Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Trinitarian view of Romans 5

Here I most likely digress from traditional modern day evangelical teaching, and very possibly from the theology of The Shack. I reject much of both Arminianism and Calvinist theology as I think they both do disservice to the true nature of God. My thoughts here are partially based in Trinitarian theology and biased by the the belief that I believe Jesus successfully accomplished His mission. Many think His mission was simply to present an offer of life in Him (and all that goes with it). I believe He accomplished the undoing of Adam (and all that goes with that) via His actions.

We did not individually make a choice in Adam to condemn ourselves, only Adam did that. Our free will was violated in that all succeeding generations inherited both physical and spiritual death until the cross event. We did not need to accept or even have knowledge of Adam to receive his "curse".

Rom 5:18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.


In my opinion there is no rational way to interpret Rom 5 other then because of His sacrifice everyone was justified and made righteous at the time of the Cross event. You cannot change the meaning of "all" and the inclusiveness of "the many” in mid-sentence without violating the Greek meanings. And to choose to do so denigrates the accomplishments of His sacrifice. Paul clearly states that the sacrifice of Jesus was more
successful at imputing righteousness than Adams sin was at imputing condemnation in Romans 5.

I believe that while we are all made righteous by His action and His grace the problem is that most people do not know it so they live their lives thinking they are separated and unloved. Their perception causes them to stumble around in darkness and pain causing even more darkness and pain to themselves and others.

So to me the question is how we spread the truth that God loves everyone unconditionally so that they do not need to live their lives thinking they are separated from God for sin that has been dealt with 2000 years ago.

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