I wonder how many sermons this past Sabbath were based on the well known pronouncement by the angel found in Matt. 1:21, "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

It is difficult to ignore the fact that the Christian community has completely dismissed the essential teaching of this heavenly decree, holding only to the fact that a child was born. We celebrate His birth each year but ignore the rest of the announcement in our theology and doctrines.

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you are to give him the name Jesus

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That makes sense. The Creator does not have a name. When Moses asked for one He received a verb rather than a noun.

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because he will save

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This is where we first go off the track. This is a guarantee. He will save! Yet, all of theologians have changed the word of the angel from a guarantee to a possibility. Now, Jesus is promised as a provision of salvation rather than as a guarantee. It is not surprise that we have the Babylonic confusion of atonement models developed by men who are convinced they have more information than the angel. It is even more troubling that today we continue to give these views credence.

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his people from their sins

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Who are "His people?" English majors will tell you that "his" is a possessive pronoun, indicating the people who belong to Him. Who are they? This should be an easy answer. His people are the people He created. Somewhere along the line an imposter called Satan lay claim to these people but the Creator never gave up His property rights. One would expect that the group of people who claim to follow the Creator would take His side in the dispute and accept the fact that the enter human race constitutes "His people." Instead, they have decided to accept the argument of the enemy so that their doctrines are based on the assumption that the entire human race does not constitute "His people."

The result is that, as interpreted by the Christian community, Matt. 1: 21 now reads, "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will make salvation available to his people and will save some of his people from their sins."

If this is not blasphemy I do not know what is.

Darius

So if I'm hearing you correctly you are saying that everyone, all His created people will be saved? I certainly hope I'm hearing you wrong.

Redfog

Instead of jumping to conclusions, deal with what I posted. Do you accept the message of the angel or do you not. We will have time enough to decide whether your present beliefs agree with the angel or not.

Oh, Redfrog, but the angel who appeared to Joseph was spot on. And virtually all of us who profess to follow Christ Jesus our Lord don't want to believe that he saved the whole world all by himself which leaves all of us without excuse for sinning.

You realise the difference between your positions here is that God - for you - is not sovereign within his own sphere to do just as much as he wants to, while Darius' post clearly states that Christ actually saved the world outright in order to reassert his property rights over us all and that feat was a sovereign action against the Devil who claimed sovereignty. That's the only thing in Darius' post: Christ had to buy back his property right with his death, but the promise of doing so was made immediately it was lost.

Darius has brought out a point I hadn't thought of before. "His people" is the entire human race he himself created. Very true.

There is the online audio sermon on his website by Ps Larry from 2004 on the humanity of Christ as a Christmas sermon, under the topic of the reprinting of Questions on Doctrine. I don't think he yet agrees with us on your point here, Darius, but he made all the other elements of the gospel plan crystal clear.

So, you're right, Darius, no Christmas sermon deals with that text properly; it's always other, subjective (what we do) parts of the gospel which are dealt with.

Jesus came to save everyone, however not everyone will accept Salvation. Everyone is in essence "His people", He loves everyone, but will not save everyone. His love, the desire for us, is Unconditional. His love, the relationship, is conditional. We are saved by having a relationship with the Creator, therefore Salvation is conditional.

Redfog

Redfog, do you disagree that I correctly interpreted Matt. 1:21? What do you think the angel said then?

It is often said that the difference between christinaity and other religions is that other religions are about doing while christianity is about what Jesus did. As Darius pointed out, this is often not accepted fully.

If a person have a difficult time accepting that Jesus died for and saved somebody else, could that be a sign that the person has a difficult time accepting that salvation is a gift offered for him/herslef aswell? In other words, "I cant accept it as a gift and I cant accept others recieving it as a gift"?

May God soften our hearts to accept Him as He is, not only as we want Him.
Thanks Darius for this thread.

/Thomas

Darius I have no idea how you are interpreting Matt. 1:21. I asked you how you were and you gave didn't give me an answer. What's new? Now if you believe that Jesus will save everyone, regardless of their behavior, then yes you are interpreting it wrong. There is overwhelming evidence that Salvation is conditional.

I'm not sure it makes any difference whether or not the words "his people" in the text means all created people or just those that follow Him. Either way we know the path to Salvation and we know that it is conditional on us accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. It requires a relationship with Him, we are not automatically saved.

Redfog

WOW, this is definitly a case of SYMANTICS gone crazy!
-Salvation is ONLY available by HIS BLOOD! It is up to HIM whom shall be saved!

Actually, it is more a show of how we make every effort to force the text to support the doctrines we already hold. Our confidence is in our doctrines rather than in God. Whatever He may have said we view it through the lenses of our beliefs.