Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave
In Ephesians this author says he had previously lived an immoral life as a pagan, "in the passions of the flesh, following its desires and senses" Eph. 2:3 whereas in Philippians he writes, "According to the righteousness found in the law, I was blameless" (Phil. 3:6)
|
But Ephesians 2:3 does not say that. It speaks collectively of "all of us" and the cravings of "our" flesh. He sees himself within the truth of the fallen condition, but is not declaring that every aspect of what he mentions is personally his. He is not declaring himself to be a pagan. That is simply a stretch beyond what is there.
And despite the statement about being blameless, Romans paints a picture in which the war between the law in the mind and the sin the flesh, ending with "oh, retched man that I am" insists that Paul was not simply without sin. And that would seem to be the way that you are using "blameless." Yet even the OT had a process that removed the sin. It did not provide the same assurance of eternity, but it was the way that any good Jew followed the law. None is without blame. But within the context of the effort to righteousness and the faithful following of the ritual of the law, the guilt of the sin could be lifted resulting in a lack of blame on an ongoing basis. I'm sure that there are theological constructs that I have violated in saying that, but at the layman's level, this appears to be the truth and parsing through things to complicate it seems self-serving to the theologian who needs to always have a more complicated answer.
This argument seems to insist that everything must be exactly the same in all cases. If the writer is the same person (Paul, for example), then he must always talk about the whole of his experience in every case and therefore there is no way to say something different in different cases. Lee's "always say the same thing" starts to take on such a literal meaning.
And it insists that Paul could not speak in one place of his status before the law due to his long-time faithfulness to its principles and precepts and in another dig into the underlying war going on within him. A war that it would appear that he tended to win in his later life, but would not have had to win at all times in the past to make the claim that he did about being blameless. It seems to be creating a dichotomy that is not really there.
It is a little like asserting that we have been saved from our sins, yet recognizing that we continually need to be saved from our sins. We have (at least in some theological understanding) security in our salvation, yet recognize that we have ongoing sin from which we have to be cleansed. Is that a contradiction, therefore we cannot be ones who have been saved?
Your position makes life one-dimensional and unchanging. And if that is the case, then to come here and take a theological position against the one that you (like many of the rest of us) bought into for some years would be impossible because we are simply what we are and are without any ability to change. I know that it will be pointed out that our change is because of Christ. But we have also changed after that and for other reasons. Such as to take on the ways of Nee and Lee, and then to toss them aside. To be blinded to their errors, then later see through them (or at least some of them).
On one hand, there is none righteous. Yet man is very capable of being righteous — at least as he counts righteousness for himself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave
I noted that Ephesians may well have not been written to the Ephesians.
|
That is kind of old news. It seems that the early manuscripts did not reference a recipient. Yet it would appear that the common understanding at the time was that it was sent to Ephesus, or at least to the churches in the region surrounding it. Besides, to call it "to the Ephesians," while not part of the original text, does not change the message contained in it.