Quote:
Originally Posted by Light
According to Box, God won't save certain sinners, period. We all know that he can but according to Box, he NEVER will. Well if you can save them but NEVER will that is the equivalent of not being able to save them. Apparently God can't get past his own ego or rules to save them according to Box.
That leaves the door wide open for the God of sin or "the Devil" to win. This makes God weaker than the Devil in this area, and all the Devil would have to do is seduce people into going where God won't go and he has leverage over God.
This makes God subservient to the Devil's game which is ludicrous and the reason it is ludicrous is because the premise that God will NEVER save certain people is ludicrous to begin with.
Christianity is the only religion in the world that believes "Hell" is permanent and eternal. All other religions that believe in "Hell" see it as temporary. In other words God saves them after they have paid their dues.
The reason I personally do not believe in a permanent Hell is, can you imagine if you are in Heaven and a loved one you know is in Hell. Heaven would not be Heaven anymore. I would be tormented. All people in Hell have someone who loves them somewhere in Heaven. If I, a mere human being would be tormented by a loved one in Hell, how can God, who has infinite more love than I and for that person, be OK with that? I mean there are people who love other people so much they would trade places with them. This is the power of love and this concept of God's "conditional love" and "vengeance" goes against the very nature of who God is and undermines him. Even dogs have unconditional love.
|
Really? "Even dogs have unconditional love"? Try mistreating or abusing a dog over time and see how much he loves you.
As far as God losing out to the devil if all are not saved, this doesn't make any sense. Again...the question is:
Did God ever intend in eternity to save each and every sinner? We find the very clear cut answer to this important very early in Genesis -- right after the Fall in the Garden. In fact, a few years or so ago, I wrote a post or two on the Fall to
prove the doctrine of unconditional election. Suffice it to say for the moment, though, to quote the one specific passage that proves that God sovereignly
reconciled Eve to Himself, while rejecting Adam. Note very carefully in the passage to whom God is speaking. He's speaking to the "Serpent" -- Satan -- God's arch enemy.
Gen 3:14-15
14
And the Lord God said to the serpent,
"Because you have done this,
Cursed are you more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly shall you go,
And dust shall you eat
All the days of your life;
15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel."
NASB
The
only logical inference that can be made from v.15 is that since God put enmity (in a sense declared war between Eve and the devil), then this can only mean that God
removed the enmity between Eve and Himself that was caused by Eve's sin (rebellion against God's revealed will). This removal of the enmity (rebellion against God's revealed will) means God reconciled Eve to Himself. He
restored Eve to Himself. This must be so, otherwise Eve would be an enemy of God and Satan. Eve, in essence, would have hated Good and Evil her entire life. And that's impossible;for all men hate the one while loving the other. This principle is taught, for example, by Jesus in Mat 6:24; Lk 16:13).
All people in this world have a
master. Their Master is either the Lord Jesus Christ or the devil. There is no third option.
And we know it's all people because the passage above tells us. The text doesn't stop with just Eve and the devil; for both Eve and devil have
SEED. And God extends this promise of spiritual "warfare" to
both their
future seed. The primary "seed" of the woman in the text is God who came in the flesh -- who came in the person of his Son Jesus Christ. (Jesus is the one who will "bruise" the Serpent's head under the feet of holy seed, i.e.his saints, cf. Rom 16:20.) But by extension, it also includes God's seed, i.e.all those in Christ. The spiritual seed in the OT are all those who by faith looked forward to the coming of their Redeemer and Savior to make atonement for their sin. And in the NT, it is the saints who by faith look back at the person, life and work of Christ on the Cross AND look forward to his coming again to complete His redemptive work, which is the redemption of all the saints' bodies at the Resurrection. These are called the
sons of God (Mat 5:9; Lk 20:36; Rom 8:14, 19; Gal 3:26) And we know Jesus is fully on board with this understanding because he told the Pharisees that they were the sons ("seed") of the Devil (Jn 8:38, 41, 44) See also Mat 13:38; Jn 6:70; Act 13:10; 1Jn 3:8-12.
Now that we have
biblically established who the two seeds are in the above passage, all that remains is the question of Adam. What about Adam? In case, Mr. Light, you haven't noticed, Adam is
conspicuously absent in v. 15. This can only mean that Adam was
not reconciled to God. God did not decree that Adam and the devil would be lifelong enemies, as He did with Eve. Therefore, Adam's sin kept him permanently separated and alienated from God -- a lifelong enemy of God.
So much for your twisted logic that concluded that if God did not intend to save everyone, this somehow equates to a victory to God's arch enemy the Devil! How do you come up with such contorted, perverse, blasphemous ideas? While this one passage and all the supporting texts I cited is sufficient to crush your carnal reasoning, I will take my argument one step further but very briefly.
There is a principle in scripture I call the Accommodation Principle. It runs throughout scripture. We must remember, first and foremost, that God is not HUMAN.
He doesn't think like fallen human beings do. Nor does he act the way fallen human beings do (cf. Isa 55:8-12). You should do yourself a huge solid by committing the entire passage to memory! And note very carefully that whatever God has decreed, it will come to past. And one of the things he has decreed in eternity is the ultimate defeat of his arch enemy -- the devil.
What is this Accommodation Principle? Very simple. God often grants to his fallen image bearers (angels and humans alike) the sinful desires of their heart[/b]. He grants to the worldly wise -- to those wise in their own eyes -- the deepest desires of their own evil hearts to show them that ultimately His seeming foolishness (
in doing so) is infinitely wiser than their carnal, corrupt, worldly wisdom, and that God is infinitely more powerful than anyone's heart. Here are but a few of the major biblical examples:
1. Satan's Fall. Instead of God casting Satan and all the other fallen angels straight into Hell after they sinned, God granted Satan's desire. We can easily infer what Lucifer's desire was from Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, which record his fall. He wanted to be like God. He wanted to share in God's glory. He wanted to share God's throne in his heavenly kingdom. So, how did the "foolishness of God" respond to Lucifer's sinful desires of his heart? He gave the devil the kingdom he so much desired -- just not the one in heaven. Instead, He gave him this world. Satan is the ruler and god of this world. Scripture teaches that this entire world lies in the power of the Evil One! Yet, at the same time, the bible also assures us that God will reclaim what is His. Satan will be defeated and ultimately be tossed into hell for all eternity.
2. God chose Israel to be his kingdom here on earth. God's intention was to rule over the nation directly -- But what happened? Israel had different desires. The people wanted an earthly king to rule over them. The Israelites wanted to be just like the other surrounding nations! This brought great distress to Samuel the prophet, but God told Samuel that ultimately they weren't rejecting him per se, but God's rule! So, God granted the Israelites the dark desires of their heart by instituting an earthly monarchy -- just like the other nations. And we see how well that turned out for Israel. Yet, as Paul teaches in Romans all true Israelites will be saved by God. The forces of darkness are defeated again.
3. Satan's attack on Job. Many, if not most of us, have at least a passing familiarity with the story. Satan thought he knew Job's heart better than God did. He told God that the only reason Job was so faithful to Him is because Job was living the good life. God had granted so much prosperity and health to Job and his family, that God practically "bribed" the man to live righteously. Satan, went on to tell God that if Job's great wealth and family were taken away, Job would curse God. When that failed, Satan told God that if his health was taken away, he would deny Him. God accommodated Satan twice by granting his requests with limits set by God. Again, score another victory by God and another defeat for the devil, as we know how that story turned out, as well.
4. The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Israel didn't want a spiritual savior. The spiritual, religious leaders of the nation feared for their own authority; for they viewed Jesus as a genuine threat to their "moral" authority. The leaders wanted to preserve their leadership and authority instead of submitting to their Messiah's authority So...God gave them the desires of their wicked hearts. He allowed Israel to deliver up Jesus to the Romans to be murdered. Once again, we see how that turned out for Israel and how it will turn out going forward.
This post is already too long. So, I'll stop here and in the next post we will take up your personal concern for your loved ones who are suffering in the lake of fire for all eternity, while you're basking in God's glory in His perfect, pristine, sinless paradise. Of course, Mr. Light, if you are so deeply concerned about the eternal destiny of your loved ones, you would become a true believer and spend all your spare time evangelizing your loved ones. You would have the attitude of Paul -- that perhaps "you" would be able to save some (Rom 11:14; 1Cor 9:22). But be that as it may, I will show you from scripture that your fears are
totally groundless and entirely unrealistic.
