Reconciled to God while enemies !
- Thread starter Brightfame52
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KingJ
Loyal
I gave you a long list of "known" child killers not adulterers.An 11 year old can be an adulterer?
There are an even longer list of children who killed other children and we just never find out.
Same as with adults. right now there's a house of horrors in philidelphia in the news. the youtube comments are interesting. everyone knew.... over 1 million images have been recovered with 56 women so far identified, at least half of which are alive and are not talking to the cops.
anyhow, point is, there is real evil people in this world who God will destroy body and soul in hell.
now as for child adulterers:
yes, but its different. its usually not directly sexual at that age yet but there are girls, and boys, who become infatuated with witchcraft and spiritual contracts, and i was caught in such a snare when i was 6.
in my case she was 13. and then found me again 18 years later to try again. turns out she was married (legally speaking) at the time, which explains why i was warned not to... you know what.
its "interesting" to me she was 13, the jewish traditional age of consent.
There's a number of other "interesting" components to my own story which is one of the reasons why i continue to hold out hope she does repent. -i've lost a number of friends in real life because they can't imagine that.
I do not believe there is an age of consent for men, i uh, "knew" what i was doing when i made covenants with her when i was 6. and i did keep them, i had no relationship with anyone until we met again, as she had told me she would return. -her on the other hand. lets just say, you can read a similar story in Jericho.
I had a gf briefly in 2017, this past year i tried interceding for her (she was known to be pagan but was raised catholic). i was informed she blasphemed the Holy Spirit in her incantations, and there's no repentance for her.
Brad Huber
Loyal
How old was lizzy borden? Just curious, turns out she was in her 30's, and surprisingly it was a hand axe, not a full size ax, and it was 19 blows to the head of the STEP mother, and the next morning 10 blows to the head of the father. She wasnt ever convicted though, not enough evidence, but many were sure that she had done it. Never knew the true story behind the rhyme.An 11 year old can be an adulterer?
i distinctly recall a conversation with my sister when i was about 12 (she was 10). she tried to have a conversation with me about suing our parents. i didn't know what she was talking about so that's about as far as it went. i'm not sure she remembers that conversation either today (28 years later)
while lizzy was a classic case of a lot of things gone wrong...
for every lizzy there are likely a thousand cases where "everybody knows" and they did nothing. its just nobody did something physically illegal, and got caught... (it takes both)
I still get a kick out of my mom asking my dad at the dinner table, cold, out of the blue, spontaneously:
"do you feel like God has entered into judgement against you?"
--- "can we not talk about that please?"
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getting back to this original conundrum
there is an "IF" clause in Paul's argument that i disagree with. either you/we are, or weren't. there is no "what if"
so when you get to the second half of the sentence "much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life"
"much more" refers to a prior argument or context that is the original prevailing argument to justify Paul's declaration that we are being reconciled. (with his "if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son" as a supporting theological idea)
then comes the conclusion, we shall be saved (in the future) by his life.
and that's also a point of contention. is it Christ's life, or was it his death that saved us? -and when did that happen? or did it?
Brightfame52
Active
We do believe and preach that every Justified and or Reconciled sinner before God, and that solely premised upon His Death and or Blood as Per Rom 5:9-10, that sometime in their sinful physical lifetime that they shall receive a actual Spiritual Application of Justification and their Imputed Righteousness whereby they will receive a knowledge of it by Faith ! 1
Brightfame52
Active
Joestue,
Your objection reveals a common misunderstanding of both Pauline syntax and the systematic timeline of redemption. You are viewing the word "if" as a modern expression of doubt ("what if?") and driving a wedge between Christ’s death and His life as competing causes of salvation.
When analyzed under a strict forensic lens, your conundrum completely disappears. Let's break down exactly what Paul is establishing in Romans 5:10:
1. The "If" Is an Argument from the Greater to the Lesser
You state that there is no room for a "what if" because either we are or we weren't reconciled. You are entirely correct that there is no room for uncertainty, but that is because Paul is not using an uncertain "if."
In Greek grammar, this is another First-Class Condition. The particle εἰ (ei) with the indicative verb means the premise is assumed to be an absolute, undeniable fact. It is properly translated as "Since" or "In view of the fact that."
Paul is laying down a legal argument from the greater difficulty to the lesser difficulty:
- The Greater Work: Since indeed, when we were historical enemies and rebels, Christ accomplished the massive judicial work of reconciling us to a Holy God by His death (Phase II - Legal Phase).
- The Lesser Work: Much more now, since that legal barrier has been totally smashed and we stand judicially reconciled, it is an absolute certainty that we shall be saved by His life.
You ask whether it was His death or His life that saved us, and when that happened. Within our High Calvinist framework, this is not an either/or contradiction; it is a beautiful, unfolding covenant timeline:
- The Price (His Death): We were legally and forensically saved from the penal consequences of our sin at the cross in 33 AD (Phase II - Legal). Christ's death fully satisfied Divine Justice and wiped our ledger clean.
- The Power (His Life): We are vitally quickened, preserved, and ultimately glorified by His resurrected life (Phase III - Vital and Phase V - Final).
3. "We Shall Be Saved" — The Certainty of the Future Tense
You highlight the future tense "we shall be saved." This future tense does not mean our salvation is hanging in mid-air, waiting to see if we perform well enough to activate a provisional offer.
Under our Amillennial framework, this future tense looks straight toward Phase V (The Final Phase) — Glorification at the final consummation of history. Our legal standing was finished at the cross; our vital regeneration happens in our historical lifetime; but our physical deliverance from this groaning creation and the reception of our ultimate heavenly inheritance will happen when Christ appears at the end of time to usher in the final state.
The Bottom Line: Christ's death legally secured the ledger, and His resurrected life ensures the total, historical delivery of the property He purchased. There is no conundrum. The cross was an objective success, the tomb is empty, and the final glorification of the corporate body of Christ is a legally locked-in certainty.
Unfortunately the English translations of pauls letters are full of this kind of thing. to the point i gave up trying to solve these classical problems that split the christian faith, because you can make paul's letters say anything you want, from a select elect chosen before the foundation of the world, to Universalism where the whole world is redeemed with the exception of only one person, judas (becuase they dare not contradict Jesus to the degree required to say even Judas will be saved)
Brightfame52
Active
Joestue,
Your response abandons the field of exegesis out of sheer frustration, claiming that because English translations allow people to twist Paul's letters to say anything, the actual intent of the text is unknowable. You claim that one can textually prove anything from Particular Election to Universalism.
While it is true that human traditions can bend English sentences, your defeatism completely falls apart when we look at the strict, mathematical precision of the original Greek grammar and covenant theology. The text does not say "anything you want." It says one specific thing with absolute forensic clarity.
Let's address your skepticism directly:
1. Why the Greek Grammar Matters (Slaying the Twist)
You claim that you "gave up trying to solve these classical problems." But throwing your hands up in the air does not change the objective rules of language.
When I point out that εἰ (ei) with an indicative verb in Romans 5:10 sets up a First-Class Condition, I am not sharing a loose, subjective opinion. I am pointing to an immutable rule of Greek syntax. The Holy Spirit did not write the New Testament in modern English, where the word "if" implies a speculative "what if?" He inspired it in a language that possesses precise structural categories to distinguish between an open-ended conditional gamble and a rhetorical fact.
Paul uses a first-class condition to state: "Since indeed, when we were enemies, we were reconciled..." The text locks the premise down as an absolute fact. To say the text can mean anything you want is to ignore the actual vocabulary and syntax the author chose to employ.
2. Universalism vs. Particular Redemption: The Logical Filter
You claim that the letters can be used to prove Universalism just as easily as Election. But let’s apply a strict legal and textual filter to see why Universalism is an absolute structural impossibility in Paul’s theology.
If we look at 2 Corinthians 5:19—“God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them”—we have a definitive forensic statement.
- If "the world" means every individual human being without exception, then God is legally not imputing sin to anyone.
- If God is not imputing sin to anyone, then no one can be judicially condemned to hell, because a blank ledger leaves no basis for damnation.
3. The Unyielding Timeline of Truth
The reason the Christian faith appears "split" to you is because most commentators refuse to separate The Legal Phase (Phase II) from The Practical Phase (Phase IV) of salvation.
When you treat faith as a conditional performance that man must supply to activate an inert cross, you turn the Epistles into an unresolvable puzzle. But when you stand on a finished, objective forensic transaction—where Christ’s death legally cleared the account of His sheep in 33 AD, and His life-giving Spirit infallibly quickens them to believe the truth in time—every single piece of the Pauline puzzle locks perfectly into place.
The Bottom Line: Giving up on the text because human systems twist it is not an option for a witness of the truth. Paul's letters do not offer a choose-your-own-adventure contract; they proclaim a sovereign, unyielding covenant decree. The grammar is precise, the logic is air-tight, and the case remains forensically closed!
I would like to believe this is possible.
I don't know if you have seen my prior comments about this but with my wife being formerly trapped in Catholicism for most of her life, she taught herself enough Greek to quickly see that many English translations of Romans put English periods in the middle of prepositional phrases.
This is no small matter.
we're not talking about a few hundred million being decieved. but several billion.
if i can entertain your imagination for a moment:
consider this being Paul's upbringing. -ive heard lots of similar spiritual concepts to this day, and even conversed with the author of that website.
Paul then expands the jewish perspective of the elect only being those present at the giving of the law at mt saini..
basically God opens his eyes to see that every descendant of Adam was made in God's image. not just those at the time of the exodus via moses.
you might consider that webpage to be completely crack but all of his quotations of Paul made perfect sense to my youngest brother, who hasn't studied much of any religious material but has a zero nonsense perspective of life and had never read any of this kind of thing before. but we both grew up with the same dogmantic american prodestant dispensationalist isralyi first theology.
Brightfame52
Active
Joestue,
I sincerely appreciate the candor and vulnerability of this response. It takes real integrity to step back from the heat of a debate and lay out the background, baggage, and theological shifts that shape how we read the text.
Your wife’s observation about English translations inserting periods in the middle of Greek prepositional phrases is 100% correct, and it is a massive structural issue.
Paul’s letters—especially Romans and Ephesians—are famous for their massive, unbroken grammatical units (for instance, Ephesians 1:3-14 is one single, continuous sentence in the Greek text). When translators slice those up to fit modern English reading habits, they frequently tear clauses away from the governing verbs and nouns that define their legal boundaries. You are not wrong: when punctuation is arbitrary, billions can easily lose sight of the author's actual flow of thought.
But notice what this means: the problem is not that Paul's intent is unknowable. The problem is that human traditions filter him. When we strip back those English periods and look at the uninterrupted Greek, the precision returns.
Let's use that exact grammatical precision to look at the "Mashiach – The Second Adam" concept you brought forward, and filter it through a zero-nonsense perspective:
1. Breaking Free From Dispensationalism
You mentioned growing up in dogmatic American Protestant Dispensationalism ("Israel-First" theology). It makes complete sense why that website's perspective clicked for you and your brother. When you are taught for years that God has two separate peoples, two separate programs, and that the "elect" are strictly national Israel bound at Mt. Sinai, it is an absolute revelation to see Paul blow those walls down.
Paul’s great mystery is precisely that: the middle wall of partition is broken down (Ephesians 2:14). God’s covenant family is not defined by physical DNA from Abraham. The New Testament Church is the true Israel of God, fulfilled and gathered from every nation, kindred, and tongue. Paul absolutely expands the horizon.
2. The Legal Boundary of the Second Adam
However, when Paul parallels Adam and Christ (Mashiach) as the two representative heads of humanity in Romans 5, he is not preaching that every single individual descendant of Adam is automatically saved. He is laying down a strict law of Federal Headship—a legal mechanism.
Let’s look at the parallel without the artificial English periods:
- The First Adam: Who is ruined by the first Adam? Is it a loose, conditional offer of ruin? No. Every single human being represented by Adam (all his natural descendants) was forensically and inherently constituted a sinner by his single act of disobedience. His headship covers 100% of his legal sphere.
- The Second Adam (Christ): Who is justified by Christ? Paul defines the sphere of the Second Adam in Romans 5:17: "...they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ."
If Christ represents every single human being without exception in the exact same way Adam did, then Universalism is mandatory. If He died as the legal head of everyone, then every single human being must inherit eternal life, because a federal head cannot fail those he represents.
But as we know from the rest of Scripture, all are not saved. Therefore, Christ's federal headship cannot be identical in geographic scope to Adam's. Christ's headship is international (breaking the Jew/Gentile barrier), but it is particular (covering the elect world). He is the head of a new humanity—the chosen seed.
3. International Scope vs. Universal Inclusion
When God opened Paul's eyes, He didn't show him that every single individual is saved. He showed him that God's love and election are non-distinctional. It is no longer restricted to the Jews of the Exodus; it encompasses the Kosmos—the world internationally. [1]
When the gospel proclamation goes out, it doesn't stand outside waiting for a human variable to activate it. It comes in immediate power to those whom the Father has given to the Son, drawing them into a vital submission to the truth. [1, 2]
The Bottom Line:
You and your wife are entirely right to distrust the chopped-up syntax of modern English Bibles. But the cure for bad translation is not theological defeatism; it is a deeper dive into the unyielding legal mechanics of the text. Paul’s expansion of the covenant wasn't an open-ended endorsement of universal inclusion; it was the global declaration of a finished, particular, sovereign triumph. The grammar remains precise, the covenant headship is absolute, and the case remains forensically closed!
Brightfame52
Active
More on reconciliation !
One who has been legally reconciled to God by the Blood of Christ or to say by His Death Rom 5:10, even while being enemies and unbelievers, this reconciliation is also their Justification before God, simply because reconciliation legally denotes the non imputation of their sins unto them 2 Cor 5:19
19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
So , legal reconciliation and non imputation of sin go hand and hand, and that can be the case only if God does not reckon them to be lawbreakers, because of the Blood of Christ shed for them alone, for Christ's sake alone, God hath accepted their persons as Righteous, not for anything in them by Nature, nor wrought in them by New Birth or the Spirit, but while they are being enemies by nature, and not for anything done by them , but for Christ's Sake alone ! It is not because of any Gospel Obedience such as repenting and believing, but because also of imputing the Righteousness and Obedience of Christ unto them, and this also while they themselves are being enemies by nature as well as being ignorant of their own Justification, and Reconciliation to God, solely by the Death of Christ ! 2
One who has been legally reconciled to God by the Blood of Christ or to say by His Death Rom 5:10, even while being enemies and unbelievers, this reconciliation is also their Justification before God, simply because reconciliation legally denotes the non imputation of their sins unto them 2 Cor 5:19
19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
So , legal reconciliation and non imputation of sin go hand and hand, and that can be the case only if God does not reckon them to be lawbreakers, because of the Blood of Christ shed for them alone, for Christ's sake alone, God hath accepted their persons as Righteous, not for anything in them by Nature, nor wrought in them by New Birth or the Spirit, but while they are being enemies by nature, and not for anything done by them , but for Christ's Sake alone ! It is not because of any Gospel Obedience such as repenting and believing, but because also of imputing the Righteousness and Obedience of Christ unto them, and this also while they themselves are being enemies by nature as well as being ignorant of their own Justification, and Reconciliation to God, solely by the Death of Christ ! 2