Please post your thoughts on any new toppings that you made consider important In Christianity.
While hardly new since it was debated by the rabbi's long before Christ and established as a Christian concept by Origen in the earliest times of Christian theology, the concept of our pre-earth or pre-conception existence and life with our Lord (PCE) is as good as new since it is rejected and ignored by systematic theologians.
Titus 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
1 Jn 2:25 And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
The Gospel: How does the gospel relate t
o us in the PCE point of view? When was it proclaimed?
Colossians 1:23
if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
Christ was chosen and we were chosen in HIM before the creation of the world...
1 Peter 1:20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
Ephesians 1:4
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
probaly at the same time and the only reason we don't accept that
Col:1:23 This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, (or: "in all creation"), is also at this same time is that this understanding / interpretation of doctrine has been rejected by the early rabbis and has been passed down to us.
In
Colossians 1:23,
proclaimed is
preached in the imperfect tense (if I read my Thayers correctly) denoting continuous, ongoing or repeated action
in the past.
At
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/colossians/1-23.htm it is easy to see that few of the commentators agree on the meaning of this phrase
"to every creature" except in what it DOES NOT OR CANNOT MEAN! That is, they all agree it that no one heard it at the time when the promise is said to have been given and it was NOT offered as part of the election package to those who would accept HIS purpose for their lives in the spirit world before the creation of the physical universe.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary: (ibid)
"By "was preached," he (Paul) means not merely "is being preached," but
has been actually, as an accomplished fact, preached." Can the preaching of the gospel of Salvation as only in Christ be real if there was no one to hear it? But, I am asked, who could have heard it before the foundation of the world??? I refer to
Job 38:7 which mentions that ALL the sons of GOD saw the creation of the physical universe, (ie, its being founded) and so those named as ALL the sons of GOD were there
before that display of HIS Divinity and eternal power as found in the creation of the physical universe,
Rom 1:20.
This implies an order within creation:
First - all those people who were created in HIS image able to become HIS Church and HIS Bride by faith were created.
Second - the Gospel of salvation from sinfulness as only found in the Son was preached to every created person.
Third - this Gospel was presented as a promise of election to salvation for anyone who put their faith in it without proof with the corollary that those who repudiated this promise for whatever reason would put themselves outside of its prevue and would be instantly condemned as unfit to ever become a member of HIS church or to become HIS Bride.
Some folk accepted this promise and put their faith / hope,
Heb 11:1, in it without proof as the full truth and stayed true to it, some accepted this gospel as a way to ensure that they were safe from damnation but then went their own way into rebellion to HIS commands and others repudiated the gospel as lies, putting their faith in the theory that YHWH was a false god with no power of creation nor damnation.
Thus it was our own personal reaction to the proclamation of the gospel that caused the separation of HIS people into holy believers, sinful believers and never believers condemned when their rejection became firm in their hearts.
No one was
created sinful or condemned by GOD by any means but everyone was created innocent with no predilection to sin as GOD is light and light destroys darkness, it does not create it. All sinfulness accrues to a person only by their free will decision to sin.
Fourth - came the foundation of the world, the creation of the whole physical universe as proof of HIS deity and HIS eternal power.
Fifth - Satan and his evil angels were flung into Sheol within the earth with the sinful elect as described in
Rev 12:4-9. HIS elect sheep gone astray into sin (the prodigals who left home for the pleasures and profits of Sin City) were never condemned for their sin but the satanic reprobate were condemned already,
Jn 3:18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. Berean Standard Bible
The sinful elect were sent to live with the evil reprobate, presumably as part of their sanctification process,
Matt 13:27-30 by being sowed, moved, into the world with them,
Matt 13:36-39. (
To sow has never been interpreted to mean
to create except here, sigh).
I obviously know and find wanting the ordinary interpretations of these verses but you asked for something new and though it is not so new, it is often new to those not deeply versed in Christian theology.
