Featured A Penal Substitution Theory Interpretation

First of all, I do not dismiss the New Birth as symbolic as you very well know.
Secondly, God justifies the ungodly, and He does that through the blood of Christ. 'By the blood of Your covenant I have set forth Your prisoners out of the pit where there is no water.' 'He shall see the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied. By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.' Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.'

I believe that God justifies the ungodly and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 'Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath by Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled by the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.'

It certainly does say that, but you are conflating justification and sanctification. God justifies the ungodly when they repent and trust in Christ, but He doesn't leave them that way; one of the great works of the Holy Spirit is to re-write God's righteous laws in us, 'Not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone, but in tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.'

But our repentance, our sanctification, our good works, will not avail us at the judgment, because they are all flawed and incomplete. Nothing but the blood of Christ, shed for sinners on the cross will avail us on that day (Romans 7:24-8:1).. However, if there is no repentance, no sanctification or good works, that is an indication that Christ has not died for us, we have not been justified and we are still in our sins. In that respect, the wicked will certainly not enter the kingdom of God.

 

Absolutely men must be reborn
It is not possible that God should become unjust, but nonetheless, God justifies the ungodly, whether you like it or not. And when He does so, a man's faith is accounted to him for righteousness (Romans 4:5).

The Apostle Peter testifies that God 'judges justly (1 Peter 2:23) and in the very next verse declares that Christ 'bore our sins.' And Paul, in Romans 3:25 declares that setting forth Christ as a propitiation was a demonstration of God's righteousness, not a violation of it.

Now what I suggest is that you go and lie down in a darkened room for a while; You are becoming overwrought. Then, if you are interested, we can explore how this apparent contradiction can be.

 

I believe that I have answered this question several times already, but because, in spite of everything, I love you and want to help you, I will expand on the answers I have given and spent a bit of time on it.

Let’s look at a couple of texts in Paul and then at our Lord’s comments on the ‘sinful woman’ in Luke 7:36-50. Paul first:

1 Corinthians 15:3. ‘For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.’

Romans 5:8. ‘But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’

So immediately we can see that Christ died for sins, and that He died for sinners. I see nowhere that Paul makes a difference between them.

Now on to Luke 7:36-50. Verse 47. “Therefore I say to you that her sins, which are many are forgiven.” Here it is the sins that are forgiven, not the woman. But in verse 50: ‘Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”’ It is the woman who is saved (by her faith, please note, not by her love or by her actions), not her sins.

Of course, sins, being inanimate, cannot really be forgiven or saved, can they? It is people who are in need of forgiveness and salvation. So why does Paul speak of Christ dying for our sins and why does the Lord Jesus speak of sins being forgiven?

The reason is, of course, that they both see no difference between them. They are using a figure of speech called a Metonymy (@John of Japan is the resident expert on these matters; he will tell us whether I have the right figure). So what’s a metonymy? It is a figure of speech where on word or phrase is used instead of another that is related to it. ‘It indicates such relations as cause and effect, progenitor and posterity, subject and attribute, sign and thing signified’ (Louis Berkhoff, Principles of Biblical Interpretation; Baker Book House, my edition, 1994). Also material and immaterial. So in 1 Thessalonians 5:19, Paul says, ‘Do not quench the Spirit.’ The Spirit Himself is not quenchable; Paul is speaking of the ministrations of the Spirit in our hearts. When Abraham says, “They have Moses and the prophets,” he means that they have their writings, not the people themselves who are long dead. In Isaiah 22:22, the ‘Key of the house of David’ refers not to a Yale lock, but to authority over the royal house. When Luke informs us in Acts of the Apostles 27:37 that there were 276 ‘souls’ on board the ship, he does not mean that they were all disembodied spirits!

So when Paul or Christ speaks of Him dying for sins, it means the same as Him dying for sinners. What is meant is this: that God has given to the Lord Jesus a vast (Revelation 8:9) number of sinners and He has lived the life of perfect obedience to the Father that they have not lived, and paid the penalty due for the sins of each one of them in full. So when God looks, as Judge, at these sinners, He sees only the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus. As Father, of course, He still sees our failings and lovingly corrects them (Hebrews 12:6).

 

I don't think so.

Unrepentant, unbelieving sinners will certainly perish, but the only people in heaven will be sinners - those who have been 'washed ....sanctified ... justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.' Some of those will have been exceptionally wicked. To quote Wink Martindale, "I know; I was that man."

 

Works for me. "metonymy...Figure of speech in which a word or expression normally or strictly used of one thing is used of something physically or otherwise associated with it" (P. H. Matthews, Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics, 244).

 

Well. If the sinner died for his own sins his soul would perish forever. Christ's soul died on the cross for a moment in time for everyone. So yes, there is that difference.

 

How that theory is unBiblical needs to be qualified. What I had stated was not confusing anything, but pointing out a true distinction.

Also those believers whole are alive when Christ returns will have never had seen for themselves the physical death.

 

Without specifics, it is just meaningless rhetoric.

 

Do you see Justification as a one time event, happening very moment one receives Jesus as lord thru faith alone?

 

The soul that sins must taste death, and we are all accountable and guilty to God for all sins, so who paid for them?

 

If He does so without Christ satisfying His justice, He is justifying the wicked which is an abomination to Him.

God punishes sin; Christ was the sin-bearer. 1 Peter 2:24; Isaiah 53:10.

Agreed.

Yes they are. Isaiah 53:6.

I will reply to your post #68 as and when I have time.[/QUOTE]

 

What of that is not in the following? Mark 10:45. Isaiah 53:6. Romans 5:8. 1 Corinthians 15:3. Galatians 3:13. And any others that do cover what Jesus did as the Christ. The distinctions really need to be made.