(August 2, 2018 at 4:04 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: I find Paul's view not to be that we are all worthwhile, just the opposite, being that we're all shit, and only succeed if God deigns to let us kiss his ring. We can't even justify ourselves by being good men. It's all about prostituting ourselves before the Lord because in and of ourselves we have no value. That you can derive a message about the inherent worth of humanity from that just seems like doublespeak. Paul eviscerates the meaning of our lives and replaces it with one based on servitude.
No, not at all. The entire message is that God loves you enough to do this great thing.
3:16 New International Version (NIV)
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Romans 5:8 New International Version (NIV)
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
John 15:13 New International Version (NIV)
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Ephesians 2:4-5 New International Version (NIV)
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
1 John 4:8 ESV
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:9-10 New International Version (NIV)
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Regarding our fallen condition, Paul actually explains that was what the Law of Moses was supposed to illustrate:
Romans 3:19-26 English Standard Version (ESV)
19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being[a] will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
You cannot get the view you posted out of Paul's writings.
