From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Tue Oct 07 2003 - 22:20:39 EDT
Jay Willingham wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
> >
> > What I had said was that one can make a good case from scripture that the
> > Incarnation was not sinmply contingent upon human sin but was God's
> purpose for creation
> > from the beginning - as Ephesians 1:10 indicates. Would anybody like to
> discuss the
> > relevance of the Ephesians text to the question without once again turning
> the
> > conversation to Genesis?
> >
>
> Jay writes:
>
> "Ephesians 1:9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to
> his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect
> when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in
> heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. 11 In him we were
> also chosen,having been predestined according to the plan of him who works
> out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that
> we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his
> glory."
>
> Would you care to flesh out the question a bit more?
1st I don't know what translation you're citing but it's problematic at several
points. In v.10 on which I focus, NRSV is both more a more literal translation of the
Greek & also better English. "as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all
things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." In particular "_under_ one head"
suggests a distancing of "all things" from Christ "under" whom they are to be. But
Greek en doesn't mean "under". "In" is correct here.
Anyway - my point is that this suggests that God's purpose ("plan") for creation
is precisely this bringing "all things" together "in Christ" (which is actually what the
Greek says. & "Christ" here means the Incarnate Son of God, not the "Unfleshed Word."
So God's purpose was the Incarnation & its effects.
Shalom,
George
-- George L. Murphy gmurphy@raex.com http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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