Philip wrote: ↑Wed Aug 22, 2018 9:21 pm
Stu, Scripture repeatedly says God is ALL-knowing (a bit about that here: https://www.gotquestions.org/God-omniscient.html). And so, this is either true or not. There are many, many incredible, detailed and fulfilled prophecies across Scripture. The ones about the Messiah alone are mind-boggling. What you are mistaking is that God does not change His mind, not in the sense like a man would, based upon new information he didn't previously have. But God reacts to us, finite creatures who live in real time, IN real time. There has never been an actual past or future thing that God hasn't always known about. Time is but a tool for Him. But God knows that we don't and can't know all that He does. He respects our limitations and reacts to us per our limitations of knowledge and ignorance of things past and future.
Notice Revelation 13:8's reference to the Book of Life - of which all Christians of all time are written - and especially not WHEN this book's names were written!
"and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain."[/u]
One who would argue against God's omniscience can't possibly believe Scripture is God-given - because such claims are made throughout it!
Ok then please address why God said He would destroy Nineveh and then CHANGED HIS MIND when the people repented.
It's a few posts up.
Only when the blood runs and the shackles restrain, will the sheep then awake. When all is lost.
I already explained - God reacts to man in real time because he made us to live in such time. Of course he knew they would repent - which is what He both always wanted them to do AND knew they would.
This is an awesome film if you like a really good mind bender. Watch it if you dare. I reckon it has nothing to do with this thread though .... or does it ?
Hammie: Is a human being exercising "free will" while a slave to sin ? That is unlikely. The majority of humanity is acting under the law of cause and effect. (the cause being mostly sinful actions and the effect being the receiving of payment for those transgressions)
Didn't see this post beforehand. IF we have committed ourselves to Jesus in faith, we are without further guilt for ANY sin. And yet, we obviously can indeed still sin as long as we live in our mortal flesh.
Hammie: "The majority of humanity is acting under the law of cause and effect."
The reality is we ALL both sin and must face the repercussions of our sin on earth. Of course, God both offers forgiveness and POSITIONALLY sees no sins, nor holds accountable the sins, of Christians. As for non-Christians, they are still guilty before God. And if they remain unsaved until death, then they will not be forgiven and as a result will be separated eternally from God and punished - an unimaginably terrible thing!
Hammie: "Is a human being exercising "free will" while a slave to sin ? That is unlikely."
Of course, CHRISTIANS are no longer slaves to sin - Jesus freed us from that. Although many Christians, unfortunately, still live as if they are slaves to sin. But even as Christians, we are either still free to willfully sin, or our sin isn't caused by OUR will - which would mean God wants us to sin. But we know THAT is false per James 1 says God causes no sin: "13Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He himself tempts no one. 14But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by HIS OWN desire. 15Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." Notice that what verse 15 tells us is the mother (that "gives birth") of sin: Our "OWN desire."
With all the different and interesting post. I have to say it's good to understand something. So since God reacts to us in real time does this mean we are predestined if we still in a sin until we change and repent to God?
Usagi, again, a person's decision - whether to accept or reject Christ - is their own. What God predestinines for each person is based ONLY upon THEIR final decision (That is, before they die, their rejection or acceptance of Christ), but FIRST, and most importantly, upon how He decided predestination would work / what it's tied to. He predestines only two categories of people: A) Those who became Christians before they die, to heaven and B) those who die remaining in rejection of God / Christ to Hell. Of course, as God already knows precisely what people will end their lives believing, He already knows the fate of each. And many who don't currently believe, WILL yet do so before they die. So, ultimately, each person's FINAL decision is what predestines them per the two categories God has set up.
Philip wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 3:37 pmGod cannot cause either the sin of rejection …
"Why, O Lord, do You cause us to stray from Your ways
And harden our heart from fearing You?" (Isa 63:17)
And as a side note, IF God pre-destined that certain people could only ever reject Him - and HE is the cause of their rejection, precisely because that's what He always wanted for them - then why is He so angry at people all through the Bible for "causing them to react to Him just as He designed them to respond to Him?
Good question! Paul writes: "What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory..." (Rom 9:22–23)
And why the Great Commission if Believers only respond to God as per a His programmed inevitability - meaning, there would otherwise be no possibility of ANY Believer not coming to faith - so no Great Commission necessary!
Because God uses people to bring about his sovereign will.
And how could FORCED love be genuine?
But "We love, because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). So we must be loved, in order to love God, call that forced love if you wish, but on our own, we cannot love God.
As well, IF Reformed Theology and Five Point Calvinism's assertions about God and His Character were true, then the following things* about Him would also be true - although many Scriptures directly refute such perverted assessments of God's will for men:
* That as opposed to the testimony of John 3:17: ("17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."), Scripture's testimony as to the intention of Jesus' mission of being born into the world isn't really true, as the Calvinist reality would contradict it, as Five Pointists insist (although they frequently won't acknowledge it) that God actually hates (on a level the Nazis' couldn't have) the vast majority of humanity and thus created most humans so as to make them live lives of suffering and desperation now, only to be followed by ETERNAL punishment and anguish - and did so, mind you, not for any sins they had committed, but merely because He supposedly decided their fate before the world even existed - meaning, it's merely the fate that He wanted for them - as HE chose them to forever remain unsaved.
* He's an insincere hypocrite who demands ALL people come to repentance and faith in Him, and yet He's supposedly prevented most from ever having had that option or ability to do so. And so, for such people, He supposedly commanded them to do what He really doesn't want them to (repent/have faith), AND that He has supposedly PREVENTED them from being capable of / or of having the option of doing. And yet He's bizarrely angry that they don't do what He has made them incapable of doing (repenting / having faith in Christ). This would be a God who is a schizophrenic - wanting two, directly conflicting things - people being obedient AND many or most being incapable of His required obedience!
* He's a God who says He causes no sin - and yet, as Scripture tells us the failure to obey and repent and to remain in rebellion to Him is a terrible sin - this would mean GOD is the reason and cause people continue in their sin and fail to obey Him. Thus, this would mean, despite God's prolific assertions to desire people embrace Him in love and faith, the reality of Calvinist assertions would mean that God truly doesn't want the unsaveds' repentance or their obedience - because He's deliberately made that impossible for them.
* God is supposedly a God Who desires to HATE far more than He desires to Love!
* Believers' efforts at evangelizing really have nothing whatsoever to do with anyone's personal desire or understanding of their need for salvation - as what saves a person is (supposedly) ONLY when God regenerates them to faith.
* Would deny the following verses indicating God ultimately desires to save all people who are WILLING, and that ALL CAN be so willing:
1 Timothy 2:3-4: 3: "This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."
2 Peter 3:9: "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."
Romans 10:13: "For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Ezekiel 18:23: "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?"
Philip,
maybe your wording could be better, because if you say:
"He's an insincere hypocrite who demands ALL people come to repentance and faith in Him, and yet He's supposedly prevented most from ever having had that option or ability to do so."
people from Reformed camp, (or maybe I am wrong) would object that God did not prevent people from having that option.
Man fell.
If you want to use the word 'prevent', then please, specify how he did that?
But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
-- 1 Thessalonians 5:21
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
-- Philippians 1:6
Hana: people from Reformed camp, (or maybe I am wrong) would object that God did not prevent people from having that option.
Man fell.
If you want to use the word 'prevent', then please, specify how he did that?
Hana, Five Point Calvinism teaches that man plays NO role in choosing or even accepting God - as they believe ONLY GOD chooses who He will save, and assert that He doesn't want to save all. AND that He doesn't give ALL an opportunity OR even an ability to choose Christ. In fact, FP Calvinism teaches there is NO offer to choose God/Christ, as ONLY HE chooses the select ones He desires (His Elect) to save, AND that He also chooses the ones He doesn't want saved. They also teach a man before salvation can have no desire to want God or salvation.
"Only AFTER God makes a person alive, can he and will he accept Christ."
So, Five Point Calvinism teaches that salvation is NOT open to ALL - but asserts that salvation is ONLY a matter of whom God chooses to save, AND that the unsaved will remain so - not because of their own free will rejection of God - but ONLY because God FIRST chose NOT to save them. So, per Calvinism, there is NO choice by man in the matter of Salvation - as they assert it's ONLY God's choice whether a person is saved OR that they remain unsaved. So, in this belief, per Calvinist "logic," God damned the unsaved before they were even alive, and they assert He did so, NOT because of any foreknowledge He had of their eventual lives and future, permanent rejection of Christ - as they insist the permanently unsaved will remain so, not based upon any of their sins, but upon GOD's choice - as He supposedly chose not to save them BEFORE THE EARTH OR ANY HUMANS EVER EXISTED OR EVER SINNED. So, in their view, those damned to Hell remain so, not due to any sin or anything they might otherwise have been capable of doing (like being able to ACCEPT Christ).
Here's another outtake from the TULIP link - as to the "L" in TULIP, which is "LIMITED ATONEMENT":
"THE SECOND DISTORTION of this biblical truth is that Christ died for all men. Some teach that Christ made it possible for all men to be saved. But the questions that must be asked are: "If Christ died for all men, why are not all men saved?" "Can not God do what He desires to do?" "Is there something defective in Christ's death?" "Must man desire to be saved first?" But a man who is totally depraved can not will to be saved. He hates God and wants nothing to do with Christ's death. So it must not be said that Christ died for all men."
So, Calvinists have cherrypicked Scriptures and not held them in correct context to arrive at their distorted belief that God does not desire ALL people to be saved and insist that Jesus did not die for ALL people or to make it possible that all could be saved, as if only they might desire to - as Calvinism teaches that no man can desire Christ or be saved before being "regenerated by God" - which is a dark, dangerous lie that makes God out to be a monster who supposedly damned people eternally, and ONLY because that is what He had always wanted for them - and NOT because of Him having foreseen their eventual freely chosen rejection of Him. You see, in Calvinism, what ultimately causes the unsaved to reject God is cast upon them BEFORE THEY EVER LIVED - as they assert it is GOD who rejected and hated the unsaved FIRST!
So, Five Point Calvinism is a sick perversion of the Gospel that directly contradicts many key Scriptures - some of which I've already noted.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son, it is us, after reckless living, come to our senses and we decide to call out to the Father. Of course, the Father knows all along of what's going on, and he is waiting for our decision to return. Once we sincerely call out, he rushes to us and gives us salvation under the covenant of Grace.
Just imagine if you had many children of your own. If you had hundreds of children, you would let them have free will but if they called out to you and they were in trouble, you would rush out to them like lightning and save them. remember - we are made in his image !
"There was once a man who had two sons; and the younger said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the property.' So he divided his estate between them. A few days later the younger son turned the whole of his share into cash and left home for a distant country, where he squandered it in reckless living. He had spent it all, when a severe famine fell upon that country and he began to feel the pinch. So he went and attached himself to one of the local landowners, who sent him on to his farm to mind the pigs. He would have been glad to fill his belly with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. Then he came to his senses and said, 'How many of my father's paid servants have more food than they can eat, and here am I, starving to death! I will set off and go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned, against God and against you; I am no longer fit to be called your son; treat me as one of your paid servants.'
So he set out for his father's house. But while he was still a long way off his father saw him, and his heart went out to him. He ran to meet him, flung his arms round him and kissed him. The son said, 'Father, I have sinned, against God and against you; I am no longer fit to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! fetch a robe, my best one, and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us have a feast to celebrate the day. For this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.' And the festivities began.
Now the elder son was out on the farm; and on his way back, as he approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what it meant. The servant told him, 'Your brother has come home, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has him back safe and sound.' But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and pleaded with him; but he retorted, 'You know how I have slaved for you all these years; I never once disobeyed your orders; and you never gave me so much as a kid, for a feast with my friends. But now that this son of yours turns up, after running through your money with his women, you kill the fatted calf for him.' - 'My boy', said the father, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. How could we help celebrating this happy day?
Your brother here was dead and has come back to life, was lost and is found." ~ Joshua Emmanuel the Christ
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Mystical Interpretation
For me, this is the most important parable. It contains the very essence of truth. What did the son say to his father? 'Give me my share of the property.' What is his property? Mind - everything that is Mind, including matter. The 'younger son' is a soul passing through the Idea of Man, the Human Idea. The elder son is an Archangel. He also has his share of the property, which means that Archangels are using Mind, too. So our brothers who stayed with the Father have their 'share' - which is Mind. The 'younger son' - that is: 'human beings' - spends his share on 'reckless living' - experiences in the worlds of separation.
As Joshua describes it, the Lords of matter, the Lords of Separation, had him as their slave. They sent him out to look after the pigs. What are those 'pigs'? The elementals (thought forms) he had created. And he was content to eat the food those pigs were eating. That refers to the filthy combination of the low elementals, which pollute mind and emotion. These are the elementals which Joshua called 'deaf and dumb spirits' (Mark 9:25) .
But then he came to his senses. 'What is this that I am eating?' he said. 'What are all those thoughts and emotions I have? Do they satisfy me? I am eating the same food as the pigs.' So he decided to leave and go back to his Father.
This is another very important point. All the while he was thinking those thoughts, his father knew it. Then he started thinking how to behave towards his father. 'Am I worthy to be his son? Let me go back and sell myself into his service.' But when he had taken some steps towards his father, the father rushed to him and embraced him. So the father is waiting for his return.
What did he say, the Father? He told the Archangels to dress him, in the best clothes he had. 'You are my son', He said, 'you are not a servant. You are a son!' What is meant by 'a servant'? The elementals of the Archangels, the angels. They are the 'servants'. He gave him his own best clothes. He didn't deprive the Archangels of their best clothes. Then he put a ring on his finger.
An Archangel only gets a ring on his finger when he returns as a Self-Realized Being, after going through the human experience. I have contacted the Archangels many times and I tried to make them understand time, what we humans know as past, present and future. 'We are in the Eternal Now', they reply. They understand the Eternal Now, for they have always existed 'now', they exist 'now' and they always will exist 'now'. So they do not understand past, present and future. What interests them is their work and the Truth, expressing their nature as they are, without understanding time.
The ring on his finger is symbolizing the knowledge and understanding of eternity. Eternity is movement without beginning and without end. Infinite Beingness is eternal motion. Suppose somebody moves on a ring, he will move eternally without having a beginning and an end. This is the sense of eternity. A human being moving on the ring, can understand the nature of past, present and future. But for a being at the centre of the ring, and the movement - as the Archangels are - there is no past, present, and future, only the Eternal Now. In the parable of the prodigal son, it is stated clearly, that when the prodigal son returned home, first the father sacrificed the well-fed animal, that means the material body; 'flesh and blood can never possess the kingdom of heavens' (1 Cor. 15:50) . This is obvious. Then the father gave him the best dress he had for a prince, the same dress that the Archangel - the elder brother had. There is no distinction between them in that. But when the prodigal son was given a ring on his finger, his father made him different from the Archangels in heaven.
So the 'elder brother' (which means all the orders of the Archangels) is complaining, 'You never offered me a sacrifice.' But the Archangel never had a material body to sacrifice. As we said, the 'fatted calf' means the material body. His father told him, 'You are working as a lord of the elements for humans and for animals, but they are not yours. So you have nothing to kill. But he, my younger son, has dressed himself with matter.' Sacrificing, killing a 'fatted calf' means killing the involvement with matter. The elder brother, the Archangel, had never enslaved himself to matter, so he had never needed even a 'baby goat' to be sacrificed to set him free. 'So why do you complain?' the Father asked. 'Everything I have, is it not also yours? You have not been deprived of anything that is yours.'
The Archangel never used Mind in the way humans are using it, projecting elementals (thoughts), good and bad. In this way, human beings learn lessons leading eventually to their return to Absolute Beingness, the Father, with the knowledge and understanding to be accepted as a child of God. ~Daskalos
Is God a hypocrite? NO!!! And so, Jesus showed that He/God desires WE love ALL - to even to pray for our ENEMIES - what a concept - must have blown their minds! No, God doesn't instruct man to love all and then He hypocritically loves some and hates most. But that is what Calvinists insist about God!
Jesus:
"For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?"
"But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you"
And notice the lawyer in Luke 10, attempting to justify only loving those he desired to love, asks Jesus, "But who is my neighbor?" And so, what is also God's value concerning love: “The one who showed him mercy.” God desires we love and show mercy to others - even those we might not be particularly concerned about. I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't a Calvinist!
