Re: [TruthTalk] Fw: repentance & sin and everything

[Lance Muir]

I know Victor personally and well, David. In this post you simply confirm that which I had to say re: plurality/pluralism and THE TRUTH. Even were it the case that YOUR truth were NOT the truth, I have every confidence, from reading you the last couple of years, that you would not change. I've always 'read' you as a believer. I've also 'read' you as a believer who has constructed his own theology on some important matters. Some of your own theology is thoroughly unbiblical and, will not stand in 'that day'. Fear not as fire will burn it away. ----- Original Message ----- From: David Miller To: TruthTalk@mail.innglory.org Sent: February 21, 2006 14:26 Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Fw: repentance & sin and everything This coming from someone who reasons with "First" and "Two" instead of "First" and "Second" or "One" and "Two"?    1.  Please ask Victor to elaborate on how my theological understanding is wholly wide of the mark.  Such a statement does not convey to us any greater understanding of the issues here.  What is repentance?  I suspect this man Victor and I define it differently.  He probably views repentance as simply being a life that is constantly humble and devoted to God.  I would ask him to explain James 4:8-10 as something other than repentance.   Check out the following link, which is an article that I think comes from the fruit of this "theology" you had quoted:  http://www.greentreewebster.org/Articles/All%20of%20Life%20is%20Repentance.pdf   This article to me is like puke.  There is no understanding of the value of the kind of repentance described in James 4.  The Anabaptists didn't have it all wrong and Luther was wrong to think them to be fanatics.   David Miller   ----- Original Message ----- From: Lance Muir To: TruthTalk@mail.innglory.org Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 10:29 AM Subject: Fw: [TruthTalk] Fw: repentance & sin and everything   ----- Original Message ----- From: Victor Shepherd To: Lance Muir Sent: February 21, 2006 09:44 Subject: RE: [TruthTalk] Fw: repentance & sin and everything First, who is David Miller?  His theological understanding is wholly wide of the mark.   Two, Debbie is a surer guide.   Victor -----Original Message----- From: Lance Muir [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: February 21, 2006 9:34 AM To: Victor Shepherd Subject: Fw: [TruthTalk] Fw: repentance & sin and everything Victor:   Please read on through to Debbie's comments. Would you offer up a couple of thoughts?   Lance ----- Original Message ----- From: David Miller To: TruthTalk@mail.innglory.org Sent: February 21, 2006 09:29 Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Fw: repentance & sin and everything I think Martin Luther and many of the reformers were wrong in their concept of sin and repentance.  This was the cultural mindset then, that the depravity of man was so great that nothing could be done about it.  Their thinking was that everybody sins even when they are unaware of it.  This actually was good business for them, given the position of the church in relation to the people. They practiced confession to priests and even the selling of indulgences.  While Luther saw the evil in the selling of indulgences, his culture hindered him from understanding the greatness of the righteousness that Jesus imputes to those who believe.  You have to understand that perceiving that we are justified by faith was a huge revelation for him in itself.  If that concept was a big deal to him, how could he possibly understand all the benefits that come with faith, such as the prophetic gift, miracles, healing, and sanctification?   One of the greatest hindrances to sanctification is the knowledge that we are sinners.  It is the knowledge of sin, the consciousness of being in sin, that paralyzes a person.  Such a person has no boldness to stand before God, much less enter the throne room of heaven.  He can do nothing but be in a mournful state of repentance.  James teaches repentance, however, as being a process with an end.  What does he say?  "He [the Lord] shall lift you up" (James 4:10).  If we really were suppose to be in a constant state of repentance, this last phrase has no meaning.  Is such were so, we should then all be sad, mourning, without joy.  No, I'm sorry, but this is not the purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ, to keep us in a state of perpetual repentance.  Rather, his purpose is to clear our conscience of all guilt, so that we feel as if we have never sinned, and can say like Paul, "receive us; we have wronged no man."  His purpose is to give us a heart of joy, that we might walk in a state of righteousness, peace and joy, knowing that we have been delivered and cleansed of all sin.  To think otherwise is the manifestation of doubt and unbelief.   David Miller. ----- Original Message ----- From: Lance Muir To: TruthTalk@mail.innglory.org Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 6:25 AM Subject: [TruthTalk] Fw: repentance & sin and everything   ----- Original Message ----- From: Debbie Sawczak To: 'Lance Muir' Sent: February 20, 2006 22:43 Subject: repentance & sin and everything I came across this section on the first of Luther's 95 theses and thought of the sinless perfection discussion:   We commit the same error nowadays, with the superficial difference that we have changed penance into a psychological or emotional work of self-purgation. Luther insisted that although repentance is something we will for ourselves, we can do so only because God has first willed it for us and in us. Moreover, it is to be lifelong and “lifewide”, inasmuch as sin is lifelong and lifewide; repentance is not an atomistic act we perform to compensate for an atomistic sin. Even in our hearts as believers there is a residual depravity so deep that we cannot see it. We have an inkling as to when and how we have sinned, but it is only an inkling. In fact, our whole existence is tinged with this residual sinfulness, hence our whole existence must be repentant.     Luther’s view contrasted not only with the Roman understanding, but also with that of the Anabaptists, the radicals of the Reformation. According to the Anabaptists, unbelievers needed to repent, certainly, but not believers, because to become a believer was ipso facto to be wholly sanctified. To be a Christian meant you were perfect and sinless. Both the Roman and the Anabaptist, according to Luther, had a shallow and inadequate view of sin, and both needed to know repentance as a lifelong exercise in grace.   Luther was an Old Testament scholar first of all, and repentance in the Old Testament always has the sense of a 180-degree turn. The Hebrew Bible uses three major images of repentance. One is the unfaithful wife returning to her husband: having disgraced herself and violated her husband, she returns to longstanding love, patience, and acceptance. The second is the idolater turning from the worship of idols to the worship of the true and living God. On the one hand, idols are nothing—the Hebrew word for them is literally “the nothings”—but on the other hand they have great power, just as a vacuum has power to suck everything into it and a false rumour has the power to destroy a person. The idolater who repents turns from nothing to something, from unreality to the reality that is the Holy One of Israel. And in the third image of repentance, rebellious subjects return to their rightful ruler. They have brought chaos upon themselves and the wider world, and as they turn back to proper authority, the chaos within and around them is dispelled.   Luther was familiar with all of these images. In saying that Jesus willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance, he was acknowledging repentance as reorientation to the love and service of Jesus Christ, as that resetting of the compass we must will for ourselves every single morning when our feet hit the cold floor. Without it, we blunder farther down the wrong road every day.   Earlier this evening I was thinking of sins of omission, and also of the whole web of corporate, systemic sin in which we exist and are complicit. The other night after watching Constant Gardener we talked about this too--about how a "garden" can be our refuge from knowing about the evil in which we're enmeshed, because knowing produces a responsibility we almost cannot bear and cannot adequately discharge. How can we deny that we share in this corporate responsibility, and does that not also count as sin?    And that's apart from our very subtle rationalizations of personal, individual sin. To what degree is our will involved in that? Unconscious is not the same as involuntary. This thought was raised by something from CSL on the Narnian this aft, about the small act committed between one swallow of beer and the next, the smile or word whereby we seek admission into the circle and close the door behind us, silencing the qualm. Then my thought went to what JD has been saying about God's complete freedom, similar to what TFT said about Christ's complete integrity, as compared to our lack thereof. Until our total selves are restored we do not have that freedom and integrity. We live, though, knowing we are headed there, anticipating it even as he begins to grow it in us, and that is a source of tension.     It reminded me of a conversation I had with Cas tonight. Apparently one of his teachers admitted to wondering sometimes if everything he believes is false. We talked about how certainty is simply not within the grasp of humans in any belief system, and that for us who have put confidence in Jesus Christ, the moment of recognizing that we do not know might as well be a lifetime. Our whole life, our whole self is in that moment--every time--and we can respond in terror and despair or in trust. Similarly--I find this hard to articulate--our whole life and self are there in the instant of sinning; it might as well be a lifetime, ontologically. There is no point saying we are only a little bit sinful, even if we are David and sin only every third or fourth day. But we need not respond in despair and defeat. The alternative to a claim of sinlessness is not defeatism.   Is that intelligible?   D   From: Lance Muir [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 5:55 PM To: Debbie Sawczak Subject: Re: quasi-adventure OK then, I've got season 2 and, the Pledge.   L ----- Original Message ----- From: Debbie Sawczak To: 'Lance Muir' Sent: February 19, 2006 17:02 Subject: RE: quasi-adventure What?? What are you saying? Don't trifle with my feelings!   D   From: Lance Muir [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 4:46 PM To: Debbie Sawczak Subject: Re: quasi-adventure MI-5 vol 2???????????? See it? Not see it? Keep watching this site for further updates.   Lance ----- Original Message ----- From: Debbie Sawczak To: 'Lance Muir' Sent: February 19, 2006 12:33 Subject: quasi-adventure In the last kilometre or so of our trip to the MH, the van began making a hideous noise whenever we turned, which Jan said was the steering going at last. So rather than risk driving back with it, he called a tow truck near the end of the service, and when it was over he stayed with the van while the rest of us had to come home by cab. (I'm not sure whether our Canadian Tire Gold Card, which covers towing over enormous distances, covers the cab, but I hope so!) We know two other Georgetown parties who go to the Oakville MH, but neither was there today, unfortunately.   Little thing--we were standing in the lobby watching all the people come out and looking for our friend in order to ask for a ride, when Jan decided to locate him by calling on his cell phone. Turned out he was out in the Beaches in Toronto. The funny thing was, while Jan was talking on the phone his eyes continued to search the crowd of exiting & milling MH-goers, till finally he said into the phone, "What am I doing, I'm still looking for you here even though you've told me you're in Toronto! I guess I can stop looking now!" It seemed to me to be a parable for something...   D  -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.11/264 - Release Date: 2/17/2006 -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.11/264 - Release Date: 2/17/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.11/264 - Release Date: 2/17/2006 -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.11/264 - Release Date: 2/17/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.11/264 - Release Date: 2/17/2006