@LeeWoofenden A very quick defence for forensic/declared righteousness. I don't expect it to convince you, but I want to put forward the case that Proverbs 17:15 doesn't obviously defeat it.

Proverbs 17:15 is about speaking the truth. It is wrong and evil to say that an adulterous couple is married.

But there is a right time to call the unmarried married: when you are pronouncing the couple married at their wedding. It is a performative speech act which effects in itself the change of state.

In the same way, when God declares the unrighteous to be righteous, that declaration is the speech act which effects what it declares. Just like God spoke life into the universe in Genesis 1-2, he speaks spiritual life into spiritually dead people. Jesus speaks the forgiveness of sins (Luke 7:47-50), he speaks the dead into life (Luke 7:14-15), and he speaks the Spirit into his disciples (John 20:22). His words transform us so that the words he says have become reality.

@curiousdannii I appreciate your effort. However, it has several serious--and I believe fatal--problems.

First, Proverbs 17:15 is only one of several passages that speak on the same theme. And the venue is obviously "forensic," as in a judge making a pronouncement of innocence or guilt. So it applies directly to the forensic (legal) nature of the penal substitution theory of atonement. It is not just about speaking the truth; it is about making a declarative legal judgment.

Another example straight out of the Law is:

> Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. (Exodus 23:7)

This statement could hardly be clearer in ruling out what penal substitution claims the crucifixion did: putting an innocent or honest person to death as a way of acquitting the guilty. That is precisely what penal substitution says God did, and here in Exodus God says that will not fly with him.

There are several others quoted in my article, "The Faulty Foundations of Faith Alone – Part 5: Jesus Paid the Penalty For Our Sins?" And though these are the pithiest statements of that principle, the need to give just judgment, condemning the guilty and acquitting the innocent, is a constant theme in both the Old Testament and the New.

Penal substitution flies in the face of the entire weight of the Bible's testimony on this subject. And penal substitution is central to Protestant doctrine on forensic justification.

@curiousdannii Second, especially the Calvinist version of justification by faith alone and penal substitution effectively does away with human free will entirely. It holds that God pronounces who will be guilty and who will be innocent before they have even done a thing, and that the people God declares innocent or guilty will be innocent or guilty simply because God has declared them so.

I suppose some Christians are fine with the idea that we have no free will, and that we are all predestined for either heaven or hell. For my part, I consider it to be a horribly gross and blasphemous doctrine that causes God to be a horrendous tyrant who sends billions of people to eternal torture just because that's what he wanted to do.

That doctrine will never fly with me. And it, too, flies in the face of everything the Bible says about choosing life over death, repenting for the forgiveness of sins, and (voluntarily) opening the door for the Lord when he stands at it and knocks.

@curiousdannii And third, it is a fantasy to think that people can be instantly changed from sinners to righteous people simply because God pronounces them righteous--or "justifies" them in traditional terms. This would, once again, entirely do away with free will, since God would just reach in and change a person from black to white instantly without the person participating in it in any way, except in "declaring faith in Jesus."

But more pragmatically, the realities of human psychology and human life just don't allow it. I realize there are people who believe they have been instantly transformed from sinners into righteous people just by accepting Jesus. But that is a superficial belief based on the emotion of the moment. Those people have at most turned around and started going in the right direction. But if they were jerks before, they are still jerks, and they're going to have to grow out of being jerks over time.

God simply cannot and does not instantly transform anyone from a sinner to a righteous person. It happens over time. That's why Paul enjoins his listeners to:

> continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12)

If Paul thought that salvation and justification were instant things, he never would have said that.

Sure, but I never denied that it is progressive.

If God is a judge declaring us innocent or righteous, then God will declare that based on our current state, just as a judge in the courtroom must pronounce a verdict based on the current state of the criminal (or not) in front of the bar. If a person who is guilty then goes on to repent and change his or her ways, then the judge at a later time can declare the person innocent because s/he is no longer a criminal.

@LeeWoofenden God doesn't acquit the guilty, and yet he institutes a sacrificial system for the guilty.

@curiousdannii Protestant theory holds that a person becomes instantly justified simply by God declaring him/her just because s/he has accepted and declared faith that Jesus paid the penalty for his/her sins. That is wrong, and contrary to everything the Bible teaches on the subject, not to mention how every non-corrupt human court works.

@LeeWoofenden A judge can never declare a person not guilty of former sins just because they stop sinning afterwards! That is a complete perversion of justice!

@curiousdannii The guilty can become not guilty be repenting of their sins and no longer committing them. The sacrificial system was a rather crude way of accomplishing that for people who lived in a rather crude time.

@LeeWoofenden Not in any human justice system. Or do you allow for God's justice to be different?

How can repentance take away guilt?

@curiousdannii Read Ezekiel 18. That is how God's justice works--and human justice mirrors it with a system of shortening sentences for good behavior and so on. The idea that once a person has sinned s/he is always guilty is contrary to the plain teachings of the BIble.

> But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live. (Ezekiel 18:21-22, emphasis added)

@curiousdannii You really need to read the Bible.

@LeeWoofenden Sure, that is what forgiveness is.

@LeeWoofenden Cut it with the ad hominen insults Lee. I'm asking questions in good faith.

@curiousdannii Past sins are forgiven when a person repents and no longer commits them. And then being guilty of those sins no longer has any force. People still have to live with any ongoing consequences of past sins. They may have to live in prison for the rest of their lives. But before God, they are no longer guilty because they are no longer sinners.

@curiousdannii It's just that if you don't understand this most basic principle in the Bible, I don't see how you can rightly read anything in the Bible. And I do believe that belief in sola fide makes it impossible to read anything the Bible says rightly, and with any real understanding of its meaning.

@LeeWoofenden What most basic principle?

If there was any take-away from my reading of the two books that @Mr.Bultitude recommended, it's that those who accept sola fide simply cannot read and understand anything in the Bible. Luther's doctrine so scrambles their thinking that they corrupt, falsify, and simply reject every major teaching in the Bible.

I think you're playing with words to say without qualification that the guilty can become not guilty just be not committing further sins.

In favor of a teaching that is never stated in the Bible, but is specifically rejected there.

@curiousdannii And I think you're ignoring the plain teaching of the Bible on that subject. Once again:

> But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live. (Ezekiel 18:21-22)

God forgiving sins and looking past them does not erase history. We forever remain forgiven sinners, not perfectly unblemished people who have never known sin

And in the New Testament John the Baptist, Jesus, and Jesus' disciples all preached *repentance for the forgiveness of sins." It is the same as what is taught in the Old Testament. Those who repent of their sins and live a righteous life instead will be forgiven, and will no longer be held guilty for past sins.

@curiousdannii Forgiveness means nothing if it doesn't do away with the guilt. We remain guilty of sins as long as we continue to commit them. But the Bible is very clear that when we repent and cease committing them, our guilt for them is taken away.

@LeeWoofenden Why does guilt even figure into your theological system if it can be evaporated so simply?

@curiousdannii "So simply?" Do you think it's easy to repent from sins and no longer commit them? It is one of the hardest things we humans can do. Our old ways fight tooth-and-nail to keep us in their grip. Repenting and beginning a new life is not easy.

@LeeWoofenden What roles does the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ play in our guilt being taken away?

@LeeWoofenden Indeed. And as a protestant I would say that without Christ effecting a change in us, it is not just difficult but impossible.

@curiousdannii We had gotten so far off track spiritually that it was becoming impossible for anyone to repent from their sins. Religion had become all about properly following prescribed rituals, and had lost the component of repenting from sin and living instead from love for God and the neighbor.

Christ's life, death, and resurrection restored the balance and created a new pathway for us to follow so that we could, indeed, repent from sins and become righteous people (which is what "justification" means). We cannot do it from our own power. But with Christ in us we can, from his power.

@curiousdannii Agreed. But we still have to change. And that is not something that happens instantly just because we declare faith in Christ. We have to actually repent, as Jesus commanded us to do, and stop sinning, as the entire Bible commands us to do, and learn to love God and the neighbor more than we love ourselves and the world.

@LeeWoofenden Why wasn't the incarnation sufficient to do that?

That is not something that takes place instantly. It takes time, it is fundamentally a transformative process, such that "justification," or becoming righteous, cannot be a simple declarative process, as Protestant doctrine claims. It is *essentially transformative," to use Protestant theological jargon. Or in the terms of the Bible, it is becoming "born again."

@curiousdannii You seem to think that the Incarnation is sufficient without any effort or response on our part except simply declaring our faith in what it accomplished. That is an illusion. The Incarnation made salvation possible for us again. But we still have to travel the path of salvation. We still have to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling," to use Paul's words.

If we don't follow the path Jesus laid out for us through the Incarnation, we are still not justified or saved.

@LeeWoofenden That's not what I meant. I meant why Christ's death and resurrection? Why not his incarnation and our response?

@curiousdannii Christ's death and resurrection were part of his incarnation. Do you think that Christ's death alone is what saved us? What about the rest of his life? What about the resurrection? The idea that Christ's death is salvation is one of the fundamental fallacies of Protestant doctrine.

@LeeWoofenden Becoming righteous does take a lifetime. It is God's categorisation of us that we consider to be a singular state change, because there are no half measures in being spiritually alive, no half being united to Christ.

@curiousdannii So being justified is, in your mind, a purely black and white affair?

@LeeWoofenden That's not what I meant. It shouldn't hard to understand what I mean. Christ came and "restored the balance and created a new pathway"? Seems to me like Christ's living among us and teaching us does that. If not, then what specifically was effected by his death and resurrection?

@LeeWoofenden Not purely, no.

@curiousdannii The human reality is that becoming "justified," or as it should be translated, becoming righteous, is necessarily a long-term process. Life and death are not black and white. Some people are very sick and close to death. And if they are not to die, then they must recover over time. It does not take place instantly. And it is the same with spiritual sickness, death, recovery, and life.

@LeeWoofenden Very true.

@curiousdannii The crucifixion was Christ's final battle against the power of evil, and secured his final victory over death, hell, and the devil. That is why he said to his disciples before his crucifixion:

@LeeWoofenden But what we believe is that the unrighteous are not very sick and close to death. They are dead. Their recovery may take an age, but first they must be brought back to life.

> I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

@LeeWoofenden There's a poetic logic to Christ's death defeating death. But why couldn't his righteous power alone defeat the power of evil?

@curiousdannii They are, rather "dead men walking." They still do have life, but it is a life of spiritual death. And in that way it is the same as being mortally wounded. Spiritually speaking, death is not as black and white as it is physically.

@LeeWoofenden I think that's a level of nuance you have read into the scriptures, not out of them.

@curiousdannii There were many reasons he chose to die. He expresses one of them himself here:

> Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (John 12:31-32)

@LeeWoofenden Is it fair to say that you believe Christ chose to die to accomplish many things, but that that choice was one of many and his death was not ultimately necessitated?

This combines what I said earlier about the crucifixion being Jesus' final victory over evil ("the world" as used here idiomatically) and one of the things Jesus accomplished by his death: "drawing all people to himself." This also hinges on his statement:

> Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

@LeeWoofenden A pedagogical demonstration it definitely was.

So one of the things Jesus' death accomplished was to show that God's love for us is so great that God is willing to lay down his own life for us. This is one of the senses in which when Jesus is "lifted up," i.e., crucified, he will "draw all people to him." They will see the depth of God's love, and be drawn to him.

Another thing it accomplished, paired with the resurrection, was to show us that God has power even over death--one of the greatest of human fears.

And the very fact that while human evil killed Christ, it did not defeat him, was part of Christ's ultimate victory over evil and its power.

There are many facets to what Jesus' death accomplished, both cosmic and personal.

@LeeWoofenden It sounds like you believe his death and resurrection effected much in the domain of the revelation of God. What does it effect in the domain of soteriology?

Paying the penalty for our sins was not one of the things it accomplished--which is why the Bible never says that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins. That is 100% human doctrine and human fallacy, betraying a complete lack of understanding of what Christ's life, death, and resurrection accomplished.

@curiousdannii If Christ had not defeated the power of evil, hell, and the Devil (which are ultimately all the same), not a single one of us could be saved because the power of evil would have overwhelmed us, and taken away our very ability to choose the good over the evil, to choose God over the Devil.

@LeeWoofenden What does it mean for Christ to defeat the power of evil/hell/devil? Do you see that as an event? Something accomplished?

Jesus saved all of humanity by defeating the power of evil, because all of humanity would have been pulled down to hell if he hadn't done that. But it is still up to each one of us to accept that salvation by believing in him and keeping his commandments to repent from sin and live from love for God and the neighbor.

@curiousdannii Yes. It was something he accomplished progressively throughout his entire life. We get brief glimpses into his inner battle with the Devil in the stories of his temptation in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry and his temptation is Gethsemany just before the Crucifixion--and, of course, on the Cross itself.

And we see him verbally battling the corrupt religious leaders throughout his ministry. It would be very narrow-minded to think that these were the only incidents in which he battled the Devil. It was something he accomplished throughout his lifetime, completing the job on the Cross, which was his last temptation and battle against the Devil, by which he gained complete victory.

@LeeWoofenden I don't think I would very naturally think of Christ actively defeating these things. They have always only ever operated within the bounds of the will of God. In the resurrection God says "no more!"

Without that victory, none of us could be saved. It is Christ--who is God with us--alone who can fight and win the battle against evil and the Devil within each of our lives as well. But he will not force it on us, we must open the door when he knocks. And we must fight our battles as if we were fighting them ourselves, but knowing that it is really Christ fighting for us.

This is part of it being an actual, mutual, freely chosen relationship, not something God mechanically imposes upon us. As with any real accomplishment it life, we must work for it ourselves or it is not real. But ultimately it is God's power from which we do that work.

@curiousdannii We can see throughout the narrative of the Old Testament a progressive downward motion spiritually, from the Garden of Eden through the Flood to the times of Noah and his offspring to the times of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the Egyptian captivity, then the nation of Israel, then captivity again, up to about a 400 year break in which there was very little spiritual life at all before Christ's incarnation.

Humanity was going downhill spiritually. And Christ came at the low ebb of human history, when nothing but God's own presence could turn the tide. He had sent priests and prophets, and they had helped temporarily, but the trend was still downward, until hardly anyone was listening anymore, and the religious structures had become completely corrupt.

So yes, the Incarnation was an act of saying "No more!" But it was a specific act of defeating the power of evil and turning the tide of human spiritual history.

@LeeWoofenden An act of defeating the power of evil like switching a power point off.

Isaiah 63:1-6 tells the whole story metaphorically. Christ is the one who "comes from Edom, from Bozra, with great strength." Christ is the one who has "trodden the wine press alone" because:

No human being could anymore accomplish what needed to be accomplished to defeat the mounting power of evil, turn the tide, and save humanity from complete spiritual destruction. God himself had to come and do it, "treading the winepress alone."

This is the force of Paul's words about the Law failing to bring about salvation for humanity. It sufficed for a time, but was ultimately unsuccessful in keeping humans on a path toward God.

@LeeWoofenden Why didn't God just restrain the growth of evil from heaven?

Christ's death on the Cross had nothing to do with paying the penalty for sin. It was more like a soldier going out and giving his life to defeat an enemy bent on invading and conquering his land and his people.

@LeeWoofenden Please note that I haven't been arguing for Christ paying our penalty for sin.

@curiousdannii Because God had to work through human intermediaries throughout all the time before the Incarnation. God worked through lawgivers, priests, and prophets to bring God's word, God's commandments, and God's love to the people. But ultimately, those human intermediaries were not sufficient. It was necessary for God himself to become "his own mediator."

And that mediation was not to argue people's case before God and change God's mind so that God would forgive rather than condemn them. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor. 5:19) not mediating the world to God. The mediation was to bring God directly to the people, so that the people could be brought to God.

@LeeWoofenden Okay, we both agree that Christ is the final and fullest revelation of God. But in terms of the restraining of evil like we see in Job 1-2, why couldn't that just continue to a fuller extent?

@curiousdannii Penal substitution is central to Protestant doctrine. Without penal substitution, sola fide simply doesn't work.

@curiousdannii Because the people were falling farther and farther away from him. There was no human being left through whom God could do the job. No more Moses or Elijah. Just a vast spiritual emptiness.

In Old Testament times, God spoke to the people through human intermediaries. From the Incarnation onward, God was his own intermediary, coming directly to people in his divine human form of Jesus Christ.

@LeeWoofenden In my understanding, it is really propitiatory substitution which is central. And that is the central disagreement between us, I think: whether God actually has wrath, or whether it is just a show for our benefit

Even when God spoke to Abraham and such, it was actually through angels, as can be seen from a careful reading of the story about God visiting Abraham as three men, who are variously called "the Lord," "men," and "angels" in the course of the story. God spoke to Abraham, not directly, but through angels. And it was the same for the others of OT times who heard God's voice.

@LeeWoofenden Surely the time of Noah was even worse? He was the only righteous one at all

@curiousdannii Neither one of us is saying that it's "just a show for our benefit." However, I think you misunderstand what "propitiation" means in the Bible. As is common, Protestant doctrine takes a tertiary definition of that word--the placating of wrath--and makes it primary. Placating God's wrath simply isn't the primary meaning of the biblical words translated "propitiation."

@LeeWoofenden I thought you believed God's wrath was a complete accommodation?

Rather, it is a matter of God showing mercy and reconciling humans to himself. The propititiatorium is the Latin translation of the Hebrew word commonly translated "mercy seat" in our English translations of the Hebrew Bible. The primary meaning was not placating of wrath, but feeling the presence of God's love and mercy.

@curiousdannii God's wrath is real. It's just that it is not wrath in God. Rather, God's wrath is the effect that God's love has on those that are opposed to it. An example I've used many times is the effect of the warmth of the sun on a snowman--which is devastating to the snowman. But that doesn't change the nature of the sun's warmth, which is warm by nature.

@LeeWoofenden Right. If it is only our perception, then it is not what we consider God's wrath to be.

And the Bible's depictions of God's love as God's wrath must be accommodations

@curiousdannii It's not only our perception. A snowman actually melts in the sun. It's not a mere matter of perception. It's a reality of how the warmth of the sun affects the snowman.

Similarly, if we are opposed to God's love because we are engaged in evil and falsity, then if God's love and truth hit us, it has a destructive effect upon our life, because our life is a life of evil and falsity. That is why the evil metaphorically run into caves and tell the rocks to fall on them to hide them from the wrath of the one who is to come.

@LeeWoofenden To be honest it doesn't sound like that view of God's love has much connection to human love either.

God's love does destroy evil and falsity wherever it encounters them. The only safety is to hide from God's love (and truth). And that is precisely why the evil turn their backs on God and get as far away from God as they possibly can. And God as a matter of mercy does not destroy them if they choose a life of evil over good. God allows them to hide from him. That's what hell is for.

@LeeWoofenden ἱλαστήριον, ου, τό. In Gr-Rom. lit. that which serves as an instrument for regaining the goodwill of a deity; concr. a ‘means of propitiation or expiation, gift to procure expiation’

@curiousdannii A truly good judge actually cares about the people s/he sentences to prison. The hope is that in prison, the criminal will rethink things, and consider not being a criminal anymore. But as far as the criminal is concerned, the judge's love is evil and destructive, restraining his/her life of crime and causing him/her to be pent up behind bars for years, if not a lifetime.

@curiousdannii It's necessary to look back to the Hebrew that the Greek words are used to translate. This is a common failing of Protestant doctrine: it pays attention to the Greek words, but not the Hebrew words they are associated with via the LXX. Paul was a Jew. He spoke Greek, but his use of Greek was heavily colored by the original Hebrew in which the OT was written.

ἱλάσκομαι 1. to cause to be favorably inclined or disposed, propitiate, conciliate 2. to eliminate impediments that alienate the deity, expiate, wipe out,

It's the same with Paul's use of the word "faith." Greek culture was more intellectual than Hebrew culture, and Greek meanings of "faith" are accordingly more intellectual. But Paul's use of "faith" is based on its use in the Hebrew Old Testament, as mediated through the Septuagint. So the flavor of his use of "faith" is more Hebrew than Greek. And in Hebrew its primary meaning is akin to faithfulness.

@curiousdannii See my answer to this question:

@LeeWoofenden Protestants ignore the OT/LXX? Sure thing. I'll file that away in my box of Lee's Ignorant Protestant Insults.

It covers the meaning of the original Hebrew word that the LXX translates as hilasmos.

You have no respect for Protestant scholasticism at all, do you?

@curiousdannii It's not so much that they ignore it as that they don't appreciate the full force of what it means that Paul's usage of many key terms is based on the Septuagint, which is based on the Hebrew Bible. You can't just look up the Greek meanings and think you understand Paul. You have to look up the underlying Hebrew words, or you simply don't understand what Paul is talking about.

Just because they come to different conclusions from you doesn't mean they have betrayed the endeavour of academia

@curiousdannii No. I have zero respect for Protestant scholasticism. And reading the two books @Mr.Bultitude recommended to me only confirmed that Protestant scholarship is a heap of dung.

@LeeWoofenden This is a worthless generalisation.

Protestant scholarship starts with a false premise: Luther's doctrine of justification by faith alone. Based on that false premise, it falsifies the entire Bible and everything it teaches.

Swedenborg said that over two centuries ago. And for a while, I thought he was being hyperbolic. But the more I study Protestant doctrine, the more I realize that he was simply stating the facts. Based on the original Protestant misunderstanding of a few statements in Paul about being justified by faith apart from the works of the Law, Protestant doctrine has proceeded to destroy every truth in the Bible by falsifying it.

So no, I have no respect at all for Protestant scholasticism. And the more of it I read, the less respect I have for it. It just wouldn't be possible to be more blind and deceived about the meaning of the Bible than Protestants scholars are.

And it's all based on dogmas that are nowhere stated in the Bible, but are specifically rejected there.

Protestant doctrine is a matter of utterly rejecting the plain teachings of the Bible in favor of human doctrine. Calvinism in particular is the absolute low point of corrupting and profaning the teachings of the Bible into something that is diametrically opposed to everything the Bible teaches.

I hope that makes plain to you my opinion of Protestant doctrine.

It really is astonishing, considering how close most of your theology is. Other than your doctrine of God and your view of God's wrath, the more I understand what you believe the more I see it being mostly in line with standard Protestant theology.

@curiousdannii And it is astonishing to me that you could think that my belief is "mostly in line with standard Protestant theology." This, in fact, is one of the reasons I think that you, too, are blind, and do not even understand your own theology.

All of what we've just been discussing, the varying ways in which the aspects of soteriology are state-like or process-like would fit comfortably within the boundaries of Protestantism.

Your brushing penal substitution aside is a case in point. Penal substitution is central to Protestant theology. Without it, the entirety of Protestant theology falls to the ground.

@curiousdannii Protestantism is based firmly on the idea that salvation is a legal affair. It's a matter of legal declarations. This was driven home over and over again in Sproul's and Schreiner's book. Both insisted that the doctrine is above all forensic. And that is precisely what Paul was arguing against: a legal understanding of salvation.

@LeeWoofenden You just hate the way we talk about things. What you can't stand is our slogans.

Protestant doctrine so badly misunderstands Paul that it misses his whole point. Paul was working hard to get away from legalism. Protestant doctrine falls right back into the legalism that Paul attempted to banish.

@LeeWoofenden The penal aspects are the outworkings of the propitiatory substitution.

@curiousdannii And that is why they are wrong. Catholicism took a wrong turn when it listened to Anselm's new satisfaction theory, and then made Aquinas's version of it official Catholic doctrine. This represented an abandonment of the Catholic Church's own views on atonement and salvation from the time it first started until a millennium into Christianity.

Protestantism then took that satisfaction/substitution theory that Catholicism had heretically fallen into, and created its own variation: penal substitution. And thus it jumped from the frying pan into the fire doctrinally.

Protestantism took the late-breaking doctrinal error of Catholicism, and made it even worse.

@curiousdannii There is no such thing as "propitiatory substitution."

The entire satisfaction / substitution theory of atonement is a complete and utter misunderstanding of the Bible in general, and the OT sacrificial system in particular.

That's why it took human beings 1,000 years to come up with it.

@LeeWoofenden Christ bears God's wrath instead of us. Even with your version of God's wrath wouldn't you affirm that?

@curiousdannii Only in the most metaphorical of senses. And that is really a rather minor theme in the Bible, if it is present at all: the idea that Christ bore God's wrath.

Another common error of Protestant doctrine is that it takes minor themes in the Bible and makes them into major foundation stones of its doctrine, while relegating the major themes in the Bible to minor status.

Paul spends far more time talking about the right way to live than he does talking about faith. And yet, Protestants continually quote a few verses in which Paul talks about faith, and almost entirely ignore the much more voluminous sections of Paul's writings in which he talks about doing good works.

@LeeWoofenden I would say that Christ being priest and mediator is a very major Biblical theme, and though I understand that you view those things in non propitiatory ways, you should be able to recognise that they fit very comfortably with the propitiatory model too.

The whole edifice of doctrine is built on a complete distortion of the Bible.

@curiousdannii As I said above, the so-called "propitiatory model" is itself a complete misunderstanding and shunting aside of the primary biblical meaning of the Hebrew (and by derivation, Greek) words translated "propitiation" in favor of a tertiary meaning.

Read the answer I linked above. It goes into more detail about the Hebrew word כָּפַר translated as ἱλασμός in the LXX and used in the NT with that Hebrew meaning behind it.

The primary meaning is not placating God's wrath.

@LeeWoofenden The Septuagint was very important, and the NT is clearly in parts influenced by Hebraic Greek, but it is not, on the whole written in Septuagintal Greek.

@curiousdannii Once again, Paul was a Jew. If you don't understand and fully appreciate that fact, you simply cannot understand Paul's writings. Paul was not influenced "in part" by Hebraic Greek. He was steeped in Hebraic Greek. And once again, Protestant doctrine errs fatally because it does not fully appreciate this, but thinks Paul is speaking in some sort of Greek philosophical way about "faith" and "the works of the Law."

@LeeWoofenden I don't know of anyone who thinks Paul was speaking in some Greek philosophical way about "faith" and "the works of the Law."

Paul's audience of course was not steeped in Hebrew culture or language anywhere near as much as he was. And he wrote for them.

This is also not limited to Paul. It was my college Hebrew and Greek professor who pointed out a particular verse in Revelation that, if not seen through the lens of Hebrew and Aramaic idiom, just doesn't make sense:

> On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month (Revelation 22:2)

That is how it is traditionally translated. But it should be translated:

> Between the main street and the river was the tree of life producing twelve kinds of fruit, a different kind every month.

@LeeWoofenden Revelation is probably the most Semitic book of the NT.

This depends on how Hebrew/Aramaic expresses "between." It doesn't say, "between X and Y." It says, "between x and between Y." And the Greek of Revelation 22:2 carries that idiom over into Greek even though it is not a Greek idiom, causing confusion among translators.

At any rate, reading Paul requires going back to the Hebrew words that the Greek words he uses are translating in the LXX. Once again, if you don't do that, but rely primarily on the Greek meanings of those words, you simply can't understand what Paul is saying.

And when it comes to "propitiation" this means that the primary meaning of that word as Paul and the rest of the NT commonly use it is not appeasing God's wrath, but rather God mercifully covering over human sins when humans repent of them.

This fits perfectly with Jesus' and his disciples' first and in many ways primary preaching to the people of "repentance for the forgiveness of sins."

"God's wrath" has very little to do with it. Rather it is the expression of God's love, in desiring to forgive us of our sins and take away our guilt for them if only we are willing to repent from them and stop committing them.

This is also the primary meaning of the OT sacrifices. It is not about placating God's wrath. It is about obtaining and accepting God's love and mercy through repentance from sin.

Protestant doctrine completely misses this, substituting a legalistic "substitution" of Christ for humans, and the pouring out of God's wrath on Christ instead of on us. Not only does the Bible say no such thing, but it shows a complete lack of understanding of what the Bible does say, and even of the basic meanings of the words that the Bible uses.

The whole "propitiation" issue is a prime example of how the heretical and false Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone has vitiated and destroyed its understanding of everything the Bible says.

@LeeWoofenden Well on this, at least Protestants aren't innovative. Wrath is ever present in Catholicism too.

God's wrath comes into play only if we refuse to repent from our sins, but persist in them. Paul makes this clear in Romans 2. But he is simply re-stating what the Bible has said throughout it's entire extent.

Time to go

@curiousdannii As I said before, Protestant error is based on Catholic error. Protestantism simply took the error it inherited from Catholicism, and made it even more erroneous and false.

@curiousdannii Good night.

@curiousdannii to encapsulate what I said above about "propitiation," the biblical solution to God's wrath (however that is understood) is not substitution, but repentance. Substitution is hardly a footnote in the Bible. But repentance is presented hundreds of times throughout the Old and New Testaments as what's necessary to avert God's wrath and receive God's forgiveness and mercy.