Apostolic Friends Forum - the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth

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the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth

This is covered by Arthur Custance in

The Seed of the Woman,
https://custance.org/Library/SOTW/Index.html

And perhaps in here:

The Virgin Birth & the Incarnation
https://custance.org/Library/Volume5/index.html

It is a little complex to find the specific spots, and some pages are 404.

Here might be a good starting point:
https://custance.org/Library/SOTW/Pa...chapter21.html

Quote:

Throughout the centuries, many of the great theologians of the past struggled with the problem of the provision of a perfect body out of the sinful flesh that was Mary's (for she too needed a Saviour: Luke 1:47). Roman Catholic theology evolved the dogma of Immaculate Conception. But I believe such a dogma is not necessary and that many who sought to solve the problem by such means would have revelled in the kind of understanding which is now open to us and would have made the greatest possible use of it. Such knowledge has been acquired almost entirely by those who are not at all concerned with the doctrines of the Christian faith. Yet whether they know it or not, they are God's servants, even as Cyrus was a servant of God but knew it not (Isaiah 45:1,5). And I am convinced we should respect this service by making use of it, not merely to improve our lot in life but also to increase our understanding of the things we most surely believe. We should not depend upon the findings of science to confirm our Faith, though this may well happen; but it is certainly proper to use these findings to explore that Faith.

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I'll see if I can find the key spots online, note this paper, which I just found this AM, that is essentially giving the Arthur Custance position, with acknowledgements.

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Christian Scholar's Review
A Theologically Based Biological Challenge to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary
By R. Gary Chiang and Evelyn M. White April 15, 2014
https://christianscholars.com/a-theo...e-virgin-mary/

Quote:

Interestingly, the Bible does not say that the stain of original sin is passed down through our parents, but only through our fathers. This is a very important theological point that has biological implications; an ovum from the Virgin Mary needed no special intervention except that it be fertilized not by a man but by the Holy Spirit. In other words, the germ cell line giving rise to the ovum may have escaped the stain of original sin but this stain has become, through the male, part of our human condition.

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The basic idea is that the sin-nature, the propensity to sin, the yetzer hara, is passed through the male seed. Thus the virgin birth is an absolute necessity for the sinless Messiah.

Very simple, very elegant, very true.

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Many 'protestants' and pentecostals prefer a theory where Mary does not make any actual contribution to the birth and DNA of Jesus, instead acting as a surrogate mother to a divine implant. This is one of the key weaknesses of the heavenly flesh doctrine. However, it also held by others. Often all that is given is fuzzy-think.

Then there is an immaculate conception theory, and one or two others that are floated. And I give a review on the PBF (Pure Bible Forum) page, when I brought this up on the Patristics for Protestants group on Facebook. The other day I found the quote from Amrosiaster that is on PBF so I decided to finally work with this material again, including AFF. Also I hope to expand that PBF page to include more material and be more cohesive.

PureBibleForum
Arthur Custance - The Seed of the Woman - the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index...in-birth.1048/

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There are related interesting issues around the blood of Jesus. There are overlapping studies involving the Ron Wyatt archaeology, the blood on the mercy seat, and the blood of Jesus having 24 chromosomes.

Also the Shroud of Turin, which can hold some real surprises, once you get out of the historically inaccurate catholic relic mentality.

There was even a notice about a 2019 conference on the Arthur Custance website.
https://www.shroud.com/ancaster.htm
With speakers on both main sides. Authentic (e.g. Russ Breault, who I saw one time) and ultra-skeptic Joe Nickell giving the keynote presentation.

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Note that I have many of the blood of Jesus AV Bible verses on the PBF page. :)

Re: the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth

Found this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esaias (Post 1244784)

I was going to post a big, long dissertation on this, but things have been rather busy here lately so I am just going to make this quick and to the point, brethren.

When Adam sinned his human nature itself did not change, it was not imbedded with some kind of viral, inheritable, DNA-altering mutation called 'original sin' or' the sin principle'. There is not scripture that says or suggests that.

People use original sin or 'the sin nature' as an excuse for their sin. It makes God a liar. It destroys grace, and makes salvation of sinners a matter of justice instead of mercy. It turns sin into a disease, and sinners into poor, afflicted, helpless victims, when in reality sinners - you, me, all of us - are wanton, willful criminals.

Sin is crime - it is defined by Scripture as transgression of the law. There is no commandment forbidding humans to be born. There is no commandment forbidding humans to be born or conceived with human nature. Therefore, no one is born with a nature that causes them to be automatically damned to hell - which is what the doctrine of original sin demands.

People sin because they choose to sin. If not, then they must be FORCED to sin. You either choose to commit an act, or you were forced to it beyond your control. If sin is involuntary, then it cannot be CRIMINAL. And if it is involuntary, then it cannot produce GUILT deserving of PUNISHMENT. But sin is voluntary. Sin is criminal. Sin produces guilt. Sin deserves punishment. And therefore sinners are saved by GRACE - pardon, forgiveness, something they DO NOT DESERVE.

If God saved NOT A SINGLE HUMAN BEING, He would be perfectly just and righteous. Why? Because all of us have sinned, all of us are criminals, and if every criminal served their full sentence who would say the government was unjust? But God offers pardon, forgiveness, mercy.

Original sin makes sin a disease. "You poor sinner, it's your sin nature making you sin, you really can't help it!" Thus God would be unjust and EVIL if he did NOT save people.

A man has a son. The son lives in sin. The son never repents, never gets saved. The son dies. The father then secretly (or openly) blames God for not saving him. Why? Because the man believes sin is involuntary, like a disease, and God has the power to heal it, but chose not to.

Do you pray for sinners to be saved? DO you pray for them, as if they are poor hapless afflicted victims of sin? Or do you plead with God as a mother would plead with the Governor, to grant a pardon to her son convicted of murder?

There is no 'sin nature', such that humans are condemned to hell automatically because they have a human nature. There is no sin nature causing people to sin. Sin is transgression of the law. Repentance means to STOP SINNING, to put it bluntly.

Does God command people to obey him? If he does, then people have the ability to obey him. If people do not obey him, it is because they chose not to do what they OUGHT to have done, and thus are guilty and have NOTHING TO BLAME BUT THEMSELVES.

Original sin doctrine leads to the other false doctrine of 'progressive holiness', where Christians get holier and holier, and sin less and less, as they 'grow in grace'. But that is nonsense. A person cannot be 'partly holy' or 'partly right'. Either one is holy, or not. The bible speaks the same way. One is commanded to love god with all you got. Anything less is SIN. Sin = death, because sin is crime punishable by death.

Another false doctrine is the 'we get fully holy when we die'. No, when you die, you will forever remain exactly in the moral condition you were in upon your death. He that is holy, let him be holy still... he that is unholy, let him be unholy still... Death does not make you holy. Only God's grace by FAITH makes a man holy.

Holiness is separation to God. It is separation from sin, as well. Can you be partially separated to God, but partially separated to sin and self? No, for no man can serve two masters. End of story, so saith the Lord.

I will post more later, Lord willing.

Re: the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth

On my PBF page, quoting from my Patristics for Protestants post, I have a description of one doctrinal perspective that is close to that of Esaias above:

Quote:

(D) The virgin birth did not have any direct effect on the nature of the Lord Jesus, it was mostly for prophetic fulfillment and Messianic narrative. Jesus was sinless by his goodness and effort, with perhaps a providential anointing put in the mix. Here we are more into the realm of the ebionites, and possibly adoptionists and nazarenes.

In other words, to this perspective, which also includes most Biblical Unitarians and some ‘Trinitarians’, the miracle of the virgin birth was a type of ‘highlight reel’. However, it was not intrinsically relevant to Jesus being the sinless Messiah, whose blood is an atonement.

Nothing in the.Gospel would be lost if Jesus was the natural-born child of Joseph and Mary, beyond narrative and possibly the Isaiah 7:14 connection, as expressed by Matthew in 1:22-23.

Not my scripture understanding, to be clear.

Re: the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery (Post 1592760)

On my PBF page, quoting from my Patristics for Protestants post, I have a description of one doctrinal perspective that is close to that of Esaias above:

In other words, to this perspective, which also includes most Biblical Unitarians and some ‘Trinitarians’, the miracle of the virgin birth was a type of ‘highlight reel’. However, it was not intrinsically relevant to Jesus being the sinless Messiah, whose blood is an atonement.

Nothing in the.Gospel would be lost if Jesus was the natural-born child of Joseph and Mary, beyond narrative and possibly the Isaiah 7:14 connection, as expressed by Matthew in 1:22-23.

Not my scripture understanding, to be clear.

I would say that is a caricature of what *I* understand the Scriptures to teach. The virgin birth IS intrinsically relevant to Jesus being the sinless Messiah. Just not due to any supposed avoidance of an alleged inherited sin nature, which concept is nowhere taught in Scripture but was imported by the catholic church to buttress their sacramentalism and practice of infant baptism and later doctrine of purgatory.

Re: the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esaias (Post 1592758)

Found this:

I’m going to paste these passages so you can respond to them in light of your position.

Rom.3

[23] For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Rom.5

[12] Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Pss.51

[5] Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Re: the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esaias (Post 1592763)

The virgin birth IS intrinsically relevant to Jesus being the sinless Messiah. Just not due to any supposed avoidance of an alleged inherited sin nature, which concept is nowhere taught in Scripture but was imported by the catholic church to buttress their sacramentalism and practice of infant baptism and later doctrine of purgatory.

You will find sin nature in Judaism in the yetzer hara.

As to whether it is "original sin" is a different matter. In other words, you can say that a baby is not acting under a sin inclination. That is a different discussion.

There was plenty of ECW discussion of the inclination of sin totally outside the reference of the RCC. The Ambrosiaster quote I gave from the 300s is a good example. There was no doctrinal organization entity calling the shots at the time.

Quote:

Romans
https://books.google.com/books?id=sTmPBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA203

God Sent His Son in the Likeness of Sinful Flesh.
Ambrosiaster:

For whom was this impossible? For us of course, because we could not fulfill the commandment of the law, since we were subject to sin. For this reason God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. It is the likeness of our flesh because, although it is the same as ours is, it was sanctified in the womb and born without sin, neither did he sin in it. Therefore the womb of a virgin was chosen for the divine birth so that the divine flesh might differ from ours in its holiness. It is like ours in origin bur not in sinfulness. For this reason Paul says that it is similar to our flesh, since it is of the same substance, but it did not have the same birth, because the body of the Lord was not subject to sin. The Lord's flesh was sanctified by the Holy Spirit in order that he might be born in the same kind of body as Adam had before he sinned. By sending Christ God used sin to condemn sin.... For Christ was crucified by sin, which is Satan; hence sin sinned in the flesh of the Savior's body. In this way, God condemned sin in the flesh, in the very place where it sinned.

Commentary on Paul's Epistles.27 CSEL 81:255

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As for you claiming the virgin birth is intrinsically relevant, without Jesus having any difference in nature, you have a responsibility to explain how the virgin birth is "intrinsically relevant"

Arthur Custance gave you a simple and elegant explanation, the sin nature passes through the male, and thus Jesus starts off pure, in a way available to no other man.

What is your other specific explanation of your "intrinsically relevant"?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear (Post 1592762)

very interesting

Thanks.
It is a type of missing link in understanding the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ

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Our friends in Texas were aware of the Arthur Custance teachings in the 1970s, from the Doorway Papers. He was not strong on all issues, but on this one he was superb.

We also were focused on the blood of Jesus in those early days. From that they drifted away, even at one time doing a type of mockery of the blood of Jesus as being a real, literal element, a type of stage event that veered from satire towards blasphemy.

This is one reason why understanding the blood of Jesus actually physically landing on the mercy seat can be a beautiful confirmation of the scriptural imperative. And it used to be very wonderful when we sang "Oh, precious is the flow..". With deep enthusiasm and conviction.

Similarly, their public statements about baptism, on their website, no longer indicate anything about the blood of Jesus for remission of sin, their historic apostolic doctrines. Instead they talk of a "pledge of the old nature", as if the old nature has a value to be pledged! An abomination doctrine. No mention of Acts 8:37. (Your Portuguese and Spanish Bibles should have that verse and 1 John 5:7, the heavenly witnesses.)

Then there is their downhill move to a worship of "yahweh". If that has any place in Brazil, please allow me to help you look into that deeper. However, Spanish and Portuguese countries usually correctly stay with Jehovah when pronouncing the tetragram (as in Psalm 23) and keep Jesus in the center or worship.

Around the time you left Texas, maybe a little after, this became more of a trap among the Homestead Heritage folks, they even brought in the totally crapola hybrid gibberish pseudo-Hebrew 'Yahshua', and acted as if that is a superior name to the Lord Jesus Christ. Apostasy disguised as 'new light'. (If you do want a Hebrew equivalent, Yeshua or Yehoshua are the correct names, however they took the gibberish name because they wanted to match the dark-side 'yahweh', which is actually the devil jupiter. You might remember that focus on yahweh from the 'prayer rooms' and occasional 'prophecy'.)

Hope you do not mind the little catch up :).

Re: the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister (Post 1592772)

I’m going to paste these passages so you can respond to them in light of your position.

Rom.3

[23] For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

All have sinned, all have transgressed the commandments of God. The Bible clearly teaches the universality of sin. This passage however says nothing as to an inherited sin nature being the cause of the universality of sin.

Quote:

Rom.5

[12] Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Notice what passed upon all men - death. It does not say "sin passed upon all men" but death. It then states the reason as "for that all have sinned." The reason death has passed upon all men is because all men have sinned. Not "the reason sin has passed upon all men is because they inherited it from Adam."

In addition, notice "for that all have sinned." Sinned is a past tense verb, not a noun. It is not "for that all have sin", but that all have DONE SOMETHING (sinned, transgressed God's law). This verse likewise does not teach, imply, require, or even suggest anything like an inherited sin nature.

Quote:

Pss.51

[5] Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

This passage states that David's mother was committing sin when he was conceived. It says nothing about David's nature, nothing about inherited sin, nothing in fact about David's nature itself one way or the other. It does assert that David's mother was committing lawlessness and sin when he was conceived, ie the sex act committed by his mother is declared to be sin, not his human nature.

Furthermore, this is an example of poetic hyperbole as David casts aspersions upon himself because of his humiliation before God as a consequence of his sin (most likely concerning the matter of Bathsheba and her husband Uriah the Hittite).

Once again, none of these passages state any doctrine of inherited sin nature. None of these passages require an inherited sin nature to explain them. None of these passages imply an inherited sin nature.

The thing that gives people the most difficulty is the universality of sin. "How" they ask "can the universality of sin be accounted for except upon the supposition of an inherited sin nature?" But that is like asking "How can the Son be baptised in water with a voice from Heaven calling Him His Son and the Spirit descending as a dove all at the same time except upon supposing three coequal coeternal divine persons?" The Bible does not ascribe the universality of sin to an inherited sin nature. So neither should we. We can attempt to explain it and account for in various ways, but absent a clear Scriptural teaching (as in clear Bible statements that explain the cause of the universality of sin) we should not attempt to wax dogmatic. "We should speak where the Scripture speaks, and be silent where the Scripture is silent" and all that. :thumbsup

Re: the spiritual imperative of the virgin birth

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Avery (Post 1592794)

You will find sin nature in Judaism in the yetzer hara.

Rabbi Nahman said in Rabbi Samuel's name: 'Behold, it was good' refers to the Good Desire; 'And behold, it was very good' refers to the Evil Desire. (It only says 'very good' after man was created with both the good and bad inclinations, in all other cases it only says 'and God saw that it was good') Can then the Evil Desire be very good? That would be extraordinary! But without the Evil Desire, however, no man would build a house, take a wife and beget children; and thus said Solomon: 'Again, I considered all labour and all excelling in work, that it is a man's rivalry with his neighbour.' (Ecclesiastes 4:4). - Gen. Rabbah 9:7

The Evil Inclination is not quite equivalent to the doctrine of inherited sin nature.

Quote:

As to whether it is "original sin" is a different matter. In other words, you can say that a baby is not acting under a sin inclination. That is a different discussion.

The doctrine of an inherited sin nature is that because of Adam's transgression human nature was so altered as to cause all human descendants of Adam to be inherently odious to God, condemned to hell, and guilty of sin. Sin, in this view, is not an act, but a condition inhering in the human nature itself, that exposes a human to the condemnation of hell. It is referred to as "original sin" to distinguish it from the individual sins committed by individual people. It is "original" in that it is the root and ultimate cause of all acts of sin. It is inherited because it is a component part of human nature, obtained from Adam by descent from him. So, I think it is the same discussion, unless you simply want to discuss the Jewish doctrine of the Evil Inclination without reference to "sin nature" as understood in Christendom.

Quote:

There was plenty of ECW discussion of the inclination of sin totally outside the reference of the RCC. The Ambrosiaster quote I gave from the 300s is a good example. There was no doctrinal organization entity calling the shots at the time.

From the wikipedia article:

"Despite the elusive identity of Ambrosiaster, several facts about him can be established. Internal evidence suggests he was active at Rome during the reign of Pope Damasus (366–384), and almost certainly a member of the Roman clergy. There are strong indications he objected to Jerome's efforts to revise the Old Latin versions of the Gospels, and that he was critical of Jerome's activity among ascetic women at Rome. Ambrosiaster shows a deep interest in Judaism and often notes that Christian practices derive from Jewish tradition.[7]

Many scholars argue that Ambrosiaster's works were essentially Pelagian, although this is disputed. Pelagius cited him extensively. For example, Alfred Smith argued that Pelagius' "view of Predestination he seems to have taken from Ambrosiaster. His doctrine with regard to Original Sin appears to have come from the same source". However, Augustine also made use of Ambrosiaster's commentaries.[8]"

Quote:

As for you claiming the virgin birth is intrinsically relevant, without Jesus having any difference in nature, you have a responsibility to explain how the virgin birth is "intrinsically relevant"

Next post.