Universalism

If you believe not God's Word, then who will you believe?


DHK, I don't believe your interpretation of God's word.

John 3:27 John the Baptizer speaks:

NO MAN can receive ANYTHING of his OWN will EXCEPT it is GIVEN from HEAVEN.

Now, if you don't believe this verse, who will you believe?

Do you think you can avoid the Lake of Fire except the power be given to you from heaven?

Ya know, even I don't think that I'm going to avoid the Lake of Fire. My puny will and decisions pales before the awesome mightiness of our God and Savior. Thy will, not mine be done, Almighty Father\o/

In His Loving Grace wherein I stand, Diane

 

Me: Amen and Hallelujah!

Love, Di

PS: That verse I mentioned is John 3:27 - John answered and said to them, no man can receive anything of his own will, except it is given to him from heaven.

 

From a post on another board. I don't know who wrote it:

WHAT IS GRACE?

THE Greek word for "grace" is charis, and it is kindred to the word chara, joy. G. Campbell Morgan said, "Grace is that which gives joy. By the Greeks charis was used
· (1) of art, music, the beautiful, anything that gives joy;
· (2) of the desire to give joy to others. The word meant this before Christianity touched it.
· (3) Then it was used or both these things together, and
· (4) it is the activity that carries out the desire and actually gives joy. Predicate these mounting ideas of God.
Grace is the desire in the heart of the blessed God to communicate His own joy to the hearts of others. Grace gladdens God. Grace is the passion of God to bless. Grace is the love of God seizing every opportunity to gladden the sinful and needful and graceless. Grace explains the mystery of the cross, for there grace took hold of sin and cancelled it."

R. W. Dale's definition is worth remembering: "Grace is love which passes beyond all claims to love. It is love which after fulfilling the obligations imposed by law has still an unexhausted wealth of kindness."

J.W. Jowett said: "Grace is energy. Grace is love energy. Grace is a redeeming love energy ministering to the unlovely and endowing the unlovely with its loveliness."
And again, "Grace is the divine energy of holiness issuing in the ministry of love in quest of the unlovely, and by the communication of itself converting the unlovely into the lovely."

Alex Whyte said: "Grace from its nature has only one direction it can take. Grace always flows down. Grace is love indeed, but it is God's love to creatures who do not deserve His love. And thus it is that God's love to sinners is always called grace in the epistles. All He does for us in Christ, and all that is disclosed to us of His good will in the gospel is called grace. It has been designated 'the speech of infinite love." George L. Rogers (Unsearchable Riches vol.16, p.28).

Ephesians does not deal with the pardon of sins, but the forgiveness of offenses. It is not in the sphere of government, or of the courtroom, but of the home. It has reference, not to God's rule, or His righteousness, but His feelings. We are not forsaking justification for a lower benefit. We are going on to a higher, even if one of the terms is borrowed from the lower. We have not only sinned and are justified, but we have offended God, and are forgiven. This forgiveness, however, is not measured by the mercy shown to the Circumcision. That was temporary because its term depended on its possessor instead of on God. This forgiveness is according to the riches of His grace. It were wise never to leave off this phrase. It raises the matter of forgiveness to the level of the context and makes it glow with glory.

 

That's a great post, Diane. Perhaps by discussing universal reconciliation we can point those who disagree with UR to a deeper appreciation of God's amazing grace. We all need that regardless of our theological viewpoint.

Also, do know about the special offer on The Inescapable Love of God from the author, Thomas Talbott? It is at tomtalbott.freeyellow.com/special.html.

By the way, I met an older person via the Internet last night who is going through a difficult time in his life and he said that he thought God didn't think much of him because of what he has done in the past. I was able to truthfully tell him that God's love is inescapable and that he just needed to trust Him.

Praise be unto God for salvation through the finished work of Christ Jesus. \o/

[ May 30, 2003, 11:19 PM: Message edited by: KenH ]

 

Okie dokie. You said:

Could you amplify on the above? Here is how I understand what you said - You do not believe that God will save everyone. You do not believe that everyone will have human faith in God. Therefore, God's redemption plan fails in those people's lives and evil triumphs.

 

Then you are admitting I was correct, you believe that God's redemption plan can fail(so why did you fuss about what I said about what you said? ). But, you see, I do not believe that God fails in any of His purposes.

 

Diane is stating that it is man's intepretation of the Holy Scriptures that has permitted pagan influences to enter into man's theology, not the Holy Scriptures themselves. By the way, before you disagree too vehemently about this you might want to do some historical research -

St. Augustine was the first major teacher of eternal punishment who did a lot of writing on it. Terullian wrote briefly about it before Augustine and tried to spread that, but all Christians thought he was completely nuts and against the words of Jesus. But, Augustine was the first serious proponent of endless misery which historically was for political reasons as the Christianity of the day was consolidating with Roman authority in the 5th century.

- community-2.webtv.net/eagleknightmin/Independent2

I urge you to do further research on this.

Praise be unto God for salvation through the finished work of Christ Jesus. \o/

 

God's grace prevails so He can have mercy on us all.

2 Cor. 5:19 (ESV)
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Romans 11:32 (ESV)
For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Praise be unto God for salvation through the finished work of Christ Jesus. \o/

 

Ken, you have just shown us that it is possible that God can have mercy on all and that His holiness is not compromised when He accepts sinners because of what Christ has done on our behalf. But the message has to be believed, and Christ received. If not, people face the ramifications of rejecting Christ. Easy.

Neal

 

43. Please explain 2nd Thessalonians 1:9.
These are four words which we specially need to revise in order to understand this passage. These are "punishment," "everlasting," "destruction" and "presence." The revisers have changed the latter to "face" which avoids confusion with the period of His "presence." They also change "everlasting" to "eternal," for what reason it is difficult to see. If "eternal" means without beginning, as well as without end, as the best usage demands, then it is clearly no improvement over "everlasting." It is the usual word for eonian, and, instead of making infinite duration, restricts it to the eons. "Punished" is but a form of the word for "just." It means "justice" (Acts 25:15; 28:4). The word "destruction" is used only four times (1 Cor.5:5; 1 Thess.5:3; 1 Tim.6:9). To avoid confusing it with the word ordinarily so translated, we prefer the rendering "ruin." From this it is evident that some will "incur the retribution of eonian ruin from the face of the Lord" when He comes in the glory of that day.

- www.concordant.org/expohtml/QuestionsAndAnswers/Q&AIndex2.html#43a

 

I'm sorry, Yelsew, but you are not making any sense to me at all.

Praise be unto God for salvation through the finished work of Christ Jesus. \o/

 

I agree that there are ramifications for rejecting Christ. Where we are disagreeing is that I don't believe any individual will reject Christ forever and ever and ever and ever...

Now whether it is a matter of God's sovereignty(based on a Calvinistic understanding) that brings this about, or whether it is a matter of God being all-powerful and all-wise to bring about man's repentance and coming to Jesus through His knowledge of His own creatures and what is necessary to effect this in each one of us, I am now not settled on. I am doing further research on this matter - perhaps the answer lies outside the tradition boundaries of the Calvinism/non-Calvinism/Arminianism/Pelagianism theological grid.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is theological understanding of the Bible.

Praise be unto God for salvation through the finished work of Christ Jesus. \o/

 

Hey, we agree on something! Isn't this two things within the last day or two? Wow, that is getting scary!

Neal

P.S. I also agree with that part on building a theology.

 

Hey, Yelsew, the original manuscripts were flawless. The copies made in the original languages were still quite accurate. There is less security in the translations from the original languages into other languages(such as English), especially when the same Greek word is translated into different English words rather than being translated consistently into the same English word. Then further, we all know that human interpretations of even the original languages are liable to be incorrect. Otherwise, we could simply go back to the first commentaries ever written based on the original languages and simply agree with what was written. But even the earliest commentators disagree with each other.

Fortunately, my trust is in God, not in some translator or commentator.

Praise be unto God for salvation through the finished work of Christ Jesus. \o/