That's quite enough.
I don't understand how some people can claim to be Christian and yet be in favor of capital punishment. Did not Jesus stay the execution of the adultress? Are Christians not called to be Christ-like? Additionally, none of the canonical gospels record Jesus committing an act of violence against anyone. In fact, didn't Jesus instruct his followers to turn the other cheek? To pray for those who harmed them and love their enemies? So how can some Christians be pro-war? If Jesus had a ministry of unconditional love, healing, and inclusion, why are some Christians so in favor of death and violence?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by David Gaskell on -
Christians are not permitted to bring Death and violence, to other people,
Christians are to make war upon every desire in there own hearts about violence to other people.
Christian love their enemy's because they were once enemies of God and despite that, God forgave even them.
Lets talk about the Hatred of God. Yes GOD HATES TOO!! you say NO God cannot hate because God is love, I tell you God MUST hate Because God is love.
Do you love Jews... You must hate the holocaust
Do you love Baby's...You must hate abortion. If you support abortion you hate babies.
WWII Christians would have been pro-war because they loved God, because GOD LOVED JEWS AND HATES INJUSTICE. I am not trying to justify all war, I am trying to explain Gods great mercy and Great Judgment which is a an impossible task.
What true Christian wants war for the sake of war, there is no such thing.
What true Christian wants death and violence for other people, there is no such thing either.
All these questions can be traced back to the attributes of God, If we would simply study who God is and what the finished work of Grace through Christ Jesus, we would not stumble on questions such as these.
Christians can be called 'christian' because they act 'Christ like', not the other way around.
I hope I covered everything. you cannot give a short answer to this kind of question. There are some things I left out, I'll save them for later.
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Permalink Reply by David Gaskell on
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Careful about what you say.
God kills people, if you say he doesn't you deny the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah and Hell itself. when God judges the wicked and all evil, sinners as they are thrown into hell all heaven will rejoice because God has finally cleansed his creation of them. Most all theological doctrine of hell comes from the mouth of Jesus himself. God uses even corrupt governments to judge other nations for sin, you must understand that if ANYONE is in charge of ANYTHING it is because God has put them there to do a work.
God saves people, you have heard the phrase "why do bad things happen to good people". That is a deceiving question. I say why does anything GOOD happen at all! Men are born radically depraved, have a God hating heart, evil from birth, their are no good people. We drink inequity down like water, Its not that we have sin, it is that we have never done anything but sin! God testified against all men,
Genesis 8 :21 and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; FOR THE IMAGINATION OF MAN'S HEART IS EVIL AND WICKED FROM HIS YOUTH;
We as Christians our Gospel is of Grace, God saved us FOR Himself and BY Himself. Jesus said in Mark
the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, NOW REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL.
salvation is preceded and followed by repentance. If you want to know about what a Christian looks like and what happens when God saves a man. Read Isaiah and Ezekiel God talks about saving Israel, but he is also talking about the TRUE BELIEVER. (how can some people claim to be christian, 'how do you know you are saved'-that's another topic)
The Gospel, literally "the Good News" Christians have the grace of God not because we deserve it, but because God loves us.
How can a Righteous, Holy, Perfect God Forgive Sin? There is a mighty conflict in Gods character when he says he is a friend of sinners. Our God is to be the Judge of all the earth, for God to look at a man (any man) and call him clean (or justified) is wrong! It would be the same as if a Judge were to let murderers go free. If one day you got home from work or school and you find your house broken into and all your family members murdered by a ?PIRATE?, you would grab that PIRATE hand him over to the NINJA police, them to a NINJA Judge, if that ninja judge were to say "I'm a very loving Judge, I will let the PIRATE go free" you would be outraged!! you would write the Ninja Scrolls, be on the six 0'clock news proclaiming that they're is a Judge on the bench more wicked and vile than the CRIMINALS he sets free.
Proverbs 17 says this : Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent – It is an abomination before the Lord
God cannot be an abomination before himself, God had a plan to bring salvation, even when Adam first sinned.
JESUS!!
Gods only begotten son, born of a Woman with the purpose of showing men who God really is, then he was crucified and hung on a Roman cross, then in front of men, CRUSHED under the full force of Gods Wrath.
GOD HAD TO SATISFY HIS OWN FIERCE WRATH!!!
That same wrath that should have fallen upon all men, he took, becoming a propitiation for our sin. Then God raised Jesus from the Dead so he could intercede on our behalf, when that terrible day of Judgment rolls around, God, God Almighty will look at a sinner and call him clean, why, not because of his own righteousness but because of the righteousness of Jesus that is why. The only way to be saved from Gods Judgement is through Christ Jesus. We are not being bought from the devil, we are being purchased and saved from God's own WRATH and ETERNAL HELL.
Christian are in favor of Death and Violence because Jesus will Judge and Death will result from God ridding the universe of Evil. All Judgment belongs to God and he WILL do right.
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Permalink Reply by MandateSchoolMan on -
Most of your argument hinges on a literal/fundamentalist interpretation of Biblical texts. Yet there are two stories of creation. Did it happen twice? Furthermore, the theologies of original sin and penal substitution weren't even present until Augustine. Additionally, The Bible itself says "God is spirit" ergo God doesn't have a gender. How can humanity today be somehow complicit in an execution that took place 2,000 years ago? Oh and as far as your eschatology goes, it hinges on a literal interpretation of the books of Daniel and Revelations, both of which have been determined to be symbolic minority literature dealing with foreign oppression from a dualistic worldview. The myth of redemptive violence was prevalent during the times which the oral stories were passed down and eventually recorded in writing, thus contributing to its presence in the conceptual frameworks under which the ancient Israelites understood their world and explained it. How is it love for God to murder his only child? If we follow your analogy, then any father who murders their child ought be brought to justice as well. By the by, Christ commands that we love one another as he has loved us (1st John 4:17). In that regard I would forgive the pirate. Would you?
None of the N.T. material was a first hand account, as the first gospel wasn't even written until around 70 A.D. Even the Gospels themselves disagree as to the divine nature of Jesus, which by the by wasn't even established until a democratic process 300 years after Jesus died (at the council of Nicea). All things considered I would advise you to take your own advice and be careful what you say. After all, if love and hate are opposites, as you claim are sin and righteousness, then how can God be both of one but not both of the other? Additionally, if God is fully sovereign, then why does evil exist? God's wrath, as you seem so adamant on railing about, is radically inconsistent with Jesus' ministry as recorded in the canonical gospels. Healing, teaching, forgiving, and including people into his life seems out of touch with fire and brimstone, and if your theology is so ruthlessly adherent to an unbending puppeteer like deity who picks and chooses who suffers and who does not, based on a concept of fear, then where is the love of God in that? Also, if you hold vehemently to trinitarian theology, and if you believe God and Jesus are one in the same, then at the crucifixion, wouldn't that mean God committed suicide? Oh and if it's God's task to rid the universe of evil, why would God permit it to exist in the first place? Oh, and all along, if you're trying to explain God's great justice and mercy yet you admit that it's an impossible task, then what was the point of your argument? Unless of course you presume to do the impossible, but wouldn't that make you God? To quote the ninja, that would make you "BAD AT LIVING!"
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Permalink Reply by David Gaskell on
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I am not going to get into a discussion about the credibility of the Bible, If you have read the thing, you know it has to have been inspired. I do believe that the Bible is intended to be taken literally first, then be searched for deeper meaning later.
Just because you like to ask lots of questions, I will Format my answers as such
MANDATESCHOOLMAN asks a "God'sNinja"
1. Two creation Stories?
Genesis ONE and Genesis TWO are talking about the same event. In the Garden Adam named the animals, God 'created' one of each in the garden so Adam could name them and also to find a suitable helper.
2. Original Sin?
Don't say people never believed in original sin..
Roman 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned
People are not Sinners because they sin, people sin because they are Sinners.
3. God has no Gender?
Within the next 100 years every single person on this earth, currently living right now, will be dead and facing Judgment. The body will be gone and nothing will be left but the soul. God will not look at a persons Gender. One reason why God made Gender is to help teach us about Gods feelings towards his Church. (Read Song of Solomon, the Church is the Beloved.) Gods love cannot be comprehended nor can any of his other attributes because he is infinite.
He is an infinite God, words will always fail to do justice.
I cannot say Gods love is like a mothers love, Gods love blows that love out of the water.
I cannot liken Gods beauty to anything in this universe, His beauty more than all beauty put together combined.
I cannot liken Gods power to anything. I cannot liken Gods Righteousness, Grace, Mercy, Justice etc..
Words will always fail, the only time in history that God was able to point to anything outside himself was 2000 years ago when Jesus Christ was here, He said 'I AM' the same thing God said when Moses asked God who he was.
Gods Holiness, it is not so much an attribute of God so much as it is a result of Gods attributes. To be holy is to be SEPARATE, that is the true meaning. Most people when they think about the holiness of God they bring that back to his moral purity and Righteousness. No, God is Holy because he is separate, there Is NONE like Him. Take the power of God for example, now compare the energy given off from a small engine and compare that with the energy given off from all the stars and sun's in the universe combined. Now I ask, which is more like the power of God. The true answer is neither. One man is stands 6'0" another 5'10", that means that the six foot man is closer to the sun, ABSOLUTELY NOT. you cannot compare God to anything because God is Holy. God's infinite being makes everything stand as dust before him.
4. How can one man suffering on a roman cross for just a few hours save an entire history of people?!
THE ANSWER IS IN THE WORTHINESS OF THAT ONE MAN!!
I am so glad you asked! thankyou!
Rev. 5:9 And they sang a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God members of every tribe and language and people and nation."
Rev. 4:11 "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."
If you were to take a scale, put Jesus Christ on one side, then take the entire universe, all the galaxies, the stars, bow staffs, the broad broad sword, chocolate pudding, pizza, low gas prices, good music, put that all on the other side of the scale, the worthiness of Christ out weights them all infinitely!!!!
Revelation says that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Christ Jesus is lord, why, because on that day of Judgment people will see who God is. Even sinners as they are being cast into hell will have no choice but to proclaim that He has done right in His Judgement. Sinners deserve an eternal
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Permalink Reply by MandateSchoolMan on
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Biblical credibility is the core of the issues I raised. I'm not a fundamentalist by any means, the bible is far from inerrant, and the overwhelming majority of your claims hinge on a literal interpretation of revelations, to which I don't hold. The total depravity of man which you draw on so often was certainly not a universal view. Ever hear of pelagious? Or Origen with his universal salvation? Eschatology itself didn't even develop until the historical period between the hebrew bible and the new testament. Original sin was barely a theological understanding at that point as well, and it was certinaly not a uniform belief.
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Permalink Reply by David Gaskell on
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Revelation says that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Christ Jesus is lord, why, because on that day of Judgment people will see who God is. Even sinners as they are being cast into hell will have no choice but to proclaim that He has done right in His Judgement. Sinners deserve an eternal/infinate hell/punishment because they have sinned against an eternal/infinite God!
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Permalink Reply by David Gaskell on
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say I were to punch a fellow ninja in the face, the worst thing that could happen is I would get a shuriken in the neck, no problem. If I were to punch the head honcho Ninja President right in the face, It's quite clear i would be dragged off and never heard from again, and rightly so. The justice deserved is dependent upon the authority offended, God would be completely Justified in condemning all humanity right now to an eternal death in Hell. For the christian, it is mercy that spared them from hell, it is grace that he let them into his heaven. I will serve God even if he never promised a Heaven, why? because he is worthy!
Why couldn't a perfect angel have laid down his life? Even an angel in all it's glory has no life of it's own to lay down. Jesus Christ is the God Man. His sacrifice was the fulfillment of the law. Only God has authority to Give life. Jesus came to lay down his perfect life for our sin to appease the furious wrath of his father because of his great love AND TO BRING GLORY UNTO HIMSELF!
look up the Doctrine of Propitiation for more,
try this youtube video
http://defendingcontending.com/2008/05/17/the-paul-washer-audio-cli...
5. God murdered Jesus.?
It was Gods great love for us, and his holy hatred for sin that caused him to take that punishment upon himself. There is no other way to be made right in the sight of God except through Christ Jesus, God made sure of that. When Jesus Christ hung on that tree he bore the sins of mankind AND HE DID IT WILLINGLY. He stood in their law place and became a curse for man, He was FORSAKEN by His father
Isaiah 53:10 Yet IT PLEASED YAHWEH TO CRUSH HIM and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand
Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
When Christ took the sin. God the father was Just in "murdering" him. (just read Isaiah 53, or much rather, the whole bible)
Gods will IS perfect, No-one may boast in salvation because man cannot save themselves.
6. Love, Righteousness... Sin, Hatred. How can God be?
Again these questions would all be solved if you had the biblical understanding of who God really is. First off Sin is not an attribute, sin is a condition. Gods love and Gods Righteousness are attributes. Also love is a feeling and so is hate, or rather a decision of the will.
No man truly has a "free will", Only God really has a free will, I am bound in this ninja body, I am not free to do any and everything I please we are all slaves to our will's or nature. A man when he is born, is born of Adam. He is a slave to his sinful heart and will be condemned for it Christ taught that in order to be saved from that fallen condition you must be born from above, or born again. Wherein God Almighty performs a supernatural act of salvation,
Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
That there is a divine work of God, he is saying that HE will take out the heart of stone that cannot respond to divine stimuli, and put in it's place a heart of flesh that will respond to him!! Rocks are hard and don't feel, God changes that and makes the christian sensitive to to his Holy Spirit and the sin that is in his life. If a person professes to be a Christian and is not sensitive to the sin in their life, a person who is that way is not a Christian. Jesus said "you will know them by their fruit".
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Permalink Reply by David Gaskell on
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7. if God is fully sovereign, then why does evil exist?
You just asked the question, if God is all powerful, cannot look upon sin/evil, can even be in all places at all times, and knows the exact location of all sin, (because he does know everything) why then does evil exist?
Good question, why would God let YOU and ME be born. We have corrupted his creation, broken everyone of his laws, offended his deity and rejected his Son.
GRACE,
We are living under grace currently. Before God have ever Judged anything, he always sends a warning, (read the old testament) It's not that God won't Judge Evil. It's just that THE TIME FOR JUDGEMENT HAS NOT YET COME. The earth is almost (almost) like a proving ground, during your short stay here you have a chance to repent (turn away from sin and turn to God, Throw yourself upon Christ Jesus because apart from Him you or me have nothing to do with God.) For the Christian who has been saved by the grace of the Father, they find most Joy and fulfillment in doing the will of the father!
WHAT IS GODS WILL
To make his Glory known!
Mark 16:15 He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
What is Gods will.
What motivates God... Getting glory for himself
Why did God make you... to get glory for himself
Why does God Do anything at all... TO GET GLORY FOR HIMSELF.
8. "...unbending puppeteer like deity who picks and chooses who suffers and who does not."?
God does not pick and choose who suffers eternal damnation. WE DO for ourselves, we are without excuse, God gave us the choice to repent and turn to him. that is what sets us apart from other created beings, God let us choose to love him in return. a robot love, or a forced love, that's not love at all.
Romans 9:13 Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
God hated Esau, (he had his reasons). But Jacob he loved! the sign that God loved Jacob was that he never left him alone. At the end of Jacobs life he went to his brothers land, Esau was a rich prince. God's hate was manifest though that God never changed Esau, he left him alone. (there is more that can be said, but suffice to say that EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS, in a Christians life, happens because God loves that person. Everything that happens, happens so that the christian may continually be conformed into the image of Christ. (it is called sanctification).
The truth is, I really am "BAD AT LIVING". My Joy is complete in that Christ was "GOOD AT LIVING"
Why am I saved? because Christ was "GOOD AT LIVING". Not my own Righteousness but his. Jesus Christ was so "GOOD AT LIVING" we killed him once...AND HE CAME BACK!
Jesus Christ, by that standard, is the ULTIMATE ninja.
Thanks for the questions MANDATESCHOOLMAN I look Foward to Speaking truth again soon!
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Permalink Reply by MandateSchoolMan on
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If we can't possibly ascribe human qualities to God, then wouldn't that negate your extensive treatment of love and hate as faculties of God?
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Permalink Reply by The Lightning's Hand on -
I, personally, am against the death penalty, as it denies convicts a chance to convert. I don't think Christians follow the turn the other cheek thing nearly often enough. I am against all forms of war. I am not in favor of death and violence.
So much for those sweeping generalizations.
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Permalink Reply by MandateSchoolMan on
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Word. I'm glad to hear it. But notice how I used the qualifier "some" in my initial questioning. Some is different from all, ergo your sweeping generalization doesn't exist. But rock on. I wish more were as vocal on it as you have been.
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Permalink Reply by The Lightning's Hand on
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I can't figure this out, so please enlighten me, MandateSchoolMan, are you a tolerant atheist, or a Christian who is testing other Christians' faith. I respect and am glad for either one, but I need to know.
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