I don't know about any particular person other than myself, but the Bible describes people with varying strengths of faith. While "sin is sin" in terms of being worthy of Heaven, the Bible also gives different levels of punishment for different sins. So, it seems logical that if among the saved, some have stronger, more mature faith than others, that among the lost some are farther away from God's standards than others.
Sin is sin, and unrepentant sinner who goes on sinning (because God "paid" for His sins) is lost.
That's right, and is indicative that the person never had true faith to begin with.
Repentance means changing your lifestyle and never wishing to commit sin again. It's an attitude, not a parking ticket. Either you are proud or repentant. There is no middle ground.
AMEN! :)
That's not how the Church sees predestination. ......... We must try to overcome our predestined status by desiring to be on that narrow path that leads to God. Everyone has a task to overcome their predestination and come to the Lord.
Yes, that is a completely different understanding of the word than we have. We look at verses like these:
Rom 8:29-30 : 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined , he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Eph 1:4-5 : 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—
Eph 1:11 : 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, ...
So as you can see, we as believers have no interest in overcoming God's predestination as it is explicitly found in the Bible. It also makes no sense to us that man is powerful enough to overcome God anyway.
Well, if deception is not of God, then sending deceiving spirits by God would constitute "authoring sin." Knowing Christ of the Gospels, I would say most Christians would say that God doesn't do that. However, some people who left their marks on the Bible did. The OT-mindset allows that. The NT-mindset doesn't.
I think you have caused me to reexamine my position on this, so thank you for that. :) Originally, it didn't occur to me that there was such a thing as "righteous lying", but then I thought that since the Bible is clear there is such a thing as righteous killing, why not? So, I looked for it and sure enough it's right there in scripture:
Ex 1:15-21 : 15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"
19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive." 20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
It is clear that God condoned this particular lie, therefore there is a precedent for "righteous lying". A real world example I found was Christian Germans hiding Jews during WWII and lying to the Gestapo. I can see God condoning that too. So, in this light it doesn't look so bad for God to send deceiving spirits. Since it was done in righteousness, it cannot be sin.
Why are men blamed for their nature? This is the kind of attitude that allowed people to "blame" someone for the color of their skin!
I know it DOES sound very unfair. But it is even more unfair for an innocent man, indeed God Himself, to die on a cross for sins He never committed. I'd say it all balances out in favor of the elect. God made one set of people whom He loved and wanted with Him in Heaven. He also made all the other people and every other thing in the world. That is really God's prerogative as the Creator. We are in no position to complain, as the Bible says.
No FK,God gave us freedom and a choice. Your idea of God plays favorites.
From the Blessed Archbishop Fulton Sheen..
“The choice before God in creating the world lay between creating a purely mechanical universe, peopled by mere automatons, or creating a spiritual universe in which there would be a choice of good and evil. What was the condition then of such a universe? He had to endow us with the power to say yes and no and to be captains of our own fate and destiny. Morality implies responsibility and duty, but these can exist only on the condition of freedom. Stones have no morals because they are not free. We do not condemn ice because it is melted by heat. Praise and blame can be bestowed only on those who are masters of their own will. It is only because you have the possibility of saying no, that there’s so much charm in your character when you say “yes.”
Take the quality of freedom away from anyone and it is no more possible for him to be virtuous than it is for the blade of grass which he treads beneath his feet to be virtuous. Take freedom away from life, and there would be no more reason to honor the fortitude of martyrs than there would be to honor the flames which kindle their stakes. Is it therefore any impeachment of God that He chose not to reign over an empire of chemicals? If God has deliberately chosen a kind of empire to be ruled by freedom rather than by force, and if we find that His subjects are able to act against His will, as stars and atoms cannot, does this not prove that He has given to those human beings the chance of breaking allegiance so that there might be meaning and purpose in that allegiance when they freely choose it? Here we have a mere suggestion about the possibility of evil.”
(excerpt from “Through the Year with Fulton Sheen ”)