Ephesians 2:8 challenge

[Arial]

I don't think that's a fair critique. I've quoted and referred back to verses 1 and 5 multiple times. That is where the idea of healing comes from for me - it's linked to the death and resurrection from those verses.

Then it would be necessary to give your definition of what you mean, or what you think the scriptures mean by healing. Maybe you have. I have not read all our comments but the ones I did read seemed to refer to physical healing. When a person says physical healing what do you suppose most people think you mean? Our corruptible bodies restored to health and soundness in the here and now would be my guess. And maybe you explained to me what you mean above, but it is very unclear to me what you mean.

I hope not. If Christianity can't communicate to anyone outside of its own group, then the gospel is not going out.

I can't believe you said that. They are not Christianities words, they are the Bible's words. The very words the apostles used to communicate the gospel. Which btw has been going out just fine for a couple thousand years. Using words such as grace, saved, reconciled, etc. "Jargon" words. Someone preaching the gospel may ask a question concerning what any of those words mean, and the one who uses them better be equipped to give an answer that is accurate and in accordance with the scriptures. The gospel is who Jesus is, and what He did, and what that did, why it had to be done. How we attain it. What it is not is "Jesus loves you," or "Accept/invite Jesus into your life as Lord and Savior."

 

[EarlyActs]

I don't know your acumen with Greek, so forgive me if you already know this.

The perfect-tense of σῴζω is a different word from the other tenses. This is true for many (most?) Greek verbs.

The perfect-tense form indicates a state-of-being resulting from a completed action. For σῴζω (save), it indicates a state of safety or health, resulting from the work of whoever did the saving.

-Jarrod

What does that have to do with changing contexts that are not about medical issues?

 

[Eleanor]

Our salvation from sin includes being saved from the penalty for our sin (Ephesians 2:5), being saved from continuing to live in sin (Philippians 2:12), and being saved from God's wrath on the day of the Lord (Romans 5:9-10). In Titus 2:14,

Salvation is the first and third one, the second one is rebirth.

 

[Soyeong]

Salvation is the first and third one, the second one is rebirth.

It says salvation in all three.

 

[Eleanor]

It says salvation in all three.

The believer is saved from several things: God's punishment of his sin, sin itself, the power of Satan, a disobedient heart, spiritual blindness, deafness, lameness, etc.

 

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

I can't believe you said that. They are not Christianities words, they are the Bible's words. The very words the apostles used to communicate the gospel. Which btw has been going out just fine for a couple thousand years. Using words such as grace, saved, reconciled, etc. "Jargon" words. Someone preaching the gospel may ask a question concerning what any of those words mean, and the one who uses them better be equipped to give an answer that is accurate and in accordance with the scriptures. The gospel is who Jesus is, and what He did, and what that did, why it had to be done. How we attain it. What it is not is "Jesus loves you," or "Accept/invite Jesus into your life as Lord and Savior."

Well, the Bible wasn't written in English. From time to time it has been necessary to translate into more modern language.

Hebrew became a dead language, so it was translated to Greek. Then Latin overtook Greek. Then, for some long time, the church resisted any more translation, keeping the Bible and church services in Latin well past the point where the everyday person could understand any of what was said there. This was actually a major point of the Reformation - to bring the Bible into the common tongues. And the reformers did that, translating the Bible into German and English.

Today the Bible needs an update into modern English. Some attempts have been made, but they are keeping too many words there that don't have any meaning to the large majority of English-speakers in the world today.

As for the churches and these forums, it's manifest that there are many people who are only parroting what they've heard, without much in the way of comprehension.

Not you - you can articulate what you believe. But I'm afraid you're in the minority. Look at all the people here "refusing" to give a common language meaning to a single verse. If only they could...

 

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

What does that have to do with changing contexts that are not about medical issues?

The context is a resurrection. I'm not sure how to point it out any more clearly than I have several times.

Verse 1 - the Ephesians are dead
Verse 5 - the Ephesians are "made alive" - that's a resurrection
Verse 8 - refers back to their resurrection with a word that is commonly translated "healing"

-Jarrod

 

[EarlyActs]

The context is a resurrection. I'm not sure how to point it out any more clearly than I have several times.

Verse 1 - the Ephesians are dead
Verse 5 - the Ephesians are "made alive" - that's a resurrection
Verse 8 - refers back to their resurrection with a word that is commonly translated "healing"

-Jarrod

Since 'being made alive' is an analogy, what does Paul usually mean by it. What I sense from reading your posts is that you have adopted a view that sozo is primarily medical, whereas, if you know Paul, you know that the historic revealing of the righteousness of God in the Christ event is the supreme center of his thinking (Rom 1, 3-5, 8, 10, 15; Gal 3-4; Phil 3; 2 Cor 3-5, Acts 13). The fact that it is the historic event is indication itself that it is not to be realized in the individual experience, even though it is important knowledge in a personal way. I'm not just saying this as my own observation, but if you look in most 'theologies of Paul.'

Romans, for ex., chs 1-8 has been described as a court case transcript. This is quite different as a style and context from healing, even though your health is mentioned in 1:17 once.

I'm just saying this because it dominates in Paul. The actual 'healing' sense of Ephesians would be corporate: that the things that were dividing the mixed group are removed, ch 2B--3A. Lots of technical terms there about what "Israel" gains or has as a destiny.

'Being made alive' can easily be seen as an analogy to either the dominant Pauline theme or this 'one new man' theme of Ephesians. The 'dead in sin' is primarily about the debt, not the doing, of sin, a very important difference. This is why we are dead if we are 'under the law' because all it can do is condemn. So Acts 13 says: 'through the Gospel, you are justified from everything that you can not be justified from under the law'--because that's all it does.

You could even say this is healing knowledge, but by analogy. It is not medical, except for some helpful side-effects.

I don't know of any cases when Paul's teaching about justification immediately healed someone. There were healings, and usually to counter skeptics, but not the close connection of teaching Romans 1-8 and a burst of unrelated healings, like a torn Achilles.

I have prob missed something so please let me know.

 

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

Since 'being made alive' is an analogy, what does Paul usually mean by it. What I sense from reading your posts is that you have adopted a view that sozo is primarily medical, whereas, if you know Paul, you know that the historic revealing of the righteousness of God in the Christ event is the supreme center of his thinking (Rom 1, 3-5, 8, 10, 15; Gal 3-4; Phil 3; 2 Cor 3-5, Acts 13). The fact that it is the historic event is indication itself that it is not to be realized in the individual experience, even though it is important knowledge in a personal way. I'm not just saying this as my own observation, but if you look in most 'theologies of Paul.'

Romans, for ex., chs 1-8 has been described as a court case transcript. This is quite different as a style and context from healing, even though your health is mentioned in 1:17 once.

I'm just saying this because it dominates in Paul. The actual 'healing' sense of Ephesians would be corporate: that the things that were dividing the mixed group are removed, ch 2B--3A. Lots of technical terms there about what "Israel" gains or has as a destiny.

'Being made alive' can easily be seen as an analogy to either the dominant Pauline theme or this 'one new man' theme of Ephesians. The 'dead in sin' is primarily about the debt, not the doing, of sin, a very important difference. This is why we are dead if we are 'under the law' because all it can do is condemn. So Acts 13 says: 'through the Gospel, you are justified from everything that you can not be justified from under the law'--because that's all it does.

You could even say this is healing knowledge, but by analogy. It is not medical, except for some helpful side-effects.

I don't know of any cases when Paul's teaching about justification immediately healed someone. There were healings, and usually to counter skeptics, but not the close connection of teaching Romans 1-8 and a burst of unrelated healings, like a torn Achilles.

I have prob missed something so please let me know.

Ok, let me see if I can trace this through Scripture.

In many of the Old Testament prophets, Israel is declared to be dead (or cut off, or divorced) because of their unfaithfulness (Amos 1, Jer 3, Eze 21, 37). Likewise, it is prophesied multiple times there that at some point in the future Israel will be resurrected - brought back to life (Jer 31, et al).

Fast forward to the New Testament and we find that Jesus refers to some people as "dead" in a figurative manner - "let the dead bury the dead" (Mat 8, et al). Likewise, he refers to those who are regenerate as "born again" (John 3), indicating that they are no longer dead. Putting that together, we can see that Jesus is accomplishing the work of resurrecting Israel, and that it is accomplished by adoption. Where Israel had been dead, they exist again because there are new converts.

Paul, I think, follows Jesus here in Ephesians 2. The people of Ephesus were "dead" in the same manner - that is they were outside the fold, unregenerate. And here in verse 5, they are "made alive" after the same fashion - they were regenerated. Verse 8 re-states part of verse 5, and it refers back to this event.

It isn't a literal physical resurrection. It's a figurative one.

-Jarrod

 

[Eleanor]

Ok, let me see if I can trace this through Scripture.

In many of the Old Testament prophets, Israel is declared to be dead (or cut off, or divorced) because of their unfaithfulness (Amos 1, Jer 3, Eze 21, 37). Likewise, it is prophesied multiple times there that at some point in the future Israel will be resurrected - brought back to life (Jer 31, et al).

Fast forward to the New Testament and we find that Jesus refers to some people as "dead" in a figurative manner - "let the dead bury the dead" (Mat 8, et al).

It is not figurative, it is actual. Let the (actually) spiritually dead bury the (actually) physically dead.

Likewise, he refers to those who are regenerate as "born again" (John 3), indicating that they are no longer dead. Putting that together, we can see that Jesus is accomplishing the work of resurrecting Israel, and that it is accomplished by adoption. Where Israel had been dead, they exist again because there are new converts.

Paul, I think, follows Jesus here in Ephesians 2. The people of Ephesus were "dead" in the same manner - that is they were outside the fold, unregenerate. And here in verse 5, they are "made alive" after the same fashion - they were regenerated. Verse 8 re-states part of verse 5, and it refers back to this event.

It isn't a literal physical resurrection. It's a figurative one.

No, it is a spiritual one, from spiritual death to spiritual life in the new birth.

Spiritual death and spiritual life are not figurative, they are actual (invisible, but actual).

 

[EarlyActs]

Anyone here have experience with this variant understanding? (It has to do with 'healing').

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/physical-healing-atonement/

 

[3 Resurrections]

Anyone here have experience with this variant understanding? (It has to do with 'healing').

I read the article in the link, and he is correct that Christ's atoning work laid the groundwork for assuring our consummate healing of all physical maladies for the saints in the bodily resurrected state, if not in the here and now.

The author didn't use this text in Isaiah 33:24, but this verse also applies to the point he is making. The context of Isaiah 33:24 discusses the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem which will never be torn down. "And the inhabitant shall not say I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity."

Here, the link between the healing of "sickness" is equated with the people in the New Jerusalem being forgiven of their iniquity. The groundwork of their eventual complete physical healing is laid down first of all by the forgiveness of their sin.

This is also why Jesus told the lame man FIRST of all, "thy sins be forgiven thee", even before Jesus proceeded to heal the man of his physical malady in Luke 5:23-25.

 

[EarlyActs]

I read the article in the link, and he is correct that Christ's atoning work laid the groundwork for assuring our consummate healing of all physical maladies for the saints in the bodily resurrected state, if not in the here and now.

The author didn't use this text in Isaiah 33:24, but this verse also applies to the point he is making. The context of Isaiah 33:24 discusses the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem which will never be torn down. "And the inhabitant shall not say I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity."

Here, the link between the healing of "sickness" is equated with the people in the New Jerusalem being forgiven of their iniquity. The groundwork of their eventual complete physical healing is laid down first of all by the forgiveness of their sin.

This is also why Jesus told the la

OK, but on the last, I think you have imported your concern. The situation there was to provoke the Pharisees. Once provoked he wanted to offer simultaneous proof so that the authority to forgive sins and the power to fix a paralysis were interlinked. He healed so that they knew he had the other (invisible) authority. "So that you may know..."

Clearly there is a link between unforgiven sin and psychosis, but it is still possible for other random things to happen. We must watch over our expectations.

I hope you will try a copy of my THE NERVE. https://www.amazon.com/Nerve-Marcus...efix=marcus+sanford+the,stripbooks,198&sr=1-1

It says that evil has two fronts: the event, and then the amount of control the event has over us later.

 

[ReverendRV]

If I were to paraphrase Ephesians 2:8 using everyday words, it would look like this:

For no reason other than God's favor, y'all are healed through belief. This healing doesn't come from yourself. The gift is from God.

Your turn! Paraphrase the verse in your own words. Don't use any of these jargon words: grace, save, salvation, faith, or regeneration. Can you do it?

-Jarrod

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: KJV

You ARE Saved by God’s prevening Grace through your Faith; this is Justification, and it is not OF yourself but IS the Gift of God...

 

[Mr GLee]

By the labor of Love our Faithful God has saved us through the reward of his works. . His grace