Father Abraham had many sons.....Many sons had Father Abraham......I am one of them and so are you.......So let's all praise the Lord. Right arm, left arm, right foot, left foot,Chin up, turn around, sit down!
I've always thought that a rather odd song. Its like "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and "The Hokey Pokey" got married and had a baby. And well that's just silly because Jesus Loves the Little Children, wouldn't give the HP a second glance, she way too flaky and hippie dippie for him.
So lets get into this here reading.....it gets totally deep at times and delves into the very kind of thinking that Jamie and I love. Paul goes into a very interesting "which came first the chicken or the egg" kinda argument. The Law or Faith? If we are to just be judged by our adherence to the Law then we've no need for faith, thus no need for God...... Then on zee flip side, if we've no Law then there would be no transgression of the Law and therefore no need for God? That last part is unclear in the text but that's what I take it to mean. Faith then being the most important.
"moreover let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and understanding endurance."
"and endurance develops maturity of character, And character produces joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation."
From one man we were brought into sin and from one man we were delivered from it.
Then lots of talk about the Law and sin and being slaves to sin....... did we know sin before the Law was given? I sorta kinda wish I could go back to that time and just see what it felt like to not understand right from wrong......THAT would be an interesting thing to experience wouldn't it.
3 comments:
We did know right from wrong. The minute Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree of good and evil, they (and we) knew. Just as I said yesterday, that Cain knew he had done wrong when he killed Abel. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of wickedness(sin) before the commmandments as well. And their sin was clear to them at that time as evidenced by the one gentleman who asked the townspeople to not do 'this evil' thing when they wanted to sodomise the angels that were visiting him. Also, God destroyed the earth during the time of Noah because of sin - also before the Law. I think it's saying that it's not our adherence to the law that saves us, since we could never be successful, but our faith. And he's making this point by bring up people whose faith clearly was their saving grace because they existed before the Law (special revelation was given). But we all, clearly, have general revelation in our hearts. I think people (as a race) began to harden their hearts to general revelation of right and wrong that is inborn in us, so God gave us the Law to point out our sin and keep us from ignoring it, and thereby showing us that we are unrighteous and require salvation (through the resurrection and belief in one man), and to be saved (allowed to be in God's presence of righteousness by being made perfect through Christ) from our imminent demise (permanent separation from God because of our unrighteousness and His unwavering righteousness, which can never be together) that we were born into because of the fall of man [Adam].
Actually sin existed even before man...Satan as an angel exhibited pride and envy (covetness), which is the reason he was cast out of heaven. God's very substance and character is righteousness, and sin is unrighteousness. The two can never be together. They are complete and total opposites just like all other dichotomies - left and right, up and down, right and wrong, black and white, strong and weak, love and hate - polar opposites. This really is the premise behind the whole sin-salvation dynamic.
Tomorrow is Rom. 8-10
Ahhhh. I see I see
I want to make this as clear as I can. As Paul said, just because it is by faith we are saved, and not by following the Law; that doesn't mean that we don't have to follow the law (as he said). We are not made slaves to the Law once we believe and accept Christ; this is not because we don't have to adhere to it, but simply because we are no longer bound by it's condemnation - which is death [as the result] of the sin it exposes. I hope I explained that better.
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