Interpretation of 1 Jn 2:1-2

Its possible

This is clear and true. I agree

I agree here also.

Ok this doesn't make to much sense, your right I don't quite get your reasoning. Here is what I see:

1. The Atonement was made for those members of Israel alone (including believers and unbelievers due to the physical aspect). What I mean by physical aspect is that the nation of Israel was a physical nation of God, but the church are not merely the physical church, but spiritual and thus the universal church by true faith in Christ.
2. Those outside of Israel could become a part of Israel.
3. The Atonement was for the Descendants of Abraham through the promised line, but in the NT was for the Spiritual descendants of Abraham only. So Old is physical and New is spiritual which was a hard part for the apostles to grasp at first, namely Peter until his vision. He saw the atonement by Christ as being made for Israel only, but it was for many people of many different nations. This is why they began preaching to the Gentiles because God was saving them.
4. The main point is that the Atonement was ultimately made for those who were a part of Israel (in the Old Covenant), and not the whole world meaning all nations (in the Old Covenant), unless they became a part of Israel (which I am foggy on how that was done). Whether there were believers or unbelievers in Israel was not the focal point, but it is the focal point in the spiritual realm of the New Testament because that is who the atonement was made for. This is why the children of God can be of every tribe, tongue, and nation by entering in Christ's body through faith.

I must reinstate to clarify my view. The Old Testament was a physical sign of atonement and a shadow of the atonement to come. It was not able to save. It was made for Israel including all who entered Israel, and included atonement for believers and unbelievers at the time. The New Testament atonement is for the church only. The church meaning spiritually reborn into Christ. The church includes all believers from all the world. It does not apply to unbelievers just as it didn't to other nations in the Old Covenant. Believers are the spiritual nation of Israel and will be apart of the new Jerusalem. The huge key in my view is that the nation of Israel was physical and the church is spiritual (I wanted to clarify this).

Please explain where I don't quite catch your point, again it is possible I'm missing your thrust

 

I understand you disagree and that is ok.
However watch how scripture actually agrees with me, in the very passage you quote.

There are two things at work here.
1. God promised (prophesied) judicial hardening because of Israel's continued unbelief. It is not that God just left them in unbelief but that according to scripture due to their continued unbelief God hardened their hearts.

2. Their hearts were not always hard, eyes blind and ears deaf as evidenced in verse 15. it states that this people heart waxed (grew or became) gross (hardened). -I'm not dismissing original sin.. I'm saying their was a time as God was dealing and revealing truth where they could have believed but due to continuing in unbelief... God gave them over and sealed them IN that unbelief. We know that this quoted prophesy is from Isa 6:9-10, and we also KNOW that Israel was not in a loving unified relationship with God, but was in idolatry and unbelief already. The continued and increased preaching would only make those who have already chosen such a view would harden them further because they were ALREADY under judgment and had be given over to their choice and caused them to continue believing the lie and thus not be saved. (Rom 1:18-32; 2 Thes 2:10-12)

3. Note their conversion was a possibility but their desire to not believe solidified them in their choice. Conversion can not be even 'considered hypothetical' unless something was done/ or would be, for it to be so.

Therefore the above is without question NOT that only some will ever know, see and hear and others will not.. But that those whom God has already been dealing with via His Spirit in revealing spiritual truths, as they choose to not believe their hearts will become hardened (and judicially so in that God makes it so they will continue in that choice) because they have chosen to close their eyes and ears to keep from being converted and God save them.

 

That is all fine and good.
And yes the church is spiritual.. but it is also physical.. question:
Is everyone in your church body saved, or all NT Church bodies saved?
If not, is it not like physical Israel, who also had spiritual Israel in it?

Thus the fact remains.. regardless of whether we are agreeing on the subject of Israel being representative.. you STILL have yet to deal with the fact that the SoA was to be made for believers AND unbelievers alike in that nation. (what ramifications does this have in relation to church being like Israel in that it to is physical?)

So 'hopefully' you can see it doesn't matter if we look at the nation in a physical sense.. the point is that the atonement was a physical act with spiritual consequences and that this action was made on behalf ALL in that group (Israel) whether they believed or not without partiality.

That is an inescapable truth that can not be walked around nor can or should it be ignored or tossed to the side. It MUST be dealt with. God could have just as easily said make the sacrifice of atonement for those who will believe only. Yet God did not, it was for ALL in Israel irregardless of faith.

 

Good response Allan. Although we might view it somewhat differently we as believers can certainly agree on how man is fully responsible before God.

I find several verses that speak so powerfully to this issue. Because we discuss and study online using a keyboard,sometimes we have to take a step back and reflect on how God in His mercy has allowed us to have a hearing ear, and not as you point out in your post,hardened us in our sin.

The pleading of scripture is for all men everywhere to repent and believe,,,to look and live. Like the man with the withered hand....Jesus commanded him to stretch forth his hand...[the thing he could not do,but God enabled him]

It is scary how many get some light of gospel truth and turn from it ....at a certain point without remedy.

 

Don't want to derail this good discussion too much...but are you saying he was unable to respond to Christ telling him to stretch out his hand to be healed?

 

I haven't read all the posts in this thread, and it appears to have wandered a bit as most threads do. However, regarding 1 John 2:1-2, and the use of "us" and "whole world":

The same author in the same chapter, in the same context, uses these same terms and provides some insight:

2:15-17: Don't love the world. It has lust, pride, and is passing away, while those who love the Father will live forever.
3:1: The world does not know us.
3:13: The world hates you.
3:17: speaks of worldly goods that anyone can have.
4:1: false prophets are in the world.
4:3-5: those who deny Jesus are in the world, contrasted with those who have God in them.
4:17: "we" are in the world.
5:4-5: the world is something to be overcome.
5:19: the world lies in the power of the evil one.

So if "us" means Jewish Christians, and "world" means Gentile Christians, then John is saying that some Christians are lustful, prideful, are passing away, hates the Jewish believers, have false prophets in their churches, deny Jesus, and are in the power of satan.

My friends, it just doesn't fit. The only contextual interpretation of 1 John is that "us" are all Christians and "they" are the non-Christians. Any other interpretation is wrenching most of the book from its moorings. Especially with 4:17.

Thus 1 John 2:1-2 means exactly what it says, Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, the lost world, the world that needs a savior.

 

Hello Webdog,

Many times Jesus instructed or commanded those he ministered to.....to do what they could not do in and of themselves,

stretch forth your hand
take up your bed and walk
lazurus come forth

in the same way...dead sinners are told to repent and believe the gospel.

God enables them to obey....he makes them willing and able to obey./

 

Picking up the bed and raising oneself from the dead, I agree. Holding (stretching) your hand out for Christ to heal, I disagree. His hand was crippled, his arm was not.

When Christ tells a dead person to repent and believe, they most definitely can repent and believe or Christ holds no power over death.

 

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2. And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world", I John 2:1-2."


I agree with your last statement, for us making claim for himself and the rest of God's chosen people. God divided them from the world, and this is the point John wishes his people to se, i.e. Jesus did die for the Whole World, and not just them.

John was appointed by Jesus to be an Apostle to the Jew, so John (as well as Peter, James, and Jude) writes to the Jew. Scripture shows that only Saul/Paul was chosen to be an Apostle to both Jew and Gentile. In scripture, we cannot find where John has authority from God to go the Gentile with the gospel of Jesus Christ from heaven of by the Grace of God, through faith they are justified.

 

1 John 2:15: "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
Why would John be telling Jews to not love Gentile believers? And why would people who love Gentile Christians not have the Father's love? Answer: John is not saying this. Rather, John is saying don't love the non-Christian system.

1 John 4:17: "By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world."
How can Jewish Christians ("we") be in Gentile Christians? Answer: They're not. Rather, all Christians are are on the earth.

1 John 5:4-5: "For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"
Why would Jewish Christians need to overcome Gentile Christians? Why would the faith of Jews cause them to overcome Gentile believers? Are we not one in Christ? Answer: John is not saying this. Rather, the faith of all Christians overcomes the non-Christian system.


1 John 5:19: "We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one."
How can Gentile Christians be in the power of the evil one, presumably Satan? Answer: They're not. Rather, "we" (all Christians, both Jew and Genile) are from God, and the world is the non-Christians who are under the power of the evil one.

I listed several other uses of world in 1 John in the earlier post. So every time in 1 John, the term "us" and "we" denotes all Christians, both Jew and Gentile, and the term "world" includes all the humans in existence, typically the non-Christians. To take one instance of world in 2:2 and make it say different than the rest of the book is breaking every rule of context and interpretation. John would not have radically switched meaning of one term in the same chapter.

 

Of course not. Only true believers are saved and a part of Christ's church. I agree there is a resemblance in that both Israel and my church had believers and unbelievers in it. The key is that Israel was a physical shadow of a spiritual (not that spiritual wasn't existing then as it is now).

I do see your view a little clearer. My main point is that the Atonement was made for Israel not all people. You are saying the Atonement Jesus made was for all people. It seems in my estimation that Jesus paid for The New Israel. I say it like that to show my connection. The New Israel is the invisible body of Christ from all over the world.

The atonement of the Old Covenant was physical in its sign in that the blood of the animals didn't pay for sin. Spiritually, then, God's people were set aside for Christ's future payment for their sins. I still see the sign of the atonement, then, being physical, pointing to the spiritual New Covenant. Not that the Old or New were spiritual or physical only.

When the Scripture shows that God shows no partiality it does not mean between believer and unbeliever it means between Jew, Gentile, or other nations.

You said, "Look.. you state that Christ fulfilled the Law even in the atonement.. and then turn around and state that He didn't fulfill the Law in accordance to the Law cause that is not what Christ came to do."

You must define what the whole Law fulfillment means. Why didn't Christ make many sacrifices? The huge point of fulfillment is that the animals paid for Israel and Christ paid for His body, the church. To me your point is like saying that marriage was a sign of Christ and His church, so to fulfill that perfectly we all have to be females and He is a male. I don't think in order for Christ to fulfill the Law perfectly it clearly showed that He paid for believers and unbelievers alike.