Posted on 01/20/2002 5:02:48 PM PST by CCWoody
Why does He let some fail? Why did you allow your children to make mistakes? Sure--to allow them to learn. But also--and this is important--because they needed to make the decision for themselves. God does foresee those who will fail and those who will succeed--but the failures and successes will be our own, based upon our own decisions.
Why should some people get more grace than others? We all have the same information--it's what we do with that information that counts.
Is salvation intellectual then?
Of course you are wiggling and squirming around this thing. The words of your "prophet":
When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archange, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken - He is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom we have to do.... When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost.I suppose you would have me believe that we don't understand at all what we are reading. It does seem to me, and I'm sure to all who are not deceived by Satan, that Brigham Young really is declaring that Michael or Adam is really one of the 3 Persons of the Trinity. Please intrept this for those of us who have the Holy Spirit.Pg 51 of the same discourse:
It is true that this earth was organized by three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael, these three forming a quorum... perfectly represented in the Diety, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.... Now let all who may hear these doctrines, pause before they make light of them, or treat them with indifference, for they will prove their salvation or damnation.
BTW, I find it blastedly amusing that it is Adam on the Throne in Daniel 7, but God (whatever that means to you) on the Throne in Revelation. The words of another of your "prophets":
I have learned by experience that there is but one God that pertains to this people, and He is the God that pertains to this earth--the first man. That first man sent His own Son to redeem the world." - H. C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, 1856, vol. 4, p. 1And lest there be any doubt about just who Brigham Young though the Ancient of Days is, look at the:
They will come up tribe, by tribe, and the Ancient of Days, He who led Abraham, and talked to Noah, Enoch, Isaac, and Jacob, that very being will come and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. - Journal of Discourses 11:327 (Feb. 10, 1867)Please explain it to us who are obviously not under some kind of Satanic decption how it is not Father God (Adam to you) who is talking to Abraham and Noah and Enoch and Isaac and Jacob. Hmmmm!
Deuteronomy 30 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
Joshua 24:15 Joshua 24 Joshua 24:14-16 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
Isaiah 56 3 Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say, "The LORD will surely exclude me from his people." And let not any eunuch complain, "I am only a dry tree." 4 For this is what the LORD says: "To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant-- 5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.
Great! I think that I do understand your position. It is what I mean when I do say that God created "blindly." However, free will is entirely outside of the question. Man can have whatever amount of free will you want to give him. Is God's foreknowledge based upon His actions towards man or man's actions toward Him?
BTW, the reason that I flag someone is because they do have an interest in the post, not that I need to tag team you. I'm perfectly willing to discuss it in isolation. However, when I do paraphrase my friend, I like to let him know that I am shamelessly stealing "his ideas."
From Post #73 by the_doc:
There were people who were already physically dead and beyond even the possibility of salvation when Christ did His atoning work. In what saving sense did He die for them in particular?The Lord's death did them no saving good whatsoever, indeed it couldn't do them any saving good whatsoever, since they were already physically dead when Christ died and rose again.
And what about post-Calvary folks in the jungles of New Guinea? What will happen to them in particular if they never even hear the gospel message of the New Testament? In other words, in what sense did Christ die to save them in particular if the Omnipotent Spirit of Almighty God is not pleased to GET the missionaries ALL THE WAY out in the middle of nowhere to present the message of the gospel to them in particular?
(How can the Third Person of the Trinity be said to be committed to the salvation of these folks in particular if He does not pull out all stops to get the gospel message to them in particular? And if the Second Person of the Trinity died to save them in particular, how come the Third Person of God is not always clearly and dynamically interested in saving them in particular? [Sometimes the Omnipotent Spirit deliberately leaves providential doors of opportunity closed!])
My point is that the Lord's atoning death can offer folks no saving good whatsoever if they never even get to hear the message. (This is precisely why Calvinists are such energetic jungle missionaries. We know that the unevangelized souls are doomed as having no atonement if we Christians can't even get to them with the New Testament message.)
So you're saying that Moses, Noah, David, Solomon, and Abel are all in Hell?
Partially. God gave us brains to use--not to waste. It's only cults that require you to have no thought to their message.
John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and He saw it and was glad.The point is that the OT saints were saved in the same way that we are; by rejoicing in the Blood that was shed for us. They looked forward and we look back.
Read that post again. It really does have a very good question for you to answer if you are going to maintain that Christ died for all men everywhere.
Psalm 95:10-11 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said `It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known My ways.' Unto them I swore in My wrath, that they should not enter into My rest."In what sense did Christ die for those people? Please see Hebrews 4 before you answer.
If our Salvation ,as you point out, is solely out of love for His creation..and He is not willing that any should perish..then why does He not choose to save all? Does he love some more than others?
He is God after all, and He would know how much grace each needed and the circumstances necessary for every man to seek Him. Why would He allow some ,that would seek Him with more of His grace perish?
Why did He even put the tree in the garden?
You gave scriptures on choice and I do not deny there is choice..I address why we choose the way we do...would you answer my question? Please?? :>))
I believe you misunderstood the point of my post. Christ did not die for those people--nor for any in the Old Testament. The rules changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament scriptures. While they had to law to push away their sins (for a short time), we have Christ to erase ours.
When I said that Christ died for all men, I was speaking of the present time--from His death til now.
As far as the natives in New Guinea, I don't know about their salvation--I am not their Judge, and the Bible makes no mention of those who have not heard the message--hence (I believe) the purpose of the Great Commission.
Speaking of which--given that God has a purpose in everything He does, why give us the Great Commission if we have no say in whether we are saved or not? If we have no say, and God determines everyone's fate without any input from us, why evangelize? Why purposefully condemn His own creation to Hell through no fault of its own? Why introduce the Tree in the Garden? Why allow Satan free reign on Earth? Why not destroy Lucifer during the initial rebellion?
As you can see, many more questions arise from Calvinism that it cannot answer than to allow for the fact that it is us who ultimately accept His gift of eternal life--not Him.
He does know how much grace is needed. Your mistake is thinking that He does not provide it. He provides exactly what each person needs for salvation. Each person must make the choice to accept it or not. Some don't.
Psalm 78:21-22, 30-31 Therefore the LORD heard this and was wroth; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also rose up against Israel, because they believed not in God and trusted not in His salvation,... But they were not estranged from their lust; but while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.
What? Christ did not die for the OT saints. Huh?
Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."There is only One way; One God, One Body, One Faith alone: if you don't know then you need to be told!Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.
As far as the natives in New Guinea, I don't know about their salvation--I am not their Judge, and the Bible makes no mention of those who have not heard the message--hence (I believe) the purpose of the Great Commission.
I know about the salvation of anybody who has never heard about Jesus:
Romans 10:13-15 For "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!"Speaking of which--given that God has a purpose in everything He does, why give us the Great Commission if we have no say in whether we are saved or not? If we have no say, and God determines everyone's fate without any input from us, why evangelize? Why purposefully condemn His own creation to Hell through no fault of its own? Why introduce the Tree in the Garden? Why allow Satan free reign on Earth? Why not destroy Lucifer during the initial rebellion?
See above and add this: All things for the Glory of God. BTW, nobody is condemned to Hell "through no fault of their own!" They are condemned to Hell for hating Him.
As you can see, many more questions arise from Calvinism that it cannot answer than to allow for the fact that it is us who ultimately accept His gift of eternal life--not Him.
Of old, God complained to an apostate Israel, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself" (Psalm 50:21). Such must now be His indictment against an apostate Christendom. Men imagine that the Most High is moved by sentiment rather than actuated by principle. They suppose that His omnipotency is such an idle fiction that Satan is thwarting His designs on every side. They think that if He has formed any plan or purpose at all, then it must be like theirs, constantly subject to change. They openly declare that whatever power He possesses must be restricted, lest He invade the citadel of man's "free-will" and reduce him to a "machine." They lower the all-efficacious Atonement, which has actually redeemed everyone for whom it was made, to a mere "remedy", which sin-sick souls may use if they feel disposed to; and they enervate the invincible work of the Holy Spirit to an "offer" of the Gospel which sinners may accept or reject as they please. - A.W. Pink
God bless.
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