Featured Christ being made sin Volume 2

Correction - tetelestai does not mean "paid in full". It means "It is finished" or "it is completed".

It was used when associated with a debt to mean it (the debt) is finished (paid, no longer a debt).

If you are paying a debt you can use tetelestai to indicate the debt is finished.

If you are running a marathon you can use tetelestai to indicate you have accomplished the marathon.

If you are climbing a mountain you can use tetelestai to indicate you made it to the top.

The reason some insist tetelestai means "paid in full" is called eisegesis. Rather than arguing their position they read it into the actual text.

That is a danger inherent when we allow tradition to drive our understanding of the Bible (when we lean on our own understanding rather than God's words). Ultimately we end up actually changing and adding to Scripture.

 

No, there isn't Purgatory.

My point is the word does not mean "paid in full'. When written on a certificate it means the certificate is no longer in force.

If a certificate of debt then the certificate of debt is finished. It could be paid in full. It could be forgiven. It could be a nontransferable debt to a creditor who passed. Whatever the reason the debt is finished.

My point was that your post was inaccurate as you made assumptions based on your theories that were simply not true.

Christianity, for almost two thousand years before your tradition of faith was created, did not hold your view of the Cross. Many did believe in Purgatory. But many did not.

The Early Church held a view that contradicted your tradition. They viewed Christ as dying for the "whole human family", yet prior to conversion men remained in their sins. They also did not believe in Purgatory.

Anabaptists did not hold your tradition, and they rejected the idea of Purgatory.

Even earlier Catholics held neither your view or the doctrine of Purgatory.

Your "either or" argument is a fallacy.

 

I don't know how sour grapes smell. I always thought they were simply unripe grapes.

All I am saying is you are offering a false premise ("either-or fallacy).

You defined tetelestai based on tradition rather than the actual definition of the word. Then you presented Purgatory as the alternate view.

But your faith is relatively new, and developed from 15th Century Roman Catholic faith.

You assume that Christ died to pay a debt of sin. That is not biblical. Biblically, Christ's death purchased us. Biblically Christ died for our sins. But your form that f "Christianity" adds to Scripture.

As you hold to a reformed Roman Catholic faith I understand thinking that RCC doctrine is the only alternative. What you miss is the fact that Christianity did not begin with the RCC. And Christianity existed throughout history apart from the RCC.

 

No, this is not true. I understand that advocates of the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement see the theory in every early comment and under every rock. But the fact is it did not exist until the 16th century.

I commented on the mentality you exhibit before. You see a writer say "Christ bore our sins, died the death we deserve" and claim that is the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement.

That is willful ignorance. You cannot provide one Early Church writer stating Christ was punished instead of us being punished, much less with our punishment. You can't find one early writer stating God punished Jesus with the punishment intended for our sins

What you do is tout things we Christians all agree upon in early writings as proof that what we do not agree upon us there, when it obviously isn't.

That is the problem with indoctrination into human tradition. You automatically see what is not there, a fate worse than blindness.

If you doubt this then PROVE your position by providing statements FROM the Early Church (NOT Penal Substitution theorists evaluating what they might have thought).

Give us a statement from the Early Church that God punished Jesus instead of us,. BETTER YET, give us one from the Bible.

You can't because such statements do not exist. The Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement is nothing but a reworking of the Roman Catholic view of the Cross. You are a reformed Roman Catholic.

 

??? Yes. I believe that Christ died for our sins. I believe He is the Propitiation for the sins of the World (although I agree with F.F. Bruce that translating the word as "propitiation" is too narrow, that it includes propitiation but is really a bit broader). I believe God was pleased to crush Him and God laid out iniquities in Him, that Christ bore our sins bodily, that He shared our infirmary, was made sin, became a curse for us and by His stripes we are healed. I believe it is in Christ that we escape the wrath to come.

The Early Church believed all of those things as well.

That is what I mean by people taking common Christian belief and saying it proves something entirely different.

But I no longer believe that God punished Jesus, that God poured out His wrath in Jesus instead of pouring it out on us.

Penal Substitution theorists like to point to passages Penal Substitution Theory uses to say anybody who believes those passages also accepts their additions to Scripture.


Yes - you can find advocates of both arguments. A few decades ago you could not (people recognized the development of the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement). I think the movement towards whitewashing history is linked with challenges to the theory from within Reformed Churches (people desiring a more biblical approach).

But it does not matter what we can find insofar as opinions on the internet. You can also find the actual writings of the Early Church Fathers. I have read the link @AustinC provided (as well as a poorly researched book claiming much the same). But I also looked up and read the materials actually sourced by those people. What they did was extract portions of text, take comments out of context, and add to them ideas they do not actually express. That is intellectually dishonest, and I can have no respect for that type of "scholarship".

 

No, and that's my point. The Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement does hold those things in the first paragraph as true, but do does all other theories and views of the Atonement (including the view of the Early Church).

The things I do not believe don't contradict what I said I do believe. That is my point. Penal Substitution theorists day Justin Martyr held Penal Substitution Theory based on his affirmation what I affirmed. But if you read his writings you will find he also rejected what I rejected (same with all of the Early Church writings).

What Penal Substitution theorists would do is present that first paragraph, ignore the other, and claim I affirm Penal Substitution Theory. But I don't.

So ask yourself how all of Christianity affirmed that first paragraph while most of Christianity rejected the Penal Substitution Theory. Once you understand what they believed and why their belief contradicted Penal Substitution Theory then you will be able to at least see those paragraphs do not contradict one another.


You are right that you don't have to be a Calvinist to believe Penal Substitution Theory correct. Covenant Theology, Dispensationalism, and Penal Substitution Theory are all Calvinistic doctrines that spread out to influence other faiths.