brightfame52
Well-known member
No it was right.
How Christ’s death secures the salvation of those who believe.
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Cyrus
Active member
Only to a poor lost soul blinded by Calvinism.
brightfame52
Well-known member
No it was right. Calvinism is the Gospel
Pancho Frijoles
Well-known member
Dear brightfame52
Doesn't Jesus ask you to love even your enemies?
Jesus puts God as an example of how to love everyone.
Please read with me:
But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore be perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.
Cyrus
Active member
No it was wrong. Calvinism is NOT the Gospel
brightfame52
Well-known member
My enemies are creatures like me, iim their equal, but this is about God not loving everyone,Im not God. Thats your problem,you feel God is subject to the commands of his creatures.
Pancho Frijoles
Well-known member
Jesus demands YOU to love your enemies BECAUSE God does the same, providing rain and sunshine over good and bad people.
Jesus is putting God as your example. God is not setting for Himself a qualitatively different standard.
If you can be more merciful and loving than your god, please abandon such god. It is an impostor.
brightfame52
Well-known member
My enemies are creatures like me, iim their equal, but this is about God not loving everyone,Im not God. Thats your problem,you feel God is subject to the commands of his creatures.
Pancho Frijoles
Well-known member
When you say that you are not God you mean that you are infinitely less merciful than God, no more merciful than Him.
You mean that you are less loving and just than him, no more loving and just than Him.
Since God is infinitely superior than you in love, mercy, justice and wisdom, He will do for them things that for you would be inimaginable good.
So, abandon today a theology that leads to evil and irrational conclusions, and return to the basis taught to you when you were five years old.
Calvin was a great theologian, but he could never solve the problem of what a sovereign God wants.
He wants your soul as much as my soul… and He will get them… oh yes, He will not settle with a “No” from our part.
brightfame52
Well-known member
My enemies are creatures like me, Im their equal, but this is about God not loving everyone,Im not God. Thats your problem,you feel God is subject to the commands of his creatures. God tells me not to kill another human, but God can kill a human Deut 32:29
See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
Doyou and me aint God. God can tell me not to hate esau because he is my fellow creature, yet He can hate esau Rom 9:13
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
We not God friend
Richard
Active member
Hate is only implied.
How could He have hated Esau, let alone before birth? That's not the God we think we know. We have to keep in mind that cultures differ in how they speak, which involves more than just the specific words they use. Different societies use different forms and figures of speech, as well. In that era, the love-hate phrasing is meant to show a contrast, not to imply that one side is looked at in some insulting way.
It helps to look at another example of the word "hate" in the New Testament. Jesus said this to those who were deciding about whether to follow Him or not: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). Clearly, Jesus doesn't want us to carry bitter, angry feelings toward our fathers, mothers, wives, and children. After all, we are commanded in Scripture to honor our parents, love our wives, and to raise our children wisely. In this case, the word "hate" is about comparison. Jesus wanted disciples who were so deeply committed to Him that their love for their family members looked like hate by comparison.
The same idea is at work in God's use of these contrasting words in Malachi and quoted by Paul here. God's act of love for Jacob, in choosing to give to him the covenant promises, was well beyond His actions towards Esau, in declaring that Esau would serve Jacob. There is a strong contrast there: one is clearly being given the preferred treatment, the other is not. Using dramatic, contrast-enhancing language, it can be said that one was "loved" and the other "hated."
BibleRef
brightfame52
Well-known member
My enemies are creatures like me, Im their equal, but this is about God not loving everyone,Im not God. Thats your problem,you feel God is subject to the commands of his creatures. God tells me not to kill another human, but God can kill a human Deut 32:29
See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
You and me ain't God. God can tell me not to hate esau because he is my fellow creature, yet He can hate esau Rom 9:13
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
We not God friend
Cyrus
Active member
If you are a Christian then you are the righteousness of God.
21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. 2 Corinthians 3:18
Pancho Frijoles
Well-known member
Thanks for your post. You are addressing a very important topic.
We address the old philosophical problem of "Why does God allow evil to happen?" in this way: "That evil is apparent: it is evil in the low scale and tiny scope of knowledge accesible us, humans. But in the long term, and in the big picture, God is good and we all will recognize Him as good, when we achieve better understanding of why He did it".
We apply this principle this way:
God allowed an earthquake in, say, Morocco, kill 500 people. God could have prevented that, acting on the movements of earth's tectonic plates, but He didn't. So, what's going up with God?
Well, we know that God loves those 500 people and have the best plans for them. He also loves the people who stayed alive, and the families of the deceased, and the scientist studying earthquakes, and the engineers studying how to build better houses, and the politicians drafting norms of how to minimize damage... for everybody, this tragedy reflects God's love in the long term.
Whatever God has in mind, it responds to His love, so that all punishment and suffering end up being an expression of God's love, not of God's injustice and cruelty. “Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline" says Jesus in Revelation 3:19
Whatever our religion, we all believe that God is good, but not "good" in a different or opposed way to the notion we have of goodness. God is good in a quantitatively greater way. The more we live close to God, the more merciful we are, in quantity, scope, time.
Jesus expressed this when He was asked if we should forgive our brothers up to seven times. He replied that we should aim at being "seventy times seven".
IN CONCLUSION: God is infinitely more just and merciful than us. This is a quantitative, nor a qualitative difference. That is why Jesus can put his Father as example for us and ask us to aim at His perfection.
“What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matthew 5:9-11)
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Pancho Frijoles
Well-known member
Following up on my last post, would we accept a person who comes preaching to us that God orders, in his sacred book XYZ, that we should rape as many women as we can?
Of course not. We would not believe his god and his sacred text. We would rather fight it.
Would it be a case of "his book against our book"? No! It would be a case of his book against mom. When I say "mom", I refer to the basic notions of good and evil that the Holy Spirit teaches us through our mothers and fathers at home when our consciousness of free will is developing.
Remember: men, but not sharks, were created in the image of God. So we, but not sharks, can respond to God's grace and understand what the difference between good and evil.
That's why I often repeat: "Mom comes first. The Bible comes second".
The inspired authors of the Bible took for granted that their readers had the essential notions of love, mercy, justice.
So, when the author of 1 John says "God is Love", he takes for granted that we know, at least in essence, what love is and what love is not.
Of course not. We would not believe his god and his sacred text. We would rather fight it.
Would it be a case of "his book against our book"? No! It would be a case of his book against mom. When I say "mom", I refer to the basic notions of good and evil that the Holy Spirit teaches us through our mothers and fathers at home when our consciousness of free will is developing.
Remember: men, but not sharks, were created in the image of God. So we, but not sharks, can respond to God's grace and understand what the difference between good and evil.
That's why I often repeat: "Mom comes first. The Bible comes second".
The inspired authors of the Bible took for granted that their readers had the essential notions of love, mercy, justice.
So, when the author of 1 John says "God is Love", he takes for granted that we know, at least in essence, what love is and what love is not.
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Jay
Member
The fact that some sinners are not elected to salvation is no proof that God's attitude toward them is utterly devoid of sincere love. We know from Scripture that God is compassionate, kind, generous, and good even to the most stubborn sinners. Who can deny that these mercies flow out of God's boundless love? Yet it is evident that they are showered even on unrepentant sinners.
brightfame52
Well-known member
Pancho Frijoles
Well-known member
Hi Jay
Nice to interact with you. May God keep filling your life with joy and peace.
May I allow to have some comments on your statement frpm my non-Christian perspective:
If God's love is infinite, I suppose that "a little bit" of such infinite love is still infinite.
And God does not love in vain... does not call in vain... does not go after the last lost sheep in vain.
A loving mother knows that her child will end up loving her.
Such love will not be forced against the child's will.
It is just that the love of a loving mother is irresistible.
If that happens between a mother and her child, imagine what can happen between the sinner and God.
From our limited perspective, within the span of, say, 90 years, we observe unrepented sinners.
God's perspective, though, is infinite. He has plenty of time to attract every single sinner, regardless of whether they are still breathing air, or metabolizing glucose.
Nice to interact with you. May God keep filling your life with joy and peace.
May I allow to have some comments on your statement frpm my non-Christian perspective:
Do you mean that God loves them "a little bit"?
If God's love is infinite, I suppose that "a little bit" of such infinite love is still infinite.
Amen. Absolutely true.
Yes.
And God does not love in vain... does not call in vain... does not go after the last lost sheep in vain.
A loving mother knows that her child will end up loving her.
Such love will not be forced against the child's will.
It is just that the love of a loving mother is irresistible.
If that happens between a mother and her child, imagine what can happen between the sinner and God.
From our limited perspective, within the span of, say, 90 years, we observe unrepented sinners.
God's perspective, though, is infinite. He has plenty of time to attract every single sinner, regardless of whether they are still breathing air, or metabolizing glucose.
Jay
Member
That's just your false interpretation. It stems from the fact that there is no love in Calvinism. Since Calvinism is man made and devoid of God's Love.
brightfame52
Well-known member
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