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
