Hi Terry, thanks for the comments.
I do not classify Jesus as sinful, nor would I see
him as a sinner, for both would imply that he sinned; I would not want to
do that -- Jesus did not sin. What I am stating explicitly now is
that when the Word became flesh, the flesh he assumed was human flesh from
the sin gnarled stock of Adam. The Atonement in part is Christ's victory
over the limitations and propensities of that flesh. It was in the flesh
that he condemned sin. It was in the flesh that Christ reconciled
humanity to God. It was in the flesh that he defeated the tyrants:
sin, death, and the devil. All of these things he accomplished in the
flesh, the flesh of Adam, so that when he died, his death could truly be
our death, and likewise when he rose victorious, his victory could truly
be our victory over these same tyrants, defeated now in
Christ.
Did he do this "during the last moments on the cross"?
Yes, and at every other moment throughout his earthly life. And, yes, I
too see him as a sacrifice; not just on the cross, though, but from womb
to tomb he sacrificed himself on our behalf, in our place, and as our
representative; hence, death being the last enemy to be
destroyed.
"Had he ever sinned prior to the cross, He would not
have been an acceptable sacrifice." That's right, and neither would
he have defeated sin, death, and the devil. In short, we would still be in
bondage to those things.
Now, about your comments concerning Jesus and history
and referents and truth and the Holy Spirit, let me begin by asking you if
the only truth is Scripture truth. Is Jesus not the Truth? Is he not Lord
over everything? Cannot the Spirit lead us as decisively into historic
truth as he does to truth via other mediums? When Jesus spoke to the Jews
about Moses or Jonah or Sodom and Gomorrah, was he not speaking of
historic events? And were the Jews not his people? Were these events
already in Scripture before they happened? Were they not historical before
they were inscripturated? Does the fact that they are included in
Scripture negate their historicity? Is the Church not Christ's Church? Are
we not his people? Is Church history not our history; is it not Christ's
history? Is Christ not Lord over all history?
You say that Jesus did not advise us to look at history.
Do you believe that Jesus does not care about history, about what his
Church believes in any age, in all ages? Are the beliefs of the Church not
historical beliefs, whether true or false? Should it matter to us what the
Church teaches? Does it matter what the Church believes, whether we
are talking about today or in days past? What if false beliefs from
earlier times are not caught and corrected today, shouldn't that matter to
us? I think Jesus would say it should.
Thank you, Terry. I will be waiting for your
reply.
Bill Taylor
To Bill: I will try to respond to what I
understood of your letter. It doesn't mean much when you use words
such as "propensities, inscripturated, and historocity". Gnarled is
okay. I understand gnarled, but those other words are not in my
vocabulary, so your message may have lost something in the reading.
Anyhow, I am glad that you agree that Jesus never sinned. Too bad
you cannot see that though He was fully man, He never stopped being fully
God, and God can not sin.
As for truth outside the Bible...................
well,....... it probably exists, but most of history was written by
liars. I have been around long enough to know that, having seen
history made, then reading accounts of it. Couple of
examples:The Bible plainly teaches that we are to obey those who rule over
us, yet we had a revolution that gave us independance from England.
We saw ourselves as heros, patriots. The king of England saw us as
tax evaders and trouble makers. According to the Bible, the king was
right, but we wrote the historical account.
Martin Luther King, Christian leader, or
adulterer? Trouble maker, according to the head of the FBI, but he
didn't write the history. Now ol' MLK has a thousand streets named
for him. What a man!
As for your Christian experts; I trust them about as
much as I do the history writers. If you don't mind, I will stick
with the Holy Spirit and the Bible. I understand them, and I believe
them.
Terry
