See ya’ll soon!

 An important thing to remember is that our western culture today is vastly different than the culture of Bible times. Cultures closer to that of the Bible include the Japanese culture, as well as most Middle Eastern countries/cultures. It is vital that we not insert our cultural meanings into the biblical text when they are not warranted (and they usually aren’t!). The Context Group is “a working group of international scholars committed to the use of the social sciences in biblical interpretation.” John Pilch and Bruce Malina (members of The Context Group) are editors of a book entitled Handbook of Biblical Social Values. It is a very fascinating and valuable book, I highly recommend it to everyone. In this book Malina describes for us how “grace” was viewed in ANE culture and what is meant by the biblical authors when they use the term. The following is a quote from the book, pp. 89-90. I think it sheds some light on the idea that God’s grace has “no strings attached”, the idea that God’s grace can produce a Christian who has no good works. The information here is also helpful in understanding the difference between what God gives to all and what he gives only to those who believe in Jesus. From the book:

[Grace] refers to the outcomes of the value process called patronage. What clients seek of patrons is favor, and grace is favor. Favor might be defined as receiving something, either that could not otherwise be obtained at all, or on terms more advantageous than could otherwise be obtained. Favoritism is the main quality of patron-client relationships. … The New Testament is heavily sprinkled with the vocabulary of favoritism, such as reward, gift, grace (a word occurring only in Luke 1 and 2, Acts, Paul, and John’s prologue: 1:14, 16-17) and the like. Perhaps due to Paul, the most obvious terms for the favoritism of God’s patronage and its outcomes are the vocabulary of “grace”.  …

Considering the cultural presuppositions of “all goods are limited” and the “debt of gratitude” involved in giving, it would seem there really were no “free” gifts in the ancient world. All “gifts” implied obligations to the giver, including gifts from God. From a cultural perspective, such gifts were made with strings attached. This is what patronage is about. God’s “grace”, that is his willingness to be patron, implies vertical social standing since only the “haves” can give-in and serve as patrons to the “have-nots”. Being patron presupposes a want or need of a favor on the part of the client. Both the baptism of John and Jesus’ proclamation of God’s kingdom are premised on such a need of favor from God.

 Charisma is the “favor” or gift-with-strings-attached that results from a patron in some upper social stratum giving to a client, one of a lower stratum. It is always a donation-with-strings-attached because all goods are limited. Thus, the God of Israel never simply “gives” in his interpersonal relationships with humans. He always “gives-in”, because the God of Israel is patron in vertical dyadic relation with his [seemingly]arbitrarily chosen client. While God may have a need to give-in since he is honorable, he really has no need to give. And he really cannot “give” since “to give” necessarily presumes sheer equality, truly balanced reciprocity. If ”to give freely” means to want nothing in return, then the God of Israel does not do this – and neither do people in peasant societies or in the contemporary Third World.

Theologically, to say God takes the initiative in giving grace means that he gives-in first. Minimally this image means God seeks the good-will, the openness of the one wanting or needing the “giving-in”. The kingdom of heaven announced by Jesus indicates that the God of Israel is ready “to give-in again”, as divine Patron. In the Pauline tradition, of course, the main difference between charis and charisma is that charis, God’s readiness to be Patron, is shown to all human beings, while charisma, actual favor or patronage, comes to those “in Christ Jesus”.

That last sentence also gives us a good indicator of how the Bible views our salvation. Charis is given to all, in that God is ready and willing to be the patron to all. But charisma is only given to those ”in Christ Jesus”, such that saving grace is only bestowed upon those who believe in Jesus. One can see here that there is no room for “judicially pardoned but not personally forgiven”. This concept has no idea of someone who is not condemned but still lacks personal forgiveness from the patron. Understanding the cultural aspects of these terms greatly aids our understanding and interpretation of the true biblical meaning of the words, which in turn facilitates a more accurate theology.

I see and agree that “hilasterion” (translated “propitiation”) in Rom. 3:25 refers to the mercy seat. But I am unclear on how this makes a difference. My point is that Rom. 3:25 clearly states that Jesus’ propitiation of our sin is applied through faith in the propitiation (the blood of Jesus). It seems to me that Hodges is claiming that “propitiation” is actually two steps, the first step being the actual payment of our sins (Jesus’ death), and the second step being where Jesus “introduces” us to God or mediates between us and God. He then seems to be claiming that the “propitiation” in Rom. 3:25 ONLY refers to the “second step”, due to the use of the word for mercy seat (hilasterion), and that God said he would “meet” with his people at the mercy seat.

I first want to point out a quote by Hodges from that article:

“Without at all criticizing the choice of word order by NKJV and NASV, it nevertheless remains true that the Greek word order is significant. Paul is basically connecting the words through faith with the word for mercy seat (hilasterion). That is to say, Jesus Christ becomes the New Covenant equivalent of the mercy seat through faith.”

This is important because Hodges here is acknowledging that Romans 3:25 clearly states that Jesus becomes our propitiation (or “mercy seat”) through faith. Hodges goes on to say that he thinks this refers to a specific aspect of propitiation (which I explain further below), but I will also refute that idea. The point to remember here is that even Hodges concedes that Romans 3:25 is clear in that whatever the verse means by “propitiation”, Jesus only becomes such propitiation by faith (and I would further say it is faith “in His blood” according to the verse). So if I can show that “propitiation” here refers to the entire atonement for our sins, and not merely one certain aspect, then this verse clearly refutes the idea that Jesus’ propitiation applies to unbelievers.

IF my summary above of Hodges’ article is correct, I guess my answer contains 3 points. First, I don’t think such a bifurcation of propitiation is warranted. The separation seems artificial, and solely to bolster Hodges’ already-held view. I don’t think such a distinction would ever be set forth if the theology that requires it wasn’t already in place.

Second, I don’t see the focus of the mercy seat as the place where anyone is “introduced” to God. When Paul’s readers saw the word and thought of “mercy seat”, I don’t think they separated in their minds the payment (or passing over, as was the case in the OT) of their sins from the ability to meet with God. The mercy seat contained all of those aspects in one. The blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled on the mercy seat, at once covering their sins AND allowing God to meet with them. I just do not see how the use of the word for “mercy seat” somehow means ONLY God meeting with the believer and not ALSO the payment of sins.

Third, and the more I think about this I think this point is most pertinent, Hodges quotes Exodus 25 (although the article says “Exodus 5″), when God is giving instructions to Moses on how to build the tabernacle, what all should be in it, and how it all should be constructed. God tells Moses specifically, “There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel.” This seems to indicate a special, non-routine occurrence of God meeting with Moses specifically, in order to give him commandments for the nation of Israel. In contrast, when God prescribes the Law of Atonement, or sin offering, that the Israelites were to do each year (in Lev. 16), God says nothing at all about meeting the priest at the mercy seat. All that is said is the instructions on how to sprinkle the blood on the seat, the scapegoat, the cleaning up of the priest doing the killing, and what to do with the animal after the offering was made. There is NO indication that God “met with” the priest each and every year that he sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. Comparing Scripture with Scripture, I think we see that the “meeting” God planned in Exodus 25 was a unique meeting with Moses specifically, in order to give him information that he was to pass on to Israel. Thus my second point above is further solidified, in that the readers of Romans, when they saw the word hilasterion (”mercy seat”), would have thought of the atonement in general. There is no evidence that the mercy seat was considered or even intended as some sort of annual meeting place between God and man. So it’s not just that Paul’s readers wouldn’t have separated the “meeting with God” aspect from the “atonement for sins” aspect, it’s that they never would have thought of a “meeting with God” aspect in the first place, because that’s simply not what happened at the mercy seat!

1) Alvin says, “…I’ve stated there is no judicial condemnation concerning sin.” What then of this verse:

Romans 8:1 “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The previous chapter was discussing sin. Paul then indicates that “those who are in Christ Jesus” have no condemnation, implying that those who are NOT “in Christ Jesus” ARE under condemnation. Are you now saying that there are two kinds of condemnation?

Later, Alvin elaborated on this somewhere, and he seemed to be saying that “in Christ Jesus” meant “abiding in Christ Jesus”, such that if we are out of fellowship with Christ, then we are under condemnation, but if we are in fellowship with Christ, then there is no condemnation. If this is correct, this doesn’t help his case because now you have a Christian being under this “condemnation”, and I know of no place in the Bible where believers are said to be under “condemnation”. In addition, I assume he is defining “condemnation” as something OTHER than eternal condemnation. Can anyone give contextual proof that Romans 8 is speaking of this “other” condemnation (and define it please)? For that matter, can you give scriptural proof of this “other” condemnation?

EDIT: Alvin attempted an answer to this on Rose’s blog by saying that Rom. 8:1 does NOT refer to eternal condemnation but merely temporal condemnation of believers who stray from the truth, sin, “walk according to the flesh”, etc. He also listed some verses that speak of the believer being condemned. I am pasting in my reply to his answer here, for ease of reference and to keep it all in one place. My reply:

Your interpretation of Romans 8:1 simply does not stand up to proper exegesis. First, you err in reading this verse only in the KJV. The earliest manuscripts do not have the added section, “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”. The consensus of scholars is that this phrase is an interpolation, added later by scribes. Note that it is exactly the same as the end of Romans 8:4. At the least, it is very uncertain if that phrase is in there.

Secondly, and this point is most pertinent and makes more clear that the phrase in question doesn’t belong, you err in reading all these verses only in English. The word for “condemnation” in Rom. 8:1 is “katakrima” (Strong’s #2631), meaning “damnatory sentence, condemnation”. This word is only used in Romans, and it is used 2 other times. Here are the other 2 places:

Romans 5:16 “The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.”

Romans 5:18 “So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.”

In both of these verses, “condemnation” is clearly referring to eternal condemnation, i.e. condemnation to hell. Since this is how Paul uses this word, it goes against principle to say that he used the word differently in only the one place of Rom 8:1.

In addition, the word translated as “condemnation” in all the other verses you cited that spoke of believers is a different Greek word. The Gk. word in those other verses is “krima” (Strong’s #2917) and has the following meanings:

- a decree, judgments
- judgment
- condemnation of wrong, the decision (whether severe or mild) which one passes on the faults of others
- in a forensic sense
- the sentence of a judge
- the punishment with which one is sentenced
- condemnatory sentence, penal judgment, sentence
- a matter to be judicially decided, a lawsuit, a case in court

“Krima” is most often translated as “judgment”, but also as “condemnation”, “lawsuits”, and “sentence”. So “krima” has the idea of passing down a judgment or a negative sentence. Certainly believers can have this happen to them, as the verses you quoted indicate. But “katakrima” is different and carries solely the idea of eternal damnation/condemnation. This definitely cannot happen to believers, it is only for unbelievers.

So when we do proper exegesis of the original Greek, comparing Scripture with Scripture and discovering how the biblical author uses his words, we find that in Romans 8:1 Paul is clearly speaking of eternal condemnation. He states plainly that this condemnation does not fall on those who are “in Christ Jesus”, therefore we can deduce that those who are NOT “in Christ Jesus” (i.e. unbelievers) DO have this condemnation upon them. Believers can bring judgment upon themselves, but NEVER eternal condemnation. Unbelievers, however, are already under eternal condemnation. Your assertion that unbelievers are not condemned is clearly contradicted by Scripture.

2) Alvin is saying that no one is under judicial condemnation, yet no one has judicial forgiveness either (until they believe). So a lost person would seem to be, in his position, in some kind of “neutral” state, not judicially condemned, but not judicially forgiven either. I do not see this kind of neutral state anywhere in Scripture. In fact, John 3:18 indicates that people are either condemned or not condemned.

Later, Alvin modified this to say that there is no such thing as judicial forgiveness. What about a judicial pardon, isn’t that like forgiveness? But even if we accept his premise, my point still stands. His theology still has the lost person in some sort of neutral state, not condemned, but not yet forgiven. I do not see any evidence of such neutrality in Scripture.

3) For what purpose then did Jesus die? How did His death change anything practically for us? If he really did pay for everyone’s sins and no one has to pay for them anymore, yet people still go to hell, how did his death help anything? If Jesus was going to actually take away the sin problem, why didn’t he take it away completely so that we don’t have to go to hell anymore? Alvin claims that my gospel is “empty” because if people don’t believe in Jesus, then the cross becomes of no effect to them. But in his gospel, if people don’t believe in Jesus, the cross doesn’t have any practical effect for them either, because they still go to hell.

4) His position seems to make God rather rude and arbitrary, to send people to hell when they have no sin (judicially). I have personally discussed Christianity with many people whose biggest problem with Christianity is that people are sent to hell merely for not believing the right thing, when there are a multitude of reasons why people believe or don’t believe certain things, including geographical location, family, friends, etc. His position lends credence to that objection. Whereas my position says that “believing the right thing” isn’t the issue per se, it’s the transaction that occurs as a result of believing the right thing, i.e. your sins are forgiven and you are no longer under them, while lack of belief condemns you, not because of lack of belief per se, but because of the lack of the necessary transaction, i.e. you are still in your sins and must account for them before God.

5) Alvin says that the lost still need justification and forgiveness of sin. How then can he maintain that sin no longer separates us from God? If God has not forgiven our sin, then it is sin that separates us from a right relationship with God. Thus it would be obvious that we would need to understand and accept our problem (that of sin), and also understand and accept the remedy (Jesus’ death) in order to receive the forgiveness we need. If we “need” forgiveness and justification, as he said, why and how can we be given that forgiveness and justification if we don’t even know about our need, or possibly don’t even agree that we need it?

6) If God no longer condemns us for our sin, why doesn’t He also forgive us? He gave the illustration of the judge who declares the car thief “not guilty” but doesn’t forgive him personally for stealing his (the judge’s) car. Again, this seems kind of rude and arbitrary of God. Why doesn’t he forgive us? If He declares us “not guilty” on the basis of Jesus’ death alone regardless of our belief, why then does He withhold personal forgiveness? It’s like God put a “catch” in the fine print, e.g. “Good news! No more condemnation for your sin!*” Where the “*” says in fine print at the bottom, “However, I still do not personally forgive you for your sin, so you’re still on your way to hell.”

7) A new point I would like to add: the idea that there is such a thing as “judicial pardon” but no personal forgiveness from God was foreign to the biblical writers and audience. The culture of the ANE did not consider God as someone to have a personal relationship with. In fact, the Bible describes our relationship with God in terms of a client-patron relationship. “In the NT, the relationship between God, Jesus, and believer is framed in terms of a client-patron relationship. God is the patron (like the big rich guy who gives gifts); the believer is the client (who gets the gifts, and in turn is loyal to and serves the patron); Jesus is the broker — who is a go-between for the two, and who acts upon the authority of the patron.” (http://www.tektonics.org/lp/mattstudy.html ) People in Bible times did not “get to know each other personally” like we do today, they certainly would never have expected to “know God personally”. ANE culture was group-oriented, as opposed to our individualistic society of today. Now, I am NOT saying that we cannot know God personally. But I AM saying that the biblical authors and audience never had in mind the idea of people needing some kind of personal forgiveness from God in addition to some kind of judicial group pardon. Alvin’s example of the judge pardoning the car thief judicially, but not personally forgiving the thief for stealing his car, is simply not part of the mindset of the ANE peoples. Such a thing would simply not have happened, at the very least they would never have thought of God acting like the judge in that scenario. So this idea of personal forgiveness over and above judicial pardon is anachronistic and not found in the Bible.

8 ) In the illustration Alvin referred to of the man on death row being issued a pardon, he said that the illustration didn’t work for my side because in such a situation, if the man had truly been issued a pardon, he would be freed whether he accepted it personally or not. So is he saying then that even though we, the lost sinners, have been issued a pardon by God and are truly “free” from sin judicially, we must be transferred to a different prison and pay the same penalty (death) for a different crime (unbelief/lack of life)?

For example, some might say that one must believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or in the deity of Christ, or that you are a sinful person, and that you are deserving of the Lake of Fire in order to be saved. Some may say that you must deny yourself and take up your cross. You may say that none of those is required to be justified. But can any of those or anything else be affirmatively denied by a purportedly  saved person while maintaining confidence that such a person is saved?

Can the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 year-old, or other unlearned individual ever affirm whatever you think needs to be affirmed, be ignorant of the things that you think a Lordship proponent would say is necessary in the first place, but then later learn more and get to the point where [s]he affirmatively denies X that would cause you to think that if they died immediately that they might not go to heaven?

On a side note, I’d like to say thank you to the authors of the Wordpress plugin “The Holy Scripturizer,” to wit Dean Peters, ported by Glen Davis, and updated by Laurence O’Donnell. Thier plugin automatically hyperlinks plain old typed-in Scripture references to BibleGateway throughout this entire blog.

But what I have yet to see is the same kind of evidence for their position. Where is the verse that says, “Believe that Jesus can give you eternal life, and you have eternal life”? What person in the Bible stated that they believe that Jesus can give them eternal life, and they were immediately granted such? And please do not give me John 6:47. All it says is what the believer in Jesus possesses. It does not say what it is that a person must believe about Jesus in order to receive that gift. And remember, any evidence you attempt to provide must meet your own rules: it can’t be a hodge-podge of different verses patched together (preferably just one verse), no Greek (has to be simple), and the less of “man’s logic” the better.

 So, the challenge is here. Anyone want to try to convince me?

 Bob Wilkin/GES have stated that when Jesus died, at that moment he actually paid for all of mankind’s sins, such that our sin no longer separates us from God (this is true for all people, believers and unbelievers, he says). Does anyone reading this agree with that? If so, please note your agreement because I have more questions about that.

Note that Jeremy Myers, a GES staff member, is on the panel defending the position that such belief is not req’d.

http://indefenseofthegospel.blogspot.com/2007/10/free-grace-alliance-sponsors-panel.html