civic
Well-known member
Amen I’m enjoying the interaction with you guys, great job brothers.
Does God know everything?
- Thread starter Behold
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First - I am the one who repudiates the common acceptance of our being created here on earth at our conception...catch up please.
Second - never have I espoused that we are created evil since I champion the pov that only by a true free will choice by an ingenuous and true innocent can a person become imbued with sin or reprobation. Inheriting Adamic sin is anathema to me. Is a re-reading of my posts without a pre-bias against me necessary?
And for you to claim ignorance that most of the Christian world believes we are created at conception and are sinful from conception due to Adam's fall, seems preposterous.
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Frank Russell
Well-known member
I never met that guy .. Everything.
But if a guy named Everything existed, I'm sure God would know that person.
The Rogue Tomato
Well-known member
68? You're a spring chicken.
I was brought up Greek Orthodox, but I hated it. I was an evangelical atheist - I wanted everyone to be an atheist. I became a Christian comparatively late in life, at about age 33. I started reading the Bible. I couldn't put it down. It was an obsession. Nevertheless, early in my Christian life I was 100% free-will. Being a writer, I even started to write a short treatise on salvation and free will, but I could never finish it. I kept bumping into scripture that contradicted what I was trying to write.
Here's a funny but significant turning point in my thinking. I was and still am an animal lover. Still a very young Christian (and a vegetarian at the time), I was appalled at the way God commanded the sacrifice of animals. How could God create such a cruel system? Then, almost as though the thought came from outer space, it suddenly hit me that God is God. He created everything, including animals, and has a right to do with them whatever he wants.
That's when I began seeing things differently in scripture. I became a "Calvinist". I say "Calvinist" only as shorthand for the doctrines of election, predestination, etc. I never read anything by Calvin (except much later when I'd read a paragraph or two to check to see if Calvin actually said something people accused him of saying).
Everything other than the Bible that I've read on election since (Luther, Spurgeon, Pink, etc.), I read AFTER already having come to the conclusions from the Bible.
P.S. I haven't been a vegetarian since about 34 or 35. In fact, I'm on a carnivore diet right now.
makesends
Well-known member
I don't need to provide context to my determination. It wasn't a determination. It was a statement that what you said didn't make sense to me, because the only way I could even get a cogent arrangement of it, (—I say it like this, because, after all, I don't want you claiming I'm inexperienced by claiming that a strawman makes sense
—), it produced a strawman.I find myself tempted to reply in kind. Suffice to say that I was too lazy to go back and re-read what you had said. Well, that, and, being old, Freudian banana peels seem to show up all over this keyboard. Then, there's the tendency (as one gets older) to put a word up there that comes to mind when the right word isn't forthcoming. I don't remember which it was this time. I'm guessing that I had just been thinking you had used the 'gun' for some kind of metaphor, and that your statement hadn't been apt to the question at hand. But at this point, I hardly care. It's like explaining a joke for too long.
Why should I learn what Calvin believed? I learn from the scriptures, and from many writers and speakers. I'm not saying that Calvin isn't important, but he is not Calvinism. I have many times been told things Calvin said, and so far most of them I agree with and the rest I can see how he might not have meant what people took him to be saying, though I don't know. And don't really care. He doesn't represent me.
For whatever it is worth, I usually don't get antagonistic until I get frustrated with people that insist I engage on their assumptions, and they won't on mine. It's one thing when an atheist does that, (saying something like, "Assuming God exists is like assuming a pink unicorn exists. The Bible is full of talking snakes and talking donkeys and world-wide floods and all sorts of stupidity!", yet they won't engage with, "IF God exists, those things are all possible."), but it's another thing when a fellow believer attacks me for what they assume what I believe implies, and demands I operate according to their thoughts, as though I must answer their strawman.
—Well, that, and I have a pretty short fuse myself, and insults tend to influence me to answer in kind. But, sometimes, I use my free will to reject the temptation.
makesends said:
I don't blame God for anything. I credit him for everything. It is by use of all that comes to pass —the good and the bad— that God brings about the completion of his plan. And it is the only way that the exact result he is after will happen.
I'm not sure if you meant to say, "So don't [you] think that God could just say "Let there be....... (fill in the blank) and it would instantly happen?". But, if that's what you meant, yeah, of course I do! God can do anything. As a matter of fact, though it gets into intricacies you and I are not privy to and large simple themes that are beyond our compartmentalizing minds, it can be argued that he did exactly that, concerning the creation of the Bride of Christ and the Dwelling Place of God, and from his perspective it happened 'instantly', though from our temporal perspective it has taken these many thousands (or billions, if you argue that) of years to accomplish it.
God is not like us. In the same way that we get so much wrong, adding emphasis where it doesn't belong and neglecting what was plainly before us, then assuming we understand, it is WE humans who must compartmentalize concepts into 'material' vs 'spiritual'; and, 'natural' vs 'miracle' and such. I like to reason with both believers and unbelievers, that IF God created, then it is not unreasonable to consider that all of it is miracle. I find myself more and more thankful to God that, YES! My keys ARE still in my pocket!, and YES! I remembered what I walked into another room to get, and YES! my tastebuds still work! As I reason, and also according to the philosophical/theological attribute of Divine Immanence, and according to, "In him we live and move and have our being", God is involved in EVERY detail of every motion and in fact the very existence of every principle, and down to the most minute force or particle of physics and matter, and every 'self' of spiritual fact, and, is the very source, and, I think, upholds and has provided the very essence, of fact itself. He is subject to nothing but himself.
"...mediated on these circumstances..." —"meditated", I expect. —"Circumstances"? What circumstances? Ok, yes, I'm picking
I get what you're saying. Those doggone banana peels...Talking about God is something that I'm not sure I could ever stop completely. Theology is therapy for me, and a lot of it happens when I'm praying!
Good bit of assuming there, it seems to me. What makes you think I don't put in effort to know him? It consumes me!
There is a lot more to God and his works than either you or I know, than either your or my point-of-view is even capable of considering. You are right to go with what makes sense to you, and to not just accept whatever for the moment intrudes convincingly. God does make sense, but not our sense. Yet we must go with what does, unless what we think 'makes sense' defies Scripture. Then it's on us to try to find what does make sense according to Scripture. I have spent my life on this; in fact, it is what has led me to the conclusions I have found, though I grew up on a very different theology.
But, anyway, I do appreciate the two thoughts that you have combined there —1) God's omnipotence, and, in particular, the fact that God could have said, "Let there be..." and it would have been, with, 2) God's longsuffering. Very interesting. You didn't develop it, and I don't want to assume the reason you relate them, though I have a pretty good imagination; my reason for liking that is because of the fact that, in my "perverse" opinion, (or so I have been told), sin did not just happen to God, 'wounding the heel', but was planned and caused to be so, by God, on purpose. If I am right about that, then think what joy and love accompanies his longsuffering; sometimes it seems to me almost like he 'drinks the pain up like water', and hardly even complains nor reproaches us for our self-involved ignorance and presumption and lack of urgency in growing in obedience, when it is OUR sin he 'overlooks' ("...not deal[ing] with us according to what our deeds deserve.") His patience and tenderness toward us is beyond amazing!
To me, it is not only illogical but unBiblical to suppose that anything can happen apart from God causing that it come to pass. I'm sorry if that grinds your ulcers, but it is the only both Biblical and logical thing I can find on the matter. And no, this does not logic down to, "Men cannot do as they please."
Memorize what words —the verses you quoted, or what you make of them?? THIS too, I find hard to put up with; I understand that you are speaking from your heart and not meaning to be speaking from arrogance or condescension, but it feels like disrespect. But I'm not looking for advice from you as to how to open my eyes or whatever it is you think is or is not happening here. Your point-of-view and your concepts and your arrangement of notions is a long way from the only valid thing to consider. (Ha!, as I so many times wanted to tell my wife (and held my tongue instead), I have a hard enough time trying to live up to my own conscience—I don't need to be responsible to live up to hers, too!!!) I am not your disciple, and you are not my sage. I hope you only meant to wax eloquent there, or something. If there's something you think I don't consider that you can show reason for, or show from Scripture, (and hopefully both), have at it. But don't start talking like you are farther along in knowledge of God than those with whom you debate. That's not convincing —it's just irritating. "I suggest you don't accept" that your idea of what I think "God's good pleasure" means, is, in fact, all that I mean by it —nor, in fact, that what you think it means is all that it means.
makesends
Well-known member
Well, they were LONG years
Haha! I had a similar experience writing, a little after finding I had 'crossed the river', when an uncle of mine asked me to "justify" Limited Atonement. I spent several years (part-time) that just pounded and pounded the stake deep into the ground, to tether the notion that God will do whatever he decides and that he has every right and is perfectly just to do so and is more-than-to-be-praised for doing so. I never counted the hours I spent in study and in tears of thankfulness to God. During that time, I found who is still probably my favorite author —John Owen.
I can't think of any seminal moments, but more, seminal themes and contradictions in my mind. There was a period in 9th or 10th grade after studying (Missionary Kids School — Bible class) Dispensationalism, I lived in terror of being left behind, and could never go to sleep until after the 'grandmother' mantle clock had struck 12, because I very well knew the untrustworthiness of my commitment to Christ. Probably the worst was the wish to die because of my inability to conquer sin and God's apparent disinterest in helping me (which I knew better than to believe) and his tender comfort in the face of my rebellion. Interestingly enough, though, it wasn't my agony over it, but the eventual realization of ridiculousness of the whole mindset I had grown up with, and my assumed, "if I just do this right, or understand this one more thing, or REALLY dedicate myself this time, etc etc etc ad absurdum", that got through to me. Even as a high schooler I had grown so sick of it all that one of my term papers was on the mechanical nature of the 'love' with which Christians showed concern and care for one another, like a man has a tendency to try to solve a wife's problems instead of just listening. "OH! This, or that, is how you're doing it wrong". In debate, here, you hear something similar —"THIS is what you're not getting!"
NO! I take it back. There was one seminal moment when I was very young —I don't know, maybe 10? 8?— when I decided that I would just declare to my parents and everybody that I was no longer a believer, so they wouldn't expect me to be good, and I could be conscience-free, steal raisins and dark chocolate from the pantry when I felt like it, and so on, (though I knew well that I would have to take the whippings that would surely result from any wrongdoing, regardless), and not have to answer to the shock and horror of my family and acquaintances at my wrongdoing. What hit me then, was the realization that I could not do so. I simply was unable to do so! It wasn't fear of my parents, nor of scorn, nor was it a lack of motivation, but the simple fact that it was not true and I was unable to deny to whom I belonged.
But it wasn't till I was maybe 30 before I began to understand that even though I wanted what was good, (for God to do whatever it took for me to stop sinning), and even though I had spent years trying to be patient and wait for God to do his work in me, and after years in an extremely difficult marriage (where "God has a wonderful plan for your marriage, if you'll just do this or that" was shown for the joke that it is (witness the Christian marriage counseling couples that end up divorced)), I began to realize that God is more interested in me getting to know him than in me being what I considered faithful. It was an awful lesson to learn that my obedience was something I thought I had to do, to obtain maturity and "Christian Victory" in order to please God or rise to some certain level. Holiness and purity has to do with being united to Christ.
Oh my goodness! the way that the Bible passages I had been so familiar with for so long went from flat to 3-D! Looking at one word is like looking through a telescope! Reading for hours at a time shows parallels you never see in the commentaries or Bible reference works. And it never ends. I can sort of understand why some people fall in love with the line of logic that they should consider, rather than grab hold of, reading Scripture! There are so many things to see that all tie together!
It wasn't til someone told me I was Reformed that I even went to the trouble to find out what that was! These were people who found out like I had, that THIS LIFE IS NOT ABOUT ME, BUT ABOUT CHRIST!
The Rogue Tomato
Well-known member
Well, they were LONG years
Haha! I had a similar experience writing, a little after finding I had 'crossed the river', when an uncle of mine asked me to "justify" Limited Atonement. I spent several years (part-time) that just pounded and pounded the stake deep into the ground, to tether the notion that God will do whatever he decides and that he has every right and is perfectly just to do so and is more-than-to-be-praised for doing so. I never counted the hours I spent in study and in tears of thankfulness to God. During that time, I found who is still probably my favorite author —John Owen.
I can't think of any seminal moments, but more, seminal themes and contradictions in my mind. There was a period in 9th or 10th grade after studying (Missionary Kids School — Bible class) Dispensationalism, I lived in terror of being left behind, and could never go to sleep until after the 'grandmother' mantle clock had struck 12, because I very well knew the untrustworthiness of my commitment to Christ. Probably the worst was the wish to die because of my inability to conquer sin and God's apparent disinterest in helping me (which I knew better than to believe) and his tender comfort in the face of my rebellion. Interestingly enough, though, it wasn't my agony over it, but the eventual realization of ridiculousness of the whole mindset I had grown up with, and my assumed, "if I just do this right, or understand this one more thing, or REALLY dedicate myself this time, etc etc etc ad absurdum", that got through to me. Even as a high schooler I had grown so sick of it all that one of my term papers was on the mechanical nature of the 'love' with which Christians showed concern and care for one another, like a man has a tendency to try to solve a wife's problems instead of just listening. "OH! This, or that, is how you're doing it wrong". In debate, here, you hear something similar —"THIS is what you're not getting!"
NO! I take it back. There was one seminal moment when I was very young —I don't know, maybe 10? 8?— when I decided that I would just declare to my parents and everybody that I was no longer a believer, so they wouldn't expect me to be good, and I could be conscience-free, steal raisins and dark chocolate from the pantry when I felt like it, and so on, (though I knew well that I would have to take the whippings that would surely result from any wrongdoing, regardless), and not have to answer to the shock and horror of my family and acquaintances at my wrongdoing. What hit me then, was the realization that I could not do so. I simply was unable to do so! It wasn't fear of my parents, nor of scorn, nor was it a lack of motivation, but the simple fact that it was not true and I was unable to deny to whom I belonged.
But it wasn't till I was maybe 30 before I began to understand that even though I wanted what was good, (for God to do whatever it took for me to stop sinning), and even though I had spent years trying to be patient and wait for God to do his work in me, and after years in an extremely difficult marriage (where "God has a wonderful plan for your marriage, if you'll just do this or that" was shown for the joke that it is (witness the Christian marriage counseling couples that end up divorced)), I began to realize that God is more interested in me getting to know him than in me being what I considered faithful. It was an awful lesson to learn that my obedience was something I thought I had to do, to obtain maturity and "Christian Victory" in order to please God or rise to some certain level. Holiness and purity has to do with being united to Christ.
Oh my goodness! the way that the Bible passages I had been so familiar with for so long went from flat to 3-D! Looking at one word is like looking through a telescope! Reading for hours at a time shows parallels you never see in the commentaries or Bible reference works. And it never ends. I can sort of understand why some people fall in love with the line of logic that they should consider, rather than grab hold of, reading Scripture! There are so many things to see that all tie together!
It wasn't til someone told me I was Reformed that I even went to the trouble to find out what that was! These were people who found out like I had, that THIS LIFE IS NOT ABOUT ME, BUT ABOUT CHRIST!
That's a fascinating story, no joke. If you wrote an autobiography, I'd read it.
makesends
Well-known member
You made a claim that was a strawman (provided that I understood you correctly, as I said), as I demonstrated:
You said: "In your own actions in creating things that impact others. If you built a gun and sold it to a individual that murdered someone you don't care about, you would have no sense of obligation or causal impact in the making of the gun. ZERO....
However, you certainly don't mind blaming God for everything that exists. God has never needed a gun. God didn't make the gun. Man did. God didn't fabricate the automobile that kills 1.3 million people every year.
You believe that God ordained every single death. It is horrible belief you've fabricated. You live in a little world where you're always doing what God ordained you to do...."
Thank you for this. This inspires me to start a new thread on something that I've been years trying to figure out how to say or from what angle to say it where it will make sense to most others. Still not sure though. Ha, don't hold your breath.
BTW, and not that you don't know this, but, Jesus debating was quite a different thing from us debating. He had authority and understanding we do not. None of us. He was right. We are only partly right. He was not blind, nor hypocritical.
I specially liked this that you said: "We are chastened by the Truth of words. Words of Truth are Spiritual. I believe they are Intrinsically "LIFE"...."
Here's Moses, just before dying: "They are not just idle words for you—they are your life!" (Deut 32:47)
With that, I agree completely. I have this unbreakable habit of playing with words in my head, noticing patterns and puns and plays on words, that have brought me to certain conclusions that I dare not trust my grasp on. I am, nevertheless, convinced, by the very thing you mention there, along with many, many other passages and concepts, and none so far that I have found to contradict it, that our transformation, 'glorification', is done by the sustenance by the Word of God. —People talk about boredom, sitting on a cloud stroking a harp. But I'm thinking the intensity of activity there would kill us instantly if God himself were not our very sustenance. Wow the thoughts crowding my mind just saying this! Overwhelming. And I can't begin to say any of them right!
In the end, just as now, what we will be and what we are, individually and corporately, is by God's use for us and by God's assessment of us. And I would have it no other way.
jeremiah1five
Well-known member
Foreknowledge is not used of God knowing everything that is to happen or can happen. Foreknowledge is used of His elect.
God is the First Cause of everything that happens, whether directly or through causes set in motion and the events that derive from them.
Isaiah also says God is the author of darkness and evil.
What we see and know of existence God is the cause and Author of it all. Nothing just happens.
And yes, God does at times give you disease as He did in Israel's past when He placed deisease upon Israel.
There is no free will in man or angel.
And yes, God has chosen a people to be with Him and by this choice has left others separated from Him. The unchosen.
And it was not my choice to be here reading this post. God directed me to you to tell you that you are in error. And I'd be pleased to discuss it and bring the Word of God to your error. The question will then be: Will you accept the Word of God and allow it to modify or completely change your beliefs, because that's the purpose of God's Word. It's for doctrine primarily, for reproving, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.
And your understanding of John 3:16 is in error, too.
So, we'll see if you are a true born of God Christian.
Ready! Fire! Aim!
God is the First Cause of everything that happens, whether directly or through causes set in motion and the events that derive from them.
Isaiah also says God is the author of darkness and evil.
What we see and know of existence God is the cause and Author of it all. Nothing just happens.
And yes, God does at times give you disease as He did in Israel's past when He placed deisease upon Israel.
There is no free will in man or angel.
And yes, God has chosen a people to be with Him and by this choice has left others separated from Him. The unchosen.
And it was not my choice to be here reading this post. God directed me to you to tell you that you are in error. And I'd be pleased to discuss it and bring the Word of God to your error. The question will then be: Will you accept the Word of God and allow it to modify or completely change your beliefs, because that's the purpose of God's Word. It's for doctrine primarily, for reproving, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.
And your understanding of John 3:16 is in error, too.
So, we'll see if you are a true born of God Christian.
Ready! Fire! Aim!
makesends
Well-known member
First - I did not say otherwise.
Second - I'm not arguing about whether you espouse that we are created evil.
—Your first and second points are irrelevant.
Third - You still haven't shown me where "the Christian world" believes we are created at conception, or, variously, at birth, and that such creation is created evil at those particular junctures. Further, I think you should admit that the 'members' of the Christian world that would admit to such a thing would be, by far and large, admitting so because they really have not thought much about it, or some, because they consider pre-creation existence of believers to be the only other option. I would not be much surprised to learn that the majority of "the Christian world" believe in praying to Mary for help, too.
makesends
Well-known member
To the rest of you. This fellow does not represent Calvinism, Reformed Theology, nor me. He is off on his own.
e v e
Well-known member
because of the fallen situation man lost his dominion... given by God...
and instead exerts 'free will' the fallen version
which is backwards.
jeremiah1five
Well-known member
You look at foreknowledge in and from the perspective of time.
God knows all things that can be and will be and there is no foreknowledge involved except where His elect are concerned for they were first contemplated as elect and then tossed into time with the creation of heaven earth and man and through His miracle of blowing into the nostrils of man and animating him as well as placing His elect into the loins of Adam, those that were contemplated in His Mind in a single thought became lost by virtue of creation. Peter looks at it from the perspective of the elect and in time, not from the perspective of God in eternity which is in Himself for He is eternity, He is eternal.
The Rogue Tomato
Well-known member
A word on foreknowledge:
Matthew 7:23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
If "those whom he foreknew" means foreknowledge about what they would choose, then how is it Jesus says he never knew these people? Did God not know what they would choose? Or did he not know them?
Matthew 7:23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
If "those whom he foreknew" means foreknowledge about what they would choose, then how is it Jesus says he never knew these people? Did God not know what they would choose? Or did he not know them?
makesends
Well-known member
There is a lot you say that I agree with. But you are all wrapped up in your own POV and then label the whole thing as authoritative. THAT is dead wrong.
"So, we'll see if you are a true born of God Christian." Really? Who are you to say?
Excellent questions...
Romans 8:29 For whom HE did foreknow, HE also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of HIS Son. From this verse we can see that the predestination of the elect is based on the foreknowledge of GOD. Now everyone admits that in this verse, the word “fore” means before earthly life. Therefore, they think that it also means before their creation as if our earthly life was the same as our creation. I wonder if this is a valid and reasonable link to make?
GOD obviously does not before life know everybody since not everyone will become like Jesus, which Rom 8:29 defines predestination to mean and, Matthew 7:21– 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I NEVER knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
James 2:19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder. Jesus obviously knew about the demons and knew about the miracle workers but this knowing contained no love as it is plain, He never knew them.
This all means that foreknow must carry the idea of approval. As one commentator stated it, “Whom HE foreknew” is virtually equivalent to “whom HE foreloved”.
Now this question comes to mind: if it is true that no one had been created at the time of this foreknowledge, on what basis does GOD "before life" love some and not the rest?
This would mean that there is no reason for HIS particular "before life" love. GOD's election and foreknowing is thus based on eenie, meenie, minie, mo, but how can you put your faith in a GOD like that? How much better to admit that we should start looking in some area we have not looked yet, and since we cannot find any of those, why not finally admit that we need a revelation from GOD to give us an infinitely loving answer to this problem?
Merit based election; dismerit based reprobation:
Now, according to pre-conception theology, the "before life" love (foreknowledge) of GOD, that is, HIS pre-life approval of some and rejection of the rest was based on the prior uncoerced choice (ie, free will choice) of the creature (in Sheol, before physical creation) and on HIS infinite love, which means that HE will never stop loving anyone who can possibly ever come to glorify HIM as HIS Bride.
The reason why HE loved some "before this life" and why HE did not love the rest is found in their (our) response for or against HIM when He proclaimed to every creature under heaven HIS divinity and HIS gospel of salvation from sin, Col 1:23.
Some had chosen to eternally defile themselves and some had not. Some had decided to never ever fulfil HIS purpose for their creation and some were still able to fulfil HIS purpose, some willingly, (angels) and others only if HE was infallibly gracious ( by election) to them (His fallen church). Yes, and He predestined these sinful people of HIS kingdom by their faith to be conformed to the image of HIS Son, and HE predestined the other sinful people of the evil one for the Day of Judgement, Jn 3:18, and established them for the correction of the fallen elect; Matt 13:29 ‘NO!’ he said, [postpone the judgement because...] ‘if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest...that is, until the sinful elect give up their willingness to live with the evil of the reprobate and choose to be holy and in full accord with the judgement.
In short, the Satanic fall happened before the creation of the physical universe and was the reason for their reprobation before the foundation of the world....not for any unconditional whim.
Now, I ask you, which doctrine is the more scriptural and reasonable and compatible with the attributes of GOD?
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The Rogue Tomato
Well-known member
Non-sequiturs are the trend today.
"GOD obviously does not before life know everybody since not everyone will become like Jesus."
Show me where Scripture says that God does not know anyone before life.
jeremiah1five
Well-known member
1 John 4:1.
makesends
Well-known member
makesends said:
"So, we'll see if you are a true born of God Christian." Really? Who are you to say?
1 John 4: "1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit[a] of truth and the spirit of falsehood."
The context also says: 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. Is this not hatred with which you have spoken to them? I hope not, for your sake. So, I'm left to conclude that it is just antagonism and self-exaltation.
"So, we'll see if you are a true born of God Christian." Really? Who are you to say?
Is this how you speak with all your fellow believers? You are aware that the verse comes in context, no? Is there anything the person you were responding to by subjecting them to your judgement said about Jesus is not come in the flesh? Is there something they said to show that they do not listen to the apostles? You accuse them of speaking from the viewpoint of the world, without considering that the standard by which you measure them will be measured against you. And, yes, I know, this applies to me too.
1 John 4: "1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit[a] of truth and the spirit of falsehood."
The context also says: 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. Is this not hatred with which you have spoken to them? I hope not, for your sake. So, I'm left to conclude that it is just antagonism and self-exaltation.
jeremiah1five
Well-known member
Did I "speak to them" What did I say that seems to be offensive to you?
The Doctrines of Christ are the Doctrines of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Simply by presenting false teaching/Doctrine is a denial of Christ. It doesn't have to be denying He came in the flesh. It also has to do with denying the Doctrines of Christ.
Call it what you want. I will not apologize for being a Biblical Christian.
Before I call anyone "brother" God demands I first make sure we have the same Father. I will not join Christ to a whore.
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