Null/Voided Out

[Clare73]

I think I have done all I can to help you.

Thanks for the effort. . .you're a nice guy.

 

[Clare73]

That's not how it works.

Anyone who has knees to bow and a tongue to speak, in heaven and on earth and under the earth (in the realm of the dead), will whole-heartedly, and without reservation, acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.

That's exactly how it works. . .it's about power.

If non-Iranians can acknowledge the nuclear power of their enemy Iran, then non-believers will be acknowledging the power of Jesus Christ, Lord and God, their and Satan's enemy, in whose company they will be forever.

No one can say that “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” you will be saved. Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (the reason for the bodily resurrection)

Philippians 2:10-11
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

1 Corinthians 12:3
Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says,
“Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 10:9
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart
that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 14:9
For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that
he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

 

[Saint Steven]

. .you're a nice guy.

That's not what my Mom said, but let's go with that. - LOL

 

[Navair2]

You speak as though God is capricious and arbitrary.

Quite the contrary...
He thinks and acts with purpose behind every thing that He does.

The aim is not to burn them in hell forever, but to bring them to repentance, often through chastisement/ tribulation. The rhetoric is retributive and destructive, but the object is restorative and corrective.

For His beloved children, I agree.

So it's the same result mate. If He hates the sinner He destroys the sin, thereby producing destruction of the old man, repentance and deliverance of the new man in Christ.

Again, if they are His children, then yes, He destroys the sin by destroying the "old man"...
He grants them repentance and makes His saints to be new creatures in Christ.

 

[Navair2]

Totally agree. I don't see how the idea of God being a father, is compatible with the idea of him burning his children in fire, for all eternity. Do you?

He doesn't burn His children in Hell forever.
He saves His children to an eternal relationship with Him and His Son.

He casts the children of the devil into eternal Hell fire...those that hate Him and His Son.

 

[Saint Steven]

He doesn't burn His children in Hell forever.
He saves His children to an eternal relationship with Him and His Son.

He casts the children of the devil into eternal Hell fire...those that hate Him and His Son.

What do you make of this? Only for us? (nope)

1 Timothy 4:10
That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God,
who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.

 

[Shrewd Manager]

You're missing the most glorious part of that verse: even the damned will agree with God at the Judgment. . .they won't love him, but they'll agree (confess) that he is right and just.

Lol, how does that glorify God? Sounds more like a Monty Python sketch. 'I accept I was silly and deserve to be flayed alive for eternity.' Absurdly untenable. God changes hearts and minds. The heart melts in His presence - who can stand? How can the blind see lest their sight be restored? Who needs Grace more than the lost?

Somewhat loose handling of Scripture.
The bath outside the Temple does not come into contact with any wool.
The laver (bath outside the Temple) was for the washing of the priest (Ex 30:19, 40:12;
Lev 8:6, 16:4), making his scarlet and crimson sin white as snow and wool (Isa 1:18).

Um no, the mikveh were for everyone. Second temple Jews were crazy about mikveh.
On the Mikveh Trail, follow the rugged path of Jerusalem’s ancient pilgrims

And we see a beautiful type of the lake of fire in the healing in the pool of Bethesda in John 5. All those poor invalids denied access to the Temple but allowed to bathe in the healing waters just outside, in the house of grace/ mercy (Beth-hesed), through the Sheep Gate and up the path towards the Temple. The man confesses his failings and Jesus heals him, whereupon he heads up into the temple. That's the pattern, sister.

Nice "poetic" summation by the mind of man. . .it's just not the mind of God in his Word written.

It's how the narrative is written: angry nations turn up to fight, Godfire zaps them, judgment time, nations (as classical unbelievers) get turfed into LoF, God starts renovating, heaven comes to earth, nations re-appear, come worship, get healed.

So how does the final visions plot line make any sense if the unbelieving nations have been sent to hell by Rev 21:8? Especially when the ink on the promise made in Rev 15:4 that all nations will worship is still wet? Never mind the myriad of universal promises that saturate the Bible from aleph to tav lol.

My faith is in Jesus Christ and his atoning work for the remission of my sin,
giving me right standing (justification, not guilty) with God.

All my righteousness is the righteousness of Jesus Christ credited to me through faith, as it was to Abraham (Ge 15:6).

What a robotic formula. Talk about the letter kills. May I suggest we start by throwing the money changers from the temple and bursting the leaven of phariseeic doctrine.

Can you at least bring yourself to kindle a little HOPE for the salvation of all, or have we hardened our heart to the 2-tiered outcome with the 'special elect' and the 'justly doomed'?

 

[Shrewd Manager]

Quite the contrary...
He thinks and acts with purpose behind every thing that He does.

And is His purpose salvation?

For His beloved children, I agree.

And the rest are just plain DOOMED?

Again, if they are His children, then yes, He destroys the sin by destroying the "old man"...
He grants them repentance and makes His saints to be new creatures in Christ.

Where is that distinction made in scripture? All are lost and blind until God shows His grace, none can boast in their own works of salvation.

 

[Clare73]

Lol, how does that glorify God? Sounds more like a Monty Python sketch. 'I accept I was silly and deserve to be flayed alive for eternity.' Absurdly untenable. God changes hearts and minds. The heart melts in His presence - who can stand? How can the blind see lest their sight be restored? Who needs Grace more than the lost?

Precisely. . .and there will be no grace at the Judgment, only the terrifying power of the Judge
(Jn 5:22, 27, 8:26, 12:48; Mt 25:31-33) who judges those who are not in him,
while he saves those who are.

Um no, the mikveh were for everyone. Second temple Jews were crazy about mikveh.
On the Mikveh Trail, follow the rugged path of Jerusalem’s ancient pilgrims

The laver is outside the Temple, but in the Temple courtyard of the bronze altar.

And we see a beautiful type of the lake of fire in the healing in the pool of Bethesda in John 5. All those poor invalids denied access to the Temple but allowed to bathe in the healing waters just outside, in the house of grace/ mercy (Beth-hesed), through the Sheep Gate and up the path towards the Temple. The man confesses his failings and Jesus heals him, whereupon he heads up into the temple. That's the pattern, sister.

The pattern is based on belief.

It's how the narrative is written: angry nations turn up to fight, Godfire zaps them, judgment time, nations (as classical unbelievers) get turfed into LoF, God starts renovating, heaven comes to earth, nations re-appear, come worship, get healed.

So how does the final visions plot line make any sense if the unbelieving nations have been sent to hell by Rev 21:8? Especially when the ink on the promise made in Rev 15:4 that all nations will worship is still wet? Never mind the myriad of universal promises that saturate the Bible from aleph to tav lol.

"All the nations" is people from all the nations," not all people from the nations.

Personal interpretation of prophecy, which is given in riddles (dark sayings)--Nu 12:6-8,
must be in agreement with NT teaching, which that is not.

What a robotic formula. Talk about the letter kills. May I suggest we start by throwing the money changers from the temple and bursting the leaven of phariseeic doctrine.

It is unfortunate, at best, that you regard the NT as pharisaic doctrine.

Can you at least bring yourself to kindle a little HOPE for the salvation of all, or have we hardened our heart to the 2-tiered outcome with the 'special elect' and the 'justly doomed'?

It is the rejection of NT teaching that is the hardening of one's heart.

 

[Light of the East]

Clare 73 -

Perhaps you, as a believer, cannot understand the sadness of your position. How is the Gospel in any way "Good News" if my children are not to be saved. I have six children. I tried to raise them in the Christian faith, taking them faithfully to church every Sunday, praying with them at night, trying to teach them about the lovely Lord Jesus. Alas, none of them cares a whit for Him now. How am I supposed to look at this as Good News when you insist they will be eternally tormented without respite or hope?

It is God who brings us to Himself. For some reason which we do not know, some respond in this life and some do not, no matter how much they are worked with by the Spirit of God. I think of Emile Zola, the French agnostic writer who went to Lourdes and said "If I were to see but a cut finger healed, I would believe." Yet when God saw that bet and raised him, putting him "all in" (as the poker term goes) by healing a women with visible scars from tuberculosis and who was coughing up blood, he refused.

I do not understand such mysteries. Yet, for me, this is quite personal, as not only do I keenly feel the loss of my children, but blame myself for not being a better Christian around them. When I was young, we all went to Bob Jones style Fundamentalist churches in which my children got large, heapin' helpin's of the God you present - wrathful, angry, ready to sent people to hell at the drop of a hat.

What child can respond favorably to such teaching? Children are not attracted to anger and harsh discipline as advised by the Fundy Bible-thumper pastors under which we sat. It has taken me a long time to stop grieving over my failure to recognize that these men were not pastors in the sense of having the heart of God - they were theological terrorists! I cannot help but wonder how things would have turned out had I been in a church which was both theologically sound AND had people in it who exhibited the love of God rather than His constant, judgmental anger.

Perhaps you feel like Thomas Aquinas, who said that the redeemed would look down from heaven, observe the torments of the wicked, and it would enhance their enjoyment of their salvation. I don't know about you, but from where I was born and raised, we call anyone who takes pleasure in the suffering of another a sadist, and we tend to think there is something wrong with them.

A final thought. You keep using the word "judgment" as if Christ is sitting as a Roman Courtroom judge. You know, there are other kinds of judgment besides looking to find people guilty so you can throw them in the dungeon. What about the doctor who looks at a patient and passes a judgment on the exact treatment needed to bring about healing? What if the judgment is not unto condemnation, but unto healing? Have you ever thought of it in that manner?

If I could heal my children of their disdain for Christ, I would do so in a NYC minute. How much more then will God, who has complete understanding in His omniscience of what each soul needs to bring it to repentance, do so for His children, even those who have done the most evil? Is He any less loving as the Father of all people(s) than I am towards my children?

 

[Clare73]

Clare 73 -

Perhaps you, as a believer, cannot understand the sadness of your position. How is the Gospel in any way "Good News" if my children are not to be saved. I have six children. I tried to raise them in the Christian faith, taking them faithfully to church every Sunday, praying with them at night, trying to teach them about the lovely Lord Jesus. Alas, none of them cares a whit for Him now. How am I supposed to look at this as Good News when you insist they will be eternally tormented without respite or hope?

It is God who brings us to Himself. For some reason which we do not know, some respond in this life and some do not, no matter how much they are worked with by the Spirit of God. I think of Emile Zola, the French agnostic writer who went to Lourdes and said "If I were to see but a cut finger healed, I would believe." Yet when God saw that bet and raised him, putting him "all in" (as the poker term goes) by healing a women with visible scars from tuberculosis and who was coughing up blood, he refused.

I do not understand such mysteries. Yet, for me, this is quite personal, as not only do I keenly feel the loss of my children, but blame myself for not being a better Christian around them. When I was young, we all went to Bob Jones style Fundamentalist churches in which my children got large, heapin' helpin's of the God you present - wrathful, angry, ready to sent people to hell at the drop of a hat.

What child can respond favorably to such teaching? Children are not attracted to anger and harsh discipline as advised by the Fundy Bible-thumper pastors under which we sat. It has taken me a long time to stop grieving over my failure to recognize that these men were not pastors in the sense of having the heart of God - they were theological terrorists! I cannot help but wonder how things would have turned out had I been in a church which was both theologically sound AND had people in it who exhibited the love of God rather than His constant, judgmental anger.

Perhaps you feel like Thomas Aquinas, who said that the redeemed would look down from heaven, observe the torments of the wicked, and it would enhance their enjoyment of their salvation. I don't know about you, but from where I was born and raised, we call anyone who takes pleasure in the suffering of another a sadist, and we tend to think there is something wrong with them.

A final thought. You keep using the word "judgment" as if Christ is sitting as a Roman Courtroom judge. You know, there are other kinds of judgment besides looking to find people guilty so you can throw them in the dungeon. What about the doctor who looks at a patient and passes a judgment on the exact treatment needed to bring about healing? What if the judgment is not unto condemnation, but unto healing? Have you ever thought of it in that manner?

If I could heal my children of their disdain for Christ, I would do so in a NYC minute. How much more then will God, who has complete understanding in His omniscience of what each soul needs to bring it to repentance, do so for His children, even those who have done the most evil? Is He any less loving as the Father of all people(s) than I am towards my children?

I am so sorry for your pain.

But all is not over yet. . .I have great hope, because I have seen it more than once in this kind of case, that whatever truth of God was laid in them in their childhood church sorts itself out way down the road and there is a turning in them.
So your job now is to pray for them until it happens.

And my sense of the kind of man you are tells me that your loving disposition will be instrumental in it all.

And now from the sublime to the trivial: did you answer my "feeler" question (Post #230)?

 

[Light of the East]

I didn't make the rules, God did. . .as revealed in the NT.

Human sentiment, reasoning and wisdom do not unseat the NT Word of God written.

Did you answer my "feeler" question?

This is a complete dodge from someone who does not want to think about what is being said and have to deal with the ramifications of it.

Since you wish to deal with the NT....we are told that God is love. Therefore, since this is His very ontologolical nature, He cannot do anything else but love. It is not "human sentiment" to therefore ask one's self HOW love would act in certain circumstances.

Would a Being of love create sentient beings capable of suffering for the sole purpose of them being tormented forever?

Would a Being of love, Who is all-knowing, knowing the beginning to the end of all things, willingly create sentient beings capable of suffering if He foreknew they would never be able to get out of that suffering?

Would a Being of love, who is all-powerful and all-knowing, create beings capable of suffering if He did not have a plan by which their suffering would eventually be remediated?

Is this what love does? Is this your definition of love? If so, then you are lacking in any sort of understanding of what it means to love another.

Even the "rules' you so lovingly fall back up are simply expressions of love. The 10 Commandments were distilled down to two rules of love "Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbor as yourself." Christ our God tells us what the Laws is all about - it is distilled down to love. Love means doing that which is the best for the other. So are you saying that God gives us the rules of love but does not follow them Himself? What kind of hypocrisy would that be??

And you have been told and shown that what you are believing in is the warped interpretations of the Greek manuscripts. Don't try to hide behind the Bible and virtue-signal to me. Doesn't work. I have told you, Saint Stephen has told you, others have told you that there is no Greek wording in the NT which indicates an eternity in torment. You choose to ignore this. I do not. I refuse to accept rotten and tortured translations of the Greek which were made to fit someone's agenda to scare the Bejeepers out of the laity and make them behave. This is what the Roman Catholic Church did in the eleventh century during the Papal Reformation and I will be no part of this.

 

[Light of the East]

He doesn't burn His children in Hell forever.
He saves His children to an eternal relationship with Him and His Son.

He casts the children of the devil into eternal Hell fire...those that hate Him and His Son.

The devil has no children. All are children of God. Some have signed a covenant of death with Satan, making him their father by choice, but by nature, all are childen of God and all belong to Him. And He will get all His children back - the weary, the sick from sin, the depraved, the lost, those whom Satan has tricked into covenant with him - ALL of them!!

 

[Clare73]

This is a complete dodge from someone who does not want to think about what is being said and have to deal with the ramifications of it.

I'm so sorry. . .I sent that before I read your post. . .I assumed it was a mere
theological argument. . .then I read your post and was in the process of editing that response when you replied.
Please see my edit and let me know that you forgive me.

 

[Light of the East]

Of

I'm so sorry. . .I sent that before I read your post. . .I assumed it was a mere
theological argument. . .I was in the process of editing that response when you replied.
Please see my edit and forgive me.

Of course you are forgiven. And please forgive me if I appear to be rude with you or lacking in charity. I have struggled with the picture of God as ready to condemn me for almost 40 years now. Learning to trust Him as loving Father is a challenge, and it does touch the emotions when discussed.

 

[Light of the East]

I am so sorry for your pain.

But all is not over yet. . .I have great hope, because I have seen it more than once in this kind of case, that whatever truth of God was laid in them in their childhood church sorts itself out way down the road and there is a turning in them.
So your job now is to pray for them until it happens.

And my sense of the kind of man you are tells me that your loving disposition will be instrumental in it all.

And now from the sublime to the trivial: did you answer my "feeler" question (Post #230)?

I can't find the "feeler" question. Please repeat in your answer to this post.

 

[Clare73]

I can't find the "feeler" question. Please repeat in your answer to this post.

Time. . .and trust in Jesus, with prayer will work that in you.

God's love is for his children--which you are, even for those who haven't come in yet, they need not fear his judgment.
Just pray for and love them.


And the question is the last line of the post:

Feeler: How do you feel about the fact that all God's works are for his glory through the glory of his Son, Jesus Christ?

How do you know about Aquinas?

 

[Light of the East]

QUOTE="Clare73

Time. . .and trust in Jesus, with prayer will work that in you.

God's love is for his children--which you are, even for those who haven't come in yet, they need not fear his judgment.

Just pray for and love them.

I do.

And the question is the last line of the post:

Feeler: How do you feel about the fact that all God's works are for his glory through the glory of his Son, Jesus Christ?

Kind of a mixed response. Does God need anything at all - our praise, creation, angels, anything - to add to His glory? That is, was His glory in any way lacking before all was created so that there was a need to be fulfilled? Calvinists say that even sending the wicked to eternal torment will glorify Him. I think it would far more glorify Him and His power and wisdom to show that He can bring even the most stubborn soul to repentance.

I think that love is the glory of God. I think we see this in the Creation itself. Go out into the country or to the seaside and look at the beauty of all that is created. Hatred cannot create beauty, only love can. The human heart is hungry for beauty because the human heart is seeking love - and that love is found in God who is The Beautiful. So I would say that all God's works, which are done in the beauty of love, are indeed a testimony to our dull minds of His glory.

In further thinking of what you just posted, I don't find that creating sentient beings for the sole purpose of condemning them is either love or beauty. Remember, all things are created to an end. Whenever a person - even the Person of God in Trinity - creates something, there is a goal in mind, an end to accomplish, a telos which will be the final point. Therefore, if eternal hell is true, then that must be the goal for which God created human beings, and thus He achieves His goal, which is His will. But if eternal hell was not the goal of Creation and yet human beings go into eternal torment, then the will of God has been thwarted by mere men. Can mankind or any created being really subvert and bring to nought the will of God?

How do you know about Aquinas?

What little I know comes from quotes I have read online. My study of his work is not extensive as I have other fields of interest which command more attention from me, like working on a book I am writing.

 

[Sheila Davis]

True or false?

Anyone who has knees to bow and a tongue to speak, in heaven and on earth and under the earth (in the realm of the dead), will whole-heartedly, and without reservation, acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. No one can say that “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” you will be saved. Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (the reason for the bodily resurrection)

 

[Sheila Davis]

True or false?

Anyone who has knees to bow and a tongue to speak, in heaven and on earth and under the earth (in the realm of the dead), will whole-heartedly, and without reservation, acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. No one can say that “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” you will be saved. Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (the reason for the bodily resurrection)