Will you let the bible ...

[Mark Quayle]

He compels us to do nothing. That's the point of our faith from Genesis through Revelation. This life is not a puppet show. A related teaching:

409 This dramatic situation of "the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one"makes man's life a battle:
The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God's grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity.

The love of God compels us. Quite literally, actually. Not just in gratefulness for what he has done, but by being the core (for lack of a better way to put it immediately available to my mind) within our new being.

 

[fhansen]

AH! But then, you cannot show how any of us even CAN love God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. These are hardly real, but for the Spirit within doing it in us.

Of course I can, as I've been saying all along. God moves us even towards the first stirrings of faith. Within that is also the first stirrings of hope and love; we love Him because He first loves us. We still don't need to respond but He's patient, not wanting any to perish. It's a give and take thing, with Him drawing us, by grace, to the light but not forcing it. We can't even begin to find Him without Him; He finds us. But once found, once we open the door, then He pours His righteousness into us, and yet we can be good soil, where His seed takes root and grows, or not.

Now, if righteousness is strictly declared OTOH, there's nothing to grow, nothing to blossom into full-on love of God and neighbor. It would be impossible to be transformed into His image at all, incidentally, unless the will of man is involved, unless we increasingly grow in His light as we increaingly embrace it for ourselves. The very basis of both love and justice is the fact that they must be freely chosen.

 

[fhansen]

The love of God compels us. Quite literally, actually. Not just in gratefulness for what he has done, but by being the core (for lack of a better way to put it immediately available to my mind) within our new being.

Our own love, wrought by Him within us, must compel us, or no true righteousnss is even involved.

 

[fhansen]

So if your name isn’t written, you can try to be good and it will be to no avail.

We only know with certainty at the end of the day in any case. Meanwhile we can have a strong level of assurance if there's evidence of good fruit in our lives. God's always trustworthy and true; we're the wildcard.

So we're to do the best we can with what we're given, neither giving in to licentiousness, laziness, scrupulosity, legalism, despair, whatever-and let the Just Judge give us His determination in the end. One thing's for sure: He'll do the right thing.

 

[fhansen]

The love of God compels us. Quite literally, actually. Not just in gratefulness for what he has done, but by being the core (for lack of a better way to put it immediately available to my mind) within our new being.

If we have no love or righteous now, if nothing's changed, if we're still the old man in truth, why would we be grateful anyway?

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Biblical demonstration to support your disagreement, that it may have merit. . .

Justice is always done with God. . .as God, in his manifold wisdom repeatedly demonstrated in the animal sacrifices of the OT, thereby allowing no room for misappropriating their meaning. . .i.e., the animal died in the sinner's place to pay the penalty (Leviticus 5:6, 7, 14, Leviticus 6:6, Leviticus 26:41, 43) for his sin. . .and they being the pattern/type/shadow of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin.

sacrifice is not mercy

Hosea 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
​

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

To be specific, then, concrete, the judgement is already made, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and deserve the justice done upon us. And it will be done to us, or to Christ, and not both.

Mercy is not sacrifice, as the scriptures say.

Hosea 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.​

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Yes, I expect you were. But that love as we should demonstrate, is not the root of God's mercy toward the elect. But is God's love involved? —oh yes! most certainly!

Since the scriptures tell us that God is love it seems that love is the root of all God's graces.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Of course I can, as I've been saying all along. God moves us even towards the first stirrings of faith. Within that is also the first stirrings of hope and love; we love Him because He first loves us. We still don't need to respond but He's patient, not wanting any to perish. It's a give and take thing, with Him drawing us, by grace, to the light but not forcing it. We can't even begin to find Him without Him; He finds us. But once found, once we open the door, then He pours His righteousness into us, and yet we can be good soil, where His seed takes root and grows, or not.

Now, if righteousness is strictly declared OTOH, there's nothing to grow, nothing to blossom into full-on love of God and neighbor. It would be impossible to be transformed into His image at all, incidentally, unless the will of man is involved, unless we increasingly grow in His light as we increaingly embrace it for ourselves. The very basis of both love and justice is the fact that they must be freely chosen.

You say: "We can't even begin to find Him without Him; He finds us. But once found, once we open the door, then He pours His righteousness into us, and yet we can be good soil, where His seed takes root and grows, or not." and, "The very basis of both love and justice is the fact that they must be freely chosen." So you do have whereof to boast! YOU did this.

"...for to me to live is [allowing] Christ..."? Well, once again, we have gone far enough...

 

[Mark Quayle]

Mercy is not sacrifice, as the scriptures say.

Hosea 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.​

I hope you see how you slough between meanings/uses of the words here. The verse you misuse here is talking about whose mercy —God's? and what sacrifice —Christ's?

Are you going to say that Christ's sacrifice was not mercy on our behalf, now?

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I hope you see how you slough between meanings/uses of the words here. The verse you misuse here is talking about whose mercy —God's? and what sacrifice —Christ's?

Are you going to say that Christ's sacrifice was not mercy on our behalf, now?

I am going to say that the verse is about mercy as mercy and sacrifices as the Old Covenant defined them. God desires mercy and not sacrifice.

Matthew 9:13 Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners.'

​

 

[Mark Quayle]

Since the scriptures tell us that God is love it seems that love is the root of all God's graces.

With that kind of logic, it could also be said that love is the root of all God's deeds, including the slaughter of millions.

I don't know if you have looked at all at the philosophical/theological attributes of God, that agree completely with Scriptures. Several of them, particularly Aseity and Simplicity, show that love is what it is, because of who God is, and not the other way around.

The point is that the particular order of things is not a general love, but that he does what he does according to the counsel of his own will, (not ours). He CHOSE upon whom to show mercy, and did it by his own wisdom and counsel, and for his own purposes. If all you have to say about it is that he did it because he is love, then there's no need for particulars in theology or indeed in Scripture.

You appear to me to want to be able to interpret Scripture and build theology based on the mere notion of the love of God, and subjectively at that.

 

[fhansen]

You say: "We can't even begin to find Him without Him; He finds us. But once found, once we open the door, then He pours His righteousness into us, and yet we can be good soil, where His seed takes root and grows, or not." and, "The very basis of both love and justice is the fact that they must be freely chosen." So you do have whereof to boast! YOU did this.

"...for to me to live is [allowing] Christ..."? Well, once again, we have gone far enough...

Alright, so you acknowedge that we're changed, for the better, that we now have a righteousness that we didn't possess before, rather than a strictly declared righteousness. So that our justice before God is not based simply on a declaration or imputation or pretense, but on whether or not we actually are righouness/holy, etc, by His grace. And it then follows that we might compromise that state, we could walk away from it, we could fail to put to death the deeds of the flesh, fail to do good, fail to forgive, fail to love, fail to live by the Spirit, etc, eventually removing ourselves from God's fellowship.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

With that kind of logic, it could also be said that love is the root of all God's deeds, including the slaughter of millions.

Do you believe that God slaughtered millions of people?

 

[fhansen]

With that kind of logic, it could also be said that love is the root of all God's deeds, including the slaughter of millions.

I don't know if you have looked at all at the philosophical/theological attributes of God, that agree completely with Scriptures. Several of them, particularly Aseity and Simplicity, show that love is what it is, because of who God is, and not the other way around.

The point is that the particular order of things is not a general love, but that he does what he does according to the counsel of his own will, (not ours). He CHOSE upon whom to show mercy, and did it by his own wisdom and counsel, and for his own purposes. If all you have to say about it is that he did it because he is love, then there's no need for particulars in theology or indeed in Scripture.

You appear to me to want to be able to interpret Scripture and build theology based on the mere notion of the love of God, and subjectively at that.

The better one knows God, the more he understands that nothing that God does is inconsistent with love.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I don't know if you have looked at all at the philosophical/theological attributes of God, that agree completely with Scriptures. Several of them, particularly Aseity and Simplicity, show that love is what it is, because of who God is, and not the other way around.

Since God is love it follows that God is the definition of love. I do not quite grasp why your post implied that love has some kind of existence apart from God.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

The point is that the particular order of things is not a general love, but that he does what he does according to the counsel of his own will, (not ours). He CHOSE upon whom to show mercy, and did it by his own wisdom and counsel, and for his own purposes. If all you have to say about it is that he did it because he is love, then there's no need for particulars in theology or indeed in Scripture.

Those are a lot of words to throw at the thread with the intention of saying that God's love is ultimately a mystery and that as with all mysteries we know only what God chooses to reveal of them.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

You appear to me to want to be able to interpret Scripture and build theology based on the mere notion of the love of God, and subjectively at that.

I certainly do hope that the theology I hold to is founded upon love.

1 John 4:7-21 My dear friends, let us love one another, since love is from God and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 Whoever fails to love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is the revelation of God's love for us, that God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him. 10 Love consists in this: it is not we who loved God, but God loved us and sent his Son to expiate our sins. 11 My dear friends, if God loved us so much, we too should love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God, but as long as we love one another God remains in us and his love comes to its perfection in us. 13 This is the proof that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us a share in his Spirit. 14 We ourselves have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as Saviour of the world. 15 Anyone who acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. 16 We have recognised for ourselves, and put our faith in, the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. 17 Love comes to its perfection in us when we can face the Day of Judgement fearlessly, because even in this world we have become as he is. 18 In love there is no room for fear, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear implies punishment and no one who is afraid has come to perfection in love. 19 Let us love, then, because he first loved us. 20 Anyone who says 'I love God' and hates his brother, is a liar, since whoever does not love the brother whom he can see cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 Indeed this is the commandment we have received from him, that whoever loves God, must also love his brother.
​

 

[Hammster]

We only know with certainty at the end of the day in any case. Meanwhile we can have a strong level of assurance if there's evidence of good fruit in our lives. God's always trustworthy and true; we're the wildcard.

So we're to do the best we can with what we're given, neither giving in to licentiousness, laziness, scrupulosity, legalism, despair, whatever-and let the Just Judge give us His determination in the end. One thing's for sure: He'll do the right thing.

Can someone whose name isn’t written in the book of life be saved?

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Can someone whose name isn’t written in the book of life be saved?

Can those written before the book of remembrance was written be saved?
AMP Malachi 3:16
Then those who feared the Lord [with awe-filled reverence] spoke to one another; and the Lord paid attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who fear the Lord [with an attitude of reverence and respect] and who esteem His name.