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Questions for a reformer

April 4, 2011

Question:  In reformed theology, it is taught that our sin is transfered to Christ and His righteousness is inputed to us. Are the sins of the repentant cast onto the human nature of the Incarnate Christ? Or the Divine nature?

If it is just the human nature, Christ is two persons. If it is the divine nature, the Second person in the Trinity becomes a separate God unto Himself.

The proper understanding of the Incarnation isn’t that of “created grace” (i.e God becomes man, does a combination of things, and creates grace), but that the Son brought His divinity, which was uncreated to our nature, and through destroying death from the inside, defeated the curse of death. Much like this:

Around 1:20 and beyond is a good visual illustration of how the Son took on human nature. The Son didn’t need to create any grace, but brought the grace that was needed, and defeated death.

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5 Comments
  1. >> In reformed theology, it is taught that our sin is transfered to Christ and His righteousness is inputed to us.

    That is a Non Sequitur. I have not heard that at all. What source of yours says that?

    Anyway, this 11 minute video is more accurate as to what I myself believe. Does that comply with your perceived beliefs?

  2. Eric Castleman permalink

    I will watch the video later tonight, since I am currently tied up. But let me ask you this question:

    If our sin is transfered to Christ, is it transfered to His human nature, divine nature, or both?

  3. >>If our sin is transfered to Christ.

    It isn’t, again a Non Sequitur. His perfection is transferred to us. The penalty of sin is death. Jesus paid that price as an innocent man.

  4. Eric Castleman permalink

    That is not historical protestantism. Calvin, the reformed confession (3 forms) all profess that Christ’s took on our sin to Himself, and was cursed by the Father in our place. Creating a exchange. Our sins were transfered to Christ on the Cross, and his perfect life is transfered to ours. In fact, the picture I put on this blog was not made by me, but by a protestant, showing that I am not making this stuff up.

    Even if the “guilt” idea is not true, the video you posted however claims that God “created hell”, which in turn is the place where we go for having just one sin, yet, you believe Jesus went to hell, so, this is proof that Christ took on some form of sin, which in reformed views has to be ours, since Christ lived a perfect life.

    What is very odd though, is that Christ needed to do anything to “become perfect”. Was Christ not perfect prior to the Incarnation, being that He is the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity? Why did he have to create grace, and not just bring grace?

  5. reyjacobs permalink

    There are enough Protestant theories on how it works to where they can successfully jump from one to the other whenever you get them in a corner on one. The same goes for Christianity in general. The theory of salvation by the death of a god-man on a cross just doesn’t make logical sense no matter how you try to explain it. Let me explain that!

    The theory requires an overly fundamentalist reading of Deuteronomy, resulting in the belief put forth in Hebrews that “without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins.” But that overly fundamentalist reading of Deuteronomy is corrected in the Old Testament itself by the prophet Micah, in Micah 6.

    Micah 6:6-8
    “Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? — He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

    This demonstrates that Christianity is based on a failed interpretation of Deuteronomy. A proper reading of the Old Testament DOES NOT result in the maxim of “Paul” in Hebrews that “without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins.” Therefore, there is no need for ANY sacrifice. God can forgive sins without the shedding of blood. Jesus then died a martyr not a sacrifice, and all the spin in the New Testament trying to make him a sacrifice is simply a misreading of the Old Testament by Pagans.

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