<<So, when Jesus healed the lepers, did he act on the spur of the moment out
of pity, or was this part of His plan? Maybe Jesus' spur of the moment
action isn't consistent with the majestic view of God's creation.
>>
It was a part of His plan. Read Luke 4: 16-21. In the synagogue Jesus spoke
to the congregation. "He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet
Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it
was written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to
bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the
captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to
proclaim the year of the Lord's favor....Then he began to say to them 'Today
this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'"
Jesus always acted out of God's plan. The plan was announced in Isaiah and
fulfilled in Christ. Healing the leper was only one of countless
instantiations of this plan, which, of course, was triggered by the pitiable
plight of the leper.
I've suggested before that your description of how God might have created the
first hominid could be made consistent with Gen. 1 and with your own
insistence on God's eternal plan, by making God's human-creation act, as you
described it, part of His plan from eternity, rather than a rather spur-of-
the-moment act of pity. Suppose the Godhead decided that the method to be
used in the creation of human beings would be to bring about the reduction of
chromosomes in some primate from 48 to 46, and then to breath into the
stillborn hominid the breath of life, and thus, the biological head of the
human lineage. Thus the resuscitation would be the operationalization of
God's eternal decree.
Trying to be helpful, Glenn. But I've had enough of this topic.
On the topic of Paul's letter (Ephesians 2: 11-21), you wrote, "I would like
to point out that the division of circumcised/uncircumcised is not equivalent
to Adamic/non-Adamic in either Pearce's or Fischer's scheme. So I don't see
how Ephesians applies to the Adamic/non-Adamic issue. Most of the people
listed in Genesis 11, descendants of Adam are not circumcised."
Here's how I think it applies. Circumcision was an outward sign of the
covenant that God made with Adam and reiterated with Abraham. In Gen. 17:
9-14 this is clearly stated. "This is my covenant which you shall keep,
between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall
be circumcised" (vs. 10). Not being circumcised had drastic consequences--"he
shall be cut off from his people." So when Paul speaks of the uncircumcised
he speaking basically of all those outside the covenant made with Adam and
renewed with Abraham and fulfilled in Christ. Paul dumps them all into one
category: "Gentiles" or "uncircumcised". But the basic underlying fact is
that they are outside the covenant. Since the covenant is the operative
concept, I see no problem in designating the generic human lineage outside the
covenant until Christ broke down the distinction between circumcised and
uncircumcised.
But this really not what it's all about. What Paul is saying is that these
designations no longer apply since Christ broke down the wall that separates
the uncircumcised from the uncircumcised, and all humanity is now one unity.
So I don't think we should be raising these unity issues that have already
been settled in Christ's work.
Thanks for the Pearce reference. I'll watch out for his outdated
anthropology. I'm with you on your anthropology.
Bob