God’s relationship with people

It is sad that our Lord's own words are ignored by some:

He (Jesus) said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
- Mark 16:15-16

SLStrohkirch said:

Jesus said that "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

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I've already explained that I feel that this does not necessarily preclude a non-Christian reaching heaven (Please read my earlier post above and see what you think of my reasoning). Though, I should once again state that I only see salvation for non-Christians as a likely possibility and not in any way a sure thing. The safest route to salvation is by having faith directly in Jesus Christ, which has a biblical guarantee of leading to heaven, and that is what I recommend to those who ask me.

There is no back door only a narrow one and you have to know the Password.

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The whole "narrow gate" passage in Matthew is often misquoted in my view. The passage it appears in is implied by context to be about the judgement faced by those under the law, for whom the gate was narrow indeed until "all things [were] accomplished" through Christ's death on the cross. It is speaking to the difficulty of salvation under the works-righteousness of the law and not to our salvation as Christians, in my view.

John

DanHead said:

It is sad that our Lord's own words are ignored by some:

He (Jesus) said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
- Mark 16:15-16

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In my copy of the bible, it is noted that the passage you're citing is part of the an alternate ending to Mark that is not included at all in some ancient manuscripts and is included with the footnote that it's authenticity "doubtful" as in other ancient manuscripts. In short, it may well not have been part of the Gospel of Mark as originally written. The tone of the passage as a whole is very different from the writing style of the rest of the gospel.

John

Fish and Bread said:

In my copy of the bible, it is noted that the passage you're citing is part of the an alternate ending to Mark that is not included at all in some ancient manuscripts and is included with the footnote that it's authenticity "doubtful" as in other ancient manuscripts. In short, it may well not have been part of the Gospel of Mark as originally written. The tone of the passage as a whole is very different from the writing style of the rest of the gospel.

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Go ahead and trust the scholars more than the Word of God, if you wish John. I myself prefer the pure, inerrant Word of God over the oft erroneous and self-contradicting word of man. Or is it that God is unable to keep His Word pure for us to read? Is He now the Author of confusion?

The two manuscripts that do not contain these verses are the codex Vaticanus and the codex Sinaiticus.

What is interesting regarding the missing verses from the codex Vaticanus is that there is an entire blank column between Mark 16:8 and Luke 1. This feature occurs nowhere else in codex Vaticanus, which clearly indicates that the writer of codex Vaticanus knew he had an incomplete or damaged copy that he was working from. Codex Vaticanus is also missing Genesis 1:1-Gen. 46:28, Psalms 106-138, Matt. 16:2-3, the Pauline Pastoral Epistles, Hebrews 9: 14-13:25, and all of Revelation. Do we now call these texts into question?

The Sinaiticus is a manuscript that was found in 1844 in a trash pile in St. Catherines Monastery near Mt. Sinai by a man named Mr. Tischendorf. It contains nearly all of the New Testament, but it adds the "Shepherd of Hermes" and the "Epistle of Barnabas" Gnostic texts. On nearly every page of the manuscript there are corrections and revisions, by a number of editors. Somewhat less than clearly reliable, I would suggest.

It is also interesting to note that both of these texts are Alexandrian. There are over 1500 other manuscripts from Western, Caesarean, and Byzantine traditions that do contain the verses in question. If you know anything about textual criticism, I am sure you will recognize that a variant found in only one branch is generally more likely to have originated there than the variant in the three other branches.

Besides all this, Mark 16:9-20 is either cited or directly quoted by many of the early church fathers such as Justin (165 AD), Irenaeus (177 AD), Tertullian (220 AD), Hippolytus (235 AD), Ambrose (397 AD) and Augustine (430 AD).

Easily, the strongest and earliest evidence for the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 outweighs and pre-dates the earliest and strongest evidence for its exclusion.

But go ahead and take the scholars word over God's Word, John. "Did God really say?" Said the serpent.

Edit: Cleaned up some clumsy wording.

Here is the NET Bible footnote on the ending of Mark.

9tc The Gospel of Mark ends at this point in some witnesses (Í B 304 sys sams armmss Eus Eusmss Hiermss), including two of the most respected mss (Í B)( these are the symbols for codex Sinaiticusand codex Vaticanus) . The following shorter ending is found in some mss: “They reported briefly to those around Peter all that they had been commanded. After these things Jesus himself sent out through them, from the east to the west, the holy and imperishable preaching of eternal salvation. Amen.” This shorter ending is usually included with the longer ending (L Y 083 099 0112 579 al); k, however, ends at this point. Most mss include the longer ending (vv. 9-20) immediately after v. 8 (A C D W [which has a different shorter ending between vv. 14 and 15] Q Ë13 33 2427 Ï lat syc,p,h bo); however, Jerome and Eusebius knew of almost no Greek mss that had this ending. Several mss have marginal comments noting that earlier Greek mss lacked the verses, while others mark the text with asterisks or obeli (symbols that scribes used to indicate that the portion of text being copied was spurious). Internal evidence strongly suggests the secondary nature of both the short and the long endings. Their vocabulary and style are decidedly non-Markan (for further details, see TCGNT 102-6). All of this evidence strongly suggests that as time went on scribes added the longer ending, either for the richness of its material or because of the abruptness of the ending at v. 8. (Indeed, the strange variety of dissimilar endings attests to the probability that early copyists had a copy of Mark that ended at v. 8, and they filled out the text with what seemed to be an appropriate conclusion. All of the witnesses for alternative endings to vv. 9-20 thus indirectly confirm the Gospel as ending at v. 8.) Because of such problems regarding the authenticity of these alternative endings, 16:8 is usually regarded as the last verse of the Gospel of Mark. There are three possible explanations for Mark ending at 16:8: (1) The author intentionally ended the Gospel here in an open-ended fashion; (2) the Gospel was never finished; or (3) the last leaf of the ms was lost prior to copying. This first explanation is the most likely due to several factors, including (a) the probability that the Gospel was originally written on a scroll rather than a codex (only on a codex would the last leaf get lost prior to copying); (b) the unlikelihood of the ms not being completed; and (c) the literary power of ending the Gospel so abruptly that the readers are now drawn into the story itself. E. Best aptly states, “It is in keeping with other parts of his Gospel that Mark should not give an explicit account of a conclusion where this is already well known to his readers” (Mark, 73; note also his discussion of the ending of this Gospel on 132 and elsewhere). The readers must now ask themselves, “What will I do with Jesus? If I do not accept him in his suffering, I will not see him in his glory.”

TCGNT is the abbreviation for:

Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2d ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft: 1994.

I think that it is a sad thing when we doubt that God's Word is still in tact as He has promised.


Who do you suppose gives us these doubts?

God or satan?

Mt 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Ps 118:8 It is better to take refuge in the LORD

than to trust in man.

Additional info...

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It is true that the earliest MSS of Mark do not contain verses 9-20 in Chapter 16. We do conlcude that Mark's Gospel ends at verse 8. The very nature of Mark's Gospel is more like an epitome, almost like a foot race through the life of Jesus' ministry. The assumption is that Mark's original audience was probably aware of many of the details of Jesus' life and so Mark was brief in his writing. This may explain the abrupt ending at verse 8.

In any case, most of what is included in those verses is found elsewhere in Scripture, so it can still be considered Biblical and God's word. Also, Mark 16:16 is quoted in the Confessions, and since the BoC is the only true interpretation of God's word....


DaRev

Fish and Bread said:

I've already explained that I feel that this does not necessarily preclude a non-Christian reaching heaven ... in my view.

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I highlighted a couple of phrases in your post. That tells volumes about where your reasoning comes from. Human reason is fallen, it is imperfect, it is sinful. What does God say? Isaiah 55:8, "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD."

Perhaps this will help...
Non-Christians cannot be saved. Period. If God is so moved to save someone He will bring them in through faith in Christ. He said, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion."(Exodus 33:19) Jesus' words in John 14:6 tells how this is done. Salvation comes only through faith in Christ. Our faith comes to us as a free gift from God (Eph. 2:8). Jesus said in John 6:44, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him."
If the Father has compassion on someone, by His grace He will draw them to faith in Christ, for "there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved."(Acts 4:12)

As you can see, non-Christians cannot get to heaven. Yet, God will have mercy and compassion upon whomever He will, and that is done by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. He draws them to faith in Christ, and that faith in Christ will save them. You are not far off in your assumption. It's just the mechanics of it that you were lacking.


DaRev

DanHead said:

Go ahead and trust the scholars more than the Word of God, if you wish John. I myself prefer the pure, inerrant Word of God over the oft erroneous and self-contradicting word of man. Or is it that God is unable to keep His Word pure for us to read? Is He now the Author of confusion?

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So how do explain the six books included in the Old Testament of Christian bible for many years but that are now not present in most Lutheran bibles? Unless you accept the Aprocrypha as also fully the word of God (Which Martin Luther did not), your position is inconsistent. Only the actual bible as originally written is actually spirtually inerrant, not the later additions of fallible men.

John

revjpw said:

Also, Mark 16:16 is quoted in the Confessions, and since the BoC is the only true interpretation of God's word....

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That's not really the Lutheran position, is it? I can't see Martin Luther affirming that his writings were the only true interpretation of God's word. He didn't seem overly fond of others who claimed such things (i.e. the Pope).

John

revjpw said:

I highlighted a couple of phrases in your post. That tells volumes about where your reasoning comes from. Human reason is fallen, it is imperfect, it is sinful. What does God say? Isaiah 55:8, "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD."

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Do you think that God would have given us minds if he didn't intend for us to use them? Without reason, we'd be unable to have any sense of biblical context at all and wind up becoming fundamentalists like many Baptist and non-denominational churches except even more extreme.

John

Fish and Bread said:

Do you think that God would have given us minds if he didn't intend for us to use them? Without reason, we'd be unable to have any sense of biblical context at all and wind up becoming fundamentalists like many Baptist and non-denominational churches except even more extreme.

John

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John,

No one is saying that he didn't equip us with the means of reason. He did that through Adam when he created him and when Adam fell so did our reasonability.


For instance as fallen creatures we can not by our own will choose God. It goes against human nature and human reason to seek out that which we have already rejected. It is God that draws us out and brings us to him through his Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. No man can ever seek to reach God by his own will.

Pax Christi
Scott

John

No, what is shows is that you have ignored the evidence. There are only 2 major manuscripts that do not contain the longer Markian ending, and both of them are only from the Alexandrian collections. On the other hand, there well over 1500 other manuscripts, from the Western, Caesarean, and Byzantine collections that do include the ending. The Vaticanus has a column set aside for text that was apparently known to be missing. The Sinaiticus was an editor’s nightmare. Once again, these are the only major manuscripts that are missing the texts.

Now, regardless of your Red Herring, the apocryphical books are an entirely separate matter based on entirely separate criteria. I’d be more than happy to discuss that subject with you at another time in another thread.

I think nearly everyone struggles with seemingly innocent people perishing, and we have no way to know what God does with each and every person, but it is not for us to judge. That can be done only by God who knows each and every persons heart, He alone is just and Holy.


Perhaps this scripture from the OT will help you understand.

Eze 33:1 The word of the LORD came to me:

Eze 33:2 "Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman,

Eze 33:3 and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people,

Eze 33:4 then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be on his own head.

Eze 33:5 Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself.

Eze 33:6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’

Eze 33:7 "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.

Eze 33:8 When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.

Eze 33:9 But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.

Eze 33:10 "Son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what you are saying: "Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?" ’

Eze 33:11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’

Eze 33:12 "Therefore, son of man, say to your countrymen, ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him when he disobeys, and the wickedness of the wicked man will not cause him to fall when he turns from it. The righteous man, if he sins, will not be allowed to live because of his former righteousness.’

Eze 33:13 If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but then he trusts in his righteousness and does evil, none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered; he will die for the evil he has done.

Eze 33:14 And if I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right—

Eze 33:15 if he gives back what he took in pledge for a loan, returns what he has stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and does no evil, he will surely live; he will not die.

Eze 33:16 None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live.

Eze 33:17 "Yet your countrymen say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just.

Eze 33:18 If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, he will die for it.

Eze 33:19 And if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live by doing so.

Eze 33:20 Yet, O house of Israel, you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to his own ways."

Kaitsu said:

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If it is true that we have no way to know what God does with each and every person, why do people come down so hard on anyone who suggests that God may save people other than Christians, saying no way? If our God says there is no other way than through Christ, then that means precisely that. It is not judging others to apply that rule when considering these matters.

However, it certainly is OK, in my opinion, to investigate the full scope of what "through Christ" might include. For example, is it possible that one can turn to believe already in the afterlife? Is it possible at Judgement Day? Is it possible that believing in "Christ" does not have to include recognising him as the Christ of the bible? But when I talk about these things I am very quickly branded as a universalist, so I won't go that route - at least not yet

There are many interesting issues in the text that you presented, but it didn't help to explain why God allows so many billions to end up in the Lake of Fire who did not have any knowledge of Christ nor any "Watchman" to warn them of anything. They just come into this life, get washed along with the ways of their own local culture and die.

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Kaitsu,

Read Romans 1:18-20

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.


This says that man does know God by his invisible qualities. So this is God's witness to us that he exists. In reality God doesn't throw them in the Lake of Fire, they do it to themselves by rejecting these invisible qualities.

Kaitsu said:

If God is so just, why did he create a system that a) is based of a threshold of righteousness that is so high that not one single person can achieve and b) not bother to tell the vast majority of people that such a plan even exists? Let's face it, according to the bible, a huge number of people are only going to find out about the plan when they are raised from the dead and told that they are failures through unbelief and will now suffer for ever after.

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So what is Jesus then? Chopped liver? He sent his son as a messenger of the plan to his people. they rejected the plan because it didn't fit into their paradigm of the Messiah. He took several disciples of which only 12 became his friend and only one stuck by him during the passion. The rest abandoned him for fear of losing their own lives. He goes to the cross in what appears to be a beaten man, but wait they don't know that this was God's plan all along. If they would only look to the scriptures they would have realized what they were doing.

After the resurrection, Christ reveals the rest of the plan to his disciples (now Apostles) to Go into the world and preach the Gospel and Baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A month and a half later the Holy Spirit comes on pentecost and fulfills the sign that God is with us always to the end of the age.

Kaitsu said:

According to Paul in Romans, the reason why the thresholds are so high as to be insurmountable is so that God can have mercy upon everyone:

"For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." Rom 11:32

The Ezekiel passage is also interesting in that it speaks of God's justice in convicting a righteousness man who then does evil, and forgiving a wicked man who then does right. Sounds good - except that there is no one who is already righteous, nor is there anyone who is evil that is capable of becoming righteous. So these are hypothetical situations that God is giving - and the strange thing is that God already knew that before saying it. So what was his purpose here?

It seems to me that the only person who lives is the watchman:

Watchman does not warn: all wicked die, watchman dies.
Watchman does warn: all wicked die (100%), those who turn to righteousness live (0% 'cos its impossible), watchman lives.

If God really means it when he says: "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'" Why make it impossible, and why not be fair about it and tell everyone instead of only a handful at a time?

Keith

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With God All things are possible.

SLStrohkirch said:

With God All things are possible.

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That is Jesus' answer to this whole thread. Otherwise, we'd be like the disciples and would still be speculating about how we could fit through the eye of a needle.

Fish and Bread said:

That's not really the Lutheran position, is it? I can't see Martin Luther affirming that his writings were the only true interpretation of God's word. He didn't seem overly fond of others who claimed such things (i.e. the Pope).

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Although a couple of the Documents in the BoC were penned by Luther, most of the BoC was not. In any case, they are not Luther's ideas but rather they are what the Christian Church has always taught since the time of the Apostles.

Luther was accused of making up new teachings and was branded a heretic. The Confessions were the means by which the Lutherans showed that what they held, taught, and confessed were not new, but were indeed the true teachings of the Church catholic.

So, the Confessions are indeed the Lutheran view because they are the true Christian/catholic (small 'c') view.

The inclusion of the Mark 16:16 quote in the Confessions, despite the question of Markan authorship, is recognized to be an authoritative statement.


DaRev

revjpw said:

Although a couple of the Documents in the BoC were penned by Luther, most of the BoC was not. In any case, they are not Luther's ideas but rather they are what the Christian Church has always taught since the time of the Apostles.

Luther was accused of making up new teachings and was branded a heretic. The Confessions were the means by which the Lutherans showed that what they held, taught, and confessed were not new, but were indeed the true teachings of the Church catholic.

So, the Confessions are indeed the Lutheran view because they are the true Christian/catholic (small 'c') view.

The inclusion of the Mark 16:16 quote in the Confessions, despite the question of Markan authorship, is recognized to be an authoritative statement.

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I happen to agree with a large majority of what is in the Confessions (I have to actually buy the Book of Concord and read it in it's completeness, which I plan to do when my finances allow me to order a copy, before I could really say whether or not I agree with *all* of it or not) and I do think that much of it harkens back to lost Apostolic practices. It is an invaluable explanation of the Christian faith and it's affect on the universal Church for the better is undeniable. Yet, to say it is authoritative to me is to place an interpretation on par with holy scripture, a practice which is contrary to scripture, and in essence would create for ourselves a paper Pope complete with infallibility to interpret the Bible.

Does anyone know what the formal positions of the three major Lutheran denominations in the United States are on the Book of Concord? I know it is used as a book of normative Lutheran beliefs and practices, but do they actually try to claim it as authoratively infallible and without error as you seem to imply is your belief?

John