Don wrote:
Yepper. He did save those who at that time believed and listened and did what the Messiah said. He saved them from their sin. He saved them from destruction, he gave them life.
The sacrifice of the Son of God took away the sin of God’s people, the anointed came and through his sacrifice, first Israel and then through prophesy, all of man kind would enjoy the ability to commune with God. By gosh man… this is totally good news why do you need to continually banter against it?
We do, and always have. To sin is to err (to miss or fall short) and that to varying degrees can have consequences, i.e., your “suffer” etc.
The condition of alienation that sin wrought no longer exists. The death of relationship that had man exiled (death) from the presence of God has been turned around and reversed in Christ, aka, the reconciliation. The gospel was/is about making that reality (of reconciliation) known to those sitting in darkness, i.e., sitting in ignorance as to this reality secured in Christ… what the first Adam lost the last Adam restored.
The condition or offense of sin that stood over and against humanity in terms of alienation from God — it is this that no longer exists…
The condition or offense of “the sin” (a noun not a verb) was annulled. Yes we can and do in our actions “sin” (verb) to which James advocates we confess one to another (Jas 5:16). This horizontal confession reflects the healing established in the vertical confession “it is finished” whereby the horizontal (man) met the vertical (God) in the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Dave, No we are not out of the equation as many try to preach. Again, my questions to those who think so:
And this is what we still do today.
Do you think that when if lie , cheat, steal , murder etc. etc. are lives are not destroyed by such actions?
LLC said:
Actually, I totally believe we are destroyed by those things, but destroyed in the sense that we are cut off from the fruit of this life that is available by following Christ. If we lie cheat steal it will not go well for us here in this existence.
Everyone wants to equate good works with going to heaven. In my mind that is a bunch of BS 
If Christ did not reconcile us, than how will we ever do it our selves? How good do we have to be, or how not evil do we have to be, don’t you see the perplexity of that position? What Michael is saying is that it is because of one… The one called Christ. You do not have to agree with everything he says, but maybe give him a chance.
Just a thought
Thanx
I would hope that most XN’s would NOT equate that.
But I do remember a bit of a dust-up here a year or so ago, where Faith was considered ‘a good work’; the impression being given that faith is not necessary to ‘get to heaven’.
One side of the dust-up was saying that Christ has abolished the need for good works (including faith) as the way ‘to heaven’.
One side was saying that, obviously, we need to respond to the good news by trusting God, and that is not a ‘good work’ but what God wants - our Trust.
FWIW I think the two sides were/are talking past one another: both sides want to glorify God thru Christ Jesus; but the quibble comes in over the usage of the word ‘faith’; when side one says ‘faith’ the side two hears ‘works’; when side two says ‘faith’ side one hears 'not OUR faith, that would rob Christs’s work of it’s glory and you might as well try to follow the Law to ‘get into heaven’.
The disagreement is therefore mainly on the surface at this level of discussion. But the feelings and convictions tied to this seem to go deep, I"m not sure why, but it seems like there are two sub-cultures, two ways of seeing, perhaps two traditions, neither really understanding the other. Just a guess.
Amen to that. I think that is pure Christianity. If we can agree on this, I suggest we don’t argue too much over what I think was a misfortunate emphasis by Mike, on the phrase ‘faith of God’. If he agrees with what davo has written above, and just leave it there, I’d be a happier man.
Dave, not sure what XN is, but maybe I obviously should. If you will simply go back and look at all my posts in this thread you will see my position. I am totally on board with the idea that Christ has sufficiently taken care of the sins of the world. That can not happen without God’s faith. You seem to be entrenched with the Idea of our faith, and I am with you. I’ll do what I don’t often do and quote scripture:
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Heb 11:2 For by it the men of old gained approval.
Heb 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
We see that worlds were prepared by the word of God. This does not happen by accident or by chance, If I love my children and will do the physical things it takes to get them through tough times, by golly it shows I have FAITH IN THEM.
The idea that there is an assurance for things hoped for, from my view, can only be done from Gods side. We hope, have faith yada yada but at the end of the day it is the fathers love that truly shows where the faith truly is.
Sorry, Chad - ‘XN’ is shorthand for ‘Christian’ much as “XTY” is used for ‘Christianity’ by some folks.
MM, I don’t believe the bible is about life after we leave this earth. It’s about THIS life, and bringing “heaven” down to earth.
qaz, I agree. However, from what I understand, the Law of Moses is the Law of Christ. they are one and the same. This is why Moses and Elijah were both seen with Jesus on the Mount(Horeb). Moses gave the Israelites the bread of life, just as Jesus gave us the bread of life. But man changes it.
Davo, from what I understand, Jesus’ words came from God who gave them to Adam, who passed it on to his children, who passed it on to their children and so on and so forth.
Sin still alienates us from God. But, what also alienates us from God is false teachings and the fact that such teachings have many times become law and forced upon people. Such was the case with the Levitical/ Jewish law. It was a stumbling block for many of the Israelites because it contained false teachings which were then made “the law”.
I pretty much agree with the following; but I am willing for have errors in it, if any, pointed out. Geez, my head is starting to hurt.
Please notice that the ‘new teaching’ does not have anything to do with what davo and MM are saying about Christ’s work and God’s grace. I think we are all mostly in agreement on the Essentials. I hope.
quote
The Faith of God: Does God have Faith?
THE FAITH OF GOD- Introduction
Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, and other Word-Faith teachers have a brand new revelation, “God operates by faith.” And we, too, ought to exercise the same kind of faith that God exercised when He created the world. Well is this new revelation really biblical?
THE FAITH OF GOD- The “Proof”
There are only two prooftexts from the Bible which are used to prove that God exercises faith, and they don’t support this doctrine at all. The first is Mark 11:22, this tell us: “Have faith in God.” Well, grammatically this could be translated, “Have faith of God,” or, “Have God’s faith.” And therefore the Word-Faith teachers commonly say that we are to have “the God kind of faith.” However, this is clearly a mistake. You see, in Greek the grammatical form here means not “faith that God has” but “faith, that has God as its object.” In context Jesus is exhorting His disciples to have faith when they pray — in other words, when they ask God for things, they are to have faith in Him [Mark 11:23-24]. It’s always object oriented.
THE FAITH OF GOD- Another “Prooftext”
The second prooftext, Hebrews 11:3, says that “by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God.” The Word-Faith teachers here twist this to read that God by His faith created the world. In other words, God had to exercise faith in order to create the world. Again, this interpretation clearly is ruled out by the context. The whole chapter is talking about the faith exercised in God by human beings: “By faith Abel… By faith Enoch… By faith Noah… By faith Abraham… By faith Sarah…” [11:4,5,7,8,11], and so forth.
THE FAITH OF GOD- What IS Faith?
The whole idea that God has faith is completely foreign to the Bible. Biblical faith is: human beings trusting in a God they cannot see, to do things that He has promised. God sees all and knows all from all eternity. So, God doesn’t need to have faith. And since God doesn’t need to have faith, the idea that we have to imitate God’s “faith” is clearly unbiblical. Remember, faith is always object oriented: Faith in God not faith of God. And if we mix that up, we have a faulty understanding of what true biblical faith really is. end of quote
Dave, I agree with this. I believe Jesus was telling us to have faith in the words He spoke, that these are the words of the Spirit that God gave to man in the beginning, and they will always be the Word of the one true living God. If we follow them, they will give us life, spiritual life.
So Dave, what are your thoughts on this… leaving aside the assumption/argument above about (we have to imitate God’s “faith”) which actually isn’t pertinent to the basic issue raised in this thread, i.e., whose faith; what do you make of “the faith OF Christ” issue that can’t so easily be swept under the rug? And how might this challenge the notion of the God OF faith given that in evangelicalism Jesus = God? I haven’t really seen anyone answer that from this angle… any thoughts??
Davo, I think you are completely right, given the Evangelical assumption that Jesus=God.
I think that’s an erroneous assumption and I cannot defend it nor its eventualities. 
Just as an aside check out note 9 pg 159 of Enns’ Adam…
Excellent! (In my kindle version, it is note 88 on p159.)
Re: that Enns footnote for those who do not have access, here is a portion of it
Here Enns is pointing out that the ‘faith OF Jesus Christ’ can best be understood as ‘faithfulness of Jesus Christ’. I’m totally into that, it makes sense, at least to me, that fits in various contexts. The 'faith of God (the Father) is thus best understood as HIs faithfulness. YMMV.
Which raises the question, Dave. If he is not God, when what EXACTLY is he 
Wrong thread for this, methinks, Randy mon ami.
But a hint:
MacDonald: “What Jesus did, is what the Father is always doing; the suffering he endured was that of the Father from the foundation of the world, reaching its climax in the person of his Son. God provides the sacrifice; the sacrifice is Himself. He is always, and always has been sacrificing Himself to and for his creatures. It lies in the very essence of his creation of them. The worst heresy - next to that of dividing religion and righteousness - is to divide the Father from the Son - in thought or feeling or action or intent; as representing the Son as doing that which the Father himself does not do” (“Life” - US 2).
No problem. You made the statement in this thread, Dave. I’m just asking a question - regarding your statement.
No problem.
Dave, I’m not clear as to precisely what assumption you reject. How do you understand “the Evangelical assumption that Jesus=God.”
