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To: Dr. Eckleburg; D-fendr; blue-duncan; Forest Keeper; xzins; P-Marlowe; MarkBsnr; HarleyD
Here's your mistake. God is immutable...

That's not my mistake; I never said God changes; to the contrary! That which is perfect (i.e. complete) does not change.

Likewise, God's wrath is immutable regarding the chaff. He does not love the condemned

God gives equally to the righteous and the unrighteous. He is impartial. He loves the saved and the condemned equally. It is our spiritual state (of accepting or rejecting God) that is experienced either as His love or His wrath.

Those who love God experience it as blessings and those who hate Him as burning fire. Love is fire; some are warmed by it, others are burned; but the fire remains the same.

All men are sinners. Some men are acquitted of their sins by Christ on the cross, and some men remain condemned by them

That doesn't fit your double predestination theology, Dr. E, according to which mankind was either "acquitted" or "condemned" before mankind existed! And not only that, but since salvation or damnation is not work-based, or has anything to do with our free will, acquittal and condemnation become oxymorons.

6,112 posted on 09/12/2007 8:04:07 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50; blue-duncan; xzins; P-Marlowe; irishtenor; Alamo-Girl; HarleyD; suzyjaruki; ...
He loves the saved and the condemned equally.

Spoken like a true humanist.

Scripture says otherwise. God loves righteousness and hates sin. And those not acquitted by Christ's work on the cross on their behalf remain condemned in their sins.

God does not love sin.

"If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:

For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee." -- Proverbs 25:21-22


"Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." -- Romans 12:20

Is the act of "heaping coals of fire" on someone's head a pleasant thing? Something God would do to one whom He loves?

"The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity." -- Psalm 5:5

"But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity." -- Luke 13:27

acquittal and condemnation become oxymorons.

Nope. They become what they've always been -- God's immutable, perfect, holy, predestining and transformative will from before the foundation of the world, according to His purpose in creation. It all revolves around a correct understanding of justification -- salvation is not due to what we do, but what Christ did.

WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH
Chapter XI
Of Justification

"I. Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies;[1] not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them,[2] they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.[3]

II. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification:[4] yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love.[5]

III. Christ, by His obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real and full satisfaction to His Father's justice in their behalf.[6] Yet, in as much as He was given by the Father for them;[7] and His obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead;[8] and both, freely, not for any thing in them; their justification is only of free grace;[9] that both the exact justice, and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.[10]

IV. God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect,[11] and Christ did, in the fullness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification:[12] nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit does, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.[13]

V. God does continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified;[14] and although they can never fall from the sate of justification,[15] yet they may, by their sins, fall under God's fatherly displeasure, and not have the light of His countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance.[16]

VI. The justification of believers under the Old Testament was, in all these respects, one and the same with the justification of believers under the New Testament.[17]


6,164 posted on 09/13/2007 12:31:26 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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