WTW 2021
March 12
Isaiah 40
You who bring good news (basar) to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” Isaiah 40:9
The euaggelion, that sweet word. The evangel, het evangelie, da evangelium, good tidings, glad tidings, what we English call gospel, godspell, the Good News message of JESUS.
What a joy to see the truth of the new in the old concealed and that of the old in the new revealed! ¹ ² ³
Wisdom in the WORD 
“…et in Vetere Novum lateat, et in Novo Vetus pateat.”
Translated
“… and in Old New latent, and in New Old patent.”
LikeLike
1 September 2021
Looking for a relevant place to post this paper, this is the closest post I found related to the topic of The Power of Sin.
LikeLike
Fragmentary Responses
Another equivalent thread shows itself in Philippians 3. It appears there are more than just one thing at work together in the same way. Paul says
No confidence in the flesh
This is equivalent (in terms of the deficiency of the vehicle) to knowledge and law and it seems likely to other things when they are without God himself in relationship, in reality.
In other words
No confidence in the flesh can just as well be no confidence in the law as no confidence in human understanding
_____
One thing we talked about as touched on in his paper is how the interpretive approach used by the NT writers did not follow accepted scholarly methods. He uses that at his discretion but I pressed that point farther a number of times especially in response to his claim that the pentecostals he knows are too unstructured in their thinking and logical understanding of scripture. No need to go down that discussion again.
Still, good discussion and many other good things discussed but that is one big gap… the aim to develop a model, a system and–to use my flawed pentecostal topological method like the NT writers perhaps– to build a shelter, wait, perhaps a tent right here where we can preserve this very thing…
Wait that seems to remind me of something I heard somewhere…
Our talk as I say was definitely engaging and I think fruitful because for me it always drives me back to the WORD
After our talk the phrase no confidence in the flesh came to mind so I looked up Philippians 3 and then sent him a couple additional thoughts…
Just in that chapter alone, it’s clear that there is not only the law which is part of the ingredients in the prescription of sin but that there are numerous things which are equivalent in their deficiency
The Law
The flesh
Human understanding
I had already mentioned the carnal mind
I’m sure there are many other things
So my main point as we discussed was that
Knowledge without God
Seems to be at least equivalent in its role from the garden onward as part of the substance of sin itself
Once the law came, Paul said
His claim on that point of course has strong scriptural support
Isn’t it true also that once knowledge without God comes that sin springs to life also?
Once the carnal comes sin springs to life etc etc?
LikeLike
Rereading Philippians 3 looking to see evidence of this explanation regarding the power of sin…
What I find is that there are many ingredients which gave and give rise to sin but all can also be boiled down to those 2 items I proposed 20 years ago in answer to RC’s unanswered question in Chosen By God. These 2 seem to me a sufficient explanation as to the catalysts or as the combined substances leading to the reaction causing sin, namely the command and free will.
The writer above seeks to explain the cosmic origin of sin and it seems to me that in the 2 items I propose are these other confounding variables which are all included in either one or both or in the combination of these, namely
Choice, opinion, reason, logic, decision, option, consideration, thought
All these without God lead to an openness to disobeying simple wisdom, let alone teaching, instruction, command or Law
LikeLike