People do not like to think about that O Malley , so they create a god they can be comfortable with.
If you read the OT, God is long suffering..but there is a point where God demands justice.
Gods Justice is a balance to His mercy .
Posted on 10/12/2003 9:35:25 AM PDT by CCWoody
I am able to get out of bed in the morning because my understanding of God doesn't end there, but it does start there.
I had to be brought to the point where I could realize that I was an evil sinner. Nothing good about me-- sure, I look good on the outside. I grew up in a Christian home. I did all the things that a good Christian guy ought to do. But I am a sinner. And God has every right to punish me severely.
That's what Edwards is conveying there. That we, as sinners, have terribly offended God, and the only reason we still live is because of God's mercy.
Once we realize the depths of our depravity, then and only then can we realize the depths of God's love and mercy towards us in saving us.
Flag me and I will bump it..I am glad it is finished :>)
That was the first Sproul I ever read..May I also suggest "Putting Amazing Back into Grace : Embracing the Heart of the Gospel" By Michael Horton
That looks like my bump list :>)
Revelation 21 and 22
I find it hard to believe that a God that forgave a sin would still demand a bit of burning for it . Paying a debt that was already paid.
People do not like to think about that O Malley , so they create a god they can be comfortable with.
If you read the OT, God is long suffering..but there is a point where God demands justice.
Gods Justice is a balance to His mercy .
By Don Stewart
Time can be defined as the measurement of events that appear one after another. When God created the world He created time - He existed before the first event of creation. Therefore God dwells outside of time.
The Bible says that God is not limited to time. Scripture says that He is the one who inhabits eternity.
For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy (Isaiah 57:15).
While God inhabits eternity, He deals with His creation in time. This is another example of an antinomy – two truths that seemingly conflict. Consequently we can only approximate the truth when we speak of God living outside of time, yet interacting with His people in time. The Bible says.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8,9).
Time Is Relative To God
We find that time is merely relative to God. The Bible says.
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day (2 Peter 3:8).
Although we cannot totally reconcile these statements, we believe them because God has revealed these truths to us.
God never had a beginning point and will never have an end. The Scriptures recognize that Jesus is the beginning and the end. At the beginning of the Book of Revelation we read.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8).
The same truth is restated at the end of Revelation.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End (Revelation 22:13).
Isaiah wrote.
This is what the LORD says – Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God (Isaiah 44:6).
Again Isaiah recorded God saying.
Listen to me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am he; I am the first and I am the last. My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they all stand up together (Isaiah 48:12,13)
Time and space were part of God’s creation. He existed before there was such a thing as time. Consequently God dwells in eternity not in time. Because he dwells in eternity he sees both the beginning and the end. While God does not dwell in time, He interacts with His creation in time. Although humankind cannot completely comprehend how this is true, nevertheless this is the biblical teaching on the subject.
So you do not believe that God means what He says? If God compares his "feelings" in terms that we can "understand" I would say he is describing anger
Do you think God does not hate sin? You believe he hates it so much that he makes Catholics burn in purgatory for forgiven sin..I would call that hate
. Revelation 14:10-11: “[Sinners] shall drink of the wine of the WRATH OF GOD, which is poured without mixture into the cup of HIS INDIGNATION; and he shall be TORMENTED WITH FIRE AND BRIMSTONE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE HOLY ANGELS, AND IN THE PRESENCE OF THE LAMB; And the smoke of their TORMENT ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have NO REST DAY NOR NIGHT...”
Precisely. The wicked see Love, but they do not participate. Or rather, they participate, but to their eternal torment instead of their eternal bliss. The fires of hell (pain of loss and pain of sense) are the love and glory of God realized in and around those unprepared to receive them and at personal enmity with their source.
That is New Age gibberish without one bit of scriptural support .Jesus spoke of Hells fire..was he lying then , or mistaken
I suspect that you do not like the picture of Hell that was portrayed in Scripture , so you have taken the works of the feel good theologians rather than the word of God .
I find it a bit amusing that you and others have damned all protestants to hell for worshipping a false god, yet hell holds no fear for us. We know we are saved and do not have to fear it.
The fear belongs to those that have no confidence in their salvation.
" it was defiled by Josias (IV Kings, xxiii, 10), cursed by Jeremias (Jer., vii, 31-33), and held in abomination by the Jews, who, accordingly, used the name of this valley to designate the abode of the damned (Targ. Jon., Gen., iii, 24; Henoch, c. xxvi). And Christ adopted this usage of the term. Besides Hades and Gehenna, we find in the New Testament many other names for the abode of the damned. It is called "lower hell" (Vulg. tartarus) (II Peter, ii, 4), "abyss" (Luke, viii, 31 and elsewhere), "place of torments" (Luke, xvi, 28), "pool of fire" (Apoc., xix, 20 and elsewhere),Don't be overeager to anthropomorphize God. Leviticus 26:14-30: and MY SOUL SHALL ABHOR YOU"furnace of fire" (Matt., xiii, 42, 50), "unquenchable fire" (Matt., iii, 12, and elsewhere), "everlasting fire" (Matt., xviii, 8; xxv, 41; Jude, 7),
"exterior darkness" (Matt., vii, 12; xxii, 13; xxv, 30), "mist" or "storm of darkness" (II Peter, ii, 17; Jude, 13). The state of the damned is called "destruction" (apoleia, Phil., iii, 19, and elsewhere), "perdition" (olethros, I Tim., vi, 9), "eternal destruction" (olethros aionios, II Thess., i, 9), "corruption" (phthora, Gal., vi, 8), "death" (Rom., vi, 21), "second death" (Apoc., ii, 11 and elsewhere
There is a hell, i.e. all those who die in personal mortal sin, as enemies of God, and unworthy of eternal life, will be severely punished by God after death. On the nature of mortal sin, see SIN; on the immediate beginning of punishment after death, see PARTICULAR JUDGMENT. As to the fate of those who die free from personal mortal sin, but in original sin, see LIMBO (limbus parvulorum). The existence of hell is, of course, denied by all those who deny the existence of God or the immortality of the soul. Thus among the Jew the Sadducees, among the Gnostics, the Seleucians, and in our own time Materialists, Pantheists, etc., deny the existence of hell. But apart from these, if we abstract from the eternity of the pains of hell, the doctrine has never met any opposition worthy of mention.
The Church professes her faith in the Athanasian Creed: "They that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire" (Denzinger, "Enchiridion", 10th ed., 1908, n.40). The Church has repeatedly defined this truth, e.g. in the profession of faith made in the Second Council of Lyons (Denx., n. 464) and in the Decree of Union in the Council of Florence (Denz., N. 693): "the souls of those who depart in mortal sin, or only in original sin, go down immediately into hell, to be visited, however, with unequal punishments" (poenis disparibus).
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm
Does the Holy Trinity have a "soul"?
A clear description of Gods feelings toward the sin of men . The only way God has to communicate with man is to use words that man can understand . God certainly has emotions..(we were created in His image)
Hosea 9:15: “All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I HATED THEM: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of Mine house, I WILL LOVE THEM NO MORE...”
Does God love the people he puts in hell? Did he love the Egyptian babies He had slaughtered? The Jews that he had slain at the foot of Mount Sinai?
Does God love sin?
Herman you have a toy god that is soft and cuddly and is devoid of Judgment or Justice.
Think about all the woman and children he drowned in the flood . Think of the children he burned with fire and brimstone in Sodom
The only way that mercy has any meaning is if there is also Justice
God is outside time. He does not "change" from loving to hating a person.
Irrevelent to Gods hatred of sin or the fire of Hell
You have a god that sends people he loves into eternal fire..
God hates evil and evil doers that is the flip side to His love of those that are His.They are not at all opposites.
Hermann , you deny the word of god and put YOUR words in his mouth.It does not matter if you like what He says or not..God does not lie
It is funny you cling to a few verses about bread..and believe them (obvious metaphor) and flatly deny what God has plainly said CLEARLY . Hey Hermann you have cafeteria religion..
Just one more individual doctrine in the Catholic Church:>)
Yes. We had always seen the Reformed churches as closed communities. My mother sometimes compared them to the Amish. On closer scrutiny, after it pleased the Lord to bring this worm to Himself, I found much of this traceable to cultural differences, as most of them are first and second generation immigrants. Kinder and gentler folk one would be hard-pressed to find.
But, don't you see that in that very sentence you are setting yourself up as an example of the exact thing you are speaking against?
I'm sorry but do Calvinists has some sort of "Elect-detector" so that they can so easily toss-off comments like "Well, this person or that person may not be saved?"
What exactly are the criteria in this life to know if one is "saved" or not? And is that criteria so defined that so many Calvinists can so flippently remark about the salvation of others?
I will try to address this tonight, I just don't want you to think I am dodging this
pony
If Jonathan Edwards doesn't scare one into faith in oue Lord Savior, Christ Jesus, the warning that we are about to slip into Calvinism must surely redirect us to insure our watchful step. :^)
15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. 1 Ti 1:15-16 [NIV]
We need to keep a proper perspective of who we were in order to understand what God has done for us. Paul suggests here to Timothy that he should adopt this attitude as a safeguard to himself as a pastor. This stands in contrast to the false teachers in the previous verses, who had set themselves up as teachers of the law, not knowing that the law was given for evil men.
18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.Those who leave the orthodox Christian faith have demonstrated themselves to not be Christians.
19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.
I John 2:18-19 [NASB]
As for the "elitism" thing, well, that might well be indicitive of being unsaved, but it might also be indicitive of smug arrogance post-salvation. But that, ultimately, is irrelevant: the question at hand is whether Calvinism, as an informed Calvinist believes it, engender spiritual pride?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.