Posted on 08/01/2005 8:16:45 PM PDT by buckeyesrule
That is love. And He will ALWAYS be that way.
Such a schizophrenic view of the Messiah belies what He Himself said: "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself but what He sees the Father do. For whatever things He does, these also the Son does likewise" (Jn. 5:19). Therefore, the Son could not mourn over the rebelleon of Jerusalem and say that His will was that they would have repented at His First Coming but that they had refused unless that was also the sentiment of the Father.
You cannot separate the Son of Man from the Incarnate God as you are trying to do, for "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (Jn. 14:9). Yeshua came not merely to do the Father's will, but to show us just who the Father is through His every action, word, and emotion.
It is a pity that you are so given over to Calvinism that you are willing to parse God into three gods rather than admit that He Himself said that His (passive) will was that Jerusalem would repent, but that they would not, and therefore His (active) will was to see Jerusalem destroyed and the Gospel taken to the nations.
f Christ had truly willed their salvation and it was resisted by individuals this scripture would them be a lie
Rom 9:19 — Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Hardly. First of all, if there were ever a disagreement between the Messiah and an Apostle, whom should we side with? (I reject the idea that Sha'ul [Paul] had rejected the Torah for the same reason, plus his own actions in Ac. 21+.) Secondly, Sha'ul is voicing a human objection, not his own views; the human objection is that God had prophesied that Israel would reject the Messiah, so why then would He punish them for doing what He said they would? Showing that God would have rather Israel would receive the Messiah in His First Coming (passive will) does not take away from the fact that, knowing they would not (here, His passive will was to give Israel a choice), He chose to blind them further for a length of time (active will) so that the Messiah could become known to the Gentiles (active will).
I would rather parse God's preferences from His active will than parse the Messiah from the Godhead or parse the Messiah's Emissary from the Messiah, as you have done. The former demonstrates God's greatness in that He can take every "defeat" and turn it into an even greater victory, while the latter results in a disjointed faith.
Try reading his entire post.
Amen!
John 3:36 is very clear on this, if someone rejects the love of God, the wrath of God abideth on him.
That is the 'old fire and brimstone' preaching that has been lost for a 'kinder and gentler' albeit false preaching, of the 'new' seeker churches.
Amen,...and Amen!!!
I agree with that, if we are talking "agape," as RnMom distinguished earlier from the general beneficence God bestows upon His creation. If God had written their names in the book of life, if God had loved them with saving grace through faith in Christ's redemption, they'd be in heaven.
To deny that diminishes God's love for His elect, ordained by Him from before the foundation of the world.
Did God love Judas? Did God love Stalin?
All this "God loves everyone equally" is simply not Scriptural. God discriminates according to His will, and not according to our will.
A better question is how could God be surprised by the actions of His creatures?
It is a teaching verse. One among many.
People always do what they were preordained to do.
Question
There are some who teach that God loves only His elect and hates the non-elect. Please comment.
Answer
The fact that some sinners are not elected to salvation is no proof that God’s attitude toward them is utterly devoid of sincere love. We know from Scripture that God is compassionate, kind, generous, and good even to the most stubborn sinners. Who can deny that these mercies flow out of God’s boundless love? Yet it is evident that they are showered even on unrepentant sinners.
I want to acknowledge, however, that explaining God’s love toward the reprobate is not as simple as most modern evangelicals want to make it. Clearly there is a sense in which the psalmist’s expression, “I hate the assembly of evildoers” (Ps. 26:5) is a reflection of the mind of God. “Do I not hate those who hate Thee, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against Thee? I hate them with the utmost hatred; they have become my enemies” (Ps. 139:21-22). Such hatred as the psalmist expressed is a virtue, and we have every reason to conclude that it is a hatred God Himself shares. After all, He did say, “I have hated Esau” (Mal. 1:3; Rom. 9:13). The context reveals God was speaking of a whole race of wicked people. So there is a true and real sense in which Scripture teaches that God hates the wicked.
So an important distinction must be made. God loves believers with a particular love. It is a family love, the ultimate love of an eternal Father for His children. It is the consummate love of a Bridegroom for His bride. It is an eternal love that guarantees their salvation from sin and its ghastly penalty. That special love is reserved for believers alone.
However, limiting this saving, everlasting love to His chosen ones does not render God’s compassion, mercy, goodness, and love for the rest of mankind insincere or meaningless. When God invites sinners to repent and receive forgiveness (Isa. 1:18; Matt. 11:28-30), His pleading is from a sincere heart of genuine love. “‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’” (Ezek. 33:11). Clearly God does love even those who spurn His tender mercy, but it is a different quality of love, and different in degree from His love for His own.
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Unless God also sovereignly decided to invest some of His creation with free will, thus creating two ways for Him to interact with His creation: Permissively, choosing to allow His creatures to do what they wish to even if He would prefer that they not, and actively, directly interfering with His creation to mould it to His own ends.
You really ought to watch out for those false dichotomies you keep setting up, my friend.
Because He makes the faith possible in both calvinism and in arminianism. The first says irresistible grace and the other says prevenient grace.
This is no ordinary common grace, common compassion kind of love. It is particular.
Are you saying He does it with foreknowledge or forethought. If He does so without foreknowledge, then He is not God. If He does it without forethought, then He is not doing it with foreknowledge, and He is again....not God.
Therefore, He did it KNOWING the person, and THEN it was His pleasure....in other words He was pleas(ur)ed with the one He chose and NOT pleas(ur)ed with the one He did not choose.
Therefore, it was something in the persons that He knew that either pleased Him or displeased Him.
It reads like "Grouple" to me..
Great Reformed groupies.. :-)
First of all, you've just reduced a saving faith to mere intellectual assent to a certain doctrine. "Even the demons believe (that God is One) . . . and shudder!" Faith, trusting God's provision in the Messiah Yeshua alone for salvation, was never about intellectual assent, but about a living relationship.
I trust that there's simply a miscommunication between us on that point. So for the sake of clarity, could you define what exactly you mean by having a "trinitarian" faith?
Secondly, "most likely"? How can one know if one is truly elect or not, if election is merely something that happens rather than something that you actively receive? What if God has not chosen you, but you in your reprobate state do not have the spiritual insight to realize it? How do you know that He has not simply let the "god of this age," the Adversary, blind you to the truth in such a way that you think you have it?
I'm not saying you are reprobate; I'm asking how you would know if the above were true. And if you can't know such a thing, how can you be assured that you are indeed among the elect?
Amazing, however, that you call my Trinitarian faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior "heresy." Shame on you.
Reread what I said: "Gotta love the rediculous heresies one comes to when one follows GRPL theology to its logical and Scriptural conclusion." I didn't say that you had indeed followed your theology to that conclusion; I was pointing out what happens if you do.
You said that if God does not actively ordain everything that happens, then there is no God. Yeshua said (rather emotionally) that He would have rather that Jerusalem would repent so that He could gather them together, but they chose not to. Therefore, He did not actively ordain that Jerusalem would reject Him but permitted them to have their own way. Therefore, according to your statement, there is no God.
If you do indeed believe that, then you have indeed left a Biblical worldview behind.
Not so. Outox gar egapesen o qeox. God loved the world with an agape kind of love.
It is entirely unavoidable - Christ is the atonement for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world. You can try to redefine "world" all you like, but that is pointless. What is clear is that God loves even the reprobate, and that Jesus Christ died also for the non-elect.
This is not in contradiction with "definate atonement." All definate atonement requires is that it be applied only to the elect. It is still offered to every man, woman, and child. It requires linguistic gymnastics to make the Bible say anything other than the fact that God loves the whole world, including the non-elect, and gave his Son as the propitiation for all men, including the non-elect.
Amen.
Also to the application.
*** if God had loved them with saving grace through faith in Christ's redemption, they'd be in heaven.***
Within this context I find the following verse to be of interest...
"...And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth.
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.
And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions."
Mark 10:20-22
Two posts later is pretty quick, and he outed himself at that.
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