Scott -
Now you don't believe in a Hell?
*snip*
Not a place of eternal torment, no. I believe only in the grave.
I thought you said his perogative was that a person MUST be saved to be baptized.
That is true.
If at all possible, a person must be baptised.
If at all possible.
I mean, isn't that what you've been harping on over and over again? A person isn't saved until he is baptized?
No, I don't see any place where Evangelion has said "A person isn't saved until he is baptised." In fact, he has consistently said that we are
not saved
until we are accepted at the Judgement seat of God.
Why do you keep misrepresenting him?
And you're speaking for God's perogative?
No, I'm listening to God, Who has spoken to us through His inspired men of old.
Where is the Scriptural proof?
Here:
Rom 9:15 For he saith to Moses,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
That is the prerogative of God. He is able to extend mercy (and judgement) to whomsoever He chooses. Doesn't your god have this prerogative?
Again, proof found in Scripture?
Apart from the quote above, we also have the example of David and Bathsheba. Remember that David committed adultery with Bathsheba, and later arranged to have Uriah killed?
Both of these crimes carried the penalty of death under the Law of Moses. David even acknowledged this when he spoke to Nathan. He condemned himself out of his own mouth.
Here:
2Sa 12:7 And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;
2Sa 12:8 And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.
2Sa 12:9
Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
2Sa 12:10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
2Sa 12:11 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.
2Sa 12:12 For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.
But look! God is merciful. Exercising His divine prerogative, He commutes David's sentence, and repeals the death penalty in this case:
2Sa 12:13 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David,
The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
2Sa 12:14 Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.
David
should have died. That was the commandment of God, under the Law that He had given to Moses. But God
transcended this law, exercising His divine right to extend mercy to David on this occasion.
So Adam Clarke's Commenatary on the Bible says:
2Sa 12:13 -
The Lord - hath put away thy sin -
Many have supposed that Davids sin was now actually pardoned, but this is perfectly erroneous; David, as an adulterer, was condemned to death by the law of God; and he had according to that law passed sentence of death upon himself.
God alone, whose law that was could revoke that sentence, or dispense with its execution; therefore Nathan, who had charged the guilt home upon his conscience, is authorized to give him the assurance that he should not die a temporal death for it: The Lord hath put away thy sin;
thou shalt not die. This is all that is contained in the assurance given by Nathan:
Thou shalt not die that temporal death; thou shalt be preserved alive, that thou mayest have time to repent, turn to God, and find mercy.
If the fifty-first Psalm, as is generally supposed, was written on this occasion, then it is evident (as the Psalm must have been written after this interview) that David had not received pardon for his sin from God at the time he composed it;
for in it he confesses the crime in order to find mercy.
There is something very remarkable in the words of Nathan: The Lord also hath Put Away thy sin; thou shalt not die; âí éäåä äòáéø çèàúê ìà úîåú gam Yehovah heebir chattathecha lo thamuth,
Also Jehovah Hath Caused thy sin To Pass Over, or transferred thy sin; Thou shalt not die. God has transferred the legal punishment of this sin to the child; He shall die, Thou shalt not die; and this is the very point on which the prophet gives him the most direct information: The child that is born unto thee shall Surely die; îåú éîåú moth yamuth, dying he shall die - he shall be in a dying state seven days, and then he shall die. So God immediately struck the child, and it was very sick.
John Gill's Commentary agrees with Clarke's:
the Lord hath put away thy sin;
would not charge it upon him, impute it to him, or punish him for it, but freely and fully forgive it, cast it behind his back, and into the depth of the sea; cause it to pass from him and never more bring it against him, and
which is the Lord's act, and his only, against whom sin is committed:
thou shall not die; though he should die a corporeal death,
yet not by the immediate hand of God, or by the sword of justice as a malefactor, a murderer, and adulterer, as he, according to the law, deserved to die; nor should he die a spiritual death, though his grace had been so low, and his corruptions had risen so high; nor an eternal death, the second death, the lost wages of sin.
John Wesley understood this incident perfectly well, for he writes:
Not die -
As by thy own sentence, 2Sa_12:5, thou dost deserve, and may expect to be done by my immediate stroke.
Why doesn't he decide to take back the whole idea that not everyone is saved and let all people in? Could that not also be his "perogative"?
*snip*
No, because even though He exercised His prerogative in the case of David by granting him temporary immunity from the death penalty, He still punished David. Not only that, but He only did this because David was a faithful man who repented of his evil. Not everyone does this, of course. So God would never withdraw the penalty from all men, for that would be a denial of His character. There must always be a punishment for sin.
For God to say one thing and do another makes him a liar.
No, you just don't understand how God works.
I think you need to start reading the Bible.
"To be saved, you MUST be baptized." "You're not baptized, but, hey, you're saved anyway." These are two contradicting statements.
*snip*
No, they're not, because both statements must be taken as
qualified statements.
Tell me, Scott - did God contradict Himself when he abrogated the Law of Moses and decreed that David was
not going to die, even though He had already instituted the death penalty for murder and adultery? (Both of which David committed...)
I
really think you need to read the Bible. It's just amazing, the number of people who call themselves "Christians" but don't read the Bible.
