One Question

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]One Question

God's perfect plan provides the grace gift [free] of eternal life for all who choose to claim it with an uncoerced decision to believe [place their confidence] in Christ for their salvation. What are the most compelling reasons to reject this gift?[/b]

Insanity?

Originally posted by checkbaiter
Insanity?

Good grief. You are really strutting your stuff, aren't you! 😀

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]One Question

God's perfect plan provides the grace gift [free] of eternal life for all who choose to claim it with an uncoerced decision to believe [place their confidence] in Christ for their salvation. What are the most compelling reasons to reject this gift?[/b]

Personally I think 'free' is implicit in the word 'gift' ... as it's not a gift if you
have to earn it/pay for it... It would then be a reward, and not a gift.

As your religion emphatically requires you to earn this 'gift' it is neither
free, nor a gift, it's a reward.

Grampy,

This opinion above is as stupid as saying that you had to do a favor for your mother in order for her to give you birth.

The writer has no experience of knowing God's grace and utters nonsense out of abject ignorance.

Besides maybe the impenetrable Rakj999 what Christian brother or sister here could say this was their experience ?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]One Question

God's perfect plan provides the grace gift [free] of eternal life for all who choose to claim it with an uncoerced decision to believe [place their confidence] in Christ for their salvation. What are the most compelling reasons to reject this gift?[/b]

I know of no 'gift' that carries a threat of violence.

Imagine if I invited you round for dinner one evening, that's a gift. If I then added the caveat that failure to take me up on the invite would result in me blowing your head off with a shotgun, you wouldn't think the offer as a 'gift' anymore. You'd think I was a madman.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Anything further?

The only thing he did not touch on (but others have) is the concept of 'choosing to believe'

I have 1 million dollars that I freely offer to you. All you have to do to receive it is to truly believe that it exists. Are you able to do that? Can you choose to do that?

--- Penguin.

Originally posted by sonship

Personally I think 'free' is implicit in the word 'gift' ... as it's not a gift if you
have to earn it/pay for it... It would then be a reward, and not a gift.

As your religion emphatically requires you to earn this 'gift' it is neither
free, nor a gift, it's a reward.

Grampy,

This opinion above is as stupid as saying that you ...[text shortened]... impenetrable Rakj999 what Christian brother or sister here could say this was their experience ?

Have you ever noticed that you often say that what an atheist says is nonsense, but rarely if ever say why?

p.s. I don't think of my mother giving birth to me as a gift, but it is a hell of a lot more like a gift than your God's conditional offer of eternal life, and promise of an eternity of torture if I refuse this 'gift'.

Originally posted by Penguin
The only thing he did not touch on (but others have) is the concept of 'choosing to believe'

I have 1 million dollars that I freely offer to you. All you have to do to receive it is to truly believe that it exists. Are you able to do that? Can you choose to do that?

--- Penguin.

Penguin, if I was bankrupt without hope of survival and you offered me "1 million dollars" as a free gift
[which represented a matter of life or death], I'd take you at your word and say: "Yes. Thank you".

Originally posted by Proper Knob
I know of no 'gift' that carries a threat of violence.

Imagine if I invited you round for dinner one evening, that's a gift. If I then added the caveat that failure to take me up on the invite would result in me blowing your head off with a shotgun, you wouldn't think the offer as a 'gift' anymore. You'd think I was a madman.

PK, ever knowingly and willfully sin?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Penguin, if I was bankrupt without hope of survival and you offered me "1 million dollars" as a free gift
[which represented a matter of life or death], I'd take you at your word and say: "Yes. Thank you".

No no, you don't understand. I am actually telling you that I actually have 1 million dollars that I am actually offering to actually give to you. All you have to do it truly believe that I really do have 1 million dollars and I truly am willing to give it to you.

So do you believe? And if so then did you choose to believe?

--- Penguin

Originally posted by Rank outsider
I don't think of my mother giving birth to me as a gift, but it is a hell of a lot more like a gift than your God's conditional offer of eternal life, and promise of an eternity of torture if I refuse this 'gift'.

It is Orwellian.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Penguin, if I was bankrupt without hope of survival and you offered me "1 million dollars" as a free gift
[which represented a matter of life or death], I'd take you at your word and say: "Yes. Thank you".

The problem with this is that I have no more reason to think that this "gift" you talk about all the time is real than I have reason to think your analogizing my life with being "bankrupt" is any reflection of reality. There is certainly no reason for anyone to accept your suggestion that this "gift" you happen to believe in is "a matter of life or death".

Originally posted by Rank outsider

Have you ever noticed that you often say that what an atheist says is nonsense, but rarely if ever say why?

No, I've never noticed this. I don't often say what someone writes is is nonsense. I usually do not use the word nonsense regarding anyone's post.

I do notice that explanations are often wasted on some people because they are just too blinded in the mind. I was once blinded in the mind that way myself for a season.

English Standard Version
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

New American Standard Bible
in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

But for the record -

"And knowing that a man is not justified out of works of law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we also have believed into Christ Jesus that we might be justified out of faith in Christ and not out of the works of law, because out of the works of law no flesh will be justified." (Galatians 2:16)


Earning eternal life would be being justified out of works of law.
That would be eternal life as wages for work.

But the gift of eternal life is set in contrast against wages of law keeping and the wages of sin as well.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

p.s. I don't think of my mother giving birth to me as a gift, but it is a hell of a lot more like a gift than your God's conditional offer of eternal life, and promise of an eternity of torture if I refuse this 'gift'.

You may regard eternal separation from God as a consequences of a rebel receiving what he really wants. God knows and warned beforehand that you will not enjoy such an existence. But if a man insists upon it, God says that the rebel's will be done.

He warned you that what you think will be pleasant will not be. It will be a hell of an existence. You cannot blame God if what you thought would be a paradise turns out to be a hell.

Neither can you blame God if He spoke to the world in terms that all could grasp and comprehend that eternal separation from the Righteous Source of all blessing, will be a torment. He made it clear in speech which no one could mistake as negative.

So if you insist "God, NOT Your will be done" God has no choice but to respond "Okay, then YOUR will be done. I warned you that you won't like your will instead of Mine in this."

He warns that your eternal sinning will call forth eternal punishment.
So we need to be saved from the sins of the past.
We need to be saved from the guilt and power of sin.
And we need to be saved from being frozen in a state of perpetual and eternal sinning. Or did you think that God is obliged to stay the endless flow of sin from the rebel's lips and acts of the lost forever?

So your complaint is partial. It is skewed in leaning towards the sinner's welfare beyond what is just. It is one-sided. Your appeal to emotion is a one-sided intense appreciation of pain; but a light appreciation of sin and its deserts. Your appeal to sympathy by speaking of torture is your vested interest in allowing sin to go unpunished in an unrighteous way.

Lastly, we need to be saved not because being saved is an end in itself but because for the fulfillment of the eternal purpose of the Creator our salvation is necessary.

Originally posted by sonship
I do notice that explanations are often wasted on some people because they are just too blinded in the mind.

Is this really much of a debating point? Couldn't anyone just as easily say this to you? Or to me? Or to just about anyone?

Originally posted by sonship
You may regard eternal separation from God as a consequences of a rebel receiving what he really wants. God knows and warned beforehand that you will not enjoy such an existence. But if a man insists upon it, God says that the rebel's will be done.

How can 'Believe in me or else suffer an eternity of torture in burning flames' be described as a "free gift" to someone who does not believe in Him?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
PK, ever knowingly and willfully sin?

I'm not a Christian, as you well no, so therefore I don't subscribe to the concept of 'sin'.