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At what point . . .
- Thread starter Aaron
- Start date
God never stops loving His own and never stops hating those who are not His own.
Jer. 31:3?
Jer. 31:3?
Can God hate what God breathed into man?
That doesn't seem logical.
God hating His own breath?
Look up traducianism...I think that's how it's spelled.
Doesn't apply.
Because the Scriptures state, God breathed into Adam the breath of life. This was in contrast to all the other animal kingdom, who had life but not that breath of God.
So, again, does God hate his own breath?
Study traducianism. God never hated Adam, but Adam and Eve made Cain, Abel, Seth and so on.
Am I assuming correctly that you do not consider the "living soul" that God breathed into Adam was part of Adam's decedents?
Here's what I am driving at. In Gen. 1:11 we read Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. Now, when a tree starts growing, was it via nature, meaning an nut fell to the ground, worked it way into the soil and sprouted, or does the Almighty take His hand and plant it Himself? It's the former, of course. Who made cars? Man or God? Man. Granted, God gave man the intelligence and materials to make them.
Now, God told man “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth"[Gen. 1:28b]. It is man, through God, who now creates life via procreation. Everything God made that man has laid hold of, they have defiled. God made everything 'good and very good', yet man has defiled it.
Intercourse was sanctioned by God as a holy act, yet Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of sexual perversions.
It was due to Adam's sin he tainted his seed. It is the seed of Christ, those 'chosen from before the creation of the world,' that God loves.
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The question is posed more to those who believe God loves all equally. Unless they are willing to say that God loves those in hell with an everlasting love, then there has to be some point at which He stopped loving them. And the rest of us, instead of mourning for all eternity the suffering of torment of God's loved ones below, will rejoice over God's judgment of His enemies.
Implications about God's love and the elect abound in the answer to this question. For that reason, I do not believe any noncalvinist on this board will seriously grapple with it.
Implications about God's love and the elect abound in the answer to this question. For that reason, I do not believe any noncalvinist on this board will seriously grapple with it.
Traducianism is near heresy.
It's nothing but a feeble attempt to explain how Romans 5:12 applies. Well, Romans 5 is not speaking about the inner man - it's speaking about the physical body.
Anyone who espouses Traducianism is utterly devoid of the ability to grasp the biblical concept of regeneration.
It's nothing but a feeble attempt to explain how Romans 5:12 applies. Well, Romans 5 is not speaking about the inner man - it's speaking about the physical body.
Anyone who espouses Traducianism is utterly devoid of the ability to grasp the biblical concept of regeneration.
Soul is Greek psyche. The mind. Can God hate a mind? A memory? A thought?
An individual, then. A person. Whatever you want to call the self-aware, intelligent consciousness that one calls "himself." I call it the soul, because it's easy and is a legitimate use of the term.
"Man became a living soul." Moses.
Can one can make the claim "God loves all equally" and not violate the principle of toleration of Scriptures?
Did God demonstrate the equal love of Adam and Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, Lot, Abraham...?
Did Christ love all the disciples equally? Is it not recorded specifically that John was the one Jesus loved?
It is human to equate the love of God in terms of human experience. However, there is no diminishing aspect to God's love into that of hate. Relatively speaking, I may have three vehicles, one that I love more and two that I love less. I don't have to love less to the point of hate. For God to love more and less is a principle of Scriptures. However, at no time does the Scriptures state, "God is hate" or that God hates more. Rather, when it comes to loving less, God states it in terms such as "it will be more tolerable ..."
When does the believer have all tears wiped?
Who does the wiping?
It is my opinion that wiping occurs at the final estate when the believer understands the toleration of God's love as reflected in the miserableness of those in the lake of fire.
He could have mercy on them and end their complete existence and obliterate any memory of those in that eternal estate.
Rather, God allows them to continue in the painful experience of that appointed place as an expression of His love. He continues to sustain that place and the living in that place because ultimately, "God is Love."
Love in no manner diminishes judgment and justice.
Mercy and truth kissed each other.
God can posses both attributes, share both toward humankind without diminishing the aspects of either. The same with Love.
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Implications about God's love and the elect abound in the answer to this question. For that reason, I do not believe any noncalvinist on this board will seriously grapple with it.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps it is that both "camps" can run to an extreme in this matter.
It can be shown that there are those that would restrict the love of God to only the selected. On the other side of the extreme, there are those who would express the love of God as unbounded and without eternal condemnation.
Extremes are usually in conflict with the truth of Scripture.
Does God love Satan and those angels that fell with him?
That is a most interesting question. The answer must consider the expression of love from a human perspective.
On one hand, Scriptures present Satan as the antithesis of God. From a human perspective, it would seem that God would have nothing but disdain and detest even the presence of Satan. And, such an expression is given by the human side in the Scriptures when comparing devotion to God and disgust with evil.
However, in the Scriptures, there is this recognition by God of the authority God gave to Satan as well as acknowledged authority over all that Satan considers his domain. Not that Satan is the final authority, but the designated authority by God.
Continuing with the human perspective: I hate snakes.
I don't interact with snakes other than kill them. I don't go seeking them out, and I don't care if they have a red or black nose. I don't care if they have a white belly, or white mouth. I don't care if they have two teeth or wee little teeth. I don't care if they want to hug me or bite my shin. I detest snakes. I don't prepare a special place for them, but do my best to annihilate any that may come to my presence. I have the same attitude toward rats, mice, roaches, ... they are not tolerated in my presence.
The God in Heaven doesn't love as humankind, nor have the perspective of humankind.
There is no redemption offered to Satan, nor to that of Satan - not to him, his cohorts, and those humans who bask in the darkness and glory in the evil. But there is ultimate authority over them far beyond my authority over all snakes. There is toleration of their presence, sustaining of their existence, and preparation for the eternal estate that is appointed.
From a human perspective, such care is an expression of love, judgment and justice that is almost incomprehensible.
From a human perspective, judgment and justice are often without love. But then we did not create all things. I have little or know care concerning a bridge that I have no knowledge even exists. If it falls down, and I learn of it, there is little if any interest.
What we do create, we usually will have some level of care and concern, perhaps a limited level of love. So, we grieve if what we created doesn't meet the expectations, and we get angry at the wasted time and effort, and disappointed at some lack of forethought or planning that would have prevented the failure.
If, even in the fallen human kind, such moderation of love is found, is it not logical that with God, who has complete understanding of every aspect of all He created, such capacity and spectrum of love be found?
Therefore, when the Scriptures declare, "God is love," there must be far more profoundly abundant attributes and nuances of how that love is involved with every aspect of His creation than what human kind have the ability. Humankind was created in the image, and fallen humankind have fallen attributes of God's image.
From the human perspective, I despise, I hate, I do not tolerate, and I throw away.
From the perspective of God, He presents a renewal, that which is prepared, that which replaces. I would never do that for snakes.
I.O.W. God loves everyone. Even the souls in hell. And their torment is an expression of God's love. It just doesn't look like it.
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Well, it certainly did in my case, and you had better hope it does in yours, too.
For the believer, justice and judgment are placed as "no condemnation" (Romans), while, John 3, the unbeliever is condemned already. I am amazed at the wonderful grace of God to place me in the security of no condemnation.
See, just as in the human experience, there is levels or moderation of love to fit the purpose. The love of family is not at all the love I have for the neighbor and the stranger is far less.
Remember in the Scriptures the little phrase, "And such were some of you?"
That was me. Yet, God proved his love to me, because while I was still without Him, He chose me to be His. Not for any cause other than when the light was given, I did not ignore, or shun it.
Had God not loved what humankind considers, unlovable, then He probably wouldn't have created nearly as much as He did, because I can think of a number of things that this world could do without (imo).
Aaron, I understand the exercise of Spirit you may sense when I present this concept. I am not asking for agreement, but merely to acquaint you with a side of the argument which doesn't violate Scriptures and (imo) can fit far more consistently with the presentation given by God throughout the Bible. Especially for those of us who embrace the D. of G.