Hi Austin

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Jonathan Brink
Provoketive Magazine

You posted the following comment:
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I agree absolutely that using the scripture to condemn all homosexuals is legalistic and against the spirit of life. But this doesn't necessarily mean that condemning homosexual activity or gay marriage is likewise legalistic.

The New Covenant says not that we are sinless, but that when we acknowledge our sins, repent, and confess, that we are deemed as not having sin AND that we are no longer slaves to our sin. If we were perfectly repentant, we would be sinless, but then we would be perfect in some way anyway, so kind of a sidestep :). Further, the grace that Jesus revealed, and is made more explicit in the NT eschatology, is that we can be/have been reconciled with God - that the effective barrier of sin has been removed. This is one area where I do and probably always will call "MYSTERY" - meaning I can't explain it. That when we accept the call of Christianity, we are at once eternally perfected, and temporally still flawed. Our eternal state is more of less set (I don't really want to go down the once save, always saved route - I think there are exceptions but it would be a serious rabbit trail), but we still have to live out the temporal world and the consequences of a fallen state in that world. I am still a sinner from my own perspective, and that is freeing. When seeing the eternal (which is a part of the struggle), I am not a sinner, and that is awesome, but I'm still temporal and still flawed.

The law is what reveals to us our sinfulness, the grace of Jesus is that that sinfulness no longer has an eternal consequence. The new covenant doesn't discard the law, or it's imputation of wrong, but rather allows for that wrong to be passed on. The problem is that when we actively refuse to accept that there is something wrong, when we deny that we are in sin, or when we deny that something is sin that the law reveals as sinful. Then we are unwilling to release that, and have to deal with the consequences of that sin. We can't ignore the law simply because we don't like it, but we can put aside the death sin brings because God has overwritten that consequence and allowed us to attain the life He desires.

I would say that there is room for a legal mentality ONLY to convince ourselves and each other of our first and ongoing need for salvation, not to conemn anyone out of hand. If I am no longer a sinner because of Jesus prior intervention then what do I do with my ongoing struggle with sin - that part of me that, as Paul says "does what I do not want to do"?

I think the only way to make sense of the whole issue is to say that I am a sinner at the same time I am redeemed. I can not explain it any more than that, which is why I call "MYSTERY".