Not By Works

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Apr 2, 2020
1,144
425
83
Samson carrying away the gates of Gaza on his shoulders
blood sprinkled on the mercy seat
God providing a Lamb for Isaac's place
the LORD God making coverings for Adam & his wife


but you call it blasphemy, i take it?
and you say, this is something only a few hundred years old?
None of those things have to do with being punished. Isaac was not to be a sacrifice because of his sins, blood on the mercy seat did not remove guilt. If you're willing to have an innocent man suffer rather than accepting your own culpability, I'd call that wickedness.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,672
13,131
113
And it's sad that you think nobody understood grace until Martin Luther.

Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225): In short, faith in one of two gods cannot possibly admit us to the dispensation of the other, so that it should impute righteousness to those who believe in him, and make the just live through him, and declare the Gentiles to be his children through faith. Such a dispensation as this belongs wholly to Him through whose appointment it was already made known by the call of this self-same Abraham, as is conclusively shown by the natural meaning. Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book 5, Chapter 3
 
Apr 2, 2020
1,144
425
83
So you agree that righteousness comes by faith in Christ... is this a process then since you do not believe it is imputed at the moment of faith?
You're using theologically loaded words. Righteousness is accounted to us the moment we repent and place our faith in Christ.
 
Apr 2, 2020
1,144
425
83
Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225): In short, faith in one of two gods cannot possibly admit us to the dispensation of the other, so that it should impute righteousness to those who believe in him, and make the just live through him, and declare the Gentiles to be his children through faith. Such a dispensation as this belongs wholly to Him through whose appointment it was already made known by the call of this self-same Abraham, as is conclusively shown by the natural meaning. Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book 5, Chapter 3
Ooo you've read someone prior to Augustine and cherry picked both the person and the quote. Tertullian is heterodox for multiple reasons, this being one of them.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,672
13,131
113
If you're willing to have an innocent man suffer rather than accepting your own culpability, I'd call that wickedness.
you are grossly mischaracterizing the character of Christ dying for our sins. it is precisely those who believe Him, accepting their own culpability, whose sins He bore.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,672
13,131
113
Ooo you've read someone prior to Augustine and cherry picked both the person and the quote. Tertullian is heterodox for multiple reasons, this being one of them.
no, i have demonstrated that the concept of imputed righteousness is present in extra-scriptural Christian theology long before Luther.

because you implied it wasn't.

that is all.



((and you attacked the messenger))
 
Apr 2, 2020
1,144
425
83
you are grossly mischaracterizing the character of Christ dying for our sins. it is precisely those who believe Him, accepting their own culpability, whose sins He bore.
So by believing that God would take the guilt that you have accrued and lash it out on Christ on the cross, that's accepting your culpability?
 
E

EleventhHour

Guest
You're using theologically loaded words. Righteousness is accounted to us the moment we repent and place our faith in Christ.
I agree.. what is the difference between accounted and imputed?

What is repent though... let us make sure we have clearly defined terms?
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,672
13,131
113
None of those things have to do with being punished.
i don't think you understand the types i mentioned.
they have to do with a penalty being removed -- why then would they have to do with punishment?


perhaps you are not aware that i do not believe God forsook Himself on the cross?
 
Apr 2, 2020
1,144
425
83
I agree

What is repent though... let us make sure we have clearly defined terms?
A change of mind. A recognition that the path we're on leads to destruction and the only way to not get there is by following Christ in obedience. A recognition that in our hearts we would in fact condemn an innocent man if it meant saving ourselves.
 
Apr 2, 2020
1,144
425
83
i don't think you understand the types i mentioned.
they have to do with a penalty being removed -- why then would they have to do with punishment?


perhaps you are not aware that i do not believe God forsook Himself on the cross?
I think we're speaking the same language, but recognizing different things. My issue is not with a legal substitution, it is with the idea that the exact measure of my guilt was placed upon Him. It was because of my sin, but I don't see God's wrath anywhere on calvary.
 
E

EleventhHour

Guest
A change of mind. A recognition that the path we're on leads to destruction and the only way to not get there is by following Christ in obedience. A recognition that in our hearts we would in fact condemn an innocent man if it meant saving ourselves.
I would agree with this I think... not sure where the contention is I would have to go back and read.

So what is the difference between imputed and accounted to us?
 

Lightskin

Well-known member
Aug 16, 2019
3,165
3,665
113
Ooo you've read someone prior to Augustine and cherry picked both the person and the quote. Tertullian is heterodox for multiple reasons, this being one of them.
Translation:
he’s impressed with you, Posthuman.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,672
13,131
113
So by believing that God would take the guilt that you have accrued and lash it out on Christ on the cross, that's accepting your culpability?
no

by believing that the rod of Moses devoured the serpents of Pharaoh's sorcerers, so that they were contained within it.
by believing that Noah was inside the ark, sealed inside and out with atonement, which door God Himself shut.
by believing that the Ministry of Condemnation engraved in stone was contained within the wood of the ark which testifies, covered with gold, under the seat of mercy in which is the presence of God, sprinkled with blood.
by believing that God Himself was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet without sin. that He picked up my burden, like the gates of the wicked city, and carried it away, as tho to Hebron, on His shoulder.


by believing west is far from east, and the bottom of the sea is practically inaccessible.

as i said, i am not one of those who think God denied God in order to absolve us. He cannot deny Himself.
He made an immovable object, and He moved it.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,672
13,131
113
I think we're speaking the same language, but recognizing different things. My issue is not with a legal substitution, it is with the idea that the exact measure of my guilt was placed upon Him. It was because of my sin, but I don't see God's wrath anywhere on calvary.
the verse says, "we esteemed Him stricken"
it doesn't say He was stricken. it says we thought it looked like He was


maybe we're on the same page, actually :)
i understand you assuming i agree with the majority position on this topic, but it turns out, i don't ;)

i believe He bore my sin. that isn't equivalent to i believe He is God, and that when He sang Psalm 22, He was speaking as the Son of Man, as Israel -- as a sign to Israel, of what they thought vs. what is reality. towards the end of Psalm 22, it is written, "He has not hidden His face from them" -- rather, He held out His hands all day to them, but they would not. they thought, God has forsaken us, but He was right there, at the door, the whole time.

by His knowledge shall The Righteous One, My Servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and He shall bear their iniquities.
(Isaiah 53:11)

this says i am accounted righteous by His knowledge -- isn't that imputed righteousness?
 
Apr 2, 2020
1,144
425
83
I would agree with this I think... not sure where the contention is I would have to go back and read.

So what is the difference between imputed and accounted to us?
Imputation implies that it is Christ's actual righteousness that God counts on our behalf. Accounted means God counts something that is not yet a reality but will be. We are accounted righteous because to God the process is complete, but it is still a process for us. We still learn the ways of righteousness and as we walk we become righteous in fact. Of course, we'll never get there until the end.
 
Apr 2, 2020
1,144
425
83
the verse says, "we esteemed Him stricken"
it doesn't say He was stricken. it says we thought it looked like He was



maybe we're on the same page, actually :)
i understand you assuming i agree with the majority position on this topic, but it turns out, i don't ;)
i believe He bore my sin. that isn't equivalent to i believe He is God, and that when He sang Psalm 22, He was speaking as the Son of Man, as Israel -- as a sign to Israel, of what they thought vs. what is reality. towards the end of Psalm 22, it is written, "
He has not hidden His face from them" -- rather, He held out His hands all day to them, but they would not. they thought, God has forsaken us, but He was right there, at the door, the whole time.


by His knowledge shall The Righteous One, My Servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and He shall bear their iniquities.
(Isaiah 53:11)
this says i am accounted righteous by His knowledge -- isn't that imputed righteousness?
It could be said to be imputation, but my quibble is with what it is being imputed. It seems to me the righteousness accounted to us is our as-of-yet unrealized righteousness rather than Christ's earnings on the cross. The final result of the process of us becoming who God intended us to be. We are hid in Christ so that He may refine us.