brightfame52
Well-known member
See the article.
Calling on the Name of The Lord
- Thread starter Richard
- Start date
civic
Well-known member
It’s really difficult to remove those Calvinist glasses , I wore them for over 40 years and you only view the scriptures through those lenses. It’s difficult to break through a few of us here left it a few years ago on this forum. It’s one of the reasons this forum was formed as we were no longer welcome on the old one.
mailmandan
Well-known member
Amen! Calling upon the name of the Lord to be saved = relying on the name of the Lord, trusting in Him for salvation. When one calls upon Jesus to save them, they are trusting in Him to come to their aid. Inherent in their calling upon the name of the Lord is the essential faith in Jesus Christ that He can and will save them.
So you traded them in for new glasses?
civic
Well-known member
Yes for different lenses that have a different focus. I can see things much differently now about God.
Yes for different lenses that have a different focus. I can see things much differently now about God.
A different focus? Not necessarily the correct focus?
civic
Well-known member
No its correct now with the primary focus of my theology ( the study of God ) on His innate attributes. Who is God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What and Who is God apart from His creation. What is that Eternal relationship like between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that is Eternal and Immutable. These Q/A have led me in the right direction.
Below is from my thesis paper as an example.
God is Love. In love, the Father sent the Son on our behalf to be the perfect sacrifice for sin. We Love because He first loved us and sent His Son as 1 John 4:19 tells us.
We must understand how God's attributes all work in harmony together, not in opposition to each other. God's attributes and character flow from His love—for God is love.
God being love has nothing to do with His creation. That is secondary. God is love, and that love is perfect, lacking nothing within His Triune nature as God. Love, by definition, has to be expressed with another, which is why a unitarian god cannot be love. Love requires another to share and express that love, and it is what we see with the Triune God. God is love before anyone/anything existed.
Before creation, there was no sin. There was no judgment, wrath, mercy, grace, and justice. Why? Because those are God's secondary attributes concerning the creation and the fall. God's love is a primary attribute, like Holy is a primary one. Everything about God flows from His being Love which includes His secondary attributes, which were not in use until the creation and the fall.
Let’s examine how this works in conjunction with Gods sovereignty and His love. God is sovereign and also love. Both sovereignty and love as they intersect with God have been revealed plainly to us by God in His word. He has done this both through his word and his works. And God has sworn never to change for He is Immutable.
God's sovereignty is never exercised in violation of his love. His love is very everlasting, for God is love. The love of God has not the slightest shadow of variation, and it, not his sovereignty, is the basis upon which his moral standards rest. Any promotion of any doctrine that represents God as acting in a way that violates his love appealing to the fact that He is sovereign is found nowhere in the pages of scripture.
The fact that God can do something is not a justification for Him doing it. The fact that God can damn everyone without a reason is not an argument for justifying teaching that he does as in the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination. All that He can do is restricted by the standard that God values most which is His love. If it will violate love, God will not and cannot do it for that would be contrary to His nature and character as a loving God. And if it will violate love then it is not right. God cannot make it right by doing it just because He is sovereign. If God does it just because He is sovereign then He would not be God but something else.
What makes God, God is so intricately bound to his intent for doing things that if He were to do a thing just by virtue of the fact that He is sovereign and can do it rather than by virtue of the fact that it is loving? He would not be God as we know Him but something else. If sovereignty is what defines what makes up love in such a way that God doing anything is what defines love, then love has no meaning and can be anything and everything it is and opposes any time, which is ridiculous.
This below is from the Calvinist Theologian Abraham Kuyper on God is love:
“Before God created heaven and earth with all their inhabitants, the eternal Love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shone with unseen splendor in the divine Being. Love exists, not for the sake of the world, but for God's sake; and when the world came into existence, Love remained unchanged; and if every creature were to disappear, it would remain just as rich and glorious as ever. Love exists and works in the Eternal Being apart from the creature; and its radiation upon the, creature is but a feeble reflection of its being.
Love is not God, but God is Love; and He is sufficient to Himself to love absolutely and forever. He has no need of the creature, and the exercise of His Love did not begin with the creature whom He could love, but it flows and springs eternally in the Love-life of the Triune God. God is Love; its perfection, divine beauty, real dimensions, and holiness are not found in men, not even in the best of God's children, but scintillate only around the Throne of God.
The unity of Love with the Confession of the Trinity is the starting-point from which we proceed to base Love independently in God, absolutely independent of the creature or anything creaturely. This is not to make the divine Trinity a philosophic deduction from essential love. That is unlawful; if God had not revealed this mystery in His Word we should be totally ignorant of it. But since the Scripture puts the Triune Being before us as the Object of our adoration, and upon almost every page most highly exalts the mutual Love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and delineates it as an Eternal Love, we know and plainly see that this holy Love may never be represented but as springing from the mutual love of the divine Persons.
Hence through the mystery of the Trinity, the Love which is in God and is God obtains its independent existence, apart from the creature, independent of the emotions of mind and heart; and it rises as a sun, with its own fire and rays, outside of man, in God, in whom it rests and from whom it radiates.
In this way we eradicate every comparison of the Love of God with our love. In this way the false mingling ceases. In principle we resist the reversing of positions whereby arrogant man had succeeded in copying from himself a so-called God of Love, and into silencing all adoration. In this way the soul returns to the blessed confession that God is Love, and the way of divine mercy and pity is opened whereby the brightness of that Sun can radiate in a human way, i.e., in a finite and imperfect manner to and in the human heart, to the praise of God. “From his book on the Work of the Holy Spirit Volume 3, Second Chapter Love- xviii Love in the Triune Being of God “
God can do anything and everything is what sovereignty means by definition. God will only do what is loving and what is righteousness. Righteousness is the foundation of his throne. In other words, righteousness is the constraint of his sovereign rule. Love is how God rules His creation. Sovereignty, Righteousness, Justice, Mercy and all the other attributes of God fall under the umbrella of His love. God being love is foundational to Gods nature, character, the gospel and the entire purpose for Christs 1st Coming. John 3:16. God rules by His love. The question we need to be asking ourselves is this, how does our Sovereign God display His love in conjunction with His rule over mankind?
hope this helps!!!
Are you sure? You thought you were correct then I'm sure.
civic
Well-known member
I have had several calvinist and non calvinist pastors, theologians and scholars look at my paper encouraging me to continue in the study. I have not had anything negative from them about my paper. Did you read it yet ?
here is the link and I'm still working on it and revising it as I continue in my study of this topic.
This isn't about your paper.
civic
Well-known member
That study about God is what led me out of Calvinism. So they are interconnected. Theology by definition is the study of God ( His nature,character and attributes ) . If we get that wrong we get our doctrines wrong. Its as simples as that.
How one views God has a direct effect on ones beliefs/doctrines. They go hand in hand together.
One cannot talk about the doctrine of salvation apart from God and the atonement. They are all intertwined together.
hope this helps !!!
Okay but that's irrelevant to my question.
civic
Well-known member
Please re ask the ? Thanks
Complete
Well-known member
Hello @Richard,
When I read your OP, what came into my mind was the first time that we hear of men calling upon the name of the Lord, in Genesis.
'And to Seth, to him also there was born a son;
and he called his name Enos:
then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.'
(Gen 4:26)
In my Bible marginal notes against this verse, it says that this does not relate to worship: for Abel and others worshipped prior to this, but here, men began to call upon (their gods) by the name of Jehovah, or began profanely to call upon the name of the Lord , Enos, though the son of Seth, is included in the generations of Cain, because he went in 'the way of Cain.'
Though not in line with your thinking so far, I thought it worth taking this into account, to show that calling on the name of the Lord can have other connotations.
* The second usage in Scripture concerns Abram, and was coupled with the building of an altar with the view to worshipping God.
'And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said,
"Unto thy seed will I give this land:"
and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.
And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel,
and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east:
and there he builded an altar unto the LORD,
and called upon the name of the LORD.'
(Gen 12:7)
Praise God!
Thank you
In Christ Jesus
Chris
How do you know your right now if you believed you were right then?
civic
Well-known member
I was wrong about Gods nature, character and attributes and how that affected my beliefs/ theology. I had faulty presuppositions about theology and soteriology.
I was wrong about the following .
Tri-Unity of God
Christology
Soteriology
The gospel( for all not just some )
Sovereignty
TULIP
Just to name a few.
hope this helps !!!
How do you know? You could change your mind again.
civic
Well-known member
No changing the mind and heart about the Tri- Unity of God from which all good theology stems and flows from. I don’t have those mistaken presuppositions regarding God now. I begin with Him with everything I now believe.
In theology Gods character is on trial.
hope this helps !!!
Okay, your not going to answer.
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