A Free Gift, But With a Condition?

A free gift, but with a condition?


BUT NOW, no longer does the human race have to strive to attain and maintain God’s acceptance on the basis of who they are and what they can do. Our decree of judicial perfection in the eyes of God comes not through Christ’s death for our sins, but through our union with Christ’s resurrection life. If a person believes Christ died for their sins, but does not believe that God’s justice was satisfied, when Christ died for those sins, that person has not believed Christ died for their sins. 


God purchased the human race out of sins dominion, never to be returned to the market place of sin again. By removing the sin issue from the table of God’s justice, God effectively canceled Satan’s ownership of all the human race. Satan can lay claim to no person based on that persons sinfulness. 


It was God’s plan before the creation of the world, that humankind’s fingerprints would not be found on humankind's salvation. Reconciliation has to do with God’s justice being satisfied for sins, and that means all of them and that means for all the world, reconciliation is a sin issue. Justification is something entirely different, it has to do with a judicial decree of the very righteousness of God himself freely attributed to the believer’s account.


Now I am being asked to believe in one more thing? A free gift was offered, but now this gift has a condition? Those who believe Jesus was purely human tended to understand the Israelites history and they even accept him as a messiah, but that does not mean they think he was God. 


They know the monotheism of Israel does not and cannot evolve from polytheism, because the two are based on radically divergent world-views, radically divergent intuitions about reality. The monotheism of Israel was not, it could not be the natural outgrowth of the polytheism of an earlier age, it was a radical break with it. 


Monotheism was a revolution, not an evolution. Therefore, they say, no, Jesus cannot be divine. The early Christians who chose the human and divine route, though they had to spilt this up. Some believed Jesus was always divine; others believed Jesus became divine. 


If Jesus became divine, then when did he become divine, at his birth, at his baptism, or at his resurrection? Other Christians say, no, he always was divine, but even they believed in different choices too, because some believed Jesus was divine but also fully human. 


Other Christians believed Jesus was fully divine but not fully human. They believed Jesus was so divine he was God, so that when Jesus walked along on wet sand on the beach, his feet did not leave footprints, that is how divine he was, but this belief became declared as a heresy. 


Out of all these choices, only one of them is considered Orthodox by the later church, so that what Christians end up with is the Nicene Creed, or the Creed of Chalcedon, which is what Christians came to believe? There were lots of complexities in early Christianity that finally got whittled down into a more united consensus view on Christology.

There is no "united consensus view" on "christology". Hence the 4,000+ denominations.

But now, a person has to believe one more thing, some free gift?


Illustrations of the diversities of early Christianity are many, which are called Christologies. Christologies is what do you believe about Christ: what kind of nature is Jesus Christ? 


We can map out all these differences; when did Jesus become divine according to the gospel of John? He always was. He was with God from the very beginning. Everything was created through him. The beginning of the gospel of John ends up having the Christology that now become Orthodox Christianity. 


Before Jesus was executed, he was recognized as a prophet, he seems to accept himself as a prophet, and it may be that he claimed to be a king or a messiah, but certainly by the time of his execution, some people thought he was a king, because that is the charge on which he was executed. 


The Romans executed Jesus, because at least either he or other people were claiming that he was a king. He is a prophet and he is a king, but does that mean Jesus is divine? No, of course not. 


The Israelites had lots of kings that were not divine. The Israelites had lots of prophets that were not divine. Many modern people get the idea that the word “Christ” or “Messiah” in itself signifies divinity, but it doesn’t. The “Messiah” in Jesus’ day was simply some Israelite figure who would rise up and take over the throne of David and reestablish the kingdom of Israel. 


Calling someone the messiah in the ancient world did not mean that he was divine. Jesus is a prophet; he is even considered the messiah, but that does not make him divine. Some Christians therefore have to make a decision. Is Jesus human and only human? Is Jesus human and divine? 


These are important words; God’s reconciliation to the human race took place when the human race was actively his enemy, not after the human race repented. The entire human race is guilty when it comes to human merit, performance, and production and all fall short continually coming short of the righteousness of God himself. All of the human race are in need of a justification that will come totally apart from anything that they do. Paul wants the human race to know at one point in time something was true, but now something else is true.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
There is no "united consensus view" on "christology". Hence the 4,000+ denominations.

it's actually 40,000+*

This topic smells of the ol' "not a true Scotsman" argument.

i read somewhere messiah meant a king anointed by the dragon or crocodile from ancient egypt

a reply to: newnature1

All of the human race are in need of a justification that will come totally apart from anything that they do.

Actually no. The human species is not in need of justification. It is the fictional biblical god that needs justification for his sins against humanity. Namely, for intentionally engineering the "fall" of humankind in the garden.

Not that I believe any of it, but from a Christian perspective, it is god himself that is guilty of sin, and in need of forgiveness. Not those he created.

As you rightly say, understanding Christology is all about getting the balance right.

I had to tackle the question from three different angles;

God and man; The meaning of Incarnation

The Word became flesh

Jesus is a man

(The Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian definition are the standard consensus for the bulk of the church, outside the Middle East survivors and modern Unitarians.
The separating out of modern denominations has come from other issues.)

The Gift is free, but you do have to claim it.

Not according to the new Apostle Nicene, looks like God allowed him to write a Creed. Thanks for the free gift, a gift with a condition.

a reply to: newnature1
That first sentence is obscure. Can you clarify?

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
The Gift is free, but you do have to claim it.

It is free, but it can be revoked at any time for any reason, and the appealing process is a real bugger.