Tom, you think R and I were talking about an actual "written record of the penalty of sin"? You don't think that the record of sin, combined with the stated penalty for sin, is sufficient? For someone who's so adept at understanding what Scott means in spite of what he writes, you seem to be very dense about what the rest of us mean.

But let me try to explain anyway. You might still not get it, but I'll do my best.

Let's say there is a record that specifies the sins an individual commits, as in Rev 20:12. And let's say that there's a general principle that the penalty for sin is death, as in Rom 6:23. There is no need to individually specify the penalty of death for each instance of sin in the record because the record of individual sins and the general principle of death for sin constitute a reliable record of who has earn the death penalty. Even non-thinking machines like computers can make that deduction.

Given that there is no book that records the painfully obvious, the eradication of the record of the sins is sufficient to also eradicate the record of the penalty.

If that's still unclear, I might be able to write pseudocode to make it clearer.

Your paradigm is different from mine. The way I see it, Jesus expressed to the Israelites on Sinai the principles of His love in language they could understand and wrote them on the stone. When He came, He demonstrated for them the principles of His love, which never contradict what He wrote on the stone. The gospel promise, which was just as available to Moses, Abraham, and Adam, is that He will write these principles of love, which are eternal and immutable, in our hearts, thus making the law of love the underlying principle of life, rather than a list of rules to keep in order to avoid death.

So, no, Jesus didn't make the law of love lose its job. It put the law of love on the throne of the heart, where it should have always been.

I'm having time constrictions because of a deadline to meet, so I'm not having time to visit the forum regularly, but I would like to make some brief comments.
First, I would say that although cheirographon is tipically used for a record of debt, its literal meaning is handwritten document, and it could be used for any handwritten document.

Going back to Bacchiocchi and Col. 3:14. The explanation he gives is:


http://www.giveshare.org/HolyDay/sabbathcrossfire/c5p3c.html

His purpose in trying to prove that cheirographon does not refer to any law (although the verse undeniably speaks about legal requirements), is, it seems, to prove that the law (and consequently, the Sabbath) was not nailed to the cross. Does this solve the problem? No, because Eph. 2:15 specifically mentions a "law of commandments contained in ordinances" that was "abolished." Which law was that? Why doesn't he try to deal with this text?

Backing up a step, I said:



I don't understand why you are getting upset. Did I ask anything unreasonable? I continued:



This is reasonable too, isn't it? I didn't understand what you mean by "the record of the penalty of sin." It's still not very clear to me. You write:



There's no need to be sarcastic. Just please tell me what the record of the penalty of sin is.

Here's how I understand things. The inevitable result of sin is death. So in order to be saved from death, a person must be saved from sin.

In terms of the metaphor, pardon is written against the name of the believer. In the investigative judgment, the sins are blotted out. As Waggoner explains it:



Are you saying anything different than this?

When you say that the record of our sins being taken also takes away the record of the penalty of our sin, do you mean something other than this? (i.e. what Waggoner said here)

It's rather difficult to disassociate these things. That is, if you're reading through a thread, you've read all the things "Arnold" or "Tom" or whoever has stated in the posts, so you have an idea as to what is being said, based on the things that you've read previously. So I don't think what you're writing is a fair characterization, although I will agree that he could me more careful in the reading of people's posts (which I wouldn't single out only him on).



First of all, I've taken him to task many times. He can attest to that. We've had many heated conversations. It's taken years to whip him into shape.

Secondly, even here on this thread, if you'll look back, you'll find quite a number of posts where I've either clarified what he's said or suggested corrections or improvements.

Regarding him taking you out of context, of course that's possible. If I'm not mistaken, I've pointed out to him where I thought he was taking you, or others, the wrong way. Perhaps I haven't been zealous enough in defending you when you've been unfairly misquoted or misrepresented. If so, I apologize for that.

When I've seen him treated unfairly, I've spoken up. This is a reasonable thing to do, isn't it?

Scott has posted 50 something posts on this thread. I've been his "apologist" about 5 times. Is that out of line?



Jesus was fair in his criticisms.

Do you mean ever? Or when speaking of cheirographon?

I'm sure he's dealt with Eph. 2:15 in great detail. Here's something online: http://godkind.org/law-done-away.html

Here he discusses Col. 2:14 in a debate setting: http://www.bible.ca/7-Bacchiocchi-lewis-debate.htm

The word "abolished" in Ephesians 2:15 has the primary meaning:



The context of what Paul is talking about is what separated the Jews from the Gentiles. What made the Jews believe that the Gentiles were dirty dogs and their enemies? It was the covenant from Sinai. The Gentiles were excluded from the benefits and promises of the covenant. The covenant promises were for the family of Abraham. This had duel effects. First it caused the Jews to believe that they were better than the Gentiles and second it caused hatred between the two groups. This is the cause of the enmity that existed between the two groups.

The NASV puts it this way:


This could be paraphrased: Jesus got right to the solution of the problem, that existed between the Jews and the Gentiles, by taking away the source of the problem, the Old Covenant law of commandments that made the Jews feel special and ostracized the Gentiles from the family of God. By doing this made peace between them.

In the next verse Paul uses another metaphor to describe what happened to the enmity.



In this verse Jesus doesn’t abolish the enmity, but “puts it to death”. The Greek word is “a)pokteiðnw” which means “slain” or “killed”. This is saying the same thing as “abolished”. Simply translated we could say that Jesus did what it took to make peace between the Jews and the Gentiles. He accomplished this peace by abolishing one covenant, which was just to the physical children of Abraham, and made a new covenant that included the Gentiles as well as the Jews. He invited the whole world into the family of Abraham through His Spirit.



It seems like we make such a big deal over the words, but both the word “abolished” and “slain” are metaphors that bring pictures to our minds of someone being killed or something being taken away so that we can understand the reality. You can’t un-employ hatred. It was never hired. It isn’t alive so you can’t kill it either. It is the Old Covenant that excluded the Gentiles that needed to be removed in order for God to include them in the New Covenant.

Where we run into disagreement is when I include the 10Cs as a part of that Old Covenant. Which, if you look back to where the OC was given, Exodus 19-24, you will see that it is the very foundation of the OC.

This same process that God used to bring the Jews and Gentiles together is described as bringing God and man together in Col. 2.

scott

I'm reposting what A. T. Jones said. I agree with this...

Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh to God by the blood of Christ. For he who is our peace, who hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us — that was between us — having abolished in his flesh the enmity. Thank the Lord. He hath " abolished the enmity" and we can be separated from the world.

" Hath broken down the middle wall of partition between "—whom? Between men and God, surely. How did he do it ? How did he break down the middle wall of partition between us and God?—By " abolishing the enmity." Good.

True, that enmity had worked a division and a separation between men on the earth, between circumcision and uncircumcision; between circumcision according to the flesh, and uncircumcision according to the flesh. It had manifested itself in their divisions, in building up another wall between Jews and entiles; that is true, but if the Jews had been joined to God, and had not been separated from him, would they have ever built up a wall between them and anybody else ? — No, certainly not, but in their separation from God; in their fleshly minds; in the enmity that was in their minds, and the blindness through unbelief, which put the veil upon their heart — all this separated them from God. And thm because of the laws and ceremonies which God had given them, they gave themselves credit for being the ' Lord's and for being so much better than other' people, that they built up a great separating wall and partition between themselves and other people. But where lay the root of the whole thing, as between them and other people even ? — It lay in the enmity And in Christ, God and man met so that they can be one.

All men were separated from God, and in their separation from God, they were separated from one another. True, Christ wants to bring all to one another; he was ushered into the world with " Peace on earth; good will to men." That is his object. But does he spend his time in trying to get these reconciled to one another, and in trying to destroy all these separations between men, and to get them to say, " Oh, well, let all bygones be bygones; now we will bury the hatchet; now we will start out and turn over a new leaf, and we will live better from this time on "

Christ might have done that. If lie had taken that course, there are thousands of people whom he could have persuaded to do that; thousands whom he could persuade to say, " Well, it is too bad that we acted that way toward one another ; it is not right,
and I am sorry for it; and now let us just all leave that behind, and turn over a new leaf, and go on and do better." He could have got people to agree to that. But could they have stuck to it f—No. For the wicked thing is there still that made ike division. What caused the division?—The enmity, their separation from God caused the separation from-one an- other. Then what in the world would have been the use of the Lord himself trying to get men to agree to put away their differences, without going to ' the root of the matter and getting rid of the enmity that caused the separation ? Their separation from God had forced a separation among themselves. And the only way to destroy their separation from one another, was of necessity to destroy their separation from God. And this he did by abolishing the enmity. And we ministers can get a lesson from this, when churches call us to try to settle difficulties. We have nothing at all to do with settling difficulties between men as such. We are to get the difficulty between God and man settled; and when that is done, all other separations will be ended.

It is true, the Jews in their separation from God had built up extra separations between themselves and the Gentiles. It is true that Christ wanted to put all those separations out of the way, and he did do that. .But the only way that he did it, and the only way that he could do it, was to destroy the thing that separated, between them and God. All the separations between them and the Gentiles would be gone, when the separation, the enmity, between them and God was gone.

Enmity that was in them that separated them first from God. And being separated from him, the certain consequence was

" For he is our peace, who hath made both one.'Made both who one? — God and men, certainly. " And hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity,, . . . for to make in himself of twain [of two] one new man, so making peace." Let us look that over again. " Having abolished in his flesh the enmity." Now omitting the next clause (we are not studying that in this lesson) what did he abolish that enmity for ? What did he break down that middle wall of partition for? Why? "For to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace." Does Christ make a new man out of a Jew and a Gentile ? — No. Out of a heathen and somebody else? —No. Out of one heathen and another heathen?— No.

God makes one new man out of GOD and A MAN.

I still see no explanation for Eph. 2:15, except for a short reference to "context" without any further explanation.
The problems, as I've already pointed out, are, 1)why would Paul use "law of commandments contained in ordinances" either for the 10 Cs or for the old covenant, if he refers dozens of times to these using just the word "law"? and 2) In Eph. 2:15 he says the law is abolished and in Rom. 3:31 he says the law is not abolished, using the very same verb, which would be completely contradictory if he was referring to the same law.

So, again, I do not agree with Bacchiocchi, nor with the explanation that this "law" is the old covenant (I consider that the "law of commandments contained in ordinances" and the "cheirographon of ordinances" are one and the same thing).

By the way, which is your position - that cheirographon is the record of sin or that it is the old covenant?


The fact that he doesn't know doesn't mean they don't exist. I myself do not know the position of all the Brazilian theologians about this, and he obviously doesn't either.

This makes sense to me:





Considering the fact that Bac's position is well known, even among non-SDA's, what he says is a powerful statement. I'm sure he's discussed this with many Adventist theologians from around the world. If someone held a contrary position (that he didn't keep to himself), surely it would have gotten back to him.