Posted on 04/08/2014 9:59:32 AM PDT by Clintons-B-Gone
I don't see where we are in disagreement, but tradition had nothing to do with what transpired that day. The Jews were trying to trap Jesus, the Bible states it quite clearly.
I’m going by the bible.
As am I.
Leviticus requires that both be punished.
Leviticus 20:10 states that if a man commits adultery, then both are to be punished, implying that both are to be accused and both are to be present during the accusation. But that point could be argued over by legal scholars til the cows come home.
Jesus would observe the scripture, not the tradition.
Absolutely, and that was the point I was making. No one but Christ, the woman in question and the men accusing her know what He wrote in the dirt, but whatever it was, it went straight to their hearts and convicted them of something tremendous. From the oldest to the youngest implies a numerical increase based upon age.
I've long suspected that such a contempt of heaven exists in hell that its occupants would rather burn and scream and rage than entertain any idea of submitting to heaven. Satan is truly their master, which is what they wanted.
And no such implication was brought up by Jesus. To me that rules it out.
I hold to the view that Jesus embarrassed the accusers away by pointing out things they had done which ought to earn them death or at least shame. Perhaps a list of mistresses And therefore they dispersed. His question at the end is telling: does anyone accuse? The deciding matter was the lack of willing witnesses.
Be careful about holding your opinion as “teaching.”
I would certainly say that that applies to some raging liberals that I encountered over the years. maybe not all of them, though.
The rich man, watching the beggar in Abraham’s bosom, certainly didn’t want to be there, IMO.
Still, you are probably right.
“Can any sane man say being placed in Hell is an act of love?”
God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. CS Lewis said that “Hell is a tourniquet placed on the soul and is that last bit of kindness for the soul that would not allow God to do anything else for it.”
a mulligan is a do over - So He gave her a second chance to sin??
AMDG
A couple more things to consider in this incident.
1. The witnesses (accusers) were to begin the stoning, by casting the first stones. (Apparently none of these “witnesses” wanted that honor.)
2. Anyone who bore false witness against another was sentenced to the same punishment the accused would have received. (In a capital case such as this, false witnesses were to be executed.)
Perhaps what Jesus stooped and wrote on the ground were the citations from the Law governing the case at hand.
I was not doing any such thing... Were you?
Your argument is completely illogical. It is solely based on how you have created God in your image. If your argument is that God didn’t say what He said because it doesn’t match your viewpoint, the problem isn’t with God.
Mat 18:8-9
(8) And if your hand or your foot causes you to offend, cut them off and throw them from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
(9) And if your eye offends you, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire.
Don’t tease the monkey’s.......
Someone having identified something as a “teaching point,” it seems reasonable to ask for that to be substantiated. But that’s just my view. The denouement is the same under multiple views. Accusers gone, sinner (yes, it was a sinner, they were correct she had sinned) forgiven and warned.
The “damned” rich man didn’t ask to be in heaven either. I’m not sure he’d even want to go, unless it was to make trouble. He wanted hell more than heaven and he got it.
and a third and a fourth and a fifth...
But they be so cute when they poops in they’s hand!
More people would rather be praised into Hell;
Than rebuked into Heaven.
Sadly true, and well said.
We agree in important ways. Broad is the path that leads to destruction, narrow the way to life.
But we continue to disagree on the question of God’s love. Let me try to explain what I am getting at by doing some simple thought experiments. Go back to my first question:
For whom did Jesus die? Good people, or sinners?
Luke 19:10 For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Does Christ anywhere teach that he came to seek and to save those whom he hates? If they are sinners, he must, according to you, hate them. Then why does he seek them out? Why does he propose to save them? You speak of a perverse notion of love, but this presents a perverse notion of hate:
Matthew 9:13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
If God calls sinners to repentance, doesn’t that mean, according to you, that he is inviting people he hates to forsake their sins and receive His forgiveness and enjoy Him for eternity? A very peculiar hatred this is! Don’t you think?
And again:
Mark 10:21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.
Now how can this be? How can Jesus love this rich young ruler, so proud of his conformity to the formal law, yet a rebel against God at heart, inwardly a vile sinner trapped by the temptation of earthly riches? Doesn’t Jesus know he hasn’t repented yet? Of course he knows. And this young man will walk away from Christ the Savior still in his sin, sorrowful but unrepentant. And yet Jesus loved him. Not after his repentance, but before.
And again, the prodigal son:
Luke 15:20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
What is the picture here? A father who hates his wastrel son for all his wicked wasting, and then suddenly, upon seeing him, completely switches over to loving him? Does this sound like a man who five minutes ago was filled with hatred toward his wayward son?:
Luk 15:22-24 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
Does this sound like a conditional love father? Jesus spoke to us in terms we could understand through common human experience. Does this sound like a father who was full of hate one minute and full of love the next? Maybe to you, but as a dad myself I hear in him the joy welling up from a heart of enduring love and longing that had hoped this day would come, and when it did, it was time to party hard.
This is the meaning of the Gospel:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Ah, now there’s your “might be.” But notice, is it the salvation that seems to be uncertain, or the love of God that is uncertain? No, the love of God for sinners is definite, because it is what moved God to send His Son to save us in the first place:
Ephesians 2:4-6 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
And in what condition did he find us? Dead in sin. And what was in His heart toward us while we were still dead in our sins? Do you see hatred in this passage? I don’t. I see “his great love wherewith He loved us.” When did He love us? After we repented? No, while we were still dead in our sins. This is the miracle of the Gospel, that God should love us unto death, while we were still rebels, and draw us out of our sin and condemnation into newness of life, eternal life in Christ, by His amazing grace.
Well, nobody can really be “rebuked into heaven.” That can slow down sinning, but only the salvational love outreach of the Lord can “invite into heaven.”
This is, IMHO, the classic dialogue between Calvinism and Arminianism with the two being unable to find common ground.
Seems to me neither “ism” is entirely correct, and the paradoxical biblical treatment reflects two different viewpoints on the same reality which would be something like this:
On some eternal plane, all can choose. Embrace Satan and go where he goes, or embrace the Lord and be pulled free of Satan and go to where the Lord is.
On the plane of this mortal coil, we see the choice, and its consequences, play out. Appeals to accept salvation, which appear as events in this mortal plane, speak to the eternal plane.
I do know one thing. I can not engineer my own salvation. All I can do is embrace its efficacious Source in a response of love, however feebly and clumsily that begins. And when that is genuine, “no one shall snatch me out of His hand.” I couldn’t do it, because on what leverage would I lean to that end? Satan? He’s beaten now. By wallowing in sin I can gain myself misery, but no longer eternal hell.
Or as Lewis put it elsewhere, there are two kinds of souls. There is the kind that responds to the Lord “Thy will be done” and the kind to which the Lord responds “Thy will be done.”
Hell is embraced, it is chosen. It is never, ever foisted on the unwilling innocent. The only innocent that ever did suffer hell, Christ, volunteered. Praise God that He did volunteer.
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