christ’s death is yours for killing those sins in you which else had been your ruin." (John Flavel)

Blessings,
Lee

I take your refusal to answer this question to mean that you agree,

John 5:34Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.


So the above is not talking about those who continue in immoral activity, but about those who do not drive away the slave woman and her son, who continue in being in a covenant that does not save from sin?

In other words, everybody, Jew or any other religion, who does not follow Jesus, is a slave to sin, is oppressed like a slave is oppressed by a master. Because they have not driven away the son of the slave woman, Works, who will never share in the inheritance. Because the promise is made to the descendants of Abraham, identified as those who are loyal to the Father, and His Son, Jesus, whose blood cleansed the real Rest, the real Promised Land, the real inheritance, available only to those who are friends, not servants:


Quote
We may return to the same conclusion that we reached before: the sacrifice of animals is inadequate to achieve final cleansing, nor can it cleanse anything more than the copies of heavenly things. Then who will bring the definitive sacrifice? A man must do it. A similar point is made indirectly in Num. 35:33-34: “Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it. Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell, for I, the LORD, dwell among the Israelites.” When a man had shed blood, the man must die. But there is one exception, when the blood of the death of the high priest releases a manslaughterer to return home (Num. 35:25-28). The blood of the high priest has special value. In agreement with this principle, Zech. 3 uses all the symbolism of a defiled human high priest Joshua and then speaks mysteriously of the Branch in connection with which “I will remove the sin of this land in a single day” (Zech. 3:9).


https://frame-poythress.org/ebooks/t...-law-of-moses/

John 15:15"No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

James 2:22You see that his faith was working with his actions, and his faith was perfected by what he did. 23And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “ Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called a friend of God.

So the blood cleanses the Rest, to be entered by proving your loyalty, like Abraham and Caleb did, not by cleansing away your sin, through using the efficacy of Jesus's blood, like the article you posted claims. Only by being in Rest, the real Body of Christ, can we walk with God, manifest His presence, like Adam did before the Fall, and subdue the earth, draw all creation to bow before God:

John 3:1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with him.

Joshua 2:8Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, 9and said to the men, “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. 10“For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. 11“When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.”

[thormas]

Yes, but not all respond to God's love:

"Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned." (Hebrews 6:7-8)


Indeed, love destroys sin. But love is not God, rather "God is love" (1 John 4:8), there's a crucial difference in these two statements!


Yes, but there is more to the cross than a demonstration of God's love:

"The death of the cross was not natural, but violent. Such is the death of sin: it dies not of its own accord, as nature dieth in the aged; for if the Spirit of God did not kill it, it would live to eternity. Sin can live to eternity in the fire of God’s wrath; so that either it must die a violent death by the hand of the Spirit, or it never dies at all."

"Believers have communion with Christ in his death; they die with him: 'I am crucified with Christ' (Gal. 2:20); that is, the death of Christ has a real killing and mortifying influence upon the lusts and corruptions of my heart and nature. True it is, he died for sin one way, and we die to sin another way: he died to expiate it, we die to it when we mortify it. The death of Christ is the death of sin in believers; and this is a very glorious privilege; for the death of sin is the life of your souls; if sin do not die in you by mortification, you must die for sin by eternal damnation. If Christ had not died, the Spirit of God, by which you now mortify the deeds of the body, could not have been given unto you: then you must have lived vassals to your sins, and died at last in your sins: but the fruit, efficacy, and benefit of Christ’s death is yours for killing those sins in you which else had been your ruin." (John Flavel)

Blessings,
Lee

I agree that not all respond to God's love but I also believe that, for the overwhelming number of human creatures a short lifetime of 6 or 48 or 56, 65, 79, 87, 94 or more is not enough to complete our 'divinization' - I also believe the Father never gives up and waits for all time for even the least of us to turn.

I have thought long on the two statements of love and I do think that where there is love (agape, compassionate concern) there is God..............love, such love is God and it is God that we give to one another. This is God in man, this is the incredible intimacy of God with man.


I have long thought that Jesus 'was dying' well before the cross: it is a continual death to selfishness or self-centeredness that he continually decides for in his life; he chooses Love, he chooses God.

I simply don't see the turning from sin in such violent terms. A gentle reminder can made a child aware that making fun of another is not right and encourage them to 'turn.' A woman's comment that her husband's words have hurt her is oftentimes enough to cause him to see himself in a new light, 'repent' and change (metanoia). I think love given in everyday life turns us from self-centeredness without us even being that aware of it. Sometimes metanoia is difficult, sometimes it is a struggle - and I do acknowledge that 'sin does not die of its own accord' - however I simply don't associate it with a violent death.

We are crucified with Christ in that we die to self-centeredness (sin) - and rise to new life. In metanoia we become a new man, a new woman.

[thormas]

Any who do not follow love could be said to be a slave to sin (if one is comfortable using this terminology). The Word sounds in the life of all and one does not have to 'follow Jesus' to escape sin.

[lee_merrill]

Any who do not follow love could be said to be a slave to sin (if one is comfortable using this terminology). The Word sounds in the life of all and one does not have to 'follow Jesus' to escape sin.

Unless the cross is the only way to be set free from sin:

"Our old self is crucified: Is put to death, as if on a cross. In this expression there is a personification of the corrupt propensities of our nature represented as 'our old self,' our native disposition, etc. The picture is here carried out; and this old self, this corrupt nature, is represented as having been put to death in an agonizing and torturing manner. The pains of crucifixion were perhaps the most torturing of any that the human frame could bear. Death in this manner was most lingering and distressing. And the apostle here, by the expression 'is crucified,' doubtless refers to the painful and protracted struggle which everyone goes through when his evil propensities are subdued; when his corrupt nature is slain; and when, a converted sinner, he gives himself up to God. Sin dies within him, and he becomes dead to the world, and to sin; 'for as by the cross, death is most lingering and severe, so that corrupt nature is not subdued but by anguish' (Grotius). All who have been born again can enter into this description. They remember 'the wormwood and the gall.' They remember the anguish of conviction; the struggle of corrupt passion for ascendancy; the dying convulsions of sin in the heart; the long and lingering conflict before it was subdued, and the soul became submissive to God. Nothing will better express this than the lingering agony of crucifixion; and the argument of the apostle is, that as sin has produced such an effect, and as the Christian is now free from its embrace and its power, he will live to God." (Barnes)

Blessings,
Lee

[thormas]

If the cross signifies death to selfishness, I agree wholeheartedly. However the reality is that one can dies to self-centeredness and never know Christ (by that name) or having heard the name, it carries no meaning because of their particular cultural/religious environment.

[footwasher]

Unless the cross is the only way to be set free from sin:

"Our old self is crucified: Is put to death, as if on a cross. In this expression there is a personification of the corrupt propensities of our nature represented as 'our old self,' our native disposition, etc. The picture is here carried out; and this old self, this corrupt nature, is represented as having been put to death in an agonizing and torturing manner. The pains of crucifixion were perhaps the most torturing of any that the human frame could bear. Death in this manner was most lingering and distressing. And the apostle here, by the expression 'is crucified,' doubtless refers to the painful and protracted struggle which everyone goes through when his evil propensities are subdued; when his corrupt nature is slain; and when, a converted sinner, he gives himself up to God. Sin dies within him, and he becomes dead to the world, and to sin; 'for as by the cross, death is most lingering and severe, so that corrupt nature is not subdued but by anguish' (Grotius). All who have been born again can enter into this description. They remember 'the wormwood and the gall.' They remember the anguish of conviction; the struggle of corrupt passion for ascendancy; the dying convulsions of sin in the heart; the long and lingering conflict before it was subdued, and the soul became submissive to God. Nothing will better express this than the lingering agony of crucifixion; and the argument of the apostle is, that as sin has produced such an effect, and as the Christian is now free from its embrace and its power, he will live to God." (Barnes)

Blessings,
Lee

Nevertheless in John 5:34, the sin Jesus is talking about is remaining in the Sinaitic Covenant, Mount Sinai, Hagar, instead of Jerusalem, entering Rest.

However, even Joshua could not bring Israel into Rest, make her a blessing to the world (Isn't it strange that God promised to make Abraham's descendants into blessings to the world, but promised Israel to bring her into a land flowing with milk and honey?) because only Jesus, as High Priest, humanity's representative, and so anointed, could cleanse the Land, which Adam, humanity's old representative, had soiled.

Those in Mount Sinai could escape wrath, with John's baptism of returning to the true following of Law, but they could not be blessings to the world, be in the cleansed Land, be in God's presence, because only the pure (without sin by being IN Christ, our real Rest) can see God, and manifest His presence, like Jesus manifested it to Nicodemus, and drew him to God.

[lee_merrill]

If the cross signifies death to selfishness, I agree wholeheartedly.

Well, not just a sign, the cross is the instrument by which self is put to death.

However the reality is that one can dies to self-centeredness and never know Christ (by that name) or having heard the name, it carries no meaning because of their particular cultural/religious environment.

I agree that people can know Jesus without knowing his name--though we must not say that all religions are valid ways to God.

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

Nevertheless in John 5:34, the sin Jesus is talking about is remaining in the Sinaitic Covenant, Mount Sinai, Hagar, instead of Jerusalem, entering Rest.

Did you mean John 8:34? "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin", note, everyone, not just Jewish people here.

Blessings,
Lee

[thormas]

Well, not just a sign, the cross is the instrument by which self is put to death.


I agree that people can know Jesus without knowing his name--though we must not say that all religions are valid ways to God.

Blessings,
Lee

I used the term sign in its connection to symbol: a symbol makes something (that which it symbolizes) 'present and manifest.' So the cross - which is nothing without Jesus - makes present and manifests the death of sin, the death of self-centeredness. And such death is that by which we are saved, if we 'take up our cross' and die to selfishness. As sin is defeated, so too is death.

We don't know what God 'thinks' but I do agree that all that passes for a religion probably is not pleasing to God.

[lee_merrill]

I used the term sign in its connection to symbol: a symbol makes something (that which it symbolizes) 'present and manifest.' So the cross - which is nothing without Jesus - makes present and manifests the death of sin, the death of self-centeredness. And such death is that by which we are saved, if we 'take up our cross' and die to selfishness.

Yes.

As sin is defeated, so too is death.

Amen! A good statement.

We don't know what God 'thinks' but I do agree that all that passes for a religion probably is not pleasing to God.

Well, there is truth in other religions, but the Christian claim is different, that Jesus is the truth (John 14:6).

Blessings,
Lee