Hi Tom and James,

Without the corporate aspect of justification then Calvinism is correct and God only justifies certain ones and creates others for destruction. The fact is that God bestowed grace to all men when Jesus came and gave the most objective evidence of God's character ever given. All men are invited to look and live. The default of the human race is now "saved" and men have to exercise a perverse will and hate the government of God (the principles of God's kingdom) to be lost. Jesus became the new representative for the human race, in the place of Adam, and when the Son's of God meet in the heavenly counsel, instead of choosing Job, God points to Christ. Satan's accusation fall on deaf ears.

In the ancient Eastern culture this was understood. Example: David could represent all of Israel against the Philistines. If David defeated Israel’s enemy then Israel gets the victory.

Jesus defeated Satan and adopted his captives of sin into His family. He is Shiloh which means "He who has the right". Jesus has the right! He won it. Now Jesus returns to the Father with the spoils (all of us). We are bought with a price! We are His prize possession. He loves us with an everlasting love with all of it's unfathomable riches. Who wouldn't want it? Sad to say many don't believe and reject it.

In Christ, scott

Scott, you meant "Adam" instead of "Job," right?

This is an excellent description of the ransom theory (or Christus Victor), in its true form. The early fathers wrote things very similar to what you have written here.

This was lost sight of during the Middle Ages, when both the Penal Satisfaction view and the Moral Influence theory came into being. Luther was probably the first who started to see it anew.

Tom

The idea that Jesus initially justified saving the entire human race but in reality will only save those who accept Jesus as their personal Saviour sounds self-contradicting, doesn't it?

The words "justified" and "save" are screaming to be defined.

Justified means just as if I'd never sinned. And save, in the present tense, means empowering us to overcome sin, self, and Satan.

I didn't notice you had the word "saving" in between "justified" and "entire human race" so that what you actually wrote was "initially justified saving the entire human race" as opposed to "initially justified the entire human race." I've never seen anyone use this phrase which you just stated. I don't know what your phrase means. Could you explain it in other words please?

If one uses more simple language, I think it's very easy to understand. God treats everyone graciously, not counting their trespasses against them. The light of the cross, revealing His love, draws us to Him, and if we do not resist this drawing, we will repent of our sins, God will forgive us, and we will be reconciled.

Jesus has to justify saving us because the penalty for sinning is death. He cannot disregard the penalty for sinning and save us just because He wants to. He has to justify saving us in light of the fact the penalty for sinning is death. The way He can justify forgiving us and empowering us to live without sinning is because He suffered and died for our sins. He paid the penalty for our sins, which gives Him the legal right to forgive us and to empower us to go and sin no more. Otherwise, without His life and death He could not justify forgiving us or empowering us to live without sinning.

I'm not understanding this. I'll just focus on one peace of this, the last part. How is it that Jesus' death gives Him the right to empower us to live without sinning? I suppose I should also ask what you mean by this phrase ("empower us to live without sinning").

That is, what is it that Jesus does which enables us to live without sinning, and why does a penalty need to be paid in order for Him to have the right to do this?

Also, you didn't really answer the question I was asking, which is that when you state that God needs to obtain the right to to do something, in this case empower us to live without sinning, this implies that God either lost the right He originally had, or He never had it in the first place. How did God lose this right?

I guess I should also ask when the penalty was paid.

1. Jesus paid the penalty for sinning from the foundation of the world. Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

2. The phrase, empower us to live without sinning, means Jesus empowers us to use our faculties of mind and body to recognize and resist sin, self, and Satan and to reproduce His love traits of character.

3. “How is it that Jesus' death gives Him the right to empower us to live without sinning?” Jesus told our first parents that they would die in the day they sinned. He is bound by His word. He cannot lie. He could not disregard it and empower to them to go on living, to go and sin no more. To get around it He paid our sin debt by living and dying the perfect life and death. By satisfying the just and loving demands of His law He earned the right to save us, instead of punishing and destroying our first parents in the day they sinned like He said He would. “That he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Rom 3:26.

4. “That is, what is it that Jesus does which enables us to live without sinning, and why does a penalty need to be paid in order for Him to have the right to do this?” How He empowers us to live without sinning is not clear to me. I just know that however He does it – it works wonderfully well. He had to pay our sin debt first, before He had the right to empower us, because He cannot lie, He cannot disregard His word, His law.

5. “How did God lose this right?” When our first parents sinned. He was bound by His word and law to punish and destroy them in the day they sinned - not empower them to live wthout sinning thereafter.

MM, you are saying that Jesus was bound by His word to punish Adam and Eve, to destroy them, and yet He didn't do it. The death of Christ allowed Him to "get around" this, as you put it.

Quote:

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By satisfying the just and loving demands of His law He earned the right to save us, instead of punishing and destroying our first parents in the day they sinned like He said He would.

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Here you are saying that Jesus is doing something "instead of ... destroying our first parents ... like He said He would."

How is this not a lie? That is, you assert:

1.Jesus said He would destroy our first parents if they disobeyed Him.
2.He didn't do that.
3.Instead He met the "just and loving" demands of the law.

So Jesus, according to you, did something different than what He promised to do.

Also, where did Jesus say He would destroy Adam and Eve if they disobeyed Him?