----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 7:12
PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Please hear me
out before ousting me.
Judy,
If you will bear with me through a short
anecdote, I will try to spin it into something that explains my fears
regarding the direction in which I see this discussion taking us.
After Augustine the Church went in a decidedly
different direction from where it had been heading prior to the Pelagian
v. Augustinian controversy. The climate after Augustine was such that to
be "Pelagian" or even "semi-Pelagian" (and this for several centuries) was to
be condemned as a heretic, almost without due process. But the reason
Christians could not stay on the same course as before the controversy was
because even Augustine, its hero, had led the Church astray.
Here's the point: when Augustine and Pelagius
began to bicker, they were much closer to agreement (and truth) than they
were after the controversy had been "settled." I happen to think that
Augustine, going into the debate, was closer to right than Pelagius. But I
have major concerns about where Augustine ended up. Why? Because in the
heat of the battle, they both said things and were forced into positions that
neither of them would have affirmed had it not been for the other. They
pushed each other not only away from each other but away from what they would
have believed themselves. And bigger than this, I can see the
damage it did to the Church. Because after Augustine, to say anything
that may have gotten the church back on track, was to say something that might
just get you labeled a Pelagian. Hence the Church, and I mean all the
Church, is now influenced wrongly by these two men. Where Augustine ended on
his positions about sin, humanity, the grace of God, predestination, and free
will, cemented and thereby cursed the entire Church ever after him. I
really believe that he would not have said or even come to some of the
conclusions he did about these topics had he not got caught up in "being
right."
I am not saying that our debate (yours and
mine) will have the same impact on "the Church" that Augustine v.
Pelagius had. But in light of this little tidbit of history, I do
think we should be asking ourselves a question that Augustine may have missed:
How can I be right and at the same time be wise about it? Judy, I am afraid
that I am pushing you into a position that you may not otherwise want to take.
I will address that today. If I am all wet, then thank you God for soaking me.
But if I am not all wet, then I hope we are both in a state of mind when this
is "settled" to thank the same God for soaking you. I do not want to lead you
astray, even if I am wrong about Christ's humanity :>)
(Oh, and I may respond to some of your other
comments later. We'll see what tomorrow brings tomorrow.)
You say: "It is impossible to understand spiritual concepts using
natural reasoning Bill. I am not being cute or smart - the apostle Paul
taught that "we should use words that the Holy Ghost teaches and compare
spiritual things with spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:13); so it may
help to take a look and see if when God is
speaking of natural or spiritual generation when he uses the word
"seed" (because I keep hearing on TT that the reason Jesus had to have sinful
flesh going all the way back to the first Adam is because he was Mary's seed
and Mary is the one to whom the promise was
made so this is why the RCC was forced to invent the immaculate
conception)."
Judy,
I hope I haven't slipped up along the way and
written "Mary" when I was thinking "Eve." I think Mary assumed a fallen nature
from Adam, this is sure, but the promise in the proto-evangel was given to
Eve. She is the one who received the promise of the Seed who would
crush the Serpent's head. Immediately following the account of Adam and "Woman’s"
disobedience (Gen 3.8-15), and in their first post-fall encounter with God,
rather than smiting them dead, God blessed Woman for her honest confession (v.
13); this He did in two ways: (1) by putting hostility (v. 15) between her and
the serpent, whom she had trusted; and (2) by placing the same hostility
between her “Seed” (masculine singular) and the serpent’s “seed” (feminine
singular; by the way, this is the only time in the Scriptures where the Hebrew
word “zera” is used with a feminine ending). God then predicts that “He”—the
Seed of Woman—will crush the serpent. (Assuming I did slip up when talking about Eve by calling her Mary, I
hope this was helpful.)
You go on to say, "Romans 9:6-8
explains to us who the seed are 'For they are not all Israel which are of
Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children,
but in Isaac shall the seed be called, that is, they which are the
children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children
of the promise are counted for seed.' Get that - ONLY the children
of promise are counted for seed. Then... Galatians 3:16 expands... 'Now to Abraham and his seed (singular) were
the promises made. He saith not. And to seeds, as of many, but as of
ONE. And to thy seed which is Christ. Then on to our generation' ...
Galatians 3:29: 'And IF ye be Christ's THEN are
ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.' "
Judy, I
think if we never come to agreement on the humanity of Christ, it will still
be important and helpful to you if you will take into consideration what
I am about to say concerning the Seed. Furthermore, you will not have to
relinquish your belief in order to incorporate this teaching into your
repertoire (because even though I disagree with you, I will concede your
point: it is possible if he so desired for God to have created a new kind
of sanctified humanity for Jesus to incarnate in Mary's
womb.)
I
mentioned this to Terry the other day, that if you will follow the genealogy
of Jesus through the unfolding of the OT, you will also see a concerted effort
on behalf of the evil one to cut-off, i.e., to destroy, the
bloodline leading to the birth of the Holy One of Israel. I
think this is so because we can also see that the serpent of old took the
promise of pending judgment to heart. (He is now defeated in Christ,
to be sure, but he is yet to be judged.) Throughout the OT he had not yet even
been defeated. He believed that if he could prevent the coming of the Seed who
could crush him, he could thwart the judgment; i.e., being crushed and confine
to the Abyss. Let me give you a short example of what I am talking about, and
then a longer one:
After the "curse" and the promise of a
Seed to come, Eve gave birth to a son. Look at her words, "I have been
given a Man from the Lord" (Gen 4.1). That "man" was Cain. Now look what
happened in the drama of the Cain / Abel event. Evil caused Cain to rebel
against the Lord, and Abel was then murdered by the evil brother.
But had the evil one destroyed the
bloodline? No, he had not; moreover, neither had Eve lost faith in
God's faithfulness to fulfill his promise. We can see this in the birth
of her next son, Seth.
"Seth" means "Name." Look what Eve said when she gave birth to him: "God has appointed
another Seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed" (Gen 4.25). You see,
Judy, Eve may have thought that she had been confused during the time of
believing that Cain was going to be the human fulfillment of God's
promise rather than Abel; but she had not given up hope that there would come
a human Seed through her blood, nor had she changed her mind to think that the
Seed-promise was strictly a spiritual one and not physical. Instead, she gave
her new son the Name which identified him as the Seed
bearer.
Moreover, and once again, neither had the
Serpent thwarted the pending judgment.
Now let's jump ahead a few thousand years
and pick up the Line again, and this time let's also see what happens when the
Church fails to take seriously the genealogy of Jesus. I am thinking here of
the story of Tamar and Onan and Judah (Gen 38.6-26, I won't include it here,
but it might be helpful to read it now). The RCC uses this story as the basis
of and warrant for its teachings against birth control. They say something
like, See what God thinks about 'pulling out'; he must really hate that;
therefore birth control must be a sin. But is this what is really
happening? I don't think so.
The Seed of Eve was going to pass through
Judah and also through Tamar. This we know from other Scripture. Tamar
knew this too, as we will see. But look what happens with Judah and his three
sons. His first son was wicked and the Lord blotted him
out. Then the second son, Onan, himself corrupted
by evil, takes the first son's wife but refuses to impregnate her, pulling out
instead and spilling his seed on the ground. And this displeased the Lord and
the Lord blotted him out too. This leaves only one descendent of Judah for the
Seed to pass through. But Judah refuses to let Tamar marry him, because he
thinks Tamar is bad luck and doesn't want to lose his last
son.
So, has the Serpent thwarted the pending
judgment? He thinks he has. He's corrupted and destroyed two of Judah's sons,
and has kept the other from acquiring a woman. ... But this is not the
end of the story. Tamar, refusing to be
unfaithful to the promise of the Lord, tricks Judah into impregnating her.
Thus the Seed is preserved and the Serpent fails once again to thwart the
judgment.
How do we know that this is the correct way to
interpret this story, and thereby conclude that the RCC was off-base in its
conclusion, the reason being that they failed to take into account the human
lineage of Jesus? Look what Judah says when he discovers that he is the one
who impregnated Tamar. He says she has been more faithful than he. More
faithful? How can that be? She sinned too, didn't she? more faithful than
Judah, because Tamar remembered the promise of the Seed, knowing that it must
past through Judah and herself, but Judah had disregarded it. Finally he comes
to his senses and realizes what a devastating effect the withholding of his
last son from Tamar would have had, had she not done what she did. Hence he
says, "She has been more righteous than I, because I did not give her to
Shelah my son" (38.26).
Nevertheless, she is pregnant, gives birth to
twins, the Seed is preserved, and the evil one has to wait for another day if
he is going to destroy the blood of the promise.
Allow me to address a couple of other things in
light of what I have just said.
You say, "Romans 9:6-8 explains
to us who the seed are 'For they are not all Israel which are of Israel,
neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but in
Isaac shall the seed be called, that is, they which are the children of
the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the
promise are counted for seed.' "
Judy, I think
that you have maybe kind of missed it here. The "seed" (pl.) of Abraham were
two: Ishmael and Isaac. "But in Isaac the Seed (sg.) shall be
called." (The Seed is singular here, I believe -- and this is
because there is an interpretive task involved any time we see this word,
because sperma in the Greek is the same word whether singular or
plural) Hence the "children of
the flesh" here are the descendents of Ishmael, and "the children of the
promise" are counted "in the Seed (sg)" because the Seed is the
descendent of Isaac, who was the child of promise, who came through
Sarah in fulfillment of God's covenant faithfulness to Abraham. This
passage has spiritual connotations, no doubt, but it is about the flesh and
blood of Jesus, before it is anything else.
You say, "Get that -
ONLY the children of promise are counted for seed."
Judy, I think
this verse is better translated and understood as "the children of the promise
are counted in the Seed (sg.)"; this is at least a more wooden or
'literal' translation of this portion of the verse, than what we see in the
English translations.
You then go on to look at a couple
of other passages: "Then... Galatians 3:16 expands... 'Now to Abraham and his seed (singular) were
the promises made. He saith not. And to seeds, as of many, but as of
ONE. And to thy seed which is Christ. Then on to our generation' ...
Galatians 3:29: 'And IF ye be Christ's THEN are
ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.'
"
Judy, the
controversy in Galatia to which Paul wrote is over how to be a Jew, and
whether it was necessary to become Jewish to be in Christ, and a question as
to who the real Jews, the fleshly descendents of
Abraham, were. In verse 29, Paul is saying since the
Galatians are included in Christ by way of his fulfillment of the
Seed-promise, they are truly Abraham's descendents, because Christ is the Seed
through Isaac, the child of promise, and not Ishmael. That is, Paul is saying
that Jews and Gentiles alike are included in Abraham by way of their inclusion
in Christ (and this goes back to the go'el discussion), and it is not
just Isaac's descendents who are included (i.e. the Jews) but gentiles as
well.
I know that this has gone on and on and on, but
Judy, I am concerned that you may miss what's being said here because of where
I've pushed you in the past. I don't want to cause you to miss the beauty of
this. If you disagree with me on the Incarnation, we can work on that, but
don't let what happened to the Church after Augustine happen to you. If you
may have been pursuaded concerning this before our debate, then don't
allow yourself to miss it now.
Thank you for enduring this,
Bill
