Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
You call me a Lee follower yet I know the Bible better than you it seems. According to the Bible, the cure is the purpose. There is a verse which states quite clearly that salvation is God's purpose. I like the NLT because it emphasizes the fact:
|
But that is not what your verse says. It does have the word purpose in it.
You have to be careful when you read the very loose paraphrases. They are great to break you out of automatic understanding. But once it starts you questioning your understanding, you have to go back to the closer translations. They must support the premise that the paraphrase suggested.
And it fails here. The purpose of salvation is not given as the central purpose of God, but is stated as having a purpose. And that purpose is the holy life to which we are called. We were unable to get there on our own. We needed salvation. That is true. But it was not a central purpose that required a fallen mankind. Rather it was a necessary purpose because there was a fallen mankind.
The purpose was the holy life to which we were/are called. And Christ had the grace we needed in him before we needed it. That is really all the verse says. God didn't react after the fact and give Christ the grace we needed. He was ready for our failure.
So I find this verse to mean that God's purpose is for us to live a holy life. And since we are nowhere near holy, we need the grace that was already available in Christ. But the purpose is not salvation. That is how we get from where we are or were to the holy life that is the purpose.
While I would not call your paraphrased verse completely incorrect, in this case it does tend to point in a direction different from what the actual words say.
Even Matthew Henry refers to salvation as being "in the purpose" and not simply "the purpose." In the purpose indicates that it is not an afterthought, but was planned for the need. But still not "the purpose." Rather a necessary tool that was placed in the toolbox before it was needed.