Commonality and Antithesis

What accounts for cultural commonality between pagans and Christians in a given culture existing alongside the fundamental antithesis that the Bible teaches is between Christians and pagans?

Some posit the answer of Natural law. Natural law, so it is claimed, can be accessed by pagans and so allows pagans to operate with a proper sense of ought-ness to civil realm realities. However, such an answer misses the reality that Natural law, while being something that genuinely exists, can not be read aright except that Special revelation be, at some level, assumed. The pagan may get some things right and some might even credit that getting of some things right to Natural law, but the thing to remember is that those who want to credit that the pagan gets civil things right can’t account for how it is that a pagan who is beginning with autonomous self as their ultimate beginning point can get things right via Natural law.

The answer for the issue of commonality existing alongside the idea of the biblical antithesis is that both that the pagans have not yet worked out the implications of their Christ hating worldview — retaining yet stolen capital from the Christians worldview in their worldview — AND the Christian likewise has not yet worked out the implications of their Christ honoring worldview, retaining yet impurity in their thinking that allows accommodation and commonality with their pagan neighbor on matters that they ought not to be accommodating upon and where no commonality should exist. As time goes by and as people (Christians and pagans alike) work out the implications of their respective worldviews the result will be that the commonality decreases as the antithesis increases.

The fact that commonality exists is accounted for, not by Natural law, but rather by both Christians and pagans living together in the twilight of their inconsistencies.

Was It Possible For Jesus To Give In To Temptation & Sin?

Recently, in a formal setting among Pastors someone threw out the question of whether or not Jesus could have sinned. Now, I had always been trained that Jesus could not have sinned though the temptation remained very real. However, the answer that was thrown out and affirmed is that Jesus could have sinned. Inwardly, I groaned at this affirmation and since that meeting I have gone back and double checked my training.

In double checking my training I learned that Charles Hodge (he of Princeton fame) believed that Jesus could have sinned. Hodge reasoned that the temptation to sin assumes the possibility to sin. I don’t agree with Hodge but in reading someone as illustrious as Hodge I realized that the idea that Jesus could have sinned was not as obviously muddleheaded as I had thought. I mean … if Hodge can make this kind of mistake then it is understandable that lesser mortals could make it as well.

The refutation of Hodge is really quite simple though the refutation probably opens up more questions. The refutation to Hodge is that since Jesus didn’t sin, Jesus couldn’t have sinned since the not sinning of Jesus demonstrates that Jesus was predestined not to sin. In retrospect no action of any being could have been other than what that action was after the fact for the action, after the fact, belongs to God’s decretal ordering.

I suppose, at this point it is possible for someone to now ask, “Could God have decreed Jesus to sin, thus resulting in Jesus sinning (?) Even here though we run into the reality that as God is both a eternal and necessary being, therefore all of God’s actions, including His decrees, are likewise eternal and necessary. In short, since God is eternal and there never was a time when He wasn’t it is also true that God’s decrees are likewise eternal having the same quality of eternality of God. This explains why we refer to the decrees as “The eternal decrees of God.”

There is a problem though in the presupposition of an affirmative answer to the question,could Jesus have sinned, and that problem is that such an affirmation seems to presuppose the non-Reformed premise that choices that were made, were not made by necessity. This introduces the non-Reformed notion of absolute contingency which suggest that decisions made or actions taken could have been other than they were.

However, the question can also be addressed from another angle. When we talk about the person of Jesus Christ we must take into consideration the question of the properties of His person-hood. Any hypothetical actions of Jesus Christ that we consider, can not be such that those actions violated the properties of his person-hood.

If we were to talk about hypothetical things that I might or might not do we could come up with any number of examples of things I might have done that I didn’t do. However, all of these examples of things I might have done that I didn’t do must remain consistent with the properties of my human person-hood. I might have decided to become a body-builder but I could not have decided to become a insect. (Insert favorite insult here.)

When we consider the person of Jesus Christ and the issue of sin, we have to say again, contrary to Hodge, that Jesus could not have chosen to sin for the same reason I could not choose to be an insect. Both Jesus Christ and I could not make those decision because to make those decisions would be a violation of the property of our person-hood. For myself, humans do not have the ability to become insects and for Jesus Christ — a person with a divine nature — God-Men do not have the ability to sin. Jesus Christ, being very God of very God, had a impeccable and immutable divine nature as a property of His person and as such He could not act in any way that would be contrary to that property.

The implications of this are clear. Jesus could choose to do all things that humans do save those things that humans choose to do that are inconsistent with divinity. Humans who do not have a divine nature choose to sin but a Human who has a divine nature cannot choose to sin.

Now the question that begs being asked is, If Jesus couldn’t sin, then was His temptation really temptation(?) The answer to that question is, “yes.” If our success, as redeemed fallen humans, to occasionally resist temptation, does not negate the reality of the temptation that we occasionally resist then why would Jesus’ always resisting temptation all the time negate the reality of the temptation with which He was presented? Success in resisting temptation does not negate the reality of temptation.

Also, we have to keep in mind at this point, and on this issue, that not only was Jesus divine but also touching His humanity, having no sin nature, He had no inclination to sin.

Hat Tip — Ron DiGiacomo

http://reformedapologist.blogspot.com/2006/09/could-jesus-have-sinned.html

A Law Quote A Day Keeps The R2Kt Virus Away

“For the blasphemous and seditious Heretics, both Lutherans and others of the Reformed Churches do agree that they may be punished capitally, that is for their blasphemy of sedition; but the Socinian stands out here also, and denies it; alleging that the punishment of false Prophets in the Old Testament was speciali jure but by special law granted to the Israelites, and therefore you must not look (saith the Socinian) into the Old Testament for a rule proceeding against false Prophets and blasphemers: Nor (saith Calvin and Catharinus) can you find in the New Testament any precept for punishment of Thieves, Traitors, Adulterers, Witches, Murderers and the like, and yet they may, or at least some of them be capitally punished: for the Gospel destroys not the just laws of civil policy or Commonwealths.”

Richard Vines — English Puritan
The Authors, Nature, and Danger of Heresy
Laid open in a sermon preached before the honorable house of Commons…March – 1646 – pp. 64

I wonder what the difference would be between the R2K lads when they talk about their “intrusion ethic” making the case law of no effect today and the Socinian lads when they talked about their speciali jure making the case law of no effect during their time?

Whatever difference there actually is, Richard Vines dealt with the Socianians who insisted that the Old Testament case law was not applicable to civil policy.

A Law Quote A Day Keeps The R2Kt Virus Away

“There were three laws among the Jews,the Ceremonial, Judicial, and Moral law. I suppose the Judicial Law as to pains of it, was a fence and guard to the Ceremonial and Moral Law. [In the first place] the [Judicial] law doth aim at obedience to it, and in the second place [at] punishment to its disobedience. I conceive the punishment [for infringement] of the Ceremonial law was not [part] of the law itself, but [a fence] of the purity of the Jews and the punishment [for infringement] of the Moral Law was not part of the Moral law, [but a fence to it]. So far as the Judicial [law] was a fence and outwork to the ceremonial law [it] is fallen with the ceremonial law. So far as it was an outwork of the Moral law it stands with the moral law, and that still binds upon men. So [that part] of the Judicial law was a fence to that, is still the duty of the magistrates.”

Thomas Gilbert — 17th Century Puritan
Puritanism And Liberty
Being The Army Debates

Clearly, quite contrary to R2K, the Puritans believed that there were aspects of the Judicial law which were binding upon the magistrates. When the R2K lads scream, concerning the judicial law, “expired … expired … expired,” they are being the novices and are offering up sui generis readings of Reformed Historical theology.

A Law Quote A Day Keeps The R2Kt Virus Away

“Though we have clear and full scriptures in the New Testament of the abolishing the ceremonial law, yet we no where read in all the New Testament of the abolishing of the judicial law, so far as it did concern the punishing of sins against the moral law, of which heresy and seducing of souls is one, and a great one. Once God did reveal his will for punishing those sins by such and such punishments. He who will hold that the Christian Magistrate is not bound to inflict such punishments for such sins, is bound to prove that those former laws of God are abolished, and show some Scripture for it.”

George Gillespie — Westminster Divine
Wholesome Severity Reconciled With Christian Liberty

Westminster Divine, Gillespie, would never have tolerated a hermeneutic that insists that case law can be expunged from the Christian conscience by chanting “expired.”