@LeeWoofenden You're only showing you don't really understand what trinitarians believe...

@LeeWoofenden I don't think this downward step idea is really very Biblically justifiable. Just as an example, Israel's lust for idolatry seems to have been permanently fixed by the exile. After the exile they still had many problems, but they never again reached the level of Baal worship or child sacrifice

@LeeWoofenden The whole point of Hebrews is that the Levitical sacrificial system was never actually sufficient. Hebrews 10:4 "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin."

Faithful adherence to the Jewish law saved, but indirectly. In that era to be faithful to God was to submit yourself to his law, and that faith saved, but the law itself could not properly deal with sin or give new life.

You make it sound like if the Israelites had kept a stable level of evilness the incarnation and cross would not have been necessary. But it was, because without the cross none of the prior schemes of salvation had any power

@curiousdannii That's what you always say.

@curiousdannii The OT sacrifices were never meant to take away sin. They were meant to bring about reconciliation with God for the unintentional sins of the people, and for some infractions committed knowingly.

@curiousdannii It was not "faith" as seen in Protestantism today, but faithfulness to God's laws that brought about salvation. And that means not so much faithfulness to the law of sacrifice, but faithfulness to the Ten Commandments. The sacrifices were a way to keep humans devoted to God through continually offering to God something from their lives as a reminder that they were dependent upon God for everything they had.

@curiousdannii The idea that the Israelites would have remained stable in their (low) state is a pure hypothetical. It didn't happen, and it wasn't going to happen. But the religion God gave them was adequate for them as long as they did remain in that state, and didn't go any lower. But of course, they did go lower, and broke even that low-level religion accommodated to their low spiritual state. Then the Incarnation became necessary.

@curiousdannii The Cross itself was only a single event in the larger context of the Incarnation, and the Redemption Christ accomplished through his life, death, and resurrection. Believing that the Cross itself was redemption is one of the fundamental errors of Protestantism.

@curiousdannii That is one point of Hebrews, but not the main point. The main point is that the whole Temple and sacrificial worship practiced therein were a shadow and a symbol of Christ and his redemptive work in the "Temple" of heaven.

@curiousdannii Once again, neither the Bible nor humanity is a black-and-white affair. Every spiritual era ends when the previous religion or religious practice becomes corrupted. But before the new era begins, there is preparation for it in the form of certain reforms that take place amid the final corrupt days of the old, outgoing religion.

The departure from literal idolatry was a general trend taking place in the world over the centuries prior to and following the coming of Christ. It was a preparation, in the midst of the end of the ancient Jewish religion in corruption and materialism, for the coming of Christ and the acceptance of a new and more spiritual understanding of God.

Similarly, before the first Christian church came to its end in the midst of materialism, striving for worldly power, and corruption, the Protestant Reformation brought about some needed reforms, the greatest of which was to return the Bible to the people. Unfortunately, it also completed the doctrinal corruption of the old Christian Church by adopting the anti-Biblical doctrine of salvation/justification by faith alone.

@JamesShewey Well, I read Chapter 4 of Tozer's book, and it did not fail to disappoint. After such a good beginning, he fully fell down to the usual, "The Trinity of Persons is a mystery and makes no sense, and that's why we must believe it to be true Christians. After all, the Nicene Creed started it, the Athanasian Creed completed it, and now almost everyone (in Christianity) believes in it. So it must be true."

Very disappointing.

As I had suspected, his earlier rejection of the biblically provided example of humanity being created in the image and likeness of God, together with his rejection of rationality in our thinking about God, and embracing of irrationality as the basis of faith, laid the foundation for his apologetics in support of the oldest and most corrupt human doctrine in the old and now dying version of Christianity.

I do find it fascinating that Tozer perceives that Christianity has become materialistic, lazy, and very distant from the divine reality of God. In fact, for the first couple chapters he seemed almost ready to take the road Swedenborg did toward a full renewal of Christianity. Unfortunately, he is still chained to the old, fallacious doctrines of the human councils and creeds, and that pulled him back from what he probably saw as a precipice over which he could not jump.