An honest question for Christians

Originally posted by RJHinds
To answer your questions, it is best to read the Holy Bible with a good believers commentary to help explain it all to you.

The Instructor

I'll pass on that invitation and instead just use my own mind about such things rather than let some idiot human who is already duped into believing the nonsense of religion trying to convert me.

Originally posted by KellyJay
You dislike that one is saved and another not, that is your complaint. The
reasons you have been using have to do with one is a better person than
another, thus you have a scale where you believe one is more worthy than
another.

Eternal suffering, well you may not like it as there are a lot of things both
us do not like, and our likes do not change t ...[text shortened]... ur works that causes us to be saved least any of us can boast we
earned our way in.
Kelly

So, lets have you prove the reality of this eternal suffering thing. Show me outside the bible where this is in any sense reality. Why don't you think about what you are saying? That a god, infinitely more intelligent and wise and so forth, would condemn billions of mere humans to eternal suffering because its ego was crushed by all that rejection?

As an analogy, lets take humans with an ant farm. They watch certain individual ants who perform as they want and let them have the best patch of the ant colony but those ants they deem unworthy, instead of just separating them out or just killing them outright, they put them in a chamber where miniature electrodes are attached to their little legs and pulses of electricity tortures them for the rest of their lives but the humans, clever as they are, are able to modify the DNA of each individual ant so they live thousands of years and tortured continuously all that time.

Can't you see how ridiculous that all sounds in that context? Why is it not just as ridiculous or even MORE ridiculous when you are comparing that to a frigging GOD verses mere humans who will forever have their own foibles and faults and those foibles and faults were supposedly built in to us by the very god who supposedly made us? Made us with faults that would predestine some of us to this eternal damnation and torture for being a faulty life form? Come on, THINK about it. DEEPLY. Not just referring to some asinine biblical passage. Think about with YOUR OWN MIND.

So, lets have you prove the reality of this eternal suffering thing. Show me outside the bible where this is in any sense reality. Why don't you think about what you are saying? That a god, infinitely more intelligent and wise and so forth, would condemn billions of mere humans to eternal suffering because its ego was crushed by all that rejection?

Your analogy is wrong. Take this to another scale. If I speed down a road at 90 miles an hour and the traffic sign says 50 miles per hour, I have broken the law.

Now I may argue to the judge that if he fines me or punishes me he has weak ego. I may complain that he should not order me to pay a ticket because that would betray his weak ego.

"What is a matter judge. You cannot take everyone not being your best friend ? How oversensitive you are. Get over yourself. I don't have to like you."

You are making a caricature out of God's regard for justice.
Yes, God does love man.
Yes, God wants man's love.

But the gospel message is not primarily a command to love God.
It is primarily a command to believe in Christ. For in Christ justice has been accomplished for all the sin of the entire mankind from all time.

By believing in the Son of God you agree that this substitution of Him in your place, for you, has taken place.

This is like a blank check upon which a person who owes an unthinkable amount to someone, may fill in any amount of money he needs to pay off his huge debt.

You could tell God that He is super swell and you really really love Him. But you refuse to confess Jesus as Lord. Substitution by Christ for your debt you have refused in this rejection of Jesus as the Lord.

In neither one of these two important passages is LOVE to God emphasized:

1.) "That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

2.) "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us out sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Neither passage stresses that God's feelings are hurt because you don't love God. The first verse says you must confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead whether you love Him or NOT.

The other passages says that if you confess you sins to Christ He is faithful and RIGHTEOUS to forgive you your sins. It doesn't matter if He likes you or doesn't like you. He is RIGHTEOUS to HAVE to forgive you for the sake of Christ's atoning work.

He is FAITHFUL to the Son who petitioned "Father forgive them ...". Yet He forgives righteously because the believer is not a debtor with his debt ignored or forgotten. Rather he is a debtor with his debt PAID.

Can't you see how ridiculous that all sounds in that context? Why is it not just as ridiculous or even MORE ridiculous when you are comparing that to a frigging GOD verses mere humans who will forever have their own foibles and faults and those foibles and faults were supposedly built in to us by the very god who supposedly made us? Made us with faults that would predestine some of us to this eternal damnation and torture for being a faulty life form? Come on, THINK about it. DEEPLY. Not just referring to some asinine biblical passage. Think about with YOUR OWN MIND.

There is something deeply flawed in your complaint. And frankly, I find it more profitable to muse on the biblical passages. Especially those invitations of God to us that we can be transformed in salvation, conformed to the image of that Perfect One in salvation. Those promises that in Christ we will be presented eventually before God without spot or wrinkle or any such foreign element such as sins.

Since as a by product of being placed in Christ we are to be conformed to His perfection, it is strange that we would refuse for here truly our "DNA" so to speak is sure to be made Christ like however things went wrong with His initial world.

In essence when God created man He warned -

You have the ability to ruin our relationship.
If you do exercise your freedom of choice and ruin the Divine / Human relationship you cannot fix it. I will have to come in to fix it.

You, man, can destroy the relationship if you wish. But if you do, it is I who will have to come in to repair it. You will not be able to do it. I will have to be invited into the matter to do the recovery of what you have thrown away.

I did not choose to be in Adam.
But I can choose to step out of Adam into Christ.
I did not choose to be in the realm of the fallen first man.
I can choose to be placed by God in the realm of the second man.

And I can refuse the transfer and remain in Adam and in his estrangement from the life of God. Your arguments and complaints are all rationales as to why should you leave the sphere of the first Adam. You argue why should you to be transferred by God to be a co-partaker of the vast blessings of the last Adam - Christ.

"the last Adam became a [divine/eternal] life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45)

Originally posted by sonhouse
So, lets have you prove the reality of this eternal suffering thing. Show me outside the bible where this is in any sense reality. Why don't you think about what you are saying? That a god, infinitely more intelligent and wise and so forth, would condemn billions of mere humans to eternal suffering because its ego was crushed by all that rejection?

As an ...[text shortened]... . DEEPLY. Not just referring to some asinine biblical passage. Think about with YOUR OWN MIND.

What you don't seem to understand is that there is more than the physical body with DNA that makes up a human being. When God joined the physical body with His life-giving Spirit, Man became a living soul in the image of God.

At the death of the body, there is nothing more that can be done to the body to torture it. It is the soul that becomes under torture in Hell, not the body, so there is no DNA envolved.

The Instructor

What is finally thrown lost into the lake of fire is the whole spirit and soul and body of the sinner. In Hades there is a severing of soul from body. In the final destiny of both the lost and the saved the severing is ended, the union is fully reestablished and eternity is entered into as a whole being in either case - spirit and soul and body.

Originally posted by sonship
In neither one of these two important passages is LOVE to God emphasized:

1.) [b]"That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

2.) "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us out sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
[/b]

Would you say that in these passages following, our love for God is emphasized? Its shocking to me that a professed Christian is saying that loving God is not important. Christ said that the single most important commandment which gives salvation is to love God and the second is to love your neighbour as yourself. Yet you deny both commandmants and you falsely preach that all you need to do is to confess with your mouth .. etc.

(Deu 6:5) And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

(Deu 11:1) Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.

(Deu 11:13) And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

(Deu 11:22) For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him;

(Deu 13:3) Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

(Deu 19:9) If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them, which I command thee this day, to love the LORD thy God, and to walk ever in his ways; then shalt thou add three cities more for thee, beside these three:

(Deu 30:6) And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

(Deu 30:16) In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

(Deu 30:20) That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

(Jos 22:5) But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

(Jos 23:11) Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the LORD your God.

(Psa 31:23) O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.

(Psa 97:10) Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.

(Psa 116:1) I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.

(Mat 22:37) Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

(Mar 12:30) And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

(Luk 10:27) And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

Rom_8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
1Co_8:3 But if any man love God, the same is known of him.
1Jn_4:20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
1Jn_5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

Would you say that in these passages following, our love for God is emphasized? Its shocking to me that a professed Christian is saying that loving God is not important.

I have not gone down the list of your verses because you are off on the wrong foot.

I never said that loving God was not important. I spoke to a couple of very KEY passages on New Testament salvation and pointed out that love was not the emphasis in those passages.

I won't let you saddle me with your generalization that I said or implied to love God is not important.

You see folks. This is the problem with posts which are rather concise. As I have said before.

If I say too little, someone will only come after me assuming that I overlooked, ignored, or contradicted some other angle or aspect of the whole message.

Of course once one realizes how much one has been forgiven he or she is prone to begin to love and love strongly.

Originally posted by sonship

Would you say that in these passages following, our love for God is emphasized? Its shocking to me that a professed Christian is saying that loving God is not important.

I have not gone down the list of your verses because you are off on the wrong foot.

I never said that loving God was not important. I spoke to a couple of very KEY p ...[text shortened]... let you saddle me with your generalization that I said or implied to love God is not important.

Wrong foot?? You are the one who says that eternal life is through Christ but refuse to teach what Christ said about eternal life.

Truly you are part of a religion of Pharisees. Lipservice, mouth worship and hypocracy are your watchwords. Good for you.

The entire Bible is all about righteousness and godliness and good works. Talkers, liars, false teachers will be destroyed.

Wrong foot?? You are the one who says that eternal life is through Christ but refuse to teach what Christ said about eternal life.

I don't think you and I have ever had a good conversation.

But just for the record, I consider carefully the occurrence and usage of the phrase "eternal life" through out the entire New Testament.

The nuances with which it is used and the context in which it is used I consider carefully.

I consider how Jesus used the phrase. I consider how Paul used it.
I consider how different gospels may even have a slightly different nuance on how the phrase "eternal life" is used.

Now your list of verses were good. But since you were about to erect a strawman argument there, I didn't feel the need to comment on each one. But they are good.

Love is a effective motive for consecration to God.
However I think before the sweet motive of love fuels consecration it should be made clear that the saved is legally bought and owned by God through the redemption of Christ.

It is good that I realize that God loves me and I love Him sweetly in return. I have no argument against the importance of love overall.

Having said that, LEGAL OWNERSHIP is not dependent on our feelings. When we realize that we are BOUGHT with a price and that we belong to God through His redemptive death for us, this is a stronger basis of our being consecrated to God.

Love may fluctuate. Today I feel I love God. Tomorrow maybe I feel I don't love God that much. More fundamental than my love is my realization that I am bought with a price and that I am not my own.

This is kind of what I was getting at. To confess Jesus is Lord and the God raised Him from the dead is a confession that we belong to the Lord Jesus. He is our Lord. And He is not a dead and gone Lord but a living and available NOW Lord. As Lord we turn ourselves over to His lordship.

If your mood is love - you belong to Him.
If your mood today is not love - you still belong to Him - the Lord.

Same with the other passage - "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

God is loving. God is lovable.

But this passage, at least, does not say that God is faithful and LOVING to forgive us. It says God is faithful and RIGHTEOUS to forgive us, if we in Christ confess our sins. Righteousness is the foundation of His throne. It is the righteous thing for Him to do on account of Christ's work. He MUST forgive us or else be unrighteous.

If God loves you today - He forgives you because you are associated with Christ.

But if God does not love you very much today - He is still RIGHTEOUS to forgive you because He has to be true to His plan of salvation through Christ. He is faithful and righteous there. It does not say He is faithful and merciful. Though for sure God is merciful. But in this passage it is a matter of God being faithful to do the righteous thing. He must forgives us. He must forgive us for the sake of His Son's act on Calvary.

This is what I was getting at in showing a couple of basic passages on salvation which do not emphasize love.

Of course some other passages do speak more of His love and the forgiven sinner's love for God. But here were are legally owned by God and turn ourselves over to the Lord who has been raised from the dead.

Truly you are part of a religion of Pharisees. Lipservice, mouth worship and hypocracy are your watchwords. Good for you.

The entire Bible is all about righteousness and godliness and good works. Talkers, liars, false teachers will be destroyed.

You haven't shown any falsehood in my presentation.
You are just complaining because you have some myopic tunnel vision view of the New Testament which is essentially reactionary against the grace of Christ.

I could easily write 60 posts all week long on just one subject - the judgment seat of Christians alone. That is not the subject which I am addressing in this thread.

You assume that I overlook some other passages on the disciple's responsibility. That is something that YOU assume I do not know about.

Originally posted by sonship

Wrong foot?? You are the one who says that eternal life is through Christ but refuse to teach what Christ said about eternal life.

I don't think you and I have ever had a good conversation.

But just for the record, I consider carefully the occurrence and usage of the phrase [b] "eternal life" through out the entire New Testam ...[text shortened]... disciple's responsibility. That is something that YOU assume I do not know about.[/b]

The opening post has a very simple question Jayson ... one which Jesus Christ dealt with in very clear langauge. In Luke 10 Christ answered the question;

Luk 10:25 .. Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Christ answered the question in the rest of the chapter with a suitable example - easy for anyone to understand.

How does your answer stack up to what Christ said in Luke 10? Did you do justice to the teachings of Christ?

Clearly you do not know what the Grace of Christ or saved by Grace, means. Your religion has totally messed up that concept. But thats another topic.

Originally posted by sonship
[quote] So, lets have you prove the reality of this eternal suffering thing. Show me outside the bible where this is in any sense reality. Why don't you think about what you are saying? That a god, infinitely more intelligent and wise and so forth, would condemn billions of mere humans to eternal suffering because its ego was crushed by all that rejection? [ ...[text shortened]... became a [divine/eternal] life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45)[/b]

All that is just in your imagination, stuff written by men with no supernatural help thousands of years ago, no help needed from any kind of a god. The fact that you consider the bible to be somehow inspired by a god is just your opinion and a few billion other people but if every human on the planet believed it that alone would not make it true, it just would indicate several billion misled, duped, brainwashed individuals. Just citing the bible is ZERO in the way of proof of ANYTHING supernatural. Just saying, we are more than our DNA is not proof, just an opinion.

All that is just in your imagination, stuff written by men with no supernatural help thousands of years ago, no help needed from any kind of a god.

erased

Originally posted by Rajk999
The opening post has a very simple question Jayson ... one which Jesus Christ dealt with in very clear langauge. In Luke 10 Christ answered the question;

Luk 10:25 .. Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Christ answered the question in the rest of the chapter with a suitable example - easy for anyone to understand.

How does your an ...[text shortened]... ved by Grace, means. Your religion has totally messed up that concept. But thats another topic.

Yes, my answer stacks up with chapter 10 of Luke.

I don't think this is such an easy chapter as you say. One thing I think is probably frequently misunderstood about the parable of the Good Samaritan. I think the Good Samaritan represents Jesus Christ and the beaten and wounded man represents the sinner saved by Christ.

Furthermore in the next section, verses 38-40, Jesus says that Mary who is not busy working but listening at the Lord's feet," has chosen the good part." While anxious and working Martha, Jesus said, was troubled about many things.

If your legality was right concerning salvation, it should have been Martha who was consoled and Mary should have been told to get up and get busy.

The good part Mary has chosen, in simply taking in the Lord's words and teaching, Jesus said would not be taken away from her.

"But there is need of one thing, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her." (v.42)

I feel you are trying to take away some Christians' enjoyment of Christ.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So, lets have you prove the reality of this eternal suffering thing. Show me outside the bible where this is in any sense reality. Why don't you think about what you are saying? That a god, infinitely more intelligent and wise and so forth, would condemn billions of mere humans to eternal suffering because its ego was crushed by all that rejection?

As an ...[text shortened]... . DEEPLY. Not just referring to some asinine biblical passage. Think about with YOUR OWN MIND.

Its about sin, due to it, death is a part of our lives. The rejection is to throw
away the only thing that saves one from their own sin. If you reject the
life saver's efforts to pull you out of a danger you are unable to avoid on
your own, than you suffer that certain danger whatever it is. So you have
it backwards, you reject the salvation and ignore the need for it.
Kelly