Love your enemies or punish them in Hell

This would beg a question along this line...Why does the OT show a God of wrath and the NT a God of mercy? The God of the New Testament is the same as the God of the Old Testament. The Bible says that He never changes. He is just as merciful in the OT as He is in the NT. Read Nehemiah 9 for a summary of how God mercifully forgave Israel, again and again, after they repeatedly sinned and turned their backs on Him. The psalms often speak of God's mercy poured out on sinners. He is also just as wrath filled in the NT as He is in the Old. He killed a husband and wife in the Book of Acts, simply because they told one lie. Jesus warned that He was to be feared because He has the power to cast the body and soul into hell. The apostle Paul said that he persuaded men to come to the Savior because he knew the "terror of the Lord." Read the dreadful judgements of Revelation. That will put the "fear of God" in you, which incidentally is "the beginning of wisdom." Perhaps the most fearful display of His wrath is seen in the cross of Jesus Christ. His fury so came upon the Messiah that it seems God enshrouded the face of Jesus in darkness so that creation couldn't gaze upon His unspeakable agony. Whether we like it or not, our God is a consuming fire of holiness (Hebrews 12:29). He isn't going to change, so we had better...before the Day of Judgement. If we repent, God, in His mercy, will forgive us and grant us eternal life in heaven with Him.

But, apparently, God the Father will condemn those who reject and hate Him to eternal torment in hell. He asks us to love our enemies and then, treats His own enemies with punishment.Says one thing, does another. Go figure.JakeHere we go again. Have you ever tried to measure just how much of the Bible you have absolute confidence in? I know you are not impressed by Paul, that about 33% of the New Testament. I know you don't like the Revelation. You reject the necessity of the virgin birth, Christ's bodily resurrection and physical return. There are clearly whole swathes of the Old Testament that you have no confidence in. As far as I can understand your position, you reject the teaching that Satan is a spirit-being person, with a never ending destiny.In the end you are endorsing the ethic of Jesus the Teacher. The teaching of Jesus is wonderful and utterly impossible to someone who rejects the person of Jesus as described by the the gospel recorders. Of the teaching of Jesus you reject his own personal attitude to the scriptures which we the background to everything He said and did.You position is like someone who having read War and Peace rejects whole sections of it, concentrates on a heavily edited version of some of the conversations. Some parts you interpret in an idiosyncritic manner unknown to any other reader, but confirmed by your inner witness.You embrace notions rejected by the text eg reincarnation. Nevetheless you are a firm believer in War and Peace..I repeat Jake, and without anger but with genuine concern for your soul, you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. The Bible will only reveal its secrets to those who trust it. The god you worship is a god of your own creation, such worship is idolatry. The only person you are affecting by your bizarre interpretations is yourself; every repitition only confirms you in your darkness. For you it becomes more coherent in the telling but to others.What you have Jake is Buddhism with a Christian vocabulary. Your concepts of reality are Buddhist, not Christian. Satan is not an illusion to himself or to anyone else. Reincarnation is is Buddhist not Christian. Transcendental meditation is not Christian it is Buddhist.You call yourself Christian but will not acknowledge the virgin birth, his physical resurrection. You will not acknowledge that Jesus is uniquely the Son of God, fully God made fully human. All this is perfectly compatible with Buddhism. A man who does not believe what you don't believe, and does believe what you do believe,can never be called Christian.

I know some things are hard to understand. I don't understand with my human mind- all that IS. But I have come to this conclusion: God is God- we are not. He has the authority and power and rule to do whatever He wants.I trust that He is just. He gives boundries for our benefit and we are to stay within those boundries. If we choose to live outside those boundries (acting as God ourselves) then we must suffer the consequences. We know the boundries- we choose blessing or judgement by our actions.Same with any good parent. With my children, I give boundries AND I let them know the consequencs of stepping outside those boundries. They, then CHOOSE to either obey or get disciplined.- even though I LOVE them to death- I will discipline (give them consequences)because it is for their own good- for their own safety, for their own wisdom in the future.The difference between us and God is that HE iS GOD. We are not.In Him, Chanin

In response to the original question,I need to ask, what is the agenda here?Is this to 'push some buttons'?An honest inquiry?Something is suspect in the attempt to marry the line of thought with the texts together.What is the response to the issues raised and the questions asked from others here?Jake, brother, what is going on?I think it can be stated that we as a whole are concerned about you as a person.More importantly the state of your soul and I mean that in all sincerity.May God have mercy on me if I am misunderstanding you or your intentions.The love of God within me compels me to ask along with the others, why? Why this bent towards leaning on your own knowledge? Do you really think that we all have some kind of mold that we are attempting to press you into? I think at the heart of it we are all trying to understand and grasp the deep mystery's of God.Some things we will be debating till the cows come home or the Lord returns. But the core essentials of the Christian faith keep coming up for challenge and want to be re-written. Are we not mere creatures?This scripture instantly came to mind upon re-reading all this again:Isa 14:14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Isa 14:15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. You may percieve that anyway you choose, but what I gather out of it is the principle as it applies here and the byproduct of our troubles.Let us be humbled before our God.Let us be of some help if we can Jake, not by any of our own wisdom, but as we also submit ourselves to the wisdom of God.Praying for us all.May the Lord be merciful.

I make my cat eat off the basement floor. I eat at the table. When my cat jumps on the table she gets backhanded off the table. She isn't allowed to go outside but I do it several times a day. When she tries to go out she gets kicked in the face. It is for her own good. There are rules that apply to her because I'm in charge and taking care of her and what I say goes. She is not on my level and if she wants to fight it out to the ultimate showdown I'll have her put down (I live in town or else I'd do it myself).Anything about this seem analogous to the discussion? Our place is under God's. We are thrilled to get canned tuna and not the lethal injection we deserve.

Jake I must echo the previous questions from Mike and philologos posted.What are your motives for this thread? scripture exhorts us to PROVOKE one another to good works.Are you sure of your contributions dear friend?Looking ahead & upDelboy :-?

Jake, man I say again get saved dude. Stop raising these silly questions to men and get saved. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 1Cor2:14danielcourtney

DanielCourtney:That's a counter-productive way of evangelism! Jake:I have had this discussion with you before. Your presuppositions regarding the sources of authority and inspiration of scripture are so profoundly different from others on this board that there is little common ground on which a meanful discussion could be conducted, especially in a forum titled Scriptural Debates.Try reading some books on apologetics by evangelicals and see if they make sense (e.g. Christian Apologetics, by Norman Geisler). Then maybe we could discuss further.

Jake, from what I can gather you believe whatever your "inner witness" leads you to believe.You pick and choose whatever it tells you is correct, my question to you is, how do you know what side your "inner witness" is on?

Jake writes Yes, Philologos, Jesus was God in the flesh, but how this is so is a mystery to me and should be a mystery to all of us. (Claims of Virgin birth was a common means of deifying people throughout the ages.) Did Jesus have free will? or was He a puppet on God's strings? I believe He had free will as a human being and thus, He could not have been identical in nature with God the Father.Jake, not God in flesh, but 'come in flesh'. This is not just divine presence but incarnation; God becomes man. 'god in flesh' may be nothing more than pantheism. The Word became Flesh; this is incarnation and the starting point of Christianity. He was 'identical in nature' with God the Father, that is the whole point. He became man but did not cease to be God. He lived his life on earth as a man, not because He was different in nature to His Father but because He chose to. It was part of the identification process. I presume your reference to virgin birth being a common means of deifying people throughout the ages shows that you see no unique and infallible revelation in Christianity. The revelation of God in Christ is just another addition to all the 'truth' in all the religions. Jake, this is Buddhism. You may be a very nice Buddhist, but this is not Christian.What I find strange and offensive is that while I claim Jesus in numerous posts on this site, people like Danielcourtney continue to urge me to "just get saved." I have a different take on the Scriptures and Christianity but my faith, like yours, is in Jesus, the only son of God. But I have no idea who this Jesus of yours is. He is clearly not the Jesus of Bible revelation; who is he? For me the saving grace of Jesus is his profound teachings and demonstation of love. He teaches us how to live and offers us His Holy Spirit as a counselor.Salvation is not by means of profound teaching or demonstrations of love but through vicarious substitutionary atonement. But this is something else you are strangely silent on. Either Christ died for the sins of the world or He didn't. If He did to add anything, good works included, is blasphemous. What do you think was taking place on the cross? "God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." This was not to show us a better way of life, it was 'for us' that is instead of us, in our place. I don't know whether you believe in vicarious, substitutionary atonement; perhaps you would tell me? If you do believe that Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree what possible purpose could there be for progressive reincarnations in which we 'work out the consequences of our sin'. I'm not even sure you believe in the concept of sin.The bottom line is that we both may say we have faith in Jesus, the only son of God but that statement means nothing if every word in the phrase is used differently. I don't know what you mean by faith, in, Jesus, the only, son of God. All these words have biblical concepts but you mix and match to such a degree that they no longer communicate sense.

1 Peter 2:24Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Jake,It's not about getting 'saved'- as Danielcourtney said. it's about 'surrender'.If we really want to live like Jesus taught, we will surrender everything to the Father. That includes our will, our wants, our own logic.It's also about 'trust'. we can't surrender unless we trust. Do you believe in total surrender to God?This to me- is the epitome of Christianity. I claimed to be a Christian for many years- even though I had not really surrendered everything in my heart, mind and life to God. I wanted to still keep some things back to myself.Jesus was the ultimate example here. He came to do the will of his Father. He did nothing of Himself- only those things He saw the Father doing. God wants to be KING on the throne of your heart- not 98% Him and even 2% you. It is normal to have questions but then turn them over quickly to God and TRUST what He has said. If we claim to rule in any part in our lives or heart- then I question anyone if they are really a Christian- a follower of Christ. We cannot have him as our First love and have other loves too- even knowledge, opinions, whatever. He is jealous for you and your love for Him.Finding out all of these answers, increasing in man's knowledge, knowing all there is to know- this is meaningless to God. He is knowledge, wisdom, the Answer. The only thing we need to be concerned about is Surrender- to him. Every single bit, every aspect of our lives. We were bought with a price and the least we can do is surrender everything to Him.In Him, Chanin

Yes, Jake, I do wish that we were in a little hippie commune where everyone loved and was naturally good and no punishment or discipline was ever needed. Unfortunately for your theory, this is far from reality. If I let my cat do whatever she wanted and never smacked her I'd have a condo-barn in no time. If my son never got spanked he would be a terror and turn out like many of the punks in our society. If my God never disciplined me I'd be on my way to Hell.If God had said over and over that He was only love and never claimed to be holy and just I'd be on your side. Unfortunately He is supreme, holy, and just. Holy taken to the third degree of repetition! His love will not contradict His holiness.It is even more scripturally obvious that Satan will be in hell forever than man. So how is okay to put him there forever while people get off easy? Aren't humans who rebel just as much an offense to God as angels who rebel? Why eternally punish Satan but just destroy men? Aren't men's souls eternal like God and His angels?One final note: Once when my cat escaped me she was hit by a car and had her jaw hanging loose for a day before undergoing surgery and healing for two months. I'd say she should appreciate those kicks that keep her inside quite a lot. In the same way I appreciate all the discipline I've received from my parents and God (even when it was severe) because it has molded me into a person I'd never have been on my own.

Personnaly, I think it was the act of submission to God's will that was most important. We all are confronted with things God asks us to do or not do that are against our personal desires. When we deny ourselves and do what God bids us we take up our cross and follow after Jesus.JakeOh I wish I could be with you and talk this through. How would submission to God's will affect the acculmulated sins of the whole world, past, present and future? This is moral influence theory; it says Christ died to change the way we think and act. This is not revelation of God but man's rationalisation. The Bible reveals vicarious, substitutionary atonement not the setting up of an example.Isaiah says God "gathered together upon Him the sins of us all". He died under the sentence of God's righteous anger against sin and sinner. Like the scapegoat of old He carried it away from God's presence. I am not for or against Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". My anxiety is that it will present the notion that pain caused by whips and nails was the suffering referred to in 1 Peter "Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" [1Pet 3:18] This word suffering in Greek is pascho. (It is where our word passion comes from.) If Gibson is saying that the physical suffering of Christ brought us to God, he is in error. If you say his submission to the will of God brought us to God you are in similar error. It was not a public demonstration. The work was achieved in 3 hours of pitch darkness with no witnesses.It was the sacrifice of Himself offered without spot to God, upon which God could lay the sins of the whole world. It was the suffering of separation from one who had been His eternal companion. Peter's single verse is remarkable for its fullness.Christ suffered once. One all embracing, never to be repeated, sacrifice.suffered for sins: He suffered for (peri-regarding) sins. His suffering was in relation to sin. The physical suffering was merely the outward shadow of what was taking place in spirit. This atonement in Bible language.the just for the unjust; this is a different word for 'for'. meaning 'instead of'. This is substitionary atonement.to bring us to God; this is reconciliation.He died not as an example but as a blood sacrifice to enable God to be both just and the justifier of those who put their faith in Christ. Redemption was accomplished in the cross, which is why the triumphant cry of "it is finished" came as the cry from the darkness. This achieved redemption is applied to individuals by the Holy Spirit as they rest all their faith on what He has done for them.Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, upon another's life, another's death, I stake my whole eternity. This Jake is faith, everything else is mockery of the word. And this is why utter dependence upon Christ as God incarnate is not an optional extra to Christian faith. It is at the heart of the matter. No other life than the life of God Himself could have sustained this burden or achieved this salvation.GLORY, GLORY, GLORY TO THE LAMB.