"Goddidit"

[sandwiches]

I don't answer posts that call Him "YHWH", sandwiches.

I know you don't understand, but that's a serious issue with me --- just a personal preference of mine, and not everyone shares my view.

I'm not doing it to agravate anyone but isn't that his name?

 

[AV1611VET]

Well, like I asked in my last post. You don't find it a cruel way of punishing people, specially from an omnipotent being? On that omnimax point, why not simply remove their evil or sin?

That's not the issue here, sandwiches.

Had God instantly removed them, would they, or would they not, all be in Hell?

How you answer that (assuming you even will), says volumes about your understanding of soteriology.

 

[sandwiches]

That's not the issue here, sandwiches.

Had God instantly removed them, would they, or would they not, all be in Hell?

How you answer that (assuming you even will), says volumes about your understanding of soteriology.

I understand what you're saying and having been a Catholic and having attended protestant churches for about six years, I have a pretty good idea of how you're supposed to be saved. That's not the issue I have. I am just at a loss (and have pretty much always been at a loss) as to why this supposedly omnimax god couldn't remove their sin right away. Is he limited in his ability to remove sin or to forgive?

 

[AV1611VET]

I understand what you're saying and having been a Catholic and having attended protestant churches for about six years, I have a pretty good idea of how you're supposed to be saved. That's not the issue I have. I am just at a loss (and have pretty much always been at a loss) as to why this supposedly omnimax god couldn't remove their sin right away. Is he limited in his ability to remove sin or to forgive?

God is not in the business of removing sin from a person against their will.

An evangelist once told us this story that illustrates that point very well.

He said he had gone on hospital visitation, and was leaving the hospital, when he met a woman standing outside smoking a cigarette.

She asked him if he was a preacher, and he replied that he was an evangelist.

He said that she dropped her cigarette and asked him to pray for her that God would break her of that habit.

To which he replied, "No, mam, I won't do that."

He said after the shock wore off, she asked him, rather angrily, why he wouldn't; seeing that he was an evangelist and all.

To which he replied, "God didn't die on the Cross to save us from our habits. He died on the Cross to save us from our sins; and until you admit that what you're doing is a sin, God can't do anything."

 

[sandwiches]

God is not in the business of removing sin from a person against their will.

An evangelist once told us this story that illustrates that point very well.

He said he had gone on hospital visitation, and was leaving the hospital, when he met a woman standing outside smoking a cigarette.

She asked him if he was a preacher, and he replied that he was an evangelist.

He said that she dropped her cigarette and asked him to pray for her that God would break her of that habit.

To which he replied, "No, mam, I won't do that."

He said after the shock wore off, she asked him, rather angrily, why he wouldn't; seeing that he was an evangelist and all.

To which he replied, "God didn't die on the Cross to save us from our habits. He died on the Cross to save us from our sins; and until you admit that what you're doing is a sin, God can't do anything."

Now, if this is a matter of free will, could he not make people good and not mess with their free will, so that they won't go to hell?

 

[Gracchus]

Now, if this is a matter of free will, could he not make people good and not mess with their free will, so that they won't go to hell?

Well, we can choose to have Cheerios or Wheaties for breakfast, but they have to sin, else Jesus couldn't become a hero by saving us, and then why would we have to grovel, and beg and flatter him for all eternity so we won't have to burn forever?

 

[AV1611VET]

Now, if this is a matter of free will, could he not make people good and not mess with their free will, so that they won't go to hell?

According to the Bible, no one is good enough to go to Heaven on their merits alone.

Heaven is such a holy place, that sin cannot enter.

This is why we need the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Have you ever wondered why the Bible describes sin as "red", and not "black"?

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

To illustrate this, take a white dry-erase board, and write the word SIN with a red marker.

The chalkboard represents us, and the word "sin" represents our sin nature.

This is how God sees an unregenerate person.

Now, let's say that person gets saved through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

Take a sheet of paper-thin red plastic, and place it over the white dry-erase board.

What happens to the word "sin"? It disappears!

This is how God sees the new child in Christ!

 

[sandwiches]

According to the Bible, no one is good enough to go to Heaven on their merits alone.

Heaven is such a holy place, that sin cannot enter.

This is why we need the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Have you ever wondered why the Bible describes sin as "red", and not "black"?

To illustrate this, take a white dry-erase board, and write the word SIN with a red marker.

The chalkboard represents us, and the word "sin" represents our sin nature.

This is how God sees an unregenerate person.

Now, let's say that person gets saved through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

Take a sheet of paper-thin red plastic, and place it over the white dry-erase board.

What happens to the word "sin"? It disappears!

This is how God sees the new child in Christ!

But can't god just wave his hand or whatever and remove sin from a human instantly AND without interfering with free will and thus let us into paradise?

 

[Gracchus]

But can't god just wave his hand or whatever and remove sing from a human instantly AND without interfering with free will and thus let us into paradise?

Of course not! AV1611VET has given god his marching orders ("Take a hike!") and dad will kick god's keister if god doesn't do as he is told.

 

[AV1611VET]

But can't god just wave his hand or whatever and remove sing from a human instantly AND without interfering with free will and thus let us into paradise?

No.

Before the world even began, God foreordained that no one would enter Heaven w/o the shed blood of Jesus Christ applied to his credit.

Jesus, the Second Person of the Godhead, even volunteered to be the Savior of mankind.

Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,

Adam, Noah, Joshua, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Malachi --- no one went to Heaven when they died.

Instead, the Old Testament saints went to Paradise, situated next to, but far removed from, Hell itself.

God (the Father) made sure that the first Person* to enter Heaven proper, would be His very own Son, bringing Paradise with Him.

* An exception to that would be the angels, who are classified as "persons", but not in the same sense that we are. They are not tripartite (three-in-one) beings like we are.

 

[sandwiches]

No.

Before the world even began, God foreordained that no one would enter Heaven w/o the shed blood of Jesus Christ applied to his credit.

Jesus, the Second Person of the Godhead, even volunteered to be the Savior of mankind.Adam, Noah, Joshua, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Malachi --- no one went to Heaven when they died.

Instead, the Old Testament saints went to Paradise, situated next to, but far removed from, Hell itself.

God (the Father) made sure that the first Person* to enter Heaven proper, would be His very own Son, bringing Paradise with Him.

* An exception to that would be the angels, who are classified as "persons", but not in the same sense that we are. They are not tripartite (three-in-one) beings like we are.

So, god is unable to bring people into heaven who haven't accepted Jesus as their savior?

 

[hangback]

This is why we need the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So everyone who died before Jesus died went straight to hell?

 

[Nathan Poe]

No.

And here we see AV -- a human being -- dictating terms as to what God can and cannot do.

This, boys and girls, is the essence of religious fundamentalism -- power and control, even over those they would claim have power and control over them.

 

[Nathan Poe]

So, god is unable to bring people into heaven who haven't accepted Jesus as their savior?

I think you'll find that the more religious a person is, the more limits on what their God can and cannot do.

I offer myself, an agnostic, as a control subject -- I've always traditionally thought of the concept of God as absolute power incarnate, with no restrictions or limitations whatsoever.

 

[MoonLancer]

So everyone who died before Jesus died went straight to hell?

so to make this more absurd

Jesus dies, seconds later a monk in tebet stops breathing and dies too.

Does he go to hell? If he does, God is clearly god is cruel

If he goes to heaven, It is likely because he had not herd of Jesus. so at this point, bring Jesus into peoples lives could be ethically wrong and sending more people to hell.

 

[LordTimothytheWise]

So everyone who died before Jesus died went straight to hell?

I think you are reading too far into what he said there.

Not that I am likely to agree with him on much. But still.

 

[CoderHead]

Before the world even began, God foreordained that no one would enter Heaven w/o the shed blood of Jesus Christ applied to his credit.

Prior to creating the world, God set a rule for Himself that the people He was going to create for the express purpose of loving unconditionally would not be allowed anywhere near Him because He would purposely instill them with a degenerative condition to which He is allergic and which cannot be cured but only conceptually controlled by a symbolic treatment of Jesus' blood; and because He set this rule for Himself He is unable to break it even though it doesn't make any sense, causes Him grief, forced Him to kill His son, and He's omnipotent?

Weird.

 

[AV1611VET]

Weird.

You're not in the business of annotating the Bible, are you?

 

[CoderHead]

You're not in the business of annotating the Bible, are you?

Do you think I could make it, or should I keep my day job?

 

[BananaSlug]

Prior to creating the world, God set a rule for Himself that the people He was going to create for the express purpose of loving unconditionally would not be allowed anywhere near Him because He would purposely instill them with a degenerative condition to which He is allergic and which cannot be cured but only conceptually controlled by a symbolic treatment of Jesus' blood; and because He set this rule for Himself He is unable to break it even though it doesn't make any sense, causes Him grief, forced Him to kill His son, and He's omnipotent?

Weird.

You did a perfect description. I think many Christians force themselves not to look at the Bible critically.