Reconciled to God while enemies !
- Thread starter Brightfame52
- Start date
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!