No, I won't open another thread, but thanks for the invite. Going to have to leave here soon again, because I am spending time I don't have, so I will just deal with the ongoing discussions I see as profitable.
I will just address your post on one point, then I will bow out of this thread:
The "estrangement" actually has another pre-supposition I'm wondering if you are fully contemplating: that there was a previous relationship from which the two parties become estranged. The lack of relationship men are born into with God does not echo the estrangement of Philemon and Onesimus. In that relationship there was a master slave relationship, not so with men when they are born into the world. The "reconciliation goes back to the relationship shared between God and His creation, Adam, which was lost.
Secondly, on this point, and I am not trying to be offensive here, I think you minimalize the Gospel by implying that repentance contributes to the salvation of the individual. That repentance, in my view, is just one of the several things God effects, rather than man patting himself on the back and saying "I repented, thus I was saved."
Don't take that the wrong way, it is just worded to illustrate why I disagree with this in relation to your statement.
The truth is that salvation, as a whole, is wholly the Work of Holy God. The debate between Arminians and Calvinists could end, after so many centuries, if they would simply acknowledge that man plays no part in salvation, but that he is indebted wholly to the intervention of God. To illustrate, consider this scenario: you are sleepwalking, walk into a lake, and in your dream you are an Olympic swimmer winning the gold. Suddenly you hear a voice saying "wake up, wake up! You're drowning!" You come to your senses, understand your condition, and desperately grab the hand of the one calling to you.
Do you get out of the water and say "I repented of my actions?" No, that's not even a question, you simply acknowledge that your condition was one in which you were dying, and apart from that intervention you would have...died.
So too with repentance, God creates that response simply by awakening us, that is, enlightening us to our condition. Repentance is a given because before that repentance occurs there is the recognition of the reality of the peril you are in.
Now, we go back to salvation, and again we recognize that we do not contribute the first element which actually saves us. God does.
Now we go back to reconciliation, and we recognize that it is God Who does the reconciling...alone. Not because we did something that merited being reconciled, but because He chose to save us.
Hope that makes sense, brother, and that is my last post in this thread. As I said before, I may be wrong, but you two are closer than I think either of you care to admit.
God bless.
