Cheryl Schatz

Mark, you said:

Such far, you are failing heavily to read the context and have approached both Eph 2:1, and Rom 6:11 with a preconcieved ideas about the grammar.

How is it that you now have the power to read my heart and my motives? You are really not that good at it. Maybe you should leave that with God.

I have come to the passage to understand the grammar and the inspired words in their direct context and the present tense is the only way that the passage can make sense in my mind because of the serious implications of having an unbeliever being in Christ. But when I see the same thought of being dead and being alive in Romans 6:11 and it is all about believers and all about what Christ has done for us (he was made dead to sin so that we can also be dead to sin and He was made alive so that we can be alive in Him), I cannot in all good conscience see Ephesians 2:1 as about unbelievers in union with Christ and if you can, then perhaps your Calvinism is more important to you than the problems making unbelievers “in Christ” presents in the text.

So no, you have not dismantled or disproven this ‘calvinist proof text’, quite the contrary actually.

This is exactly what I used to hear from many Jehovah’s Witnesses whom I challenged about the Watchtower’s doctrine compared to Scripture. They told me that my interpretation of the text that made Jesus the Lord God Almighty, didn’t affect them at all and made them even stronger as believers in their organization. It is as if they are holding to a love of their life that will totally disregard a true challenge for fear that their precious faith in the Watchtower would be hurt. I seriously went through their doctrines to try to understand them too. If there had been any truth there I would not have been afraid to become a Jehovah’s Witness. I was not biased, I just didn’t find truth in the JW’s.

And in testing the Calvinistic system, some of it sounds good at the outset but when you look carefully at the texts there is a real problem that appears unsolvable and contadictory.

For example when the Bible says that Jesus died for “the many” I am supposed to have faith in Calvinism that teaches that “the many” means actually “the few”. How could I in all good conscience believe that line when the lexicons list “many” as an antonym to “few” and as a synonym for “the whole”?

When we look at Romans 5:15 the grace of God and “the gift” given by the grace of Jesus is for “the many” and in context the gift is salvation.

Romans 5:15 (NASB)
15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

The BDAG shows what “many” means and also what is the opposite of “many”:

polys (many)
many, large, great, extensive, plentiful

not many=(only) a few

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed.) (847-850).

So if many is not a few and is in fact opposite to the few, why should we believe that when the Bible says Jesus died for many that He actually didn’t die for many but only for a few? You have not yet answered this yet. Do you have an answer?

You have shown your own bias and neglected how the actual grammar can and has functioned in this passage.

Actually I don’t have a bias like yours that would force me to see “few” out of “many”. I just take the common grammar and see if it fits in the passage and when it does fit and doesn’t contradict other clear passages, I feel confident that God has been clear. But when I see your interpretation that has to take the uncommon grammar usage that contradicts other clear passages and within the passage itself by making unbelievers as being “in Christ”, I don’t see the sense of accepting that as probable truth.

Since you have called me biased when I know my own heart and that isn’t true, perhaps you can show all of us how unbiased you are by explaining how you get “the few” out of “the many” since only few there are that find life but Jesus died for “the many”? The Analytical lexicon says this of “many”:

(c) of quantity; with a singular noun much, large, great (MT 14.14), opposite (of) (little); of things that occur in a mass or in large quantities: much (fruit) (JN 12.24), long (speech)… with an inclusive (Semitic) sense elsewhere; all (present), the whole community, the whole (crowd) (HE 12.15); (c) … in reference to the saving work of Jesus in MK 10.45; 14.24; RO 5.16; and HE 9.28, the Semitic inclusive sense is to be understood, i.e. Jesus died for all (cf. JN 6.51; 1T 2.6; HE 2.9);

Friberg, T., Friberg, B., & Miller, N. F. (2000). Vol. 4: Analytical lexicon of the Greek New Testament. Baker’s Greek New Testament library (321).

More to come…