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To: Buggman
I remember posting on threads with you 5 or 6 years ago, and you always combined scriptural support with solid reasoning to win the debate.

I see none of that from you on this thread, however. It appears Gill has made some convincing arguments that are undisputed at this point.

Are you up to the challenge, or are you willing to settle for merely making claims without backing them up?

21 posted on 07/09/2004 2:53:35 PM PDT by savedbygrace
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To: savedbygrace; Darth Gill; OrthodoxPresbyterian
For the record, I was posting from work and couldn't spare the time to go verse-by-verse with Darth Gill.

To be honest, I don't see that it would do any good. When someone posts in big huge letters, "Mourn God may Hate You!" they worship a radically different God than I, one more appropriately named "Allah."

But, since you asked and since I'm now in a position to go into some detail, I'll see if I can better present my view before I have to run off again.

The Bible is very clear that God does love everyone and does offer salvation to everyone. Consider His love: Christ said the two greatest commandments were first to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (Mt. 22:37-40). He further defined "neighbor" to include even your bitter enemies, as the Jews were to the Samaritans (see Mt. 5:43-48, Lk. 10:25-37). Are we to suppose that God holds us to a higher standard than He holds Himself?

Let's also be clear that God's call for repentance is universal. That is, He calls everyone to repentence, not just "the elect." Per Jn. 3:16 again, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotton Son that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life."

The word translated "world" here (kosmos) is the same used of the universal planet earth in every other instance that John pens it. For example, He said to His brothers, "The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil" (Jn. 7:7). "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (Jn. 15:19). There is absolutely no justification to reduce the kosmos to meaning only the elect.

If God does not truly call everyone to Himself, then Christ's words are a mockery and a lie: "Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mt. 11:28). And as Isaiah prophesyed, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (53:6). The same "all" who sinned, which clearly includes every man, woman, and child on the planet, are the same "all" that Christ died to redeem.

Of course, while Christ died (potentially) for everyone, and would that everyone would come to Him and receive His forgiveness, not everyone does. But that's not because God created them to hate and enjoys casting them into hell, but because they have refused to turn to Him (see Rom. 10:8-13). God made us freewilled creatures; He calls us, but we can freely choose to resist the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51).

How then do we understand those verses that say that God "hates" sinners? In Hebrew thought, "hate" (sane) was not simply maliciousness, but to love less, or reject. For example, Isaac "hated" Leah (Gen. 29:31)--it wasn't that he wished her harm, but that he loved her less and rejected her in favor of his beloved Rachel. In the same way, God loves the nation of Esau (Edom) less than He loved Jacob (Israel) in Mal. 1:2-3, and He rejects the sinner. He rejected even Christ on the Cross when He became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21), which is why Christ cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" in the moment of judgment.

I have to run, so I'll have to cut my points short. Ultimately it comes down to this: If Calvinism rightly represents God, then He is a cosmic tyrant who punishes men for the sins that He makes them do, like a father who cuts off his son's legs and then whips him for not being able to run. Truly then, Jesus does not love the little children--He only loves a small fraction of them, and we should all be singing my sarcastic rendition of that childhood song instead of the rightful version that we all learned.

Conversely, if a balanced soteriology properly represents God, then He loves us as much as He commands us to love each other, and we are free moral agents and responsible for our decisions. Only if we are responsible for decisions is He truly just in condemning those who choose to continue in their sins and truly merciful in pardoning the redeemed.

26 posted on 07/09/2004 4:35:22 PM PDT by Buggman ("You can't tell a deaf Chinaman anything by whispering in French." --Protagoras)
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