Who is the One New Man Created on the Cross?

[Samie]

8 minutes ago, Samie said:

#1 tells us we were fashioned into the Body of Christ on the cross, hence we died when He died.

#2 tells us, being His Body, we were resurrected TOGETHER with Him, when He rose from the tomb.

#3 tells us, our holiness and perfection, is the result of what God has done for us.

Henceforth, we are to live for Him Who died for us and rose again.  This simply translates to overcoming evil with good. And overcomers will not be blotted out from the Book of Life.

We can easily see that from the above, we are in Christ because of what God through Christ has done for us on the cross.  And being in Christ, we are heaven-bound. It then follows that our being heaven-bound is the result of what God through Christ has done for us, NOT because we believed, as objectors to my position teach.  Believing, a human participatory act, is overcoming the evil of unbelief and is NOT the reason that prompted God to fashion us into the Body of His Son.

I believe that my position teaches a grace-based salvation. One that does not compromise free will, because people are free to choose to overcome evil with good or be overcome of evil. And overcomers will not be blotted out from the BOL. Believing - an act of one's mind - is exercising faith, and is simply overcoming the evil of unbelief.

Objectors to my position teach that people are made part of the Body of Christ and made spiritually alive when they believe. Grace diluted with human participation; smells like salvation by works.  What more, if one only becomes spiritually alive the moment he believes, then he was not made alive TOGETHER with Christ. And it appears, this is not what Scriptures say.

[Samie]

The IMPORTANCE of being made alive together with Christ:

Before we all were made spiritually alive TOGETHER with Christ when He resurrected, God did SOMETHING for all of us:

^NAS Colossians 2:13 And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions

 Yes, God made us alive TOGETHER with Christ, HAVING forgiven us ALL our transgressions!!! How many of our transgressions did God forgive on the cross? Scriptures say, All. Yes all, not a single sin remains unforgiven. Those made alive TOGETHER with Christ were forgiven from all sins. What love, what grace! Marvelous indeed!!!

 

^KJV Revelation 1:5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood

No wonder, Scriptures say our holiness and perfection was done FOR us by God through Christ on the cross:

^NAS Hebrews 10:10-14   ¹⁰By this will we have been sanctified [or made holy] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  ¹¹ And every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;  ¹² but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,  ¹³ waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.  ¹⁴For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

Who would not be holy and perfect when all sins were forgiven on the cross!!! But wait. Perfect for all time? As in forever? Here’s the NIV:

 

^NIV Hebrews 10:14 because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

But what about sins currently committed? Here’s the assurance of the Holy Spirit, in the verses that follow:

^NAS Hebrews 10:14-17   ¹⁴ For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.  ¹⁵ And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,  ¹⁶ "This is the covenant that I will make with them After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, And upon their mind I will write them," He then says,  ¹⁷ "And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."

What sin is there to forgive when God opts to remember none, having forgiven them all on the cross? What a God of love we have!!!  God's refusal to remember our sins makes us perfect in His sight, forever.  BUT, the act of sinning reminds the person he is overcome of evil. He has to overcome that evil with good. And overcomers will not be blotted out from the BOL.

[Wingnut]

1 hour ago, Samie said:

 

Objectors to my position teach that people are made part of the Body of Christ and made spiritually alive when they believe. Grace diluted with human participation; smells like salvation by works. 

Add to this my epiphany that not even belief (head knowledge) is sufficient.  It must be belief producing the works of Heb 11 or it (and they) are still dead.

Smells beautiful to me.

[Wingnut]

Pnatt will have to reply to your longer (theoretical) post. Unless I see a personal relationship between Christ and the believer, my eyes just glaze over.

Apologies  

[Samie]

The Scapegoat at Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement):

 

Some questions:

 

1.     Whom does the scapegoat represent?

2.     Who is the fit man in whose hand the scapegoat was sent into the wilderness?

3.     What is the land not inhabited to where the scapegoat bear upon himself all the iniquities of the children of Israel?

 

^KJV Leviticus 16:21-22   ²¹ And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. ²² And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

 

It is to be borne in mind that at Yom Kippur, all the children of Israel were cleansed from sin:

 

^KJV Leviticus 16:30   ³⁰ For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD.

 

Scriptures say that Jesus is our sin-bearer:

 

 ^KJV Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

 

^NAS 1 Peter 2:24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

 

He bore our sins in His Body? Yes, since we are the sinners, and we are His Body on the cross.

 

Jesus laid down His life voluntarily:

                      

^KJV John 10:17-18   ¹⁷ Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.  ¹⁸ No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

As at Yom Kippur Aaron the High Priest laid upon the scapegoat all the sins of the children of Israel, so on the day He died, Jesus our High Priest laid upon Himself all the sins of the world.  As the scapegoat bore upon itself all the sins of the people to the wilderness, so Jesus, our sin-bearer, bore all our sins upon His Body on the cross.  As the scapegoat was led by a fit man to a land not inhabited, so Jesus, the Fit Man, voluntarily led Himself to death – the land not inhabited. That death He died was not inhabited when He went there. It remained NOT inhabited when He resurrected. And will remain not inhabited, forever.

As in Yom Kippur, all were cleansed from sin, so on the day He died, His shed blood washed us all clean from sin and reconciled us all to God.

^NKJ 2 Corinthians 5:14-15   ¹⁴ For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;  ¹⁵ and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

 

^NKJ Revelation 1:5  To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood

^NKJ Romans 5:10   ¹⁰ For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

[Samie]

Why bring out the scapegoat of Yom Kippur in this thread?

Because the role of the scapegoat at Yom Kippur fittingly describes the role of our Savior in how we all were cleansed from sin by what God through Him has done for us all on the cross.   As the children of Israel simply were benefactors of the ministration of their High Priest at Yom Kippur, so we all are simply benefactors of the benefits of what God through Christ our High Priest has done for us that day He died.

[pnattmbtc]

8 hours ago, Samie said:

For me, I prefer not to translate it. I'll just simply believe what Scriptures say.

But it doesn't mean anything to you.  You repeat phrases like a mantra, but they have no meaning.  What useful purpose does this serve?  Plus when you say you prefer not to translate, *you're reading from a translation*!  It's already been translated!  So you're doing the very thing you say you prefer not to do.

Anyway, what do you think God wants from us?  That we repeat back phrases we don't understand, or that we have an understanding of what He wants to communicate to us?

[pnattmbtc]

Regarding faith, I've written quite a bit about this Wingnut, but I don't know if you were present.  If you look at Luke 7, you will see a story about a woman who spent a year's wage on a perfume that she anointed Jesus with.  She broke down and wept, and dried the feet of Jesus with her tears.  Jesus said, "Go in peace, your faith has saved you."

She was a living demonstration of what faith is.  Faith involves appreciation/gratitude/thankfulness.  It would be like you're crossing a street, and a car is about to hit you, and someone jumps in front of you and takes your place so that the car hits him instead of you.  Say he survives and is taken to the hospital.  Wouldn't you at least want to visit him to thank him for what he did.

But let's say instead you merely tell someone what he did, but you never even went to the hospital to visit the guy who saved your life.  Faith without works is dead. 

If we really are thankful/appreciative/grateful we will act; it cannot be otherwise.

In both the Greek and the Hebrew the word for "obey" involved hearing.  In Greek it means something like "to hear under" if you try to translated the pieces literally.  In Hebrew it's the same word, so translators needs to decide which English word to use.

The idea is if you hear, if you really hear, you will do.  And this is the hearing of faith.

[pnattmbtc]

1 hour ago, Samie said:

Why bring out the scapegoat of Yom Kippur in this thread?

Because the role of the scapegoat at Yom Kippur fittingly describes the role of our Savior in how we all were cleansed from sin by what God through Him has done for us all on the cross.   As the children of Israel simply were benefactors of the ministration of their High Priest at Yom Kippur, so we all are simply benefactors of the benefits of what God through Christ our High Priest has done for us that day He died.

We are all blessed by what Christ did in that to the death of Christ, we owe even this earthly life, and Christ has made it possible for us to have eternal life by believing in Him.  However, to be cleansed from sin involves our participation:

Quote

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

Sin resides in on mind.  In order for our minds to be cleansed from sin, they need to exist, and be involved in the cleansing process (which is brought out by Jesus in saying "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

[8thdaypriest]

18 hours ago, Samie said:

Believing, which is exercising faith, is overcoming the evil of unbelief. Man's participation comes AFTER what God has done for him on the cross.  IMO, to teach that man must first believe to be in Christ, looks like SBW. Just my opinion.

Believing that man must "overcome" in order NOT to be LOST, sounds like SBW - to me.

[8thdaypriest]

10 hours ago, Samie said:

There's one problem others have with me and my position. I simply believe what Scriptures say. I am not into explaining what Scriptures say, just like what somebody in this forum usually does. And he requires me to do what he does. Sorry, brother. I have a simple faith, the faith of Scriptures. I simply believe what Scriptures say, NOT what your explanations want Scriptures to have said but did not.

Wow!!!  What a completely arrogant statement!!  You're saying that you're the ONLY ONE who understands the Scriptures. 

[8thdaypriest]

13 hours ago, Samie said:

Why, oh why, can't people believe they had been made holy and perfect on the cross? What, or better yet, Who, prevents them from believing what God through Christ has done for us ALL on the cross?  And yet they say they preach faith.  Is that the result of their teaching that unless one first believes he can't be in Christ? Looks like it, in my opinion.

If - as you say - God "saved" all mankind,and rendered them "perfect" in the body of Christ, then WHY did God not END this painful sin cursed earth experience WHEN Jesus rose from the dead?  Guess you'll say, because God wanted more children - yet to be born, but already "saved".  Sounds a LOT like Mormonism, with spirit children already "born" in Heaven, waiting to do their life in a mortal body, for testing.  They're already "saved" but they have to be tested (and pass) in order to stay "saved".

 

[8thdaypriest]

2 hours ago, Samie said:

Why bring out the scapegoat of Yom Kippur in this thread?

Because the role of the scapegoat at Yom Kippur fittingly describes the role of our Savior in how we all were cleansed from sin by what God through Him has done for us all on the cross.   As the children of Israel simply were benefactors of the ministration of their High Priest at Yom Kippur, so we all are simply benefactors of the benefits of what God through Christ our High Priest has done for us that day He died.

Ahh yes, but every Israelite male had to SHOW UP at Jerusalem on the Day of Atonement WITH a humble heart towards Yahweh, and have made sin offerings BEFORE that day, or he would be "cut off from Israel". 

You're picture has the High Priest and the sacrifices saving ALL MANKIND, whether or not they "show up" or have humility towards Yahweh (believe). 

[pnattmbtc]

The word "saved" is a bit ambiguous, not that there's anything wrong with the word, it's just that it means different things.  The best definition for how we usually refer to the term, as it is in the Greek, could well be "healed".  The Greek word "healed" and "saved" are the same word.  There is a sense where corporate healing took place, or corporate salvation, in that had God not intervened, the world would have been lost.  I think 2 Cor. 5 may be getting at this.  EGW puts it this way: "To the death of Christ, we owe even our earthly life."

However, when one speaks of individual salvation, or healing, there has to be the involvement of the person (which is to say the mind of the person) who needs to be healed.  God cannot unlaterally change a person's mind (by which I mean, His character will not allow Him to do so, not that He doesn't have the power to do so, although, in a sense, He doesn't, because as soon as He did, what'd you'd wind up with is a different person, since a person is defined by their mind, and the choices they make with that mind).

[Wingnut]

3 hours ago, pnattmbtc said:

Regarding faith, I've written quite a bit about this Wingnut, but I don't know if you were present.  If you look at Luke 7, you will see a story about a woman who spent a year's wage on a perfume that she anointed Jesus with.  She broke down and wept, and dried the feet of Jesus with her tears.  Jesus said, "Go in peace, your faith has saved you."

She was a living demonstration of what faith is.  Faith involves appreciation/gratitude/thankfulness.  It would be like you're crossing a street, and a car is about to hit you, and someone jumps in front of you and takes your place so that the car hits him instead of you.  Say he survives and is taken to the hospital.  Wouldn't you at least want to visit him to thank him for what he did.

But let's say instead you merely tell someone what he did, but you never even went to the hospital to visit the guy who saved your life.  Faith without works is dead. 

If we really are thankful/appreciative/grateful we will act; it cannot be otherwise.

In both the Greek and the Hebrew the word for "obey" involved hearing.  In Greek it means something like "to hear under" if you try to translated the pieces literally.  In Hebrew it's the same word, so translators needs to decide which English word to use.

The idea is if you hear, if you really hear, you will do.  And this is the hearing of faith.

Thanks for that Pnatt.

The word "know" in the Bible is more like "experience through living=doing". It is not head knowledge mainly.

"Hear" means "hear to obey".

"Faith" is not a head-knowledge belief only.  I think that "thankful/appreciative/grateful" feeling towards God motivates acts of faith as you illustrated above. And it is not just a theoretical Jesus who died on a cross who motivates and gives us hope.  Its the personal Jesus who moves one to break that bad habit, and who empowers at the same time.  That woman anointing Christ's feet, loved Jesus because He saved her from her destructive past life.

Looking at Heb 11, every single act of faith was God directed.  They were not doing these deeds motivated by personal advantage.  They were all moved by the Holy Spirit to please the Holy Spirit.  Each one to a greater or lesser degree knew God.  Rehab knew of God.  God saw she was on Israel's side.  Her unselfish act of faith with a bare minimum of knowledge, was still God directed.  And action accompanied knowing God.  In each case, it was an offering, a sacrificial act of doing something for God out of love.  There was no selfish primary motive.

I am still exploring this faith thing with its "substance" and "evidence" motivated by a God-given hope..

 

.

[pnattmbtc]

 

Quote

And it is not just a theoretical Jesus who died on a cross who motivates and gives us hope. 

I understand where you're coming from here, but the cross is indeed mighty, and in responding to Samie, we don't want to through out the baby with the bath water.  From where does the cross receive its power?  Or, to put it another way, what is it that makes the cross powerful?

I believe it is revelation that makes the cross powerful; that is, the cross derives its power by means of what it reveals.  For example, from this last Sabbath School quarterly:

Quote

All heaven suffered in Christ's agony; but that suffering did not begin or end with His manifestation in humanity. The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God. Every departure from the right, every deed of cruelty, every failure of humanity to reach His ideal, brings grief to Him. (Education 263)

The cross didn't create anything new in God, but revealed that which already was.  In easy words, the cross reveals to us the truth of what God is really like.  This is what Jesus had in mind when He said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

The truth is that God is not at all like He has been misrepresented as being by the enemy of souls.  The truth is that God is like Jesus Christ, just like Him, all the way to the cross.

[Samie]

The One New Man Created at the Cross:

 

Samie believes the “One New Man” created at the cross is Jesus the Head and Jews & Gentiles (Adam & Eve and all their descendants) the Body. That this position is in line with Scriptures may be gleaned directly from Eph 2:11-19, and indirectly from the totality of Scriptures dealing with how people are in Christ. 

 

Let’s take up 2 Cor 5:14-15, NKJ:

 

¹⁴ For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;  ¹⁵ and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

 

The above passage says that “If one died for all, then, all died. And He died for all”.  Now, who are being referred to as the “all” for whom Jesus died? Even my oppositors have acknowledged that it includes every human being.  And rightly so, because Heb 2:9 directly says Jesus died for every man. Then how did we all die with Him on the cross when it was He alone Who hung there?  There is no other possible explanation but to acknowledge God’s creation through Christ of the “One New Man”. Jesus the Head, and humanity, the Body. Hence, our being in Christ, is because of God’s act, not our own.

 

That all human beings comprise the Body of Christ may likewise be seen from another verse:

 

^NAS 1 Peter 2:24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

 

I think everybody agrees that the sins Jesus bore on the cross are those of every human being.  And the verse says those sins were in His Body on the cross, and rightly so because God through Christ fashioned us all into His Body on the cross. And when the Head died, the Body with its sins likewise died.

 

Oppositors to this view seem not to have a direct answer as to the identity of this “One New Man” on the cross, except that the Body of Christ, they say, is composed of “believers” – those who have believed in Christ and received Him as their personal Savior.  Their dilemma seems to stem from their position that a man has to have a conscious participation prior to his being made part of the Body of Christ; he must first believe. This will then give rise to a situation that although this “One New Man” was created at the cross, yet the “believers” who are supposed to comprise its Body were not yet “believers” when Jesus died.  This leads to the unlikely scenario where the “One New Man” created on the cross has a Head but without a Body.

[pnattmbtc]

Eph. 2 is completely out of context.  Roman 5 is more in context with the corporate idea.  2 Cor. 5 also.  Definitely not Eph. 2, however, just look at what the previous verses are.

In regards to 2 Cor. 5, just a few verses later, Paul says that our message, as Christ's ambassadors is that we implore others, as though Christ were speaking to them, to be reconciled to God, so that tidbit should be included in whatever interpretation of 2 Cor. 5 14,15 we have.

In general, it's a good idea to consider the following when considering how to understand a given text (in this order)

1.The immediately preceding and following verses.

2.What the author has written elsewhere.

3.What other Scripture of authors have written.

[Samie]

The One, Single Sacrifice for Sin:

^NKJ Ephesians 4:32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.

How did God forgive people in Christ? 

Scriptures say that without shedding of blood, there can be no remission or forgiveness.

 

^NKJ Hebrews 9:22, 26 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. . . . but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

 

^NKJ Hebrews 10:12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God

Yes, it was Jesus Who died; it was His Blood that was shed. Yet we died with Him, being His Body with all our sins, when He died. His Blood flowed through His Body, and when He shed His Blood that Blood was the same Blood that His Body shed, and when that shedding of blood occurred, remission took place, SIN was put away, and we all were washed clean from sin.

 

^NKJ Revelation 1:5 . . . To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood

The “One New Man” God through Christ created on the cross, died on the cross. The death of the Head is the same death of His Body, and is the one single sacrifice for sins, forever.

Oppositors to this view hold on to the idea that people becomes part of the Body of Christ at the moment they believe. Hence, they are indirectly teaching that people did not die with Christ on the cross. And having not died with Him, they could not have been resurrected together with Him, and therefore still remain dead in their sins. Yet these teachers proclaim that people can believe, giving rise to the zombie-like-scenario of “believing while dead”.

[pnattmbtc]

Samie, are you reading anything?  Or just reposting stuff?  I've already read what you've written before.  I don't need to re-read it.  If you will respond to posts, that would be nice.

[Samie]

You have any new idea posted, my brother, you want me to respond to? If none, then, have you responded to a Head without a Body before?

[Samie]

And I am posting my views not simply for the sake of discussion, but to let others visiting this thread know of a different view of things they may want to consider.

[pnattmbtc]

2 minutes ago, Samie said:

You have any new idea posted, my brother, you want me to respond to? If none, then, have you responded to a Head without a Body before?

Is this referring to a post?  What would you like me to respond to.

 

[pnattmbtc]

7 minutes ago, Samie said:

And I am posting my views not simply for the sake of discussion, but to let others visiting this thread know of a different view of things they may want to consider.

ok, that's fine.  There are 2 posts I've posted recently that would be nice if you responded to.  Just look above please, and you should see them.  One has 3 points numbered 1 through 3.  The other is above 8thday's posts, and talks about sin residing in the mind.

[Samie]

Sorry, but I see nothing new in those posts, unless shown one, but I doubt.  It was 8thdaypriest who complained of repetitions, and I believe to answer her posts is just to repeat myself all over again.