Please see here and especially here for context. I consider the comments of the latter as the meat of the discussion. I’m going to juxtapose the definitions being used for the sake of clarity. First we have the critics, emphasizing the common uses of “damned”:
Definition of Damned: a final verdict of eternal damnation; where one is sanctioned to hell, tormented forever without relenting under God’s eternal wrath, and it is upon all who have rejected the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and died as unregenerated – vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Damnation is irrevocable. You live once, die, and then the judgment.
Isn’t ‘to be damned’ a condition or action applied to the spirit only, and the only ones whom it could apply to are those who are dead of Spirit? Christ was never spiritually dead, 1 peter 3: 18-20 says that “Christ was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.” So, since He was alive in the spirit there is no way damnation could apply!
Both of the above comments are correct regarding common usage, and any theologian who makes a comment at odds with this usage is promoting misunderstanding at the very least. I will not defend Piper etc. on that point; however, I think the theological point represented by their misuse of the term is valid. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to articulate it clearly, but then I found that someone did it for me:
The eternal Son of God did not need to endure God’s wrath eternally in order to redeem us, for he, bore God’s eternal wrath due unto us in the compressed time that he was upon the cross precisely because he is the Eternal One.
The rest of the source paragraph addresses an issue which confuses me, but I’ve addressed that elsewhere. I think the definition used here can be expressed as follows: Damnation is the dealing of God’s infinite wrath upon one’s spirit. As Caneday explained, Christ’s spirit was able to sustain this within a small period of time because He too is infinite; He never died spiritually because He is even more infinite than the damnation of all mankind.
So I don’t think that Piper, Mahaney, and others who use such terminology are necessarily in theological error. They are, however, miscommunicating the center of the Gospel, and I think that’s something for them to correct. On the other hand, some of the writings quoted in those comments (Luther’s for example) may well be heresy; I haven’t taken the time to understand all of them. But now I want to read your thoughts on this.
June 5, 2009 at 8:55 pm |
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