1Cor 7:14

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Originally posted by pastorway
If His blood was not shed for you, then you are not in the New Covenant. It is the "New Covenant in My blood, which is shed for you."

Unless you believe that the blood of Christ was shed for the non-elect. Then, and only then, can unbelievers have any part in the New Covenant.

Do you get it already, or not yet?


:um:

Phillip - would you say that His blood was shed for Moses? or Abraham? or Noah? Or not?

It seems you are going to have a problem with salvation in general if you hold to what you said.

Moses gets to heaven by Christ's blood. If he does not, then you would have to be a Ryrie or Larkin kind of dispensationist who thinks that God saves in different ways at differnt times. If Moses IS saved by Christ's blood, then is Moses in the New Covenant? If Moses is not in the New Covenant, is Christ's blood only in the New Covenant as your statement says, or does it expand past the NC? Because we know Moses was in the Old Siniatic covenant. Is Christ the Mediator by His blood of that covenant or only the New? If it doesn't apply tot he old covenant, then what saved Moses in the OT if it were not the blood of Christ?

I think in general, Christians today seem to have a heard time with reconciling salvific ideas around the blood of Christ and how it applies to those in the OT/NT. That is what makes your statement thoroughly confusing to me.
 
He [Bruce] mentioned 1Cor 11 as contradicting my thesis that Paul only uses the Second Person plural when he is speaking to the whole church. I think that if you look again, you will find that it actually confirms what I´m suggesting. If anyone wants me to go through it verse by verse, I will, but I hope you´ll all see that I´m correct.
I am going to address this issue in a separate post, because in one sense it is completely irrelevant to the topic.

I have a different suggestion. Let everyone who thinks this "personal hermeneutic" is of the first interpretive order take Paul's writings, starting with 1 Corinthians; take a sheet of paper and draw columns on it; then divide up his comments through the letter into the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and singular and plural forms; then you will need sub/sub2/sub3-columns based on the subject matter to determine particular headings that describe the persons being addressed; OK, now you are finally ready to read 1 Cor. (or some other letter) analytically. Has anyone ever done this? Has such a method established itself over time as a reliable approach to getting a handle on Paul? No, because the use of "person" is flexible, not categorical. "Person" is valuable and useful, but it is not a first-order interpretive tool.

I would like the name of a reputable commentator who takes this hermeneutical stance regarding the interpretive use of person, in this letter (1 Cor.) or in any letter; of Paul or of any other writer of the NT. If you've already decided to use this parsing method as a "template", then you can force it down over just about any passage you like. And guess what! Because it is not a necessary inference, you can also make exceptions to its use, whenever or wherever you determine that the sense it yields is unsuitable! How convenient.

Using it as your hermeneutical grid is a choice, not a necessity; and one which, if applied consistently, may not yield the most natural sense of a given passage. When you absolutize it (as in: Paul always uses this method in this letter to "parse" his audience), as Martin you seem willing to do to make a point, you have taken a one form of rhetorical variety and raised it to a level of significance that grammar generally does not ascribe it. Indirect address and indirect discourse (3rd person) are modes of communication we employ on a daily basis in our own conversation.

(By the way, notice how many times I changed "person" in the last three paragraphs. Did anyone feel "left out" at some point?)

Frankly, insisting that Paul "would have" used the 3rd person again in the sentence to make his point if he was speaking (only or directly) of the children of the unbelievers would qualify under ordinary analysis as "imposition" on the text. Treating of the text itself, apart from any necessity (lacking here) the natural reading stance to take is: that, within a short compass, particularly with a "bracketing effect" (3rd-2nd-3rd), the (prime) subjects of an address do NOT change.

At this point in the discussion, I am primarily anxious to keep as many people as possible from applying such a "grid" to this or any other text. I am less interested in how such a matter applies here. The irony is that I am perfectly willing to grant a general inclusion of all the children in the church, by a perfectly natural and unexceptional application of the principle Paul states here. But not, emphatically not, on the basis of Paul's use of the term "your", as if that decided the question. You MUST value the use of "person" in interpretation, but you must not ascribe too much to it.
 
That the children are hagios is beyond dispute. The question is, in what does that "˜holiness´ consist. Let´s look at the "˜immediate context´:-
1Cor 7:12-15. ´But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: if any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases"¦"¦.´
I want to make two observations concerning the context:-
1. Paul is not speaking about children. He is only using them as a hypothetical example in his argument concerning whether believers should separate from their unbelieving spouses.
2. Is it not strange that Paul switches from the Third Person to the Second Person just for one sentence and then switches back again. Would it not have been much more natural for him to have written ´Otherwise their children would be unclean"¦´? Unless he has a special purpose for doing so; unless he is speaking of the children of the whole church?
Well, so far no one has ascribed a salvific holiness to this terminology. It is the "holiness of association" that comes about from connection to a believer (particularly) and the church (generally). In other words, it is a derivative holiness that describes a condition or relationship brought about in one entity because of its connections to something with a "superior" holiness.

Addressing 1 & 2 above:
1) Paul isn't speaking about the children directly, but that doesn't mean that he says nothing at all factual about them, when he plainly does. And hypothetical examples are useful precisely for their analogous properties, i.e. something about the example corresponds to objective reality encouraging an inferential conclusion. The "but now" portion of Paul's statement is a statement of reality, not hypothesis. And apparently that reality is so far from being disputed, as it forms a generally accepted maxim, and may thus enforce Paul's main argument.
2) How special is special? Only useful if it were a necessary inference, if there were no other reasonable explanation. And how is its applicabilty relevant to the discussion?

[to be contiued]
 
Bruce wrote:-
Paul isn't speaking about the children directly, but that doesn't mean that he says nothing at all factual about them, when he plainly does. And hypothetical examples are useful precisely for their analogous properties
I absolutely agree. That is why I see Hagiazo applied to the unbelieving parent as analogous to hagios applied to the children.

I would like the name of a reputable commentator who takes this hermeneutical stance regarding the interpretive use of person, in this letter (1 Cor.)

This line of thought that I've been pursuing here is not (alas) original to me, but was suggested to me by a friend who read it in the works of John Dagg.

Grace & Peace,

Martin
 
Originally posted by C. Matthew McMahon
Originally posted by pastorway
If His blood was not shed for you, then you are not in the New Covenant. It is the "New Covenant in My blood, which is shed for you."

Unless you believe that the blood of Christ was shed for the non-elect. Then, and only then, can unbelievers have any part in the New Covenant.

Do you get it already, or not yet?


:um:

Phillip - would you say that His blood was shed for Moses? or Abraham? or Noah? Or not?

It seems you are going to have a problem with salvation in general if you hold to what you said.

Moses gets to heaven by Christ's blood. If he does not, then you would have to be a Ryrie or Larkin kind of dispensationist who thinks that God saves in different ways at differnt times. If Moses IS saved by Christ's blood, then is Moses in the New Covenant? If Moses is not in the New Covenant, is Christ's blood only in the New Covenant as your statement says, or does it expand past the NC? Because we know Moses was in the Old Siniatic covenant. Is Christ the Mediator by His blood of that covenant or only the New? If it doesn't apply tot he old covenant, then what saved Moses in the OT if it were not the blood of Christ?

I think in general, Christians today seem to have a heard time with reconciling salvific ideas around the blood of Christ and how it applies to those in the OT/NT. That is what makes your statement thoroughly confusing to me.

:ditto:

Phillip, there is no need for me to respond to the argument you gave me, since Matt has already done so quite well. Please respond to Matt's post, and extrapolate a bit on the issue as it pertains to salvation in the OT. Thank you! I look forward to your response.



[Edited on 1-2-2006 by biblelighthouse]
 
Anyone in all of time who is saved is saved by the blood of Christ shed to ratify the New Covenant. So yes, all elect through all time are members of the New Covenant by faith!

The Old Covenant did not save anyone. It could not save anyone. Acts 13:39; Romans 3:20; Gal 2:16; Gal 3:11, 24; Hebrews 8:7-13.

The New Covenant is the covenant whereby men are saved.

Phillip
 
Originally posted by pastorway
Anyone in all of time who is saved is saved by the blood of Christ shed to ratify the New Covenant. So yes, all elect through all time are members of the New Covenant by faith!

The Old Covenant did not save anyone. It could not save anyone. Acts 13:39; Romans 3:20; Gal 2:16; Gal 3:11, 24; Hebrews 8:7-13.

The New Covenant is the covenant whereby men are saved.

Phillip
Actually, the Covenant of Grace is the covenant whereby men are saved, for it forms the context of history in which salvation comes about. And behind that there is the Covenant of Redemption that describes the inter-Trinitarian determination (which includes election) to save from all eternity.

The Old Covenant did not save only in this sense: that it was prospective, and did not include the Messiah's work in history (although it did provide the exact context for its historical fulfilment). In comparison the New Covenant is salvific, for by the death of Jesus the New Covenant is inaugurated; the New Covenant context then is retrospective because the work of Christ is done, and grace is on display. Thus it is only proper to state that the Old Covenant did not save in an historical sense.

But in the sense of faith, the Old Covenant was just as salvific as the New Covenant, for this is the point of New Covenant writers. Abraham is saved by faith, as well as Noah, Daniel, Samson, Moses, etc. (see Heb. 11). It is erroneous to say that the Old Covenant equals the Law of Moses. That Law plays a central role in the Old Covenant adminstration (an administration of the Covenant of Grace), but it is not synonymous with or a coterminous description of the Old Covenant.

Acts 13:39 (for example) states not that the OLD Covenant could not save but that the LAW of Moses could not save, a point agreeable to all sides. The Hebrews 8 pasage indeed uses the term "covenant", but beside speaking in particular of the pomulgation of the Law at Sinai (v.9) and not mentioning Abraham at all (who certainly fits under the whole Old Covenant umbrella), it doesn't say: the covenant didn't save (which the other references DO say regarding the LAW). And even if you are inclined to see such an implication in Heb. 8, then you must allow by the same implication the specific restriction to the LAW that you are importing from the Galatians, Acts, and Romans passages. You can't have it both ways.

The Old Covenant in general was "weaker" and less efficient broadly speaking, though it was certainly 100% efficient in every particular case of faith. The fault (as always) was in the sinners themselves, as Hebrews 8:7 explicitly declares. It is entirely unnecessary and anachronistic to thrust believers out of their time, or project the New Covenant backwards in time, in order to cover men by the (totally) necessary condition of Jesus' blood--because he is the Mediator of the COVENANT OF GRACE.

Speaking of, say, Seth or Abraham or Jeremiah as members of the New Covenant, beside completely confusing categories and being unintelligible to them (if they were to hear such a designation), robs them of their privileges of being full, saved members of the Old Covenant, to which for all eternity they will wear as a badge of honor--the comparitively select few that waited on the Lord Jesus Christ in faith, believing the promises.
 
oh, yeah. The covenant of grace.

Tell me again where that is in the Bible? (Actually, I have argued here before that to correctly use the term covenant of grace one must be referring to the New Covenant, for no other covenant saves.)

No one was saved by the Old Covenant. The Bible is clear about that. Salvation comes only through the covenant in Christ's shed blood, which is the New Covenant. The other covenants that came before all pointed to this covenant. The only way to confuse categories here is to make up covenants that do not exist and in so doing miss what the Bible says about the covenants that are listed as covenants made between God and men.

The OT saints were members of the Old Covenant. OT reprobates were as well. But only those who saw what the Old pointed to and believed God were made part of the New Covenant and saved.

Phillip
 
Well, needless to say, I disagree with Bruce. I don´t want to pass myself off as an expert on NT Greek, and I´m open to correction by Fred or anyone else who is learned on such matters, but it is my belief that epei ara does not introduce an a fortiori argument. This text and 1Cor 5:10 are the only instances of epei ara in the NT. In 1Cor 5:10, it is more of a Reductio ad absurdum argument. Paul says, if this were so, you would have to go out of the world, which is absurd, therefore this is not so. In 7:14, the thought is somewhat similar: if believers with unbelieving spouses had to separate from them, then by the same logic, all Christians would also have to separate from their children, who are by nature sinners and unbelievers until they are saved. But that is absurd; therefore Christians need not separate from unbelieving partners. Look at vs 12-15 again. The children are not really part of the argument. They are only brought in to make Paul´s case concerning the unbelieving spouses.
Well, let's look at 1 Cor. 5:10. Here is the argument unpacked:
A) In order for you to separate totally from the wicked you would have to literally remove yourself from the world.
B) You cannot go out of this world (strong indisputable point)
C) Therefore, you cannot absolutely separate from unbelievers

The argument is actually a fairly straightforward example of an a fortiori, a greater-to-lesser argument. Since the greater is negated, so also is any less than the greater. Reductios are similar to the a fortiori type of arguments anyway, except they usually argue like this: "Let's take that line of thinking to its logical (necessary) conclusion; oh, you don't want to go there? then your argument is dead." The reductio attacks an invalid premise. The conclusion of a successful reductio must be necessary, based on the premises. So, you see the similarity and difference in the arguments?

(Not that such arguments are dependent on the epei-ara construction, or that I concede that an epei-ara construction, "for else, otherwise" necessitates a certain form of reasoning, whether a-fortiori, or reductio, etc., though it may lend itself to certain situations. It is a 2nd class condition--premise assumed to be or treated as if it is contrary to fact, ATR* p. 1012. The construction might, for example, simply be used in a situation that supposes two alternatives, and the one being unacceptable for some reason the other option comes available, "otherwise, do this." Since the scriptural instances are so limited, it is almost impossible to discover a rule based on such limitations. ATR p. 1026 points out that in 7:14 the omitted premise rather than 2nd class would be 1st class--premise assumed to be or treated as if it is factual. So the use of the epei-ara in certain conditionals is not even the same in the two biblical examples.)

So, at this point one must go back and read the alternative interpretations, consult the commentaries, lexicons, and grammars, and see which of the two proposals so far stacks up best.

to be continued...

* ATR = A.T. Robertson (Prof. @ Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY), A Grammar of the Greek N.T. in the Light of Historical Research, 1934 (4th ed. 1923). This is the definitive 20th century Biblical Greek grammar in English (and perhaps any other language to date). This mammoth work is over 1500 pages including introductory matter, appendices and indices.

[Edited on 1-2-2006 by Contra_Mundum]
 
Originally posted by pastorway
oh, yeah. The covenant of grace.

Tell me again where that is in the Bible? (Actually, I have argued here before that to correctly use the term covenant of grace one must be referring to the New Covenant, for no other covenant saves.)

No one was saved by the Old Covenant. The Bible is clear about that. Salvation comes only through the covenant in Christ's shed blood, which is the New Covenant. The other covenants that came before all pointed to this covenant. The only way to confuse categories here is to make up covenants that do not exist and in so doing miss what the Bible says about the covenants that are listed as covenants made between God and men.

The OT saints were members of the Old Covenant. OT reprobates were as well. But only those who saw what the Old pointed to and believed God were made part of the New Covenant and saved.

Phillip
"oh yea, the Trinity.

Tell me again where is that in the Bible?" Sorry, this kind of argumentation is not going to fly.

Moving on...
I'll just say what I said before about 12 posts back:
For the sake of argument, I'll grant the credo definition of "inclusion" for a moment, and apply it in reverse:

Unbelievers had no part in the OLD Covenant either.
If you want to talk real, spiritual inclusion, and only of that, then you need to speak the same language in both contexts. Salvation is and always has been by faith in the Messiah, period. So, if you are going to exclude unbelievers from the New Covenant, you are obliged to exclude them from the Old Covenant.
 
Next, writing HOLY in respect of the children in capitals does not make the argument stronger. Is Bruce prepared to say that the unbelieving spouse is MADE HOLY in the same way? That is the meaning of hagiazo. In 1Cor 6:11, Paul writes, ´But you were washed, but you were sanctified (Gk. hagiazo), but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.´. Hagiazo is just the verb form of hagios. One means HOLY, the other means MADE HOLY. The degree of holiness can only be determined by the context. In 7:14, an unbelieving spouse is only "˜holy´ insofar as his Christian marriage partner may continue to live with him/her. That is the context, and I suggest that it is highly inconsistent to suppose that Paul, in the same sentence, would have two different definitions of holiness, one for the unbelieving spouse and another for the children. What is true of the one is surely true of the other.
The only reason I wrote it in CAPS was to emphasize the term. Paul emphasizes it by putting the direct object in the predicate position. So maybe I should have said, "Holy are they all." But that sounds artificial in English, don't you think? Anyway, I try not to raise my voice in debate. Please do not assume that I would insult your intelligence or anyone else's by trying to "score points" by strengthening my argument with capital letters. I don't recall insinuating that you try to score points by various diversionary tactics, like mockery.

And actually I have argued that 1) the agent of sanctification is the same, and 2) that the "kind" of sanctification is the same, that is "associational." What I have also pointed out is that the subjects are different, and the actual results are not of necessity equitable--any more than that different substances are identically affected by the same fire, or that the results of the associated sanctification in the case of the whole burnt offering and the perfuming offering of inscense were the same. When I pointed these things out, you simply called this line of reasoning an irrelevant waste, and refused to handle it. Suit yourself...

You bring up the cognate argument. I already mentioned it, but you make no attempt to answer my exegetical challenge wherein I distinguished Paul's meaning by his use of the different terms. Where is my exegesis flawed? You do not address it, only dismiss it.

And what you say is followed up by mere assertion. "I suggest that it is highly inconsistent .... What is true of the one is surely true of the other." And the reasons would be...? You have "suggested" that there are two different parties being addressed in the same sentence. I've given you grammatical and exegetical arguments why I think that supposition is weak.

I asked: Why the difference in Paul's terminology?
There is a simple reason for this. The children of believers generally are not made acceptably sanctified so that their parents can live with them, they are born that way. Hence Paul does not say they are "˜made holy,´ as the unbelieving spouses are, but rather that they "˜are holy´. But the degree of holiness is the same. The context demands it.
Well, I agree that it is birth that makes the difference, but since the idea that children might need to be alienated from from their parent never seems to have crossed anyone's mind, I don't see why Paul should have even brought it up. There is no logical argument that goes from: "Well if the unbelieving spouse wasn't sanctified (and Paul says he is) then you'd have (?) to separate from them (why?), then so would follow (why?) the children's uncleanness (so they'd have to be alienated? why? what parent would accept this as a logically necessary inference?). But the children are holy (therefore ? they can't be alienated from the believing parent). Consider how much of this argument (such as it is) is being supplied from outside the text itself.

This is nonsensical; there's no real logic to it. And I don't want to attribute nonsense to you, Martin, but I can't see how else you are reading this passage. Furthermore, if the unbeliever departs and takes the children away, since he's no longer sanctified at this point, aren't the children no longer holy either? But how can that be since we agreed that it was the birth that gave them that status? Thus what you denominate identical "degree of holiness" flounders in ambiguity...
Finally, it seems that not everybody understood how I reached my conclusion that infants were not being baptized in Corinth. Well, my argument is, that if Paul is saying that if Christians had to separate from non-Christian spouses, then all parents would have to separate from their children, then those children surely cannot have been baptized any more than the non-Christian spouses were baptized? It seems self-evident to me.
If your reading of the text were correct, which reading focuses not on the power of the sactifying party (as Paul actually is doing) but on a supposed unexpressed argument that assumes for the sake of argument that everything Paul said in the last 5 verses was counterfactual,
and if it is assumed that this statment of Paul's would otherwise have been nullified, if the parties (spouse and children) were baptized,
then children weren't baptized in the Corinthian church.

I don't think the argument follows any logical train of thought. Here it is stripped down: If this is what Paul was saying, then children weren't baptized. If they were baptized then Paul's argument wouldn't work. My construction of Paul's argument works for me, and therefore children weren't baptized. There is nothing necessary about it. It assumes the conclusion is true.



We've gone from "some paedo-baptists use this text to prove infant baptism", to "this text says nothing at all about baptism, but it proves that infant baptism wasn't practiced in Corinth."

[Edited on 1-2-2006 by Contra_Mundum]
 
if you are going to exclude unbelievers from the New Covenant, you are obliged to exclude them from the Old Covenant.

But that would be taking away from what the Scripture says about the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant included lost people - but then the Old also never saved anyone as the Scriptures demostrate for us plainly. The New does not inlcude anyone for whom Christ's blood was not shed.

The problem with most systems of theology is that they either force too much discontinuity (aka. dispensationalism) or allow none at all (aka. full blown covenant theology - the non-Baptist kind) between the Old and New.

Hebrews tells us where they differ, where the discontinuity exists - and there is discontinuity between the two. Discontinuity taken too far destroys the gospel. No discontinuity at all confounds and confuses the Old and New, tending toward a type of Judaistic doctrine in the church that forces eveything Old onto New Covenant believers. Both lead to legalism of one form or another.

Phillip

[Edited on 1-2-06 by pastorway]
 
Phillip,
And I would say that you are taking away from what the New Testament says about the New Covenant, about who is included in it. There are plenty of apostasy texts and warnings in the New Testament. Examples of faithlessness abound. Hymenaus? Alexander? Diotrephes? But you refuse to acknowledge an external, visible adminstration of the earthly mechanics of the New Covenant. The church is what? Whatever it is, you cannot call it administrating the New Covenant, nevermind that we administer the sacrament containing the cup--the New Covenant in Jesus blood--only in this institution...

The Old Covenant only contained non-believers in the externals of the Old Covenant. That is what the New Testament (with repeated reference to the Old) says time and again. Unbelievers experienced ZERO with respect to the real benefits of the Old Covenant, same as unbelievers and apostates experience with respect to the New. They heaped up judgment to themselves, same as Heb. 10:26, 29.

I agree that there is error in dispensational tendencies and in some theonomists and the FV, in assuming too little continuity or too much. Hebrews is possibly my favorite NT book. It tells us over and over again how much better Jesus and the New Covenant is better. But I can't agree with your assessment that Hebrews (or Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, or any of the OT prophets) speak of the "pristine" nature of the New Covenant in any other than a spiritual and ideal sense, as if there is no visible adminstration of this present Covenant, no Kingdom of God advancing to knock down the gates of hell.



Just because I don't agree with you, doesn't mean I don't honor and respect you, both as a person and as a fellow minister of the gospel. I hope you were blessed and a blessing this Lord's Day.
 
Just because I don't agree with you, doesn't mean I don't honor and respect you, both as a person and as a fellow minister of the gospel. I hope you were blessed and a blessing this Lord's Day.


:ditto:
 
Bruce wrote:-
Well, let's look at 1 Cor. 5:10. Here is the argument unpacked:
A) In order for you to separate totally from the wicked you would have to literally remove yourself from the world.
B) You cannot go out of this world (strong indisputable point)
C) Therefore, you cannot absolutely separate from unbelievers

I would unpack it a different way.

A) You think I want you to separate totally from all wicked people.
B) To do that you would have to go out of this world (which is ridiculous)
C) Therefore, this cannot be what I was telling you.

Now let's look at 7:14.
A) You (the Corinthian church) think (cf. 7:1 ) that Christians with unbelieving spouses should separate from them because they are unclean.
B) If that is correct, you would also have to separate from your own children who are also unclean until they are saved (which is ridiculous)
C) Therefore Christians with unbelieving spouses do not need to separate from them.

I hate swopping authorities, but according to Liddell & Scott the word ara denotes "an anxiety or impatience on the part of the questioner." I see Paul saying, in effect, "If the unbelieving spouse is unclean, then for crying out loud so are your own children!"
Well, I agree that it is birth that makes the difference, but since the idea that children might need to be alienated from from their parent never seems to have crossed anyone's mind, I don't see why Paul should have even brought it up.

That's the whole point! In v5, no one was talking about leaving Planet Earth, but Paul brings it up to show how absurd their line of thought was. He's doing the same thing here.

There is no logical argument that goes from: "Well if the unbelieving spouse wasn't sanctified (and Paul says he is) then you'd have (?) to separate from them (why?), then so would follow (why?) the children's uncleanness (so they'd have to be alienated? why? what parent would accept this as a logically necessary inference?). But the children are holy (therefore ? they can't be alienated from the believing parent). Consider how much of this argument (such as it is) is being supplied from outside the text itself.

This is nonsensical; there's no real logic to it.

Well, to take it bit by bit, Paul is answering the Corinthian church's questions (7:1 ). Presumably, they have asked, should Christians with non-Christian partners separate from them? Paul says, no. The believing marriage partner sanctifies the non-believer so that (and no further) they may live together. Then, to anticipate someone bringing up Ezra 9 or Neh 13, where the Israelites were made to put away their foriegn wives, Paul says, 'If this were not so then all Christians would have to separate from their children who are unbelievers until they are converted. But they are sanctified in just the same way as the unbelieving marriage partners.

I'm not really expecting Bruce to agree with this, but it is a logical line of argument.

Let everyone who thinks this "personal hermeneutic" is of the first interpretive order take Paul's writings, starting with 1 Corinthians; take a sheet of paper and draw columns on it; then divide up his comments through the letter into the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and singular and plural forms; then you will need sub/sub2/sub3-columns based on the subject matter to determine particular headings that describe the persons being addressed; OK, now you are finally ready to read 1 Cor. (or some other letter) analytically. Has anyone ever done this? Has such a method established itself over time as a reliable approach to getting a handle on Paul? No, because the use of "person" is flexible, not categorical. "Person" is valuable and useful, but it is not a first-order interpretive tool.

There was a time when painstaking study of the Scriptures of an original nature was called 'Scholarship.' Today, it is apparently the constant mastication of dead men's brains that merits such a title.

Bruce, I think I have said all that I want to say on this subject and am happy to leave the last word to you. Thank you for your time and trouble. I've enjoyed the discussion.

Grace & Peace,

Martin
 
Originally posted by Martin Marprelate

There was a time when painstaking study of the Scriptures of an original nature was called 'Scholarship.' Today, it is apparently the constant mastication of dead men's brains that merits such a title.

Martin, as a bystander to your on-going argument with Bruce, Matt, et. al., I'm not sure how to take this statement. I'm not sure if Bruce has been a life-long Presbyterian/Covenater or not, but Matt has decidedly not been such. As a matter of fact, Matt was a Reformed Baptist for well over a decade. Don't you think that for many of us who were formerly Baptists and now hold the Presbyterian/Padeo/Covenantal position, that a thorough (and on-going I might add) study of the Scriptures, in an attempt to "integrate" Redemptive History is what led us to the Covenant Theology we now hold to? Furthermore, that in the name of honest scholarship we consult great men in the line of the Covenant and Reformed Baptist (e.g. Owen) Theology traditions in order to verify and correct our own observations. Can you show us how Matt's/Bruce's 1000's upon 1000's of hours of honest study in the Scriptures (which include credible original language skills) with humble reliance upon the same Holy Spirit that regenerated you and me have led them epistemologically astray?

[Edited on 1-2-2006 by BrianBowman]
 
Originally posted by pastorway
oh, yeah. The covenant of grace.

Tell me again where that is in the Bible? (Actually, I have argued here before that to correctly use the term covenant of grace one must be referring to the New Covenant, for no other covenant saves.)Phillip
Where in the Bible does it explicitly state that the OT Saints were in the New Covenant?
 
is states that no one was saved by the Old (Acts 13:39; Romans 3:20; Gal 2:16; Gal 3:11, 24; Hebrews 8:7-13), so that leaves only the New, since it is the covenant in Christ's blood!

Phillip
 
So the faith that Adam and Eve had in the proto-Evangelum was the New Covenant?

How is the New Covenant "New" if it predates the Mosaic Law (which is what you define as the Old Covenant)?

[Edited on 1-3-2006 by SemperFideles]
 
Originally posted by pastorway
is states that no one was saved by the Old (Acts 13:39; Romans 3:20; Gal 2:16; Gal 3:11, 24; Hebrews 8:7-13), so that leaves only the New, since it is the covenant in Christ's blood!

Phillip

"...the just shall live by faith."

Hab 2:4 cited by Paul Gal 3:11.


Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness.
 
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