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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13085
05/02/05 03:01 AM
05/02/05 03:01 AM
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Dedicated Member
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 1,196
Ontario
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"I wouldn't characterize our growth in grace as becoming less and less sinful, but as becoming more and more like Christ."
A very important perspective.
It is only possible when we are hid with Christ in God.
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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13086
05/02/05 03:08 AM
05/02/05 03:08 AM
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Active Member 2012
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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quote:
Great! We are in agreement, right? Do you think our views differ in any way?
I think the most important distinctions of our viewpoints has to do with God's character. Your point of view appears to me to make God out to be cruel and arbitrary. For example, you view God as the author of sin and death. That's as wrong as can be IMO.
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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13087
05/02/05 02:11 PM
05/02/05 02:11 PM
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5500+ Member
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Posts: 6,154
Brazil
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Sorry, I couldn't keep up with the discussion during the weekend. Mike, you said, quote:
Jesus spoke of Peter's conversion, during the Last Supper, in the future tense. Peter was in the "process of conversion" until after the resurrection of Jesus.
It's easier to interpret Jesus' words that Peter needed to be converted in the sense that he had to be converted from his sin, for, as Ellen White says, "we need to be converted daily" {GCB, July 1, 1902}, than to interpret Jesus' words that "He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean" as meaning that Peter was still in the process of conversion. The verb "has bathed" is in the greek perfect tense - an action completed in the past, once and for all, not needing to be repeated.
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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13088
05/02/05 04:00 PM
05/02/05 04:00 PM
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OP
SDA
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Southwest USA
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John, an important distinction, too. Some people believe becoming less and less sinful is the same thing as becoming more and more like Jesus.
Tom, my view of God's wrath is biblical. Please see Rosangela's post on the "Behold the Lamb" thread. Also, I suspect our views regarding sins of ignorance and defective traits of character is our biggest difference. Like John, I believe we are born again without our former defective traits of character.
Rosangela, it's hard for me to imagine a converted believer betraying Jesus, doubting His messsianic claims, on the night of His betrayal and arrest. Peter was a confused and tormented soul, full of doubt and self-reliance, quick to draw the sword, and quicker still to turn tail. The traits and qualities he revealed that night do not remind me of a born again believer, of someone like Paul was willing to die rather than to deny his Lord and Saviour. Of course, Peter demonstrated the traits of Paul after the resurrection of Jesus, which makes me think his conversion took place after his killer crash.
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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13089
05/02/05 06:32 PM
05/02/05 06:32 PM
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Active Member 2012
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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The Biblical view of wrath is that God gives people over to the result of their choices. For example, quote:
16And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.
17Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?
18And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods. (Deut. 31:16-18)
This is the same principle that EGW explains in GC:
quote:
The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;" "for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Hosea 13:9; 14:1. Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work.
when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. (GC 36)
A couple of other statements which cast light on this discussion:
quote:
God destroys no man. Everyone who is destroyed will have destroyed himself. (COL 84)
quote:
God could have destroyed Satan and all his sympathizers as easily as one can pick up a pebble and cast it to the earth. But by so doing he would have given a precedent for the exercise of force. All the compelling power is found only under Satan's government. The Lord's principles are not of this order. (RH 9/7/97)
It appears to me that in your view of God's wrath, the underlying principle is force. If you do not do what God wants, then He will kill. Actually torture you first, then kill you. This is not an accurate picture of God, I don't believe. I don't recall Jesus ever torturing and killing those who disagreed with Him.
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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13090
05/02/05 06:52 PM
05/02/05 06:52 PM
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He didn't, then. But God does different things at different times. And He will punish sinners in the lake of fire at the end of the millennium. There's no other way they could burn for different periods of time, in keeping with equitable judgment, according to their sins committed in this life. God has to orchestrate that; no other being in the universe has that ability.
To say that God does not kill is to preach "another gospel." It portrays another god, not the One described in Scripture.
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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13091
05/02/05 08:26 PM
05/02/05 08:26 PM
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OP
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Well said, John. Thank you.
Tom, Jesus made it clear that His first mission to earth wasn't to judge sinners, but to save them. The purpose of His second coming is totally diiferent than His first coming. Without Jesus it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. There is more to Jesus than the NT. He is also the God of the OT.
John
12:47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
12:48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
Matthew
10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
10:36 And a man's foes [shall be] they of his own household.
Hebrews
9:28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
10:30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance [belongeth] unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
10:31 [It is] a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Jude
1:14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
1:15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard [speeches] which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13092
05/02/05 09:49 PM
05/02/05 09:49 PM
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Active Member 2012
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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quote:
God could have destroyed Satan and all his sympathizers as easily as one can pick up a pebble and cast it to the earth. But by so doing he would have given a precedent for the exercise of force. All the compelling power is found only under Satan's government. The Lord's principles are not of this order. (RH 9/7/97)
Please explain to me how the changing circumstances affect the above quote. According to the quote, the exercise of force is not a principle of God's government, but is instead only found in Satan's government, because His principles are not of this order. This, in fact, was given as the reason that God did not destroy Satan (or perhaps I should say "a reason" or "a principle reason"). So how do changing circumstances change the principles of God's government?
That seems to me it would be like God changing His character. How would changing a principle of God's government not be tantamount to a changing of God's character?
The principle embodied by Christ is that evil is overcome by good, not by force.
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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13093
05/03/05 12:11 AM
05/03/05 12:11 AM
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OP
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Judgment is not force, it is due process of law. "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment..."
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Re: No Temptation Too Difficult To Resist! - What? Help!
#13094
05/03/05 01:50 AM
05/03/05 01:50 AM
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Active Member 2012
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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Force is causing someone to do something against their will. According to the paradigm you are presenting, this is exactly what God does. According to the one I am presenting, it is not.
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