From: johnson@offroad.chem.wisc.edu (Arthur Johnson)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Mormonism & Evangelical Christianity
Date: 27 Sep 92 17:16:01 GMT
Organization: Physical Sciences Lab, UW-Madison

In article <1992Sep26.012757.1037@javelin.sim.es.com>  
gclapp@javelin.sim.es.com (Glenn Clapp) writes:
> In article <1992Sep24.030024.59127@cc.usu.edu> slhw4@cc.usu.edu (Jason  
Hunsaker) writes:
> >In article <1992Sep24.022529.5031@javelin.sim.es.com>,  
gclapp@javelin.sim.es.com (Glenn Clapp) writes:

     [...lots of stuff deleted...]

> >> Where did this atonement occur?
> >
> >> It is worth pointing out, that in Mormonism, Christ attoned in
> >> the Garden, NOT on the Cross as Christians believe.  
> >
> >Oh, I don't know about that.  There seems to be quite a discusion
> >about it on MORMON-L regaring where the Atonement took place, and
> >if it makes any diffrerence.  *Some* Mormons believe that the
> >process of the Atonement *began* in Gethsemane and *ended* in
> >Galgatha.  What difference does it make whether the Atonement
> >took place "on 34th street or 43rd street" (to quote Terry Day 
> >without permission).
> >
> Doesn't it?  There is no forgiveness w/o the shedding of blood.
> Since there wasn't any blood shed in the garden....
> Look at what happened to Jesus on the cross.  He was pierced.
> He died.  He was forsaken (He took upon Him the sins of the world,
> and God can not abide with sin, since He is Holy.  God left him.
> The wages of sin is death, so Jesus (now mere man, with all the
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> sin of the world) died.)  The episode began in the garden, but
> not the atonement.  That requires blood.

     Careful, Glenn. In your zeal to make every LDS thought captive to  
Christ, you have slid into heresy. What you've done here is put forward a  
new view wrt Christ: the theory of the Decarnation, i.e. that on the  
Cross, Christ ceased to be both fully God and fully human, becoming a  
"mere man". This is not Christian Truth; this is an innovation. You have  
split Christ, not only into two natures, but into two separate persons as  
well. But this is not so. Christ is two distinct natures inseparably  
united in one person. That which is not assumed by God, is not healed or  
transformed by God. By saying that Christ, on the Cross, was only a man,  
you are saying that death was not assumed by God. If not assumed, then not  
healed. If not healed, then not transformed. If not transformed, then no  
new creation. Meditate on this passage of Scripture, Glenn:

     "For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable,
      and this mortal nature must put on immortality. When the
      perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts
      on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that
      is written:
         'Death is swallowed up in victory.'
         'O death, where is thy victory?'
         'O death, where is thy sting?'
      The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
      But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory _through_ our
      Lord Jesus Christ." [emphasis mine]--(1 Cor 15:53-57).

     Christ's words on the Cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken  
me?", recorded in St.Matthew, are addressed, not to the Logos, but to the  
Father, and reveal Christ's intense dispair at feeling abandoned by the  
Father in the hour of death. However, this does not mean that the Logos  
"decarnated" Himself from Jesus. Indeed, this makes no sense, for Jesus  
_is_ the Logos made flesh. The hypostatic union remains always, forming a  
united front against both sin and death. 

     [...more of the continuing debate about LDS dogma deleted...]
 
> -- 
>  
========================================================================== 
===
> = Glenn Clapp                          |  gclapp@thunder.sim.es.com          
=
> = Evans and Sutherland Computer Corp.  |  My opinions are my own, but  
then  =
> = Salt Lake City, Utah  (801) 582-5847 |  that's my opinion.                 
=

With Christ's Love,

Arthur Johnson
johnson@offroad.chem.wisc.edu

"The whole man would not have been saved, unless he had taken upon himself  
the whole man" -- Origin

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."--Hebrews 13:8
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc