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To: HarleyD
God said:

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)

Would God condemn men to everlasting torment for a decision that He made for them? Would God condemn men for a decision that men cannot make because God has taken it out of our hands?

When God says:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

What does the word "whoever" mean there? If God says that salvation is available to "whoever" believes, then how is He not lying when what He really does is pick and choose those who will spend eternity with Him and those who will not? How is the above verse reconciled with the Calvinist belief that God creates some people for the express purpose of going to hell, and those people, contrary to Scripture like what is posted above, have no choice in accepting or rejecting Christ?

When God says:

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:17-18)

What does the word "world" mean? Does that refer to the entire globe, or just a select few whom God has picked out? Does God ever clarify in Scripture exactly what He meant when He said "world" and where can we go to find that out? And when God says that those who have not believed in the "only begotten Son of God" are judged, is that disbelief something that God has foisted on them, or did they choose to not believe of their own free will?

150 posted on 08/28/2011 5:36:19 AM PDT by GiovannaNicoletta ("....in the last days, mockers will come with their mocking...." (2 Peter 3:3))
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To: GiovannaNicoletta
Would God condemn men to everlasting torment for a decision that He made for them? Would God condemn men for a decision that men cannot make because God has taken it out of our hands?

No, he would not.

Allah would do that, but not God.

152 posted on 08/28/2011 6:02:47 AM PDT by Jim Noble (To live peacefully with credit-based consumption and fiat money, men would have to be angels.)
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To: GiovannaNicoletta
God said: He who believes in the Son has eternal life...Would God condemn men to everlasting torment for a decision that He made for them?

Men are already condemn to hell. Adam's race is under bondage. Our Savior came to call us out of our bondage just like He called the Israelites out of their bondage. The Israelites that left Egypt, despite their suffering, wanted nothing more than to go back to Egypt. God took them via the Red Sea just so they wouldn't go back. And when they saw what laid ahead they wanted to turn back to Egypt.

We're not unlike the Israelites except in one very important respect. The only thing that keeps us from wanting to go back to Egypt is the Holy Spirit. God specifically tells us that He will give us a new heart and spirit so that we will walk in His way. It's not our choice because if it was our choice we would choose Egypt.

John 3:16...What does the word "whoever" mean there? If God says that salvation is available to "whoever" believes, then how is He not lying

Read the entire text.

Everyone who believes in the Son has eternal life. Everyone who believes in the Son will not perish but have eternal life. The problem is that NO ONE WILL BELIEVE nor will they want to believe unless the Son is revealed to them. And the reason we don't want to believe is because we love the darkness. If we saw the light of God, we would try to kill it-which we tried to do. This is the very ugly nature of man and we might just as well accept it.

Augustine compares and contrasts the believers against the unbelievers in his Treatise of the Predestination of the Saints:

The only reason we have faith is because God gives us faith. And the only reason we are given faith is so that we might testify to God's mercy and show this mercy through our good works by our belief. It is not anything we have done including anything we may "choose". All that we do is as filthy rags before God.
157 posted on 08/28/2011 7:11:51 AM PDT by HarleyD
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To: GiovannaNicoletta; HarleyD
"Would God condemn men to everlasting torment for a decision that He made for them?"

That statement can only come from a person with a horrible understanding of God and zero understanding of the Gospel. Since the Fall, all men, without exception, are wicked from the womb (Ps 58;3), hating God, loving Sin, unwilling and unable to seek or even please God and incapable of understanding the Scriptures (1 Cor 2:14) because their minds are blinded by both Satan and God.

Thus everyone deserves Hell and without God's personal and specific intervention, would surely be condemned, not only by Adam's sin, but by each man's own sin. There isn't a decision about it. The default state of man is condemnation. There isn't a limbo where God sits around and waits for a "decision" to accept or reject and then, and only then sends man to heaven or hell based on that decision. Hell is what every single person deserves, decision or not. For you to not even see this foundational truth means that you are alien to the Gospel for you don't even understand why man is condemned or why he needs a savior.

What does the word "whoever" mean there?

You are asking the wrong question. The question is "why would anyone believe"? 1 Corinthians 2:14 says that you hate the Gospel and consider it foolish - fully incapable of understanding the Gospel. Now if you hate the Gospel, don't understand it, and consider it foolish, exactly what is it that you are believing in? Logically you can't embrace and have faith in that which you don't understand and despise. Yet here you claim that any belief or faith is sufficient to obligate God into saving you.

How is the above verse reconciled with the Calvinist belief that God creates some people for the express purpose of going to hell, and those people, contrary to Scripture like what is posted above, have no choice in accepting or rejecting Christ?

First of all, it isn't just a "Calvinist belief" it is plainly taught by Isaiah (29:16), Jeremiah (18) and Paul (Ro 9:14-20). What I find interesting is that you acknowledge fully that your interpretation is hostile to other passages in Scripture. You admit that your free will interpretation contradicts the Potter and Clay picture of God and mankind - yet you are not only comfortable with creating a contradiction, but you despise those who have reconciled these passages and remain faithful to the Doctrines of Grace.

Jesus told the Pharisees in John 10:26 that they can't believe BECAUSE they are not His sheep. We are told in the Scriptures that God is the one that dispenses faith to His elect (Ro 12:3) We are told that the world has been made blind to the Gospel. (Isa 6:10; John 12:40; 2 Cor 3:14; 4:4)

You boast that people are naturally knowledgeable about the Gospel but somehow you have completely missed John's teaching of the blinding in his Gospel (12:37-41) where he quotes from the prophet Isaiah "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them..

When you make it policy and template of yours to reject in totality the Bible's teaching of man's spiritual death and inability, then you will come to this foolishness of natural man having a complete and saving knowledge of Christ and the only thing left is to make a "choice".

What does the word "world" mean? Does that refer to the entire globe, or just a select few whom God has picked out?

That is truly a sophism. Later on in John's Gospel (15:18-19) he writes that the "world hates you and has hated Me" and "they were chosen out of this world". Can you harmonize those passages with that insipid definition of "world" that you hold? Of course not. You must define "world" differently to fit your anthropocentric soteriology. It has been explained to you countless times that "the world" is meant "out of every tribe and nation" (Rv 5:9; Acts 10:35; Col 1:6), so it must be willful ignorance for you to act as if we have no answer.

My guess is that you have never been taught proper theology and this explains why you don't understand nor accept the Gospel. There is still time. HarleyD is a good teacher.

236 posted on 08/28/2011 9:22:28 PM PDT by The Theophilus (Obama's Key to win 2012: Ban Haloperidol)
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