Rom 7

Pastor Lane Keister has an interesting, albeit brief, defense of the traditional Reformed interpretation of Rom 7. Especially the first paragraph:

greenbaggins said,January 7, 2015 at 2:12 pm 

RB, it is easy to admit that 7:14 is the most difficult obstacle to my reading of the text. However, I believe that the difficulty disappears once one realizes that Paul is not saying that the entire “I” is enslaved. He uses the word “I” in several different senses in the passage. Sometimes he means only the regenerate part of him. Sometimes he means the whole person. Never does he say that “I” is only the remaining sin. In other words, it is only the remaining sin that is enslaved, not the whole “I.” This, I believe, fully answers the problem you raise. 

You would admit, would you not, that there is in fact a conflict going on in the “I” of Romans 7? Let me ask you this: what non-believer do you know of who even knows this struggle at all? That is, in my opinion, the ultimate Achilles heel of the non-regenerate interpretation of Romans 7: the unbeliever does not struggle with sin. To quote the song from “My Fair Lady”: “When temptation comes I fall right in.” 

Further, you have not answered my points about the inward man delighting in the law of the Lord (something the unbeliever CANNOT do), or the contextual indicators in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians about what “the inner man” means. I have already said that Romans 7 does not describe what is always and constantly the case; and this would explain why the Christian is not enslaved. You have also not answered my argument about the sequence in the last part of the chapter. Why would the thanksgiving for freedom PRECEDE the statement about still being enslaved (again, it is ONLY the indwelling sin that is enslaved). 

https://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/response-to-gerety/#comment-126645

Why Imputation Is Not a Legal Fiction

http://theaquilareport.com/why-imputation-is-not-a-legal-fiction/

There are a variety of responses, but the best one, it seems to me, resides in the metaphor of marriage union. We will also add a few things afterwards that will help us understand.

In most marriages, property entails joint ownership. Now, if a woman comes into the marriage with a debt (like a college debt), the husband assumes that debt. It becomes their debt (it can also be described as his debt), even though the husband did not incur that debt. Similarly, whatever money the husband brought into the marriage doesn’t belong just to him anymore, it also belongs to her, even though she did not earn it. So, by virtue of the marriage union between husband and wife, the debts and the assets are transferred.

In a very similar way, when the believer becomes united to Christ by faith, a new legal situation results with transfers happening.

Read the whole article here.

Leonard de Chirico: A Short Guide Waiting for the Conclave

Lane Keister has published A Guest Post by Leonard de Chirico on the topic of “Who Will Be the Next Pope?”

De Chirico analyzes and dismisses a scenario that I think is highly likely – that “After two non-Italian Popes (the Polish Wojtyła and the German Ratzinger) is it time for an Italian one?” According to de Chirico, there is only one likely Italian candidate at this time.

If this is the case, then the Archbishop of Milan Angelo Scola (72) is the first and perhaps only option. The Italian candidates, however, could pay the price of a possible showdown. Many of the recent scandals (e.g. Vatileaks and the Vatican bank’s financially opaque maneuvers) originated in the Roman curia, which is mainly governed by Italian prelates. Moreover, the Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone (78), himself an Italian, is part of the on-going controversy. So the poor performance of the Italian hierarchy may result in leaving Italians out of the game to wait for the next round.

He looks at a list of other names we’ve seen elsewhere.

The speculation is merely that: speculation. There is a saying in those circles that those men entering the conclave as papabile end up disappointed. Ratzinger, the long time doctrinal watchdog during the papacy of John Paul II, was an obvious exception to this rule. But there aren’t many globally-recognized names at this point, and another likely response is simply that we won’t have any idea who the new man is who emerges as pope.

He also provides a brief “list of Evangelical desires” which seems to hope for a pope who is more cognizant of the need for pluralism and of the Evangelical world generally.

An early commenter asks the question, “And we Reformed types need to care about any of this because why now?”

My response to that was: “if only to understand how a vast enemy and mission field works. If we are more cognizant of the inner workings of Roman Catholicism, we are better able to discuss their religion with them on their own terms, show them its weakness, and introduce the Gospel at appropriate points in the discussion.”

Whomever is named, however, will yet again face the choice of being honest with history and admitting to the fraudulent nature of the nonexistent early papacy, or simply smiling and trying to hide it again from the view of the masses of Roman Catholics who genuinely need to hear the Truth.

The Papacy: Neither Biblical Nor Historical

This month and next, we’ll all be treated in the media to the spectacle of another conclave to select another pope. The media will fail to understand the genuine historical roots of the papacy lie neither in the Bible, nor in the history of the earliest church, but rather were an exercise if self-admiration of the newly-rich bishops of Rome of the fourth and especially the fifth century.

Leonardo de Chirico, who wrote what Lane Keister called The Best Book On Roman Catholicism I Have Read, has posted Some Brief Thoughts from Rome on Benedict’s Resignation:

Vatican I (1870) sort of divinized the papacy by making the pope "infallible" when he exercises his teaching role. Now, Ratzinger's resignation "humanizes" it by showing that this office is like any other human responsibility, i.e. temporary and subject to human weakness. The hope is that this move will cause many Catholics to reflect on the nature of the Papacy beyond traditional dogmatic assertions. Is the Papacy a de iure divino (i.e. divine law) office or is it more of a historical institution? Is it a condition for Christian unity or rather an obstacle to it? And more radically: is it biblical at all?

Starting that last question, “is it biblical at all”, after an extensive discussion of the Biblical texts, Robert Reymond said:

Rome’s exegesis of Matthew 16 and its historically developed claim to authoritative primacy in the Christian world simply cannot be demonstrated and sustained from Scripture itself. This claim is surely one of the great hoaxes foisted upon professing Christendom, upon which false base rests the whole papal sacerdotal system. (“A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith,” pg 818).

Today’s media certainly has been fooled, and is passing along the hoax, unless some enterprising reporter would dare to investigate the latest scholarship on the papacy.

Is the Papacy a de iure divino (i.e. divine law) office or is it more of a historical institution? If it’s not biblical at all, then it’s certainly not “a de iure divino (i.e. divine law) office”.

But is it historical?

The last century-and-a-half of even Roman Catholic scholarship denies that it is “historical” (before the fourth and fifth centuries).

With his “theory of development”, Newman makes this important historical concession:

While Apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. . . . St. Peter's prerogative would remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters became the cause of ascertaining it. . . . When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred.... (Essay on the Development of Doctrine, Notre Dame edition, pg 151).

This “prerogative” that he speaks of remains “a mere letter” during the most critical, foundational centuries of the Christian church – if Newman is going to assert that it remained “a mere letter”, then where was the “letter”?

And Newman himself concedes that it had not been “ascertained” until “ecumenical disturbance” (one would think he’s talking about the Arian matters of the fourth century – this is the first time that the “mere letter” first became “ascertained”.

But where was the “letter”? If this existed, certainly it is incumbent upon Roman Catholics to show it.

But they can’t, and so they don’t. They merely continue to assert something that was never there.

I would hope, with de Chirico, that “this move will cause many Catholics to reflect on the nature of the Papacy beyond traditional dogmatic assertions.”

Jesus said to his disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave”.

The papacy and its efforts to dominate Christianity and the world are a fourth- and fifth-century imposition by the “nouveau-riche” bishops of Rome upon the rest of Christianity. It is not a unifying factor; rather, it has been the most harmful and divisive institution in the history of the world. Its boastful yet vacuous claims of global domination have divided Christianity and damaged the witness of Christ in the world. It is my hope that the passing of the Wojtyla/Ratzinger era will represent another step towards oblivion for this selfish and un-Christlike institution.