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A Gift in Place of a Gift: the Fourth Gospel

The question of “why Christ” is neither obvious nor uninteresting. The lack of an answer that withstands the passage of time suggests that this information is not really a practical necessity. On the other hand, it is a good exercise in the importance of context, and particularly historical context, in theology and biblical studies. To the NT authors who wrote on this subject, the issue was usually framed against the requirements of their own age. Put bluntly, the law was given by God. So why Christ?

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Who are the “spirits in prison?”

FaithHopeLove, who is more covert than emeritus these days, asked about the identity of the spirits in 1 Pet 3:18-20:

18 For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit. 19 In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, 20 who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark

First, note that Christ suffered once for sin. And it’s past. Beyond that, here’s the deal.

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The Effects of the Christ-Event: Glorification

One of the most widely quoted verses in Paul’s letters is the condemnation of Rom 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Although we usually focus on the idea that all have sinned, the fact that all have sinned is simply what leads to the really bad news: we do not now enjoy the glory of God. In this post, the sixth in the series, we examine God’s restoration of man to glory as Paul understood it.

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The Effects of the Christ-Event: Completion

Just before Easter, J. Stapley made this comment in response to an invitation issued to readers of New Cool Thang to participate in an Easter brainstorming session on the work of Christ:

…I think that Joseph Smith was clear in the last months of his life that the Atonement was for God as well as Man. This is supported by the Book of Mormon – “that he might succor his people.” “The Spirit knoweth all things, nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh.”

From this, I’d say that JS knew, as did the author of the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, that the Christ-event affected Christ himself.

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The Adversary, Reciprocity, and the Atonement: Part 2A, The Role of Agency

First, I must apologize for the long delay between the first and second installments of this series. I got busy and lazy simultaneously (a rather easy thing to accomplish, really) and I was stalling for time as my thoughts coalesced. Here’s hoping what we got was distilled rather than excreted.

In the first installment, we surveyed the information that we have regarding the nature of Satan’s plan. There are two points on which all theories regarding the plan of the Adversary must agree as they are repeated within the Heavenly Council pericope. Satan wished to moved against agency and that he wanted something that is variously called, power, glory, and honor that our Father in Heaven had and that he did not. The degree to which agency would be destroyed was debated in the ensuing discussion. It was a good discussion and you should check it out. I just want to add that I do think that theories involving the removal of consequences for acts (the removal of punishment or law) are actually attacks on agency itself (as, if we cannot distinguish between two choices, we cannot consciously choose).

So, agency gives us the option of choosing. But who or what do we choose? That’s the question, isn’t it.

Why Free Agency is a crock
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The Effects of the Christ-Event: Wider Aspects of Justification

Justification is one of the most prominent of Paul’s ten great metaphors and it’s also probably the best-known one as well. In this light, I think that I’ll try to move past an assumed understanding of justification by touching on three topics:

1) The pre-Pauline roots of justification
2) Baptism and justification
3) Works of the law and justification

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Whassup with that “one-third the hosts of heaven” stuff?

Since that shadowy character HP has lately taken to investigating the even darker figure of Satan in the dim reaches of LDS protology, David J and J. Watkins want to talk about the “third part” thing. And since I’m writing my dissy on Revelation and since I had way too much Mt. Dew after dinner, I’m going to oblige.

First off, the easiest way to handle the whole thing is to rely strictly on DC 29:36-37 and be done with it:

And it came to pass that Adam, being tempted of the devil—for behold the devil was before Adam. for he rebelled against me saying “Give me thine honor, which is my power, and also a third part of the hosts of heaven he turned against me because of their agency, and they were thrust down and became the devil and his angels;

Anytime Revelation gets called in on anything but its own terms, you will be lucky if you are only tormented by demonic cavalry from the abyss for five months. So if you click “read more,” you asked for it…

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The Adversary, Reciprocity, and the Atonement: Part One, An attempt to recover Satan’s plan

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a bit of time lately thinking about one of the big imponderables in Mormon theology: the acts of the Adversary in the Garden. If we believe that the plan was laid out in the grand, heavenly council, then the Adversary had to have known that he was playing into God’s plan. Why would he do this, especially if the motivation that we always ascribe to him is to frustrate God’s plan? Let’s look at what we know.
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Rehabilitating Our Judas: Ms. Tchacos Nussberger

Today’s NYT has a story about how GJudas finally came to light. The eye-catcher is this:

I think I was chosen by Judas to rehabilitate him,” Ms. Tchacos Nussberger, 65, is quoted as saying in one of the society’s books, “The Lost Gospel,” by Herbert Krosney. Mr. Krosney is also an independent television producer who brought the gospel project to National Geographic.

But the heart of the articles is really about the legal and ethical issues involved in acquiring, handling, and publishing these rare lost works. When I first heard about this story a little more than a year ago, I immediately googled it, only to find that most of the hits also included INTERPOL.

Bad sign.

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