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Cruel and unjust God?
- Thread starter AustinC
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...and the only response? "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?"
Garrett20
Member
I think Paul said it best:
‘What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.’ Romans 9.14-16 NKJV
Not in Latin.
They were translated into Dutch in the late seventies and finally into English in 2000 (or therebouts by Theodore de Bruyn)
I don't care about Pelagius. He is not at issue here, nor are his teachings.
If you promote believers Baptism by immersion........(contra Augustine for instance) You promote Pelagius' teachings.
It does support Believers' Baptism by immersion, so.........
The Penal Substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross was absolutely necessary so that Christ would bear the punishment for sin.
I don't know why you would say the cross of Christ is unnecessary, it very much is.
You have said nothing about the subject.
You ignored your own O.P. and started jabbering about Pelagius.
Whatever fascination you have with him is your own issue.
He wasn't that important.
I am interested in your O.P. and have answered it in my opinion.
If you seek to derail your own thread, ask the mods to close it so others can take up the subject without your interference.
Your answer is Pelagian, which is why I bring it up. You deny the curse that is upon all mankind at conception because of Adam's sin. It is precisely that curse which required the Redeemer of the curse be incarnated (not produced through man's seed and the egg of a woman) into this world as the new Adam whose sacrifice would pay for the curse of sin, which was upon me.
Your theology makes Jesus sacrifice meaningless if a child somehow remained sinless. You would make any child their own potential redeemer. Such a position is entirely contrary to the word of God.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
As you know, I am a former Calvinist who now rejects that teaching as heretical and slanderous of God, which Calvinism does while under the guise of the greatest spirituality and humility, of course.
That being said, I disagree with that assertion.
God was under no moral obligation to make salvation available to all.
But I am thankful that he did it because he is a compassionate and gracious God to all.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
That's not the cry of a non-Calvinist. That's the cry of a Jew (or any other religious do-gooder) over why God has hardened Israel (or any other religious do-gooder) despite the fact that they were following after the law of righteous works.
Any soul-winner would also understand that from this interactions with people on the street. Ex: "but I am good little religious and a good person, I've never killed anyone, never robbed a bank, I've followed the golden rule. Why would God reject me? Meanwhile, that no-good guy over there doesn't live as holy as me, but just because he believes on Jesus, God picks him over me? He has let Satan blind my mind but not his? That's not fair".
First, I had no idea you once held to the teaching of the Bible.
Second, your disagreement with God not being obligated to be a propitiation for sin makes no biblical sense.
Third, if God is obligated to purchase the sins of all humanity and remove their sin as far as the east is from the west, is he then even more cruel to send that which he made holy into hell?
Therefore, you make God utterly vile if all humanity is not saved, when God has, by your reckoning, made all men perfect by the propitiation of Christ Jesus. Your theology makes God unjust and unholy and altogether barbaric.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
Really? How so? What's your verse? I thought God didn't owe us sinners anything.
There HAS to be some type of limiting on the atonement, or else one must be a Universalist!
Show us where God obligates himself to make all humans holy and righteous. Show us how a God who has made a person holy and righteous through his penal sacrifice can then justly cast that perfect being into eternal hellfire.
That is your teaching, if God is obligated (as you demand) to purchase all humanity with his penal sacrifice. George, you make God unjust and cruel beyond imagination. You make God worse than a person who aborts an infant in the womb.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
What are you talking about? I said I disagree with the assertion, not agree with it.
Are you sure you didn't read my answer a little too quickly?
You added a "not" to the assertion:
I disagree that he is obligated, not that he is not obligated.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
Well yes, of course, and that limit comes from man's free will to reject the offer of the grace of God.
George Antonios
Well-Known Member
Romans 9:20 is not the cry of a "non-Calvinist"; it's the cry of a Jew (or any other religious do-gooder) over why God has hardened Israel (or any other religious do-gooder) despite the fact that they were following after the law of righteous works.
Any soul-winner would also understand that from this interactions with people on the street. Ex: "but I am a religious and a good person, I've never killed anyone, never robbed a bank, I've followed the golden rule. Why would God reject me? Meanwhile, that no-good guy over there doesn't live as holy as me, but just because he believes on Jesus, God picks him over me? He has let Satan blind my mind but not his? That's not fair".
So now you say God is not obligated to save anyone? Great. We agree.
Any person God saves is purely by God's Sovereign providence.
The Savior now says, "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." Believing is not the cause of a sinner obtaining Divine life, rather is it the effect of it. The fact that a man believes, is the evidence that he already has Divine life within him. True, the sinner ought to believe. Such is his bounden duty. And in addressing sinners from the standpoint of human responsibility, it is perfectly proper to say ‘Whosoever believeth in Christ shall not perish but have eternal life.’ Nevertheless, the fact remains that no unregenerate sinner ever did or ever will believe. The unregenerate sinner ought to love God, and love Him with all his heart. He is commanded to. But he does not, and will not, until Divine grace gives him a new heart. So he ought to believe, but he will not till he has been quickened into newness of life. Therefore, we say that when any man does believe, is found believing, it is proof positive that he is already in possession of eternal life. "He that believeth on me hath (already has) eternal life": cf. John 3:36; 5:24; 1 John 5:1... Exposition On The Gospel Of John by Arthur Pink... Brother Glen
In what passage was it that God cursed mankind?
I remember the account in Genesis, God cursed the serpent, and he cursed the ground. I recall no curse upon mankind.
No. the Redeemer was incarnated because mankind had to pay the price for the sin of mankind. God, in his love, incarnated through the Second Person of the Trinity to pay that penalty in the stead of his creation. In this way, God would satisfy the demands of Divine Justice also permitting him to show mercy.
That is an assumption based upon a rather dated speculation that somehow the "sin-gene" is carried materially, physically and specifically by the seed of the human male, or alternatively is passed on through the act of procreation itself. (That is the original meaning of the term concupiscence.) It is hinted at no where in Scripture. It satisfies a somewhat Gnostic tendency of the early Church to look upon flesh as inherently evil instead of inherently weak as the Scriptures teach. It satisfied the thinking of the Manichean heretic Augustine for sure, and the highly Gnosticized and paganized early and Medieval Church.
The Bible, however, states that the purpose of the virgin birth was to serve as a sign. You will find no other Biblical reason for the Virgin birth anywhere in the text.
One Child did remain sinless. His name was Jesus. Denial of this is Docetism. Jesus was not God in a Halloween costume, he was truly a human.
No; be more precise. Theoretically, they wouldn't need a redeemer because they wouldn't have a sin-debt to pay actually. So what? Jesus had no Redeemer and it doesn't seem to have wrecked the system.
I know this:
I am not without sin. Adam wasn't without sin. I daresay, you wouldn't qualify as sinless either. Christ's redeeming sacrifice is hardly meaningless to me, or if I'm guessing correctly, it isn't meaningless to you either.
God loved all mankind. All mankind ultimately sins and will stand in need of a Saviour lest he suffer the Second Death.
There was, in fact, one human who lived a sinless life, according to the Scriptures.
No, it is against the
"All men are born with a guilt-curse which is passed on in human male deoxyribonucleic acid somehow" Theological System for sure. That doesn't bother me.
But, it is not against the "Jesus Christ came to save sinners like me who stand in need of a redeemer because I have sinned and come short of the glory of God" Theological system which is the one I prefer.
Christ's payment for my sin, at least, on the cross, is hardly meaningless to me.
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George Antonios
Well-Known Member
I've never said that God was "obligated" to save people.
What in the world? How does Calvinism follow from "God is not obligated to save anyone"?
So saving faith is in all lost sinners?
Why so much objection to God choosing out for Himself his own peculiar people?
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