Stephen Hawking's Universe

JohnR7 · #81 19th July 2003, 09:24 PM

Originally Posted by Nathan Poe

John smites them with ALS.

This reminds me of a story about John the Beloved, back when he was refered to as one of the sons of thunder.

Luke 9:54-56
And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? [55] But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. [56] For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

Our objective it to see people saved, healed, delivered and set free. Why would we want to smite anyone with anything?

Acts 10:38
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

Philip · #82 19th July 2003, 09:27 PM

Originally Posted by Nathan Poe

And this still sheds absolutely no light on what "justifying" oneself or God means: Praise? Worship? Repentance?

Smells like a translation error to me.

The Hebrew word is tsâdaq.

Job was claiming that he was righteous, and that God was in the wrong for for persecuting him.

Job 30:19-21 (RSVA)
19 God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes. 20 I cry to thee and thou dost not answer me; I stand, and thou dost not heed me. 21 Thou hast turned cruel to me; with the might of thy hand thou dost persecute me.

"Claiming to be just" might be a better translation than "justifying himself"

JohnR7 · #83 19th July 2003, 09:33 PM

Originally Posted by Nathan Poe

And this still sheds absolutely no light on what "justifying" oneself or God means: Praise? Worship? Repentance?

Wow Nathan, I thought you were a christian at one time and you do not know anything about justification? Crosswalk.com has dictionarys and a lot of other good resources that can help you to do a study on this.

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Dictionaries/

Here is something I copied out of Eastman's dictionary:

JUSTIFICATION a forensic term, opposed to condemnation. As regards its nature, it is the judicial act of God, by which he pardons all the sins of those who believe in Christ, and accounts, accepts, and treats them as righteous in the eye of the law, i.e., as conformed to all its demands. In addition to the pardon (q.v.) of sin, justification declares that all the claims of the law are satisfied in respect of the justified. It is the act of a judge and not of a sovereign. The law is not relaxed or set aside, but is declared to be fulfilled in the strictest sense; and so the person justified is declared to be entitled to all the advantages and rewards arising from perfect obedience to the law (Romans 5:1-10).
It proceeds on the imputing or crediting to the believer by God himself of the perfect righteousness, active and passive, of his Representative and Surety, Jesus Christ (Romans 10:3-9). Justification is not the forgiveness of a man without righteousness, but a declaration that he possesses a righteousness which perfectly and for ever satisfies the law, namely, Christ's righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21; Romans 4:6-8).
The sole condition on which this righteousness is imputed or credited to the believer is faith in or on the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is called a “condition,” not because it possesses any merit, but only because it is the instrument, the only instrument by which the soul appropriates or apprehends Christ and his righteousness (Romans 1:17; Romans 3:25-26; Romans 4:20, 22; Phil. 3:8-11; Galatians 2:16).
The act of faith which thus secures our justification secures also at the same time our sanctification (q.v.); and thus the doctrine of justification by faith does not lead to licentiousness (Romans 6:2-7). Good works, while not the ground, are the certain consequence of justification (Romans 6:14; Romans 7:6).

Nathan Poe · #84 19th July 2003, 09:42 PM

Originally Posted by Philip

The Hebrew word is tsâdaq.

Job was claiming that he was righteous, and that God was in the wrong for for persecuting him.

Job 30:19-21 (RSVA)
19 God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes. 20 I cry to thee and thou dost not answer me; I stand, and thou dost not heed me. Thou hast turned cruel to me; with the might of thy hand thou dost persecute me.

Finally! A straight answer! Thanks Philip! I'd be older than Methuselah waiting for John to give me this.

So Job felt that he was being unfairly put through the wringer by God. But the whole point of Satan choosing Job for this treatment was that he was such a fine upstanding citizen to begin with:

Job 1:6-12

[6]Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
[7] And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. [8] And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? [9] Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? [10] Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. [11] But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. [12] And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

Job was ruined for no other reason than to settle a bet between God and Satan. By human standards, that does seem grossly unfair.

Ah, but there's the rub: God does not hold Himself to human standards, does He? No. He smites who He wants, when He wants, for any (or no) reason He wants. And it doesn't matter if you're a sinner or saint, God will have his way with you if he sees fit.
(It should be noted that Job's "justifying" himself didn't come until long after God allowed Satan to do all this to him. )

Living a perfect life is no protection from misfortune (indeed, in Job's case, it was the cause of his misfortune). And that takes John's whole argument about Stephed Hawking "bringing ALS upon himself for not glorifying God," and tosses it on the trash heap...

...Where it belongs.

JohnR7 · #85 19th July 2003, 09:44 PM

Originally Posted by Philip

Is it acceptable to disagree with them?

You can if you want. He does everything he can to help people to understand the word of God. But he does not have much patience for scoffers and skeptics. He answers my Bible questions all the time. I search diligently day and night to find something that he has said that does not line up with Bible. But I can not find much.

Acts 17:11
These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.

Nathan Poe · #86 19th July 2003, 09:50 PM

[quote=JohnR7]JUSTIFICATION a forensic term, opposed to condemnation. As regards its nature, it is the judicial act of God, by which he pardons all the sins of those who believe in Christ, and accounts, accepts, and treats them as righteous in the eye of the law, i.e., as conformed to all its demands. In addition to the pardon (q.v.) of sin, justification declares that all the claims of the law are satisfied in respect of the justified. It is the act of a judge and not of a sovereign. The law is not relaxed or set aside, but is declared to be fulfilled in the strictest sense; and so the person justified is declared to be entitled to all the advantages and rewards arising from perfect obedience to the law (Romans 5:1-10).[quote]

Ah, similar to the legal term, as in "justifiable homicide" (self-defense, for example). I see that now.

But it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the context. Job was not strictly trying to "Justify" himself, since he truly hadn't done anything to deserve what had happened to him. And to justify God?

The term is more properly used to describe a person's actions, not the person itself.

P.S. Isn't it interesting how I was able to understand this without any help from the Holy Spirit? There goes another of your theories out the window...

JohnR7 · #87 19th July 2003, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by Philip

This is a vastly different statement than suggesting that Hawkings' specific disease is a specific punishment for not honoring God.

I asked that question:

The question then is, did he use what God gave him to honor or glorify God or not?

We know that lepersy is a type of sin. We also believe that cancer today is a type of sin. But no one suggests that a individual has lepersy or cancer because of personal sin. But we know that just as cancer and lepersy eats away at a person, so does sin.

There were some things I pointed out about what is know of the physical disease of ALS and I showed how this can help us to understand spiritual things. For example: Sclerosis: I equated to a hardening of the attitude. Or the idea that ALS is a disease where the muscles go without nurishment. In a spiritual sense we daily receive nurishment from God. He is the bread of life. He gives strength to our body. If we do not receive our daily bread, then we are going to be weak in a spiritual way.

The Physical then becomes what they call a shaddow and a type for what is going on in the spiritual realm.

JohnR7 · #88 19th July 2003, 10:13 PM

Originally Posted by Nathan Poe

P.S. Isn't it interesting how I was able to understand this without any help from the Holy Spirit? There goes another of your theories out the window...

It looks to me like when God saw that you really wanted to understand something about the Bible, He was quick to send Philip who was used by God to explain it to you.

Interestingly enough it sort of reminds me of a Bible story about a man named Philip who helped someone to understand a passage in the Bible.

Acts 8:30-31
So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, "Do you understand what you are reading?" [31] And he said, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.

Cantuar · #89 19th July 2003, 11:04 PM

We know that lepersy is a type of sin. We also believe that cancer today is a type of sin.

Speak for yourself. Leprosy is a bacterial infection due to Mycobacterium leprae, and cancer is a constellation of diseases with different causes, including infectious viruses in some cases.

JohnR7 · #90 19th July 2003, 11:08 PM

Originally Posted by Cantuar

Speak for yourself. Leprosy is a bacterial infection due to Mycobacterium leprae, and cancer is a constellation of diseases with different causes, including infectious viruses in some cases.

So you do not understand anything about shadows and types?