drummer in Christ said:
God is love. Christ atoned for ALL, it is quite selfish of you to think that he died for your sins and not some other poor *******s.
Listen diC, it has nothing to do with being "selfish." I don't claim to be better than anyone else. Do you even have a clue what I believe? You joined this MB today. I have over 7000 posts here. Do you even know what it means to "atone" for something? If so, please explain to me how Christ could have atoned for the sins of all mankind and yet, at judgment day, many will be condemned? If Christ atoned for them then atonement has been made and God has no right to punish them for sins that have already been atoned for.
God sent his son to atone for ALL of mankinds sin. The only ones who will have to pay for their sins are the ones who do not accept Jesus Christ as their savior.
I remember when I was 15. I had heard the Gospel. I even kind of liked it. I thought that there would never be a point in my life where I would know more about life and God than I did then. Ironically, I knew very little about what the Bible actually taught. I just believed what I believed because many evangelical Christians believe it and preached it. All of my knowledge of the Bible was gleaned from the teachings of anthropocentric teachers, like your's clearly is. Needless to say, after I started studying the Bible for myself, without trying to read into it the teachings of the Arminians I could not help but realize how little I knew then. Things became clear. The glory and grace of God became real. Everything made sense. Like you I never thought twice about saying things like "God sent His Son to atone for ALL of mankind's sin." Then, when I took five minutes to think about it and look up the word "atone" in a dictionary, that view couldn't hold water. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever. I came to realize that if God
actually sent His Son to
actually atone for the sins of ALL mankind I had to make a choice. I could believe that God's intent was to atone for all the sins of mankind and, unfortunately, God failed to accomplish this purpose. I could believe that God's intent was to atone for the sins of all mankind when He sent His Son but then, later, changed His mind and chose to atone only for the sins of those that believe. I could believe that Christ did, in fact, atone for the sins of all mankind and God is unrighteous because He punishes people for sins that have already been atoned for. Or lastly I could believe that Christ actually suffered on the Cross for each and every sin of mankind but that atonement is not applied unless we make use of it. In effect, Christ's suffering for many sins would end up as pointless suffering because the committers of those sins for which He suffered would never avail themselves of its merit. You see, none of this ever made sense to me. I didn't think the Bible taught that God purposed the atonement of all the sins of mankind and failed. Failure is not an attribute that I can knowingly attribute to God. I also didn't think God changed His mind because mutability is also not an attribute I was willing to attribute to God. I certainly couldn't believe that Christ actually atoned for sins and then God condemened people at a later time on the basis of those sins that had already been atoned for. That would make God wicked and unrighteous. So, the only option available to me that I could even consider was that Christ actually suffered for sins which, in the end, aren't actually atoned for because the person who committed those sins chose to reject the suffering of Christ in his/her place. This seemed very odd to me. You see, despite our disagreements on God's intent in the atonement we would all agree that God is omniscient. Therefore, according to your view God bruised His Son for sins that He knew would never actually be atoned for. My biggest question about that is "why?" Many on this board would say "love." They would say that God loved man so much that He was willing to needlessly suffer for sins that He knew would not be atoned for in the end. On top of that, I had to also reconcile myself to the veiw that if God actually loved all these people whose sins don't end up being atoned for then God has to end up sending a bunch of people He so dearly loves to hell for their iniquity. So, I carried around this lie of the Gospel for a few years, thinking I had it all figured out. I couldn't really reconcile the idea of a God who would make His only begotten Son suffer needlessly but what other choice did I have. Then, by the grace of God, I was exposed to a different belief. Unfortunately, this belief is not very popular with many Christians on this MB, and you seem to be one of those. They see it as an elitist view of the Gospel when, in reality, that couldn't be further from the truth of what I believe. The Truth of the Gospel is that God, according to His own pleasure and purpose, chose from all of humanity, a people for Himself. He chose them before the foundations of the world, with no regard for what they would do. In effect, His purpose was totally merciful. If God bases His selection on a forseen choice we make of our own free will then, at the very least, our election is justice, not mercy. Fortunately that is not the case. God chose a people for Himself, redeems them, atones for their sins, regenerates them, indwells them, sanctifies them, glorifies them and eternally saves them. God's will is done. Nothing thwarts God's sovereign design. God is glorified. Mankind is shown mercy and justice. The Bible finally makes sense.
That is it. There are no selected people that are going to heaven, as there are no selected groups going to hell.
Sure there are. You see, you don't even take the time to consider what you say. There is a select group of people going to Heaven and a select group of people going to hell. Even if you don't believe in God's particular redempation you must, at the very least, acknowledge that Heaven is strictly for believers and hell is for non-believers. Do you deny that?
Read John 3:16, I'm pretty sure that lays it all out for you.
LOL! diC, I've probably read John 3:16 more times in the last 5 years than the number of days you've been alive. Tell me something, when you read something like "God so loves the
world..." and then you come across verses like Psalms 5:5 which state that God "
hates all
workers of iniquity" how do you reconcile those two? Shall we just reconcile ourselves to contradictions in the Word of God or could it be possible that one of those verses doesn't mean what we think it means? I contend that God does love the
world. However, I don't understand "world" the way you do. If I read John 3:16 with your understanding of it I'm left with believing that God loved every single person soooooooooooo much that He sent His Son so that believers would inherit eternal life. If He loved everyone single person so much why did He send His Son to ensure that only believers would inherit eternal life? That doesn't even make sense. That's like me telling my three children that I love them all so much that I'm going to take one of them to the movies. Huh?
Psalm is not a gospel book sir.
It's not? What is it? Meaningless poetry that doesn't carry the same weight as the book of John? Is not the book of Psalms also the Word of God? Or are you merely purporting that God's hate for workers of iniquity is allegorical? If so, I can only offer that you are sadly mistaken. God is light and in Him there is no darkness. He is light and light has no fellowship with darkness. God is holy and all who are not in Christ are opposed to Him. They view God as an enemy and God cannot stand to look upon them for their iniquity which is not covered by the shed blood of Christ.
Why do you think that Jesus came to save you and not others?
The only people I don't think Jesus came to save were those who don't end up being saved. As for
why I believe that, well, simply because I know that God's purpose cannot be withheld from Him (Job 42:2). Is Job also not a Gospel book?
Not trying to be rude and assumptious, but that's what it sounds like sir.
I didn't take it as rude. A bit unscholarly but not rude. Believe me, my view of the Gospel is not selfish. It's humble.
God bless
I agree!! We're here for you!
I applaud you sir.
