Theology is Knowing God

[jeremiah1five]

Theos-logos = Word of God.

To the persons who believe "God so loved the world (non-Hebrew Gentiles.)"

Is that what you believe?

Take Joshua. God tells him:

5 There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
6 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.
7 Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.
Joshua 1:5–7.

Why would God say this? Be courageous and do everything I command.

9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Joshua 1:9.

"Be courageous." God tells him several times to be courageous. I wonder why.

God is taking Joshua and the children of Israel to war. Against who?

Answer: Against the world of people God loves.

20 So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.
21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ***, with the edge of the sword.
Joshua 6:20–21.

The people of Jericho are "of the world." According to those that believe God loves the world, all humanity on the planet I have a question for you.

If God loves the world of non-Hebrew Gentiles why does He send Joshua into Canaan against the people God loves for the purpose of eradicating those in Canaan with extreme prejudice, every man, woman, teen, child, toddler, infant, newborn, and babe in the wombs of the Canaanites? Why does God send an army to utterly destroy those God loves - the Gentiles?

Is that love? According to many here who believe "God so loved the world" that's what God's love does, right? The Canaanites were living peaceably in the land. But God so loves the world of non-Hebrew Gentiles He sends an army of Hebrews against them to utterly destroy them from off the land. Ethnic cleansing. That's what it is. These are a people in Canaan who are not under the Law and do not have their sins atoned as Israel does. This means the Canaanites, the people you say God loves, are going to go through a great deal of suffering and death shortly and they will be slaughtered and there is no sacrifice for their sins. When they wake up on the other side of life they realize they are separated from God and at the last day - which is today - are going to be cast into the Lake of Fire to be tormented forever. Do you want to know why?

Because God loves them.

 

[TibiasDad]

Theos-logos = Word of God.

It actually means God-Word.
ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ= the Word of God.

I guess that refutes all you said afterwards: if the premise is wrong, so will be the conclusion!

Doug

 

[jeremiah1five]

It actually means God-Word.
ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ= the Word of God.

I guess that refutes all you said afterwards: if the premise is wrong, so will be the conclusion!

Doug

I see you cannot answer my question.

Yeah, it's a difficult one at that.

Imagine a God who loves you and destroys you straight to hell.

That's the problem with the false theology that God loves Gentiles.

If God DOES love "you" God will save "you." God's love for Israel is such that it is a Sovereign love and one that results in salvation and protection, defending the object of His love; a love that prospers those of whom God loves - like the love God has for Israel. God's love is a love that will protect, defend, feed, prosper, teach, raise the object of His love, meaning the children of Israel. The whole Bible is a record of God's love for Israel and His disdain for uncircumcised, non-covenant, non-Hebrew Gentiles just as Scripture teaches.

This is an example of God's attitude towards the Gentile nations "pf the world"

17 All nations before him are as nothing;
And they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
Isaiah 40:17.

This only bolsters the Biblical teaching that God does not love "the world," but as the Scripture teaches that God is against the "world" at large who are not Israel and no one - again - can answer the questions I pose.
John's quotation of Jesus in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world" can only as the Greek word is used IN GREEK means it is understood in context to the subject and the subject is Israel. Only Israel.
The Biblical doctrine of salvation is contained in Saul's words to Jews and Jewish Christians at Rome stated here in his letter to Jews at Rome:

1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
4 Who are Israelites;
to whom pertaineth
the adoption,
and the glory,
and the covenants,
and the giving of the law,
and the service of God,
and the promises;
5 Whose are the fathers,
and of whom as concerning the flesh
Christ came,
who is over all, God blessed for ever.
Amen.
Romans 9:1–5.

and

4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Galatians 4:4–5.

The children of Israel are the only people under the Law and the only people God loves. God had always in Scripture commanded the children of Israel to "not mingle with the [Gentile] nations nor learn their ways" for their ways lead to death: physical, spiritual, and eternal death.

There are two groups of people in the "world" (planet) today as there has always been two groups of people in the "world" (planet.) The command from God is simple in the power of the Holy Spirit of Promise PROMISED TO ISRAEL (Joel)

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
1 John 2:15–16.

The word "world" in John 3:16 is a Greek word that is understood in context to its subject: the children of Israel. Israel is the object of God's Sovereign love, not Gentiles. It is a hard fact that Gentiles have hijacked 2000 years ago and made it to refer to them. Quite the misinterpreted passage of Scripture that is on the lips of non-Hebrew Gentiles.
If "God so loved the world" (everyone) then this becomes extremely problematic when looking at this in practical terms. Surely if God so loved the world why does He send His armies against Gentiles living in Canaan with the expressed command to utterly destroy everyone of those Gentiles living in Canaan?

On the contrary, if God loves "you", God will save "you."
Not destroy "you."
God's Sovereign love saves, nurtures, prospers, blesses, protects, defends, feeds, and nourishes.
The word "world" in John 3:16 does not mean "everyone" in the world of unatoned, non-covenant, unbelievers.
God's love is not a love that destroys.
Not even.

 

[TibiasDad]

I see you cannot answer my question.

I didn’t read what you said after, which is why I said there was no need to go beyond your opening premise that Θεοῦ-λόγος means “Word of God”. If that most basic understanding of the Greek language is butchered, I know that what ever follows will not be coherent.

Yeah, it's a difficult one at that.

Probably not. Just misguided.

Imagine a God who loves you and destroys you straight to hell.

Imagine that you reject his love and that willfully; God’s love includes his respect of your choice. God warns of the certain result of rejecting him, but he has created us with sovereign choice. He, by his own choice, must allow the result to be what it will be. That is Justice. You choose it you get it, even if that is not what God desires to happen.

God does not arbitrarily send us to hell; we choose the course that ends in hell, against God’s objections, and against his gracious provision of an alternative.

The word "world" in John 3:16 does not mean "everyone" in the world of unatoned, non-covenant, unbelievers.

Basic, first year hermeneutics, says that without direct qualification, the meaning of a word is wholistic in meaning. There is no qualification of Cosmos in the text of John 3:16!

Your insertion of the concept of “limited atonement’ is without direct evidence and therefore eisegetic in nature! The covenant of God is for the whole world and all who actively believe in his promise are included in it. All in the world are capable of choosing to believe. “Whosoever” in the world believes, shall not perish but have life eternal.

Doug

 

[Overcomer]

The greatest of Satan’s achievements was his deception of the human race, the effects of which we still feel and will continue to suffer from until the final judgment at the end of time.

Adam and Eve had been created as both spiritual and material beings, which made them a little lower than the angels, because they were physically limited in ways that the angels were not. But their spiritual side gave them the ability to communicate with God and with the other spiritual creatures in what we would now call “personal” terms.

At the same time, they had been denied access to the knowledge of good and evil, not because that knowledge was too great for them to bear or incompatible with the limitations of their being, but in order to protect them from exposure to the forces of rebellion against God represented by Satan and his followers.

The principle seems to have been that what they did not know would not hurt them, and we must assume that if they had obeyed God’s command and had exercised the dominion entrusted to them according to God’s original will and plan, they would have prospered.

Unlike Satan, Adam and Eve did not fall spontaneously but were tempted away from God by a power thitherto unknown to them. They did not invite Satan into their lives, nor is there any sign that he was particularly welcome when he appeared.

We are told that Adam and Eve initially resisted him, because they knew that what he was asking them to do was forbidden. Their fall, when it came, was not the poisonous effect of the fruit they ate. It was their disobedience that cut them off from God, and everything else flowed from that.

Adam and Eve did not become “free” or “independent” after choosing to go their own way, but were enslaved to Satan and trapped in a rebellion which they had not initiated and over which they had no control. What made them choose such a fate?

The traditional answer is to say that the fall of Adam and Eve was due to their pride, because pride is the root of all evil. That may well have been true in Satan’s case, and to the extent that Satan’s rebellion is what Adam and Eve were caught up in, it is a valid explanation of human sin as well.

However, it is not clear that pride was the immediate cause that impelled Adam and Eve to listen to the serpent’s tempting words and follow him. Pride can exist only where there is self-awareness, and the Bible tells us that Adam and Eve acquired that in and through their fall. The Genesis account gives the impression that they were motivated by something more positive and appealing than selfish pride. They wanted to be like God.

Adam and Eve knew that they had been created in God’s image and likeness, and they wanted to be more like him than they already were. They were not trying to go beyond the bounds of their created nature and become like the angels. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was readily available to them, and it had always been possible for them to eat its fruit.

The problem was not that the moral awareness they acquired was beyond their capacities as human beings but that they had been forbidden to obtain it. After their fall, they did not become either more or less human than they had been before, nor did they lose the knowledge of good and evil when they were expelled from the garden as punishment for their disobedience.

We still have that knowledge today, and there is no indication that we shall forfeit it when we are finally caught up into glory. It seems that our moral awareness is here to stay and that it is a good thing for us to have, even if Adam and Eve acquired it in the wrong way.

The explanation for the sin of Adam and Eve seems to be that they wanted something that was good in itself, but they wanted it in the wrong way. They were not forced to submit to Satan, and they could have rejected his blandishments, but temptation got the better of their curiosity and they fell.

The cost to them far outweighed any benefit they may have received, and from that perspective their sin made no sense at all. Disobedience to the Creator is an essentially irrational act. The only way we can come to terms with it is by looking into our own hearts and asking ourselves what we would have done in their place. Would we have resisted the forbidden fruit in a way that they did not?

If we are honest, we shall admit that the temptation to eat what had been denied us would have become too much to deal with and our resistance to it, however principled and well-intentioned it might have been at first, would eventually have crumbled.

We cannot explain why this is so because it makes no sense. We know in our hearts that such a surrender is an act of our free will and not something forced on us by God or made inevitable by our finite human nature. To pretend otherwise is to fail to understand ourselves.


Gerald Bray, God Is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology

 

[jeremiah1five]

I didn’t read what you said after, which is why I said there was no need to go beyond your opening premise that Θεοῦ-λόγος means “Word of God”. If that most basic understanding of the Greek language is butchered, I know that what ever follows will not be coherent.

God's word, word of God. Besides the conjunction, is there really any difference?
No.

Probably not. Just misguided.

Imagine that you reject his love and that willfully; God’s love includes his respect of your choice. God warns of the certain result of rejecting him, but he has created us with sovereign choice. He, by his own choice, must allow the result to be what it will be. That is Justice. You choose it you get it, even if that is not what God desires to happen.

No man is created nor born who has the natural ability to love let alone love God.
The problem of sin in the creation cannot allow anyone the ability to love as God loves.
Martin Luther calls it [a] bondage in sin. God created man sinful and man births sinful offspring.
There is no choice when one is created sinful such as Adam and the woman, nor did their offspring ever have "choice" other than the natural "choice" and propensity to sin. Every thought of man is only evil continually.
A leopard cannot change its spots.

God does not arbitrarily send us to hell; we choose the course that ends in hell, against God’s objections, and against his gracious provision of an alternative.

Unless God save some all are doomed to eternal separation from God. There is no choice in the matter. Free will is an illusion. We think that being able to choose chocolate or vanilla, or the striped tie or the solid color tie is having free will or "choice." It is not. These are part of our existence. We have only a small "choice" in our lives, and this only applies to our physical existence on earth. We cannot control all things and thus control nothing. We do not have complete dominion on earth. Only Christ does. And it was He of whom the Father declared "let [them] have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" for man has no dominion over any of these created things. Man has no dominion over creation. But if you want to believe Antman can speak to ants and control their every movement you are "free" to do so. But the word "dominion" in Genesis 1:26 is not dominion as the word is defined in English. Man really has no real and true control over anything except that he is sinful and commits sin contrary to the Holiness and Righteousness of God. You're looking at things outside the petri dish while living in a petri dish. On both counts, when God said, "Let us make man in our image" and "Let them have dominion" He was referring to Christ, not man. No mere flesh shall glory if His Presence. Having dominion (subjugate) falls within the realm of Christ, not man. And if man falls short in one area of existence, then he falls short in all areas of existence. There is only One Person possessing the "image" of God and that is the Son. And as far as having dominion over creation only Christ possesses the power, not man. Only Christ has dominion to command fish enter a net to be captured and brought upon the shore as Peter struggled to do. Man has no dominion. And only Christ possesses the image of God.

15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: Colossians 1:15.

Basic, first year hermeneutics, says that without direct qualification, the meaning of a word is wholistic in meaning. There is no qualification of Cosmos in the text of John 3:16!

The Greek word translated in places as "world" is the word "kosmos." And you'll find the English word "world" also used by the translators to translate "aion" and "oikoumenē" meaning "age" (era) and "ecumenical." So, three different Greek words and the translators of the KJV use one word "world" to translate it. That can be confusing to those who think they can get doctrine from a translation.

Your insertion of the concept of “limited atonement’ is without direct evidence and therefore eisegetic in nature! The covenant of God is for the whole world and all who actively believe in his promise are included in it. All in the world are capable of choosing to believe. “Whosoever” in the world believes, shall not perish but have life eternal.

The Abrahamic Covenant was limited to Abraham and his seed. The Mosaic Covenant was limited to the Hebrews also called the children of Israel. Gentiles were not included in either covenant. And the New Covenant is also limited to the House of Israel and the House of Judah thus including the twelve tribes of Israel and them alone. The animal sacrifice under the Law was sacrificed to temporarily atone for the sins of the children of Israel and not Gentiles.

Anyone can choose to mentally assent (believe) in God but that doesn't make them God-followers. The proof of anyone's salvation is first found in inclusion into covenant with God (Abrahamic, Mosaic), and this sets a person up to be saved by God, not by anyone's choice. No one who was ever truly saved was seeking salvation by God. I wasn't looking for God when He invaded my life nearly fifty years ago. Saul wasn't looking for God when God invaded his life by first knocking him off his [high] horse.

Now, show me a covenant in the Old Testament where God makes covenant with "the whole world." There is none. Even the New Covenant established in the body and blood of Jesus Christ is a fulfillment of the New Covenant prophesied by Jeremiah upon Israel. The promise of God giving the Holy Spirit of Promise was prophesied by Joel and the promise is to Israel. Ezekiel prophesied to Israel that God would give them a "new heart" and this was fulfilled by the Holy Spirit of Promise as part of the covenant Israel was enjoined with by God. God began by promising a "seed" when speaking to the serpent (not the woman.) And in the process of time this seed was promised to be born from among the children of Israel. God never made any such promise to Gentiles. Nor were Gentiles included in any of the three Hebrew covenants. In every positive relationship we find in Scripture between God and a Hebrew man or woman the text merely begins the narrative as already existing or the narrative records such relationships initiated by God. And of those who are in the Bible having a relationship with God the person or persons begin by already being in covenant with God before God saving them. Saul states in Romans eleven that, "All Israel shall be saved" and when we look at Israel (Jacob and his descendants) we find them in the Bible and in covenant with God wherever their story 'picks up.'

Doug

No, not just "Doug", you're the new Doug.
Behold! All things are become NEW.