Well, what are the legal demands of the record of our sins?

If a suspect is convicted and his crime is officially recorded, what's the next step? What is demanded by that conviction? Assuming there's no appeals process, the next step is the meting out of the penalty for the crime.

In the case of the record of our sins, I would propose that the legal demand is death. The wages of sin is death.

So, when the record of our sins is wiped away, so also goes the penalty of death. WDYT?

I think some things conspire against this idea:
1) the word is in the plural, while a penalty would be singular
2) Dogma is considered as synonymous with nomos and entole, and these words could hardly be used in the sense of a penalty

The record of sin is not the problem. Doing away with a record does no good at all. Sin is the problem, not the record of it.

This struck me as Bacchiocchi's strongest point. Since "cheirographon" is not in Scripture, other than that one time, being able to ascertain its meaning from outside sources should be enlightening. I couldn't find a direct reference to the apocalyptic literature on line.

Isn't this the problem with the legal view?

1) God's law demands the death of the sinner.
2) God doesn't want to kill the sinner.
3) God figures a loophole in the law by placing all of the responsibility of sinners on Jesus.
4) God demands Jesus die in place of the sinner!
5) God wipes the sinner's record clean.

Sounds like a slight of hand legal maneuver that the most unethical of lawyers thought up.

scott

Does cheirographon mean "sin"? If not, then what you just said is not a proper exegesis.

It's true that sin is the problem, but you'll have to put up some evidence to show that Paul was talking about that here.

I was commenting on your statement, not Paul's. You asked:



So I said what I think, which is that the problem has not to do with the record of our sin, but with sin. What good would doing away with a record do if the sin remained?

Waggoner deals with this idea nicely:





Again, I wasn't dealing with what Paul said, but with your question. Your point that if the record of our sin goes away then so with goes the penalty of death is lacking, because it's the wages of sin that is death, not the wages of the record of sin.

However, if the relationship between sin and the record is kept in mind, then there is truth to the assertion. That is, the record of sin is a faithful representation of the character of the individual. If the record's being removed represents that sin has left the character of the individual involved, then yes, the penalty of death goes away, because the sting of death is sin, and if you deal with the problem of sin, you deal with the problem of death.

Nothing.


You took my statement with a meaning I had not intended. R and I were specifically discussing Col 2:14, not the entire plan of salvation. The scope of my sentence is not as wide as you thought.


I'm surprised that you would think R or I could ever forget that relationship. Haven't you read enough of our stuff to be absolutely clear on that point?

Anyway, you know R and I accept the penal paradigm. So we sometimes speak in language that may not fit well with your paradigm. But rest assured that we are not just interested in blotting heavenly ink. The stain of sin is in the heart, and that is where it must be erased.

Ok, if you say I took your statement too narrowly, I accept that. What did you mean then? How is it that when the record of our sins is wiped away, so also goes the penalty of death?

You say I know you accept the penal metaphor, but I'm a bit confused by that, since you seemed to have been defending A. Graham Maxwell's ideas, and he certainly does not agree with this metaphor. For awhile you were refusing to say that you disagreed with what Scott was saying; you looked very much to be agreeing in fact, taking issue, IIRC, with being told you were in disagreement with Scott. Yet here you are saying you accept the penal paradigm. This has be a bit confused. Can you explain what you were trying to say earlier, and how that relates to what you're saying now please?

Actually, you took it more broadly, taking it with a wider scope than I had intended.

I was specifically talking about the forensic aspect of the whole process. The legal record of the sin results in the legal penalty. It's a variation of Scott's "take away the written law and the condemnation goes along with it" idea. Same logic, but applied to different aspects.

It has nothing to do with the practical truth that if you are a jerk, you're still a pain to yourself and to others, regardless of what has been erased.


I treat Maxwell much like you and Scott treat EGW and the other prophets - I defend his ideas that seem correct to me, and reject those that don't. Just because I agree with some of his ideas doesn't mean I agree with all of them.

I did agree with what Scott was saying then, because they were correct. Some people will disagree with everything another person says because they don't like some aspect of their belief. But I am not like that. I only disagree with what is wrong; if it's right, I will agree with it, no matter who says it.

But I don't think you saw me agree with completely rejecting the penal paradigm. I'm not quite to the level of independent thought where I can throw out what the prophets taught. (But then, you assert that the prophets never taught that. I still need to study that.)

I don't remember exactly what I was agreeing to earlier, so let's just start with what I can remember. Maxwell teaches that Christ's death effected salvation by the manifestation of God's love to sinful man. And for that to work, man must see that manifestation and be changed by beholding it. I agree with that, and I will take exception if someone says that I don't, because that is a crucial part of the plan of salvation. We are saved primarily from our own selfishness, not from death.

But that doesn't mean that I reject every other paradigm that explains God's plan of salvation. I don't subscribe to either/or theology. That's why I can agree with Maxwell that salvation requires a change in the sinner, while I can also entertain the idea that salvation includes a change in the heavenly "books." If that's where cheirographon points to, I don't have to disagree with Paul.