God's Intentions.

[Quick]

Deuteronomy 7:10 KJV:
[God] repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.


God's punishment of non-Christians has destructive intent. His intent is their destruction. His punishment achieves their destruction. And the achievement of this destruction is a consummation of his intent.

How much do you adore God!

 

[Calvinist Dark Lord]

Deuteronomy 7:10 KJV:
[God] repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.


God's punishment of non-Christians has destructive intent. His intent is their destruction. His punishment achieves their destruction. And the achievement of this destruction is a consummation of his intent.

How much do you adore God!

You have a problem with this for what reason?

 

[Quick]

You have a problem with this for what reason?

Why would you assume I have a problem with this? I am a Bible believing Christian and love God in all his multifaceted fullness. What about you?

 

[Calvinist Dark Lord]

Why would you assume I have a problem with this? I am a Bible believing Christian and love God in all his multifaceted fullness. What about you?

IF you have no problem with this fact quoted in the OP, then i fail to see the reason for the OP and your question.

 

[Quick]

IF you have no problem with this fact quoted in the OP, then i fail to see the reason for the OP and your question.

Wow, I'm getting a bad vibe from you that I don't quite understand. The reason for the OP is to give me a chance to express my delight in the personality of Yahweh, the one we adore. The question was simply to offer other people the chance to sing his praises along with me. And that's why your reaction just blew me away, and makes me wonder how you feel about things.

 

[Quick]

What are your problems with this?

 

[bradfordl]

How much do you adore God!

Never enough, and not at all of my own, but all that He has granted that I may.

 

[Antman_05]

How can we not adore him, for we did hate God and all his ways, but by this Love and mercy he changed our hearts to ran after him "1 John 4:19 ESV We love because he first loved us."

 

[cubanito]

"My thoughts are not your thoughts..." Isaiah 55:8

We can not understand even the intents of our own heart. I suggest caution in understanding God's.

JR

 

[Quick]

"My thoughts are not your thoughts..." Isaiah 55:8

We can not understand even the intents of our own heart. I suggest caution in understanding God's.

JR

In the Bible God has revealed to us his intentions, the meaning of the Non-Christian's destruction in hell:

2 Chronicles 25:16 (New International Version)
The prophet said, "I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my counsel."
​

That is why we have the Bible, to know in some measure, what God intends when he operates his wrath upon a person, in order to know what measures to take in order to unite with him:

Ezekiel 5:14-17 (New International Version)
"I will make you a ruin when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the LORD have spoken. When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the LORD have spoken."
​

God tells us that when he punishes non-Christians after their death, his intention is not to reform them but to destroy them. And that is precisely why we wish to be justified rather than punished by God. If his intent were to correct them, we would obviously wish to join them in hell and be punished by him rather than to benefit from the forebearance of his punishment:

Hebrews 2:1-4
For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
​

God's intention of punishing non-Christians in hell destructively rather than correctively is perhaps one of the most basic building blocks of the "revealed" aspects of Christianity, our "revealed" religion:

Deuteronomy 28:15, 20-24, 63
If you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you.
​

Why a Christian should hesitate to proclaim this truth and glory in the divine character that it exhibits is strange. I love God's personality in who he is -- in his holy and just fullness. And the way we know that God is holy and just is by knowing that when he punishes them, he punishes them intending to ruin them rather than to correct them. That is why this doctrine should be relished with joy.

 

[cubanito]

I agree with you that one of God's intentions is to punish (destructively) the lost after death. Where I differ is in ascribing this as God's ONLY intention. We ourselves often have mixed motives for a particular action. Some of this is attributable to sin, but I do not believe this is the sole reason.

Another reason may be that, in the end, God gives to each soul their true desire. To loosely quote CS Lewis: ""In the end there will only be two kinds of souls. Those who say to God 'Thy Will be done." and those to whom God says 'thy will be done."

I admit this sounds very Arminian, but as a Calvarminian I don't have a problem with that. While God is simple, He is also complex beyond our total understanding. While the following is not agreed to by some (most?) of Reformed thinking, I do not believe that either human language or human logic can fully explain God's motives or actions.

Again, I do agree with you that in the present day there is much denial, implicitly or explicitly, that God is indeed a destroyer, a consuming fire, and quite capable of meeting out deserved eternal punishment. Much of modern Christianity has lost sight of the fact that FEAR (nt reverence or awe, but simple FEAR) is the beginning of Wisdom. Nevertheless I shirk from building a box, even with proof texts, and insisting God must wholy fit within.

Classical Christian theology, including most of Reformed, teaches that God can do everything except the inherently impossible (the self-contradictory). I do not subscribe to this. I believe Jesus was not engaging in hyperbole or other literary device when He declared: "With God nothing is impossible."

That includes reconciling Justice and Mercy in every life.

How is beyond me.

JR

 

[frumanchu]

Quick, I can see how CDL reacted the way he did. I had the same reaction when I first read your post. It's very similar to many posts from non-Calvinists who have started a lot of "how can you love a God who does this?" type threads. The last statement of the OP with the question smiley reads like that.

I agree with you that the Bible teaches that God's wrath against the unrighteous is for the purpose of punishment not reform.

 

[Calvinist Dark Lord]

I agree with you that one of God's intentions is to punish (destructively) the lost after death. Where I differ is in ascribing this as God's ONLY intention. We ourselves often have mixed motives for a particular action. Some of this is attributable to sin, but I do not believe this is the sole reason.

Another reason may be that, in the end, God gives to each soul their true desire. To loosely quote CS Lewis: ""In the end there will only be two kinds of souls. Those who say to God 'Thy Will be done." and those to whom God says 'thy will be done."

I admit this sounds very Arminian, but as a Calvarminian I don't have a problem with that. While God is simple, He is also complex beyond our total understanding. While the following is not agreed to by some (most?) of Reformed thinking, I do not believe that either human language or human logic can fully explain God's motives or actions.

Again, I do agree with you that in the present day there is much denial, implicitly or explicitly, that God is indeed a destroyer, a consuming fire, and quite capable of meeting out deserved eternal punishment. Much of modern Christianity has lost sight of the fact that FEAR (nt reverence or awe, but simple FEAR) is the beginning of Wisdom. Nevertheless I shirk from building a box, even with proof texts, and insisting God must wholy fit within.

Classical Christian theology, including most of Reformed, teaches that God can do everything except the inherently impossible (the self-contradictory). I do not subscribe to this. I believe Jesus was not engaging in hyperbole or other literary device when He declared: "With God nothing is impossible."

That includes reconciling Justice and Mercy in every life.

How is beyond me.

JR

Among the difficulties that one encounters among the doctrines of Grace is the supposed paradox between Justice and Mercy. Yet this particular issue is actually one of the easiest to explain:

1. All are sinners: ~For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God~
2. Nobody is righteous ~There is none righteous, no not even one~
3. All will have God's Justice
4. Some of the condemned (all of mankind are condemned) will recieve mercy, while having been judged guilty.
5. There is no contradiction in the logic, Nobody gets injustice.
6. The principle is echoed in many Western Legal systems in suspended sentences, commuted sentences, etc.

This is one of the least complicated issues involved with Reformed Theology.

 

[Quick]

Quick, I can see how CDL reacted the way he did. I had the same reaction when I first read your post. It's very similar to many posts from non-Calvinists who have started a lot of "how can you love a God who does this?" type threads. The last statement of the OP with the question smiley reads like that.

I agree with you that the Bible teaches that God's wrath against the unrighteous is for the purpose of punishment not reform.

I just feel like Christians seem to be embarrassed about God and do not sincerely love him in who he is (apart from the gifts he would give them). I thought that of all places I would find people here at Semper Reformanda who admired God in his fullness. But instead, I got a very strange reaction from Calvinist Dark Lord which made me suspicious that even Reformed Christians lack the reaction of uninhibited and immediate delight when they are presented with the personality of God, instead questioning the motives of a person who does exhibit this reaction to God.

Revelation 3:16 (New International Version)
Because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
​

 

[bradfordl]

I just feel like Christians seem to be embarrassed about God and do not sincerely love him in who he is (apart from the gifts he would give them). I thought that of all places I would find people here at Semper Reformanda who admired God in his fullness. But instead, I got a very strange reaction from Calvinist Dark Lord which made me suspicious that even Reformed Christians lack the reaction of uninhibited and immediate delight when they are presented with the personality of God, instead questioning the motives of a person who does exhibit this reaction to God.

Nobody sincerely loves God as we ought. That includes everybody here in Semper Reformanda, and everywhere else. Why would that surprise you? I think CDL just misunderstood your post. No need to get your shorts in a knot. If his response causes you to suspect all Reformed Christians are fallen sinners, then you are shocked by the obvious. All our hearts are, as Calvin said, idol factories. The only solution to that is redemption through Christ, which I believe is reformed doctrine. Calm down, there's too many real problems to deal with in life to waste time with imagined ones.

 

[BBAS 64]

Deuteronomy 7:10 KJV:
[God] repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.


God's punishment of non-Christians has destructive intent. His intent is their destruction. His punishment achieves their destruction. And the achievement of this destruction is a consummation of his intent.

How much do you adore God!

Good Day, Quick

Not nearly enough.....

Peace to u,

Bill

 

[cubanito]

Part 1: Nobody sincerely loves God as we ought. That includes everybody here in Semper Reformanda, and everywhere else. Why would that surprise you? I think CDL just misunderstood your post.

Part 2
No need to get your shorts in a knot. If his response causes you to suspect all Reformed Christians are fallen sinners, then you are shocked by the obvious. All our hearts are, as Calvin said, idol factories. The only solution to that is redemption through Christ, which I believe is reformed doctrine. Calm down, there's too many real problems to deal with in life to waste time with imagined ones.

I fully agree with part 1, well said.

I do however understand the irritation of Quick. Our current western culture wants a marshmallow God, and finds the Wrath of God an offensive concept. This is a real problem, even among Reformed Chuches. A few weeks ago I became disgusted with the Pastor of my Church (a PCA, whose interim Pastor is an older man who is also a professor in a PCA seminary). He suggested I read "A Generous Orthodoxy" by Brian McLeary. When I went back and told him I found the book a smorgasboard of post-modernist garbage, he disagreed with me and mostly likes this sort of lukewarm vomit.

As I previously posted, my views of the Wrath of God are somewhat nuanced, but I do not deny (though I tremble rather than delight) in the essential fact that such is a facet of God. The wish to deny God's Wrath is at a fever pitch today, and very much a central problem.

As to my local PCA Church, it is dying for a host of reasons, and I've already told them why I've left. I am not sure what I'm going to do next.

JR