Featured Does God Love the Seed of the Serpent?

Wow, two posters standing up for truth. Made my day.

 

God clearly stated that we were to LOVE our enemies!

And you've never thought that the reason they are our enemies is because they are his?

 

Since @Iconoclast has repudiated 'serpent seed doctrine' and denied that the thread has anything to do with it, don't you think you should either take him at his word or provide proper exegesis to show him his error?
To claim guilt by distant association without providing proof, and then to insinuate heresy is not a very pleasant way of conducting a debate.

 

If it walks like a duck...
Then there was the five pointer who said he was not a Calvinist.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
For God loved the world of fallen mankind in this way...

 

All smear, no evidence.

 

Actually, he is bring to the argument a specific area of danger of which the readers need to be aware.

I and others (even you) do very good at bringing to light at various times views that can be taken too far.

Personally, it is wonderful to see the exchange as the posts express the footing of various “Doctrines.”

These discussions are not hurtful unless the posters turn from factual exchange into personal sniping.

We men who love the Lord, and seek Him, are more often conformed through our own work in the Scriptures and disagreeable with opinions outside our own

For example: Luther never separated from agreement with the RC concerning the elements of the Lord’s Supper. Zwingli held they were but a portrayal, much as we do, but to this day Lutherns agree with Luther’s view.

So I congratulate you and others for expressing strong views, yet willing as Zwingli and Luther to discuss and reach as in each that which brings the wisdom of God - James 3:But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

 

And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: Gen 5:4

Does God have a saving love for those in bold? Are they the serpent's seed? In your opinion; Where will they spend eternity?

 

The significance of the OP to the matter of the "serpent seed" in comparison to the seed of the Holy Spirit is in the determination of what is "seed."

In Scriptures there are two basic uses of the word "seed" :

• There is the literal seed. That which in agricultural methods reproduces a copy of the plant. The word is also used in the reproductive acts of human and animal. It is in this area that "serpent seed" thinking mocks the Scriptures. This heretical teaching has the serpent mating with Eve resulting in Cain. Again, it is heretical teaching, and yet as all absurdities has a following. Though the OP has not that heresy in mind, it does concern the human condition of the unbeliever and the believer and the purposed work of God in conversion. One without warning presented by others could wander over into dangerous views that are not of the Scriptures.

• There is the use of the word "seed" as a figurative seed. That which the seed is used in the Scriptures as the Word and work of the Holy Spirit, the planting of a thought, the motive of action, the core value, and other such ways. The Word of God is referred to as seed. Evil weed seed sown to mimic the good seed. These figurative uses of "seed" is to keep the reader well aware of the very basic elementary steps that lead to either great service to the Master or to a life lived as a "worthless fellow."

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The OP raised the basic question of whether God loves equally all in spite of the "seed" or is God more selective by extending His unmerited favor to all, but special love for His children.

It is a valid question.

Here is my own thinking.

God is love.

In contrast, the serpent has no such capacity to love as God loves. The capacity of the serpent is masked by deceitful means a emotionalism that humankind consider what they express as love is comparable and even equal to God's love.

For example:
What the unbeliever's "love" does not nor can such "love" generate love that is pure. Ultimately unbeliever "love" is selfish and self centered, it reveals itself is seeking what preserves their own, and though self sacrifice is honorable, in the historical balance it means very little for it rarely changes the person the sacrifices were made for and far less any change effecting others. In what manner did the sacrifices of US soldiers in the 1860's change the individual in today's China? Where did the great sacrifices of the armies of the world lead to peace among nations. Such love has but a temporary lifespan, and more often is but for foggy memories. What unbelieving man unconditionally forgives, especially that of betrayal, mockery, unfaithfulness, ...

In the believer's life, the seed of the Word of God brings everlasting change. More often it not only impacts the one the seed is first implanted, but then spreads to others. The love from that seed abounds in ways portrayed in 1 Corinthians 13. Particularly in the list of how love is and is not manifested:

4Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,6does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never fails; ...
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Imo, possibly the single most unmet item in that list by the vast number of those claiming to be believers is "...does not take into account a wrong suffered..." That is a remarkable translations that (again, imo) brings out the nuance of what is communicated. The KJV rendering is also very good because it also focuses upon the thought process "seed" resulting in the mulling over hurts and thoughts of revenge.

Therefore, the believer can and does extend and express love even in the most harsh unlovely conditions and circumstances. The believer can love and unconditionally and forgive in the midst of betrayal, mockery, unfaithfulness... Because that is what God has done for them, and such love is lived out in the believer.

It is definitely true that the "seed" of the Holy Spirit is of unmeasurable value, and that the love both of the giver and the production of that Love in the believer is unmeasurably greater.

The seed of the enemy is sown in hate, and such deceit. The unbeliever has no capacity to love as God loves.

We are told in the Scriptures that God is Love. So, even that unmerited favor that brings rain to the just and unjust is an expression of His Love. In that preservation and sustaining (for Christ sustains all things) there is no lack of Love.

Yet, it must also be acknowledged, that, though God loves all, and that He first loved before anyone loved Him, there is that unmeasurable love for those in whom He has adopted as His children, not shared by those who are under the authority of the enemy of believers.

The unescapable essence of God's love shed in our hearts is not that seed of fakery, but of eternal value.

 

"at the start"..."separate from the beginning"... that's exactly how the Bible presents it:

"being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand...Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated"

"Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory,"