Good Friday's gone and passed...

Originally posted by Big Mac
thankfully, you work analogy does not apply to the way god deals with us. god gives us the benefit without us doing any work. jesus did the work on the cross. and we get paid for it. not fair. but great.

as to the hole in people's hearts...
c.s. lewis wrote that there is a "jesus size hole in every man's heart." people try to fill it with the fruits of t ...[text shortened]... into your life. how can ask jesus to do anything unless jesus is already his lord?

I was trying to make the point that we have to, in the natural, reach out and then the spiritual come.

as far as seeking Jesus to fill the hole, who else can people seek if they are looking to fill the hole? You are correct that only Jesus can fill the heart, but we can and should seek Him. Proverbs 8:17 says " I love those who love me; and those who diligently seek me will find me." There are many scriptures that reference seeking Him.

You are correct that to be saved you must believe that Jesus died on the cross and that God raised Him from the dead. That is correct, but it doesn't stop there. Being a Christian is a lifestyle and after you are saved you want (or should) Jesus to take control. You have to ask Him to do that. That is also being brought to life spiritually (fullfilling the plan and purpose for your life).

When we ask Jesus to save us, by believing the above mentioned, we do that in the natural. We then become children of the Lord. You must ask first while you are dead in sin. The Bible mentions that no one can say that Jesus is Lord without (paraphrased) the help of the Holy Spirit. This doesn't mean that Jesus is already "in" that persons life, but that God made a way.

hope I clarified any misunderstandings I may have made.

Have a great day all! 🙂

Originally posted by safetyman
I was trying to make the point that we have to, in the natural, reach out and then the spiritual come.

as far as seeking Jesus to fill the hole, who else can people seek if they are looking to fill the hole? You are correct that only Jesus can fill the heart, but we can and should seek Him. Proverbs 8:17 says " I love those who love me; and those who ...[text shortened]...

hope I clarified any misunderstandings I may have made.

Have a great day all! 🙂

You have. And you and I come to the Bible and Jesus from very different perspectives. I do not believe I had the ability to come to Jesus on my own before He came to me. The Bible tells us that there are none that seek Him, no not one. The Bible tells us that it's not that we love Him, but that He loved us and gave Himself up for us. The Bible tells us that we did not choose Him, but that He chose us. As for a practicle example, Paul was not reaching out to Jesus when Jesus saved Him. In fact the Lord said of him in Acts 9, "he is chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings,and the children of Israel."

The bottom line is that I don't think we can do anything in the natural until it was determined in the spiritual.

Originally posted by Big Mac
You have. And you and I come to the Bible and Jesus from very different perspectives. I do not believe I had the ability to come to Jesus on my own before He came to me. The Bible tells us that there are none that seek Him, no not one. The Bible tells us that it's not that we love Him, but that He loved us and gave Himself up for us. The Bible tells us that ...[text shortened]... at I don't think we can do anything in the natural until it was determined in the spiritual.

Don't you think that everything has already been done in the spiritual? I mean, Jesus came, born of a virgin, died on the cross for our sins, rose again the third day and is now seated at the right hand of God. Everything has been done that is going to be done for our salvation. All we have to do is reach out and take it.

I was actually just reading this, this morning: Romans 10:13-17 In my footnotes is says this: "According to the word of God, the lost cannot be saved without a witness. They must have a witness to hear, they must hear to believe, they must believe to call (reach out), and they must call (reach out) to be saved. But they cannot call until they believe and they cannot believe until they hear and they cannot hear without a witness. 'So faith (saving faith) comes from hearing". We are not born with saving faith (we have already discussed this); it comes only when we hear the gospel. Therefore, it is of utmost imiportance that every born again child of God obey the great commission to evangelize, to go with the gospel.

Do you consider this spiritual or natural? I thought of it as natural. The individual has to hear the word and then believe (faith). maybe my thinking is wrong as far as this being natural vs. spiritual.

thoughts?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Not for an omnipotent, omniscient creator.

A double-O creator (I'll get onto triple-O arguments later) would know, in advance, every action that would take place in a universe that he created. He'd know, for example, whether he'd have to send me to hell, right from the moment he created the universe.

So, if there is a god, malevolent is exactly the thing to call him. Another phrase would be "puppet master".

He'd know, for example, whether he'd have to send me to hell, right from the moment he created the universe.SCOTTY

He would only know if that was where you chose to go. If you chose differently his knowledge would be different.

Originally posted by bbarr
No, I do not take 'gift' to entail being a 'freebie', and nothing in my post suggests otherwise. My understanding of 'gift' is compatible with there being any number of preconditions necessary for the gift to be offered. What is incompatible with any plausible reading of 'gift' is that one be brutally punished for refusing it.

Who says that one is brutally punished for refusing it? You're assuming that some sort of external punishment is "imposed" on the person in retribution for his/her refusal.

To use an analogy: crushing poverty isn't an external punishment imposed on a bankrupt person who refuses to accept the gift of a million dollars.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Who says that one is brutally punished for refusing it? You're assuming that some sort of external punishment is "imposed" on the person in retribution for his/her refusal.

To use an analogy: crushing poverty isn't an external punishment imposed on a bankrupt person who refuses to accept the gift of a million dollars.

If, in your analogy, the same person who offered you a million dollars also set up the system such that all those who refuse the gift would be crushingly impoverished, then the analogy would be apt.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Who says that one is brutally punished for refusing it? You're assuming that some sort of external punishment is "imposed" on the person in retribution for his/her refusal.

Would you at least admit that the God of the Old Testament frequently imposed punishments upon many peoples who rejected him, rather than their fates being mere logical consequences of rejecting him? I'm thinking along the lines of the Sodomites, the Midianites, the Canaanites, the Egyptians, and on and on.

Originally posted by bbarr
If, in your analogy, the same person who offered you a million dollars also set up the system such that all those who refuse the gift would be crushingly impoverished, then the analogy would be apt.

No, it wouldn't be. Go back to the parable of the Prodigal Son -- it is the son who puts himself in a position that ends up in poverty.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Would you at least admit that the God of the Old Testament frequently imposed punishments upon many peoples who rejected him, rather than their fates being mere logical consequences of rejecting him? I'm thinking along the lines of the Sodomites, the Midianites, the Canaanites, the Egyptians, and on and on.

I admit that's what it reads like.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
No, it wouldn't be. Go back to the parable of the Prodigal Son -- it is the son who puts himself in a position that ends up in poverty.

But that parable is just as irrelevant as your analogy is, for the reason that bbarr cited.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
No, it wouldn't be. Go back to the parable of the Prodigal Son -- it is the son who puts himself in a position that ends up in poverty.

That parable is irrelevant. My original post was about being damned for failing to accept God's putative gift of salvation. As I claimed above, if you interpret damnation as mere eternal independence from God, then I have no problem with calling salvation a gift (in fact, refusal of the gift under this conception would analytically entail damnation). My concern is with conceptions of damnation according to which things get substantially worse for you after death if you refuse to accept the putative gift of salvation.

Originally posted by bbarr
That parable is irrelevant. My original post was about being damned for failing to accept God's putative gift of salvation. As I claimed above, if you interpret damnation as mere eternal independence from God, then I have no problem with calling salvation a gift (in fact, refusal of the gift under this conception would analytically entail damnation). My con ...[text shortened]... substantially worse for you after death if you refuse to accept the putative gift of salvation.

Things would've gotten seriously worse for the Prodigal Son if he hadn't returned to his father when he did -- he might've eventually become too ill/dead to make the return journey. I don't see why you keep asserting the parable is irrelevant.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Things would've gotten seriously worse for the Prodigal Son if he hadn't returned to his father when he did -- he might've eventually become too ill/dead to make the return journey. I don't see why you keep asserting the parable is irrelevant.

The parable is irrelevant because the father in the parable is not directly punishing the son for walking off with his inheritance. As I said above, I would have no problem if, at the time of my death, I simply ceased to exist or existed in some realm not substantially less pleasant than this one. But according to many self-identified Christians in these threads, this is not what will happen. On their view, after my death I will be in substantially worse shape than I was during life, and may even be worse off than I would be had I merely ceased to exist. This fate of damnation, it is claimed, will have been my fault for refusing to accept God's gift, as though God had nothing to do with setting up the universe in a manner that punishes people for eternity for failing to love Him. But it is incompatible with the notion of the gift that one be punished for refusing it.

Originally posted by bbarr
The parable is irrelevant because the father in the parable is not directly punishing the son for walking off with his inheritance. As I said above, I would have no problem if, at the time of my death, I simply ceased to exist or existed in some realm not substantially less pleasant than this one. But according to many self-identified Christians in these thr ...[text shortened]... Him. But it is incompatible with the notion of the gift that one be punished for refusing it.

If I ran into Christians who held to a two-stage retribution as you describe, I would probably find myself in serious disagreement with them as well.

I don't hold to this "hell as God-as-Judge punishing the wicked" concept. For me, hell is self-imposed punishment, self-imposed exile from the source of Being and Goodness. The parable holds for me because hell is the analogue of the prodigal son stubbornly refusing to return home until he finally starves to death.

God doesn't set up the "system" -- the "system" consists merely of logical consequences of one's actions.