And did not love God with all their heart, mind, strength and might all day every day. We will do that one day though. PTL


We tend to find the sins of commission against humans far worse than the great sin of omission. Infinite punishment for the infinite evil of offending an infinite, loving and holy God.

Against Him only have I sinned and His judgment is right.

_________________
Robert

Jesus had already been punished for the sins of ALL mankind and taken away the sins of ALL mankind. The penalty had already been paid in full.

Isa. 53:4-6 –
Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
ALL OF US like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused THE INIQUITY OF US ALL
To fall on Him.

John 1:29 –
The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of THE WORLD!

1 John 2:2 –
and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the WHOLE WORLD.

1 John 4:14 –
We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the SAVIOR OF THE WORLD.


Jesus is the saviour of the world!

He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8).

He saves for the sake of His name.

Ps. 106:8 –
Nevertheless He saved them for the sake of His name,
That He might make His power known.

Isa. 48:11 –
For My own sake, My very own sake, I will act;
for how can I let Myself be defamed?
I will not yield My glory to another.

Ps. 109:21 --
But You, O GOD, the Lord, deal kindly with me for the sake of Your name; deliver me by the goodness of Your loving devotion.

Ezek. 20:9 –
But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the eyes of the nations among whom they were living, in whose sight I had revealed Myself to Israel by bringing them out of Egypt.


All mankind will be saved because Jesus IS the Saviour of the world! He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13).



Luke 23:34 –
Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

_________________
Jade

“UNIVERSALISM”

A COMMENT


I love Bible Study. It is the joy of my heart.

Ps. 119:103 –
How sweet are Your words to my taste!
Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Ps. 34:8 –
O taste and see that the LORD is good;
How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!


But when I try to study the doctrines of men, I just have a total mental block and cannot make any headway.


Does “universalism” just mean the salvation of all mankind?

If so, I find it so incomprehensible that Christians are so utterly petrified of “universalism” when NO ONE will be going to hell just because they do not believe in eternal torment and NO ONE will be saved from going to hell just because they believe in eternal torment.


And, this which should be feared is NOT feared and is hardly preached:

2 Cor. 13:5 (KJV) –
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

John 15:4-6 –
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, AND CAST THEM INTO THE FIRE AND THEY ARE BURNED.

_________________
Jade

Can we be born again,... born of the water and of The Spirit,... enter His kingdom,and yet,...??

Can we enter into His kingdom, (life in His kingdom) and yet ‘OFFEND’ (Him) and be gathered out of His kingdom, and cast into the furnace of fire , for offending and for inquity ?

Mt.13:41-43,
“The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather ‘OUT OF HIS KINGDOM’ all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;

42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun ‘IN THE KINGDOM OF THEIR FATHER’ ,Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

That is very ‘thought provoking.
I know,no way to explain these Scriptures away.

I would tend to believe we would have to stay in a continued state of true repentance. ...that The Lord, through His great mercy, wants to continually save us from our sins.

Could that possibly mean that ?....

.. how much love for Him would be required of us to be such a person, ..a child of God,.. w/ that type of relationship w/Him?

Does it go back to what The Scriptures say about how we are to love God.?
..and we must love His Word, because, The Word is God,.. He who speaketh to us, through The Spirit.

Mt.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.”

* Jesus loved like this.


..... “nay,.. but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish .”

My thoughts are rambling on,...
——————
elizabeth

There are pretenders in the kingdom but only God knows who they are, as in the parable of the dragnet.

_________________
Todd

Rom. 11:20-23 –
Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. DO NOT BE CONCEITED, BUT FEAR; FOR IF GOD DID NOT SPARE THE NATURAL BRANCHES, HE WILL NOT SPARE YOU, EITHER. BEHOLD THEN THE KINDNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD; to those who fell, severity, but to you, GOD'S KINDNESS, IF YOU CONTINUE IN HIS KINDNESS; OTHERWISE YOU ALSO WILL BE CUT OFF. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

John 1:17 –
For the Law was given through Moses; GRACE and truth were realized THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.

Eph. 2:6-9 –
and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show THE SURPASSING RICHES OF HIS GRACE IN KINDNESS TOWARD US IN CHRIST JESUS. For by GRACE you have been saved THROUGH FAITH; and that NOT OF YOURSELVES, IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD; NOT AS A RESULT OF WORKS, SO THAT NO ONE MAY BOAST.

Titus 3:4-7 –
But WHEN THE KINDNESS OF GOD OUR SAVIOR AND HIS LOVE FOR MANKIND APPEARED, HE SAVED US, NOT BECAUSE OF WORKS DONE BY US IN RIGHTEOUSNESS, BUT according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

_________________
Jade

Hi all: it's been a long time.

In the heart of a true believer, not a fake or deceived person there lay dangerous ideas.

What we think God should be like and with it, what we think God should do. (If God think and acts like me)

What we believe God to be like and what we think God did.
(If God is what I believe and acts like I think he does)

What God is truly like and what God truly did.
(What God truly is without my ideas of him and what he did without the biases I have about things)

We all get to wade through this with bible in hand and prayers being made and discussions being done.

With all the above there are thousands of different nuances about God and what he does to cloud the reading of any scripture for eternity.

We see through a glass darkly. When that which is perfect is come we shall see clearly and know as we are known.

Until then, a good student of scripture must confess his biases, repent of keeping them in the face of a clear reading of scripture.

A distorted view of God always results in distorted understandings of his actions. Heaven, hell, Calvinism, Arminianism, Cessationism, Continuationism, eternal security, eternal threat, all of these doctrines contain scriptures and human obligations to believe them in the face of a thousand different caveats from a thousand different people.

It takes a revelation from God to know the truth about God and his word. Without that revelation every doctrine is just another mode of attack or another means to create strife. What difference between this doctrine and calvy/armin debates? None.

My hope is you all will seek God and call upon him to reveal his word to you regardless if the moderator here or elsewhere have made up their mind that all discussions on the topic are now relegated to the 'strife' bin.

There is a right and wrong belief on this subject, you get right belief from God himself and with that the risk of losing 'what you thought God was like and how he should act'.

_________________
Marvin

This is an interesting discussion. I know that it has been discussed over the years here. However, I would add something that might provide just another way to look at it.

Time.

When did "time" begin?

Time is certainly a concept that is confined to our created universe and its system of measurements. Our concept of "day" is based upon a single rotation of the Earth -- one full night and day in a 24 hour cycle. Our concept of "year" is based upon the Earth revolving through space around the Sun in roughly 365 days.

A "day" or "year" on other planets is different. A day on Mars is 25 hours. Yet, a day on Venus is 5,832 hours! A day on Jupiter (the largest planet in our solar system) is just 10 hours. The concept of a "day" on the sun is even more perplexing -- because it has nothing else to measure how it "rises" or "sets."

Even brilliant physicists and other scientists perceive "time" as "relative." They come to this conclusion from the confines of this side of that "glass darkly" or "mirror dimly" (I Corinthians 13:12). Concepts of time are very different perceptions in eternity.

After all, this created heavens and the earth will pass away. What will a "day" be like after that? What was a day before the "Sun" and "Earth" were created?

Why am I even bringing this up?

My point is that our concept of time is earthly. We're approaching it from a very earthly perspective. God is ETERNAL. We can count our days on Earth. God knows our days in eternity. However, God knew us before we were born.

Consider this: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4 KJV). What about "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" (Isaiah 46:10 KJV).

We know that the apostle John was able to "see" things that are recorded in the Book of Revelation. However, I think that we often tend to think that he was having a dream-like vision of the future. However, this wasn't mere dream. He was instructed to write things that he had SEEN (Revelation 1:19-20). He was caught up into the "spirit" in Revelation 4:1-2. In other words, he was transformed from this earthly world into that which is eternal.

What does this mean when it comes to the concepts of Hell and eternal punishment? I am not entirely certain. However, I do think that our pondering can sometimes miss this crucial element. Eternity cannot be measured by time. It certainly cannot be measured by an earthly view of days, months or years.

Think of big numbers. A "googol" is a name for a number that was invented in 1920 by a 9-year-old boy named Milton Sirotta. It represents a one followed by a hundred zeroes. In other words, it is a HUGE number. It is technically a shorter way to describe the number 10 duotrigintillion.

Yet, a "googol" of years is nothing in eternity. A googol number of googols is nothing either.

Why?

Eternity is not a measurement. It is more of a state. It is literally infinity. Timelessness. This is difficult for us to comprehend because there is nothing to compare it with.

Time is still important. It is certainly important for us in the scope of this world, Biblical prophecy (e.g., the weeks of Daniel, etc.). However, time as we know it will cease to exist when the heavens and the earth are destroyed.

When we try to rationalize "eternal" punishment, I think that our concept of what "eternal" means is skewed by our measurement of time on Earth. Time for us is not a state. It is a concept of measurement.

Personally, I don't like to conceptualize that measurement. The issue is that of punishment. The Bible is clear that sinful man is punished.

_________________
Christopher

Chris-

Excellent point— I have sometimes heard that word “eternal” is more of a God-quality than a time measurement, which is why we have eternal life “now.”

The idea of no time cannot be comprehended by humans, nor can words express it, which is why the Bible can not explain it. It’s not a knock on scripture but rather is a function of our limited minds, like Marvin said.

Good to see you again Marvin!

_________________
Todd

Please just be consistent with your arguments that “eternal destruction”
may not actually mean forever. That everlasting burning may not mean forever. If that is a possible truth, then eternal life might not really be forever and everlasting love may not be unending.

The fact that God is outside time means that when time goes away, then what is at that point will always be. There will be no ending or starting of anything. Everything at that point including real spiritual life and real punishment just is.

_________________
Robert