I enjoyed your quotation from Romans 3 .I agree and it would be hard for any adult who reads the media to disagree. Thanks for that.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 6:32 pmHumanly speaking, yes it is. And it's a failure every time.Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 5:56 pmImitation is the best anybody can do when perfection is aimed at.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:51 pm
Well, I would suggest that "imitation" is a bit of a poor metaphor for what's going on. It seems to imply that the "imitator" is just sort of "trying hard" to behave like he or she thinks Christ would, and of course, is falling considerably short on that. It sounds like some kind of mere mimicry, or worse, a call to summon your resources so as to pretend to be Somebody who is far better than you could ever be.
"Try harder" is not the motif of Scripture. It's rather, "Realize the futility of your mere human trying, and appeal to God for relief from what you are; and when He rescues you, you can be better than you would otherwise be."
That's quite a different proposition. The motif is "salvation," not "try harder."
"Try harder" is like yelling at a drowning man to "swim harder."
It's the opposite, B. It's the teaching that no matter how hard you try, or how many good works you do, it's never good enough to put you into rightful harmony with a perfect and holy God. Or, as a wise woman recently put it to me, "imitation is the best anybody can do when perfection is aimed at." "Imitation" is not good enough.Regarding the Doctrine of Salvation, it is not simply and solely a teaching that you only have to do good works, or proper rituals in order to go to Heaven.
"Abysmally horrible"? That seems a bit hyperbolical, doesn't it? Let's just say what the Bible says: marred by "sin."More importantly it's teaching that humanity is so abysmally horrible that Christ is a personification of the good that some men do and are, which saves us as a species from complete degradation.
Man's not a devil, but nowhere near an angel either. He's a creature whose basic purpose is to have fellowship with a perfect God, but who, by way of sin, is not anywhere near where he/she needs to be. We're in a bad state, it's true: but we were created, as Genesis says, "in the image of God."
But "the good that some men do?" Well, the Bible talks about that, in Romans 3, and quoting the Torah, the OT directly, it says,
“There is no righteous person, not even one;
There is no one who understands,
There is no one who seeks out God;
They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt;
There is no one who does good,
There is not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave,
With their tongues they keep deceiving,”
“The venom of asps is under their lips”;
“Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”;
“Their feet are swift to shed blood,
Destruction and misery are in their paths,
And they have not known the way of peace.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
That would seem to summarize the prospects that "the good that some men do" are going to get us out of anything. And again, in Ephesians, the Bible says, "For by grace you are saved, through faith; and that, not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works..." That, too, would seem to slam the door on any thought that our deeds, or those of other mere humans, are going to bring our "imitations" up to the point where we become fit for company with God.
What the Bible says about that is that if it's ever going to happen, He's going to have to do it. Nobody else even has the potential.
I also agree that it is now up to God to save us from out own folly and evil.Where we differ is what 'God' is.
The Divine Image
BY WILLIAM BLAKE
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.