By intellectual I wasn't talking about smarts. I was talking about a decision having to be made and not going by a feeling. Whether you make that decision in your head or your heart is a mute point IMO. Not worth debating.
Love
is a feeling. My point was that we are not saved by intellectual concepts, we are saved precisely by our
feelings of
love.
No, I dealt with it and you disagree.
You didn't address the substance of my rebuttal: Jesus said "I
never knew you." That is forever, they were never with God at any time, and thus never will be.
It does not say "never be forgiven". Read the text, it says "not be forgiven...in this age or the age to come". This was spoken in the age of the law and before Jesus had even made salvation possible. There are at least two more ages ahead according to scripture which was written in the present church age.
Where does the Bible refer to their being three or four ages? (It is unclear exactly how many you are counting here.) The "shall not be forgiven" part does not apply only to certain ages, it is an absolute statement, without reprieve.
EPH 2:7 that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Jesus never sowed the tares. So those people/tares will have to go through the purgative fires of judgment in the next age. What did Jesus say about them after they'd been judged and purged...sort of like the people in purgatory which you believe in.
The tares are not of God, God
never knew them, their souls shall be destroyed. There is no comming back from annihilation of the soul.
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:28
MAT 13:42 and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
Do you have ears to hear what Jesus is saying here? Most don't. They go into the furnace and come out righteous after having paid every last cent and bowing the knee.
That is not what it is saying at all, the righteous are not being thrown into the furnace. You are really twisting the verse. Throwing the wicked into Hell and the righteous shining like the sun are simultaneous events. It is the removal of the wicked and their pervasive negative spiritual effect on the world, that causes the light of the righteous to finally be released. It is in the
absence of the wicked that the righteous come to shine like the sun. This verse is not describing a tempering of the righteous by fire, the righteous are
not being thrown into Hell. Your interpreation of this verse is extreme contorted, as a result of desperately trying to force the round block of the Bible through the square hole of universalism.