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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| Condemnation. |
Consider the scene:
A judge is presiding over a murder trial. There are 1000 eye-witnesses who say they saw "Hugh" pull a gun and shoot "Dean" in the head - killing him. Every eye witness comes and gives this same testimony. It seems unlikely that Hugh is going to get out of this one - but when it comes time for the defense, Hugh's smarmy lawyer steps forward, and giving the jury a condescending nod and a wink, explains that:"...the reason Dean died was not because Hugh shot him, ...it was because the bullet from Hugh's gun entered Dean's brain." -- wink, wink. Can you imagine any jury being hood-winked by this kind of "revelation"? I don't think so either.
Yet just today I was reading a comment made on another blog wherein something was said that was far more serious than our lawyer in the previous (and priming) example, it was said:"...the reason [sinners] are condemned is not because of sin but because of death without the Son." Here then is a very similar appeal.
Surely, no one who rejects Christ as their Savior is going to go to escape God's wrath; unless one is a universalist, one must conclude that some will escape God's wrath, and some will not, and those who do escape God's wrath, will be the same ones who did not reject Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Yet the question here is why is God's wrath coming upon anyone?
The quote suggests that God's wrath comes upon a person, not because they sin, but because they reject Jesus. This ...magnificent claim is founded upon a myopic focus upon John 3:18, which ignores, pretty much, everything else scripture has to say about why God's wrath is coming.
I plan on making my point only from the New Testament, not because the OT isn't instructive, but in order to keep this post of a manageable length, I thought it best to restrict my meanderings to the NT.
When God's wrath is first mentioned in the gospels it is not being poured out by God because men are failing to come to Jesus. It is proclaimed as what waits for every man who fails to repent (c.f. the first mention of wrath in Matthew 3:7, and likewise in Luke 3:7).
In John 3:36, God's wrath already abides on those who do not obey Christ. For those of you who don't know what "repentance" means, it means surrendering (becoming obedience) to God. Those who fail to obey Christ are one and the same as those who fail to repent.
In Romans 1:18-20, Paul teaches that God's wrath abides on the ungodly because God has made himself known in creation, and men rejected this knowledge - suppressing in in order to continue in unrighteousness. Note that by this passage the Holy Spirit gives the reason why men reject God - they reject God in order to pursue the evil that they are inclined towards. But the text shows that they are not condemned for suppressing the truth in righteousness, they are condemned because they are unrighteous.
In Romans 2:5,8, we learn that wrath is stored up - how? By failing to come to Jesus? No, by failing to repent of sin/by continuing in sin.
In Romans 3:5 God's wrath is linked to our unrighteousness.
In Romans 13:4, God's wrath is described as being upon the one who practices evil.
In Ephesians 5:5-6, Paul doesn't say that the wrath of God is coming upon the son's of disobedience because they fail to believe in Jesus, he lists their sins, and says for this reason wrath is coming upon them. The same idea is again offered in Colossians 3:6.
In 1 Thessalonians 2:16, God's wrath is again tied to sin.
But it isn't only Christ and Paul who teach that God's wrath is directed at sin; we read the apostle John gives a very expressive description of who will end up where and for what in Revelation 21:8.
The New Testament teaching is not: "Jesus died and paid the price for everyone's sins, so that now no one in the world is condemned by sin, but instead we are now condemned by failing to come to Jesus."
That is, in a (compound) word, ... is ultra-bunk.
God does not pour out his wrath on all sin, then pour it out a second time on all who failed to make the right choice. That, for all its frills and dressing, is still moon-bat theology.
It works like this:
[1] Sin separates us from God such that no man desires God.
[2] (a restatement of [1]) Sin separates us from God such that man cannot will himself to be reconciled to God - for there is nothing in sinful man that can overcome sin.
[3] God, in accord with His mercy, determines that He will not allow all men to perish.
[4] God chooses to reconcile some sinners to Himself
[5] God, being just, cannot excuse sin - sin must be punished.
[6] In order to rescue those whom God has chosen, God must [a] punish them in full, and [b] bring them back to life, without [c] compromising his righteousness.
[7] God sends His Son Jesus to live amongst sinners - incarnate, but sinless, in order that His own life might be the bridge/ark by which those whom God calls can pass through judgment.
[8] God unites the soul/life/spirit of those whom He calls to the life of His Son Jesus on the cross of Calvary.
[9] Because God is just - He is OBLIGATED to pour out His wrath upon those sinners who are in Christ on Calvary.
[10] Jesus, along with the those guilty sinners whom God has Chosen - die as a consequence of God's righteous wrath.
[11] Because God is righteous, He is OBLIGATED to raise Jesus from the dead because Jesus isn't/wasn't guilty.
[12] Because those whom God chose are still united to Jesus, in order to raise Christ from the dead and thereby fulfill all righteousness - God must also raise from the dead those whom He chose before hand to be united with Christ in His death.
[13] God raises Christ, and those whom He chose before hand - and both are alive, Christ having "carried" those whom God chose "through" God's wrath.
[14] Those who were not in Christ when God poured out His wrath, cannot be carried through God's wrath - for there is only one holy Ark into which the sinner can flee God's wrath, and that ark is Christ. Those whom God did not draw, did not come to Christ, and received in full exactly what their sin demanded.
[15] In this way - every sinner receives the full wage of his sin - God is just, and justly punishes every sinner; but also in this way, some sinners - those whom God chose - are united together with Christ in his death and also in his resurrection, in order that they pass through God's wrath.
[16] The whole thing is quite adequately pictured by the story of Noah's ark - in which God hand picked the animals who would be saved, and hand picked the family who would be saved - and poured his wrath out on all mankind - but brought a chosen few, and only a chosen few, through that wrath and out the other side by means of a vehicle that could survive the flood.
[17] The ark pictured our righteous Christ who Was and Is the only Vehicle that could survive the flood of God's eternal wrath - that was pictured by the physical elements here on earth.
Make no mistake, God pours out his wrath on sin - it is for sin that men are condemned, and not for failing to come to Christ.
The only reason anyone has for imagining that people are condemned for failing to come to Jesus, is because they believe that Jesus not only died for everyone, but paid for everyone's sins - the logical problem with that is that if Jesus did pay for everyone's sins - how is it that sinners who do not come to Christ are still required to pay their sin debt? Answer? Invent a new, extra-biblical debt: Failing to come to Jesus.
Listen: Don't buy that stuff, even if they are giving it away free.
Read the bible. You will find that scripture teaches how and why people forfeit eternal life, and you will find that what was true in the garden of Eden is still true today. Jesus came, as scripture said, - to save HIS people (c.f. Matthew 1:21) from sin. Word like "election" and "predestination" are not words that theologists made up - they are words taken straight out of scripture, and are only offensive to those who do not fully understand them.
Listen: until a person has a high view of God, and a low view of man - they will by no means comprehend election.
I don't encourage smoking, but if one is inclined and cannot be dissuaded by logic, I suggest this to be a good one to put in one's pipe and smoke.
 Labels: contending with moonbat theology |
posted by Daniel @
10:32 AM
17 comment(s)
 
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