Christian Forums
This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
-
Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
Join For His Glory for a discussion on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/a-vessel-of-honor.110278/
-
Taking the time to pray? Christ is the answer in times of need
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
-
-
Depending upon the Holy Spirit for all you do?
Read through the following study by Tenchi for more on this topic
https://christianforums.net/threads/without-the-holy-spirit-we-can-do-nothing.109419/
-
-
How are famous preachers sometimes effected by sin?
Join Sola Scriptura for a discussion on the subject
https://christianforums.net/threads/anointed-preaching-teaching.109331/#post-1912042
-
Bible Study 👀
- Thread starter Rookie
- Start date
Tenchi
Member
What does it mean for God to be perfect? In part, it means that He needs nothing. So, then, why did God do all that He has done in reconciling evil humanity to Himself? Didn't He do this because we "were worth it"? No. Absolutely not. The ONLY reason God has extended Himself to you and I through Jesus was because He is a loving God; it is in His nature to love and so He does. There is nothing, though, in us that provokes God's love for us. And the benefit of God reconciling us to Himself is entirely one way: We only are improved and benefited in our relationship with our Maker. God is perfect and so cannot be improved by relating with us; God is perfect so He needs nothing from us. In His fellowship with us, then, God is not made better in any way. The flow of benefit is all from Him to us: only we are rescued, reconciled, redeemed, forgiven, justified, sanctified, and adopted; only we are changed, given new life in Christ: only we are lifted up and made joint-heirs with Christ. We bring to God only selfishness, sin, corruption, and enmity. What an incredible thing it is, then, that God loves us! What amazing grace He has offered to us in Christ! What humility and thanks we ought always to walk in before Him.
No, Jesus is not some pale-faced, blue-eyed, hand-wringing figure who desperately wants us to make him our "spiritual boyfriend" in whose arms we can be held, safe and warm. Not at all.
Revelation 1:12-18 (NASB)
12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands;
13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash.
14 His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.
15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters.
16 In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength.
17 When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last,
18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
No, Jesus is not some pale-faced, blue-eyed, hand-wringing figure who desperately wants us to make him our "spiritual boyfriend" in whose arms we can be held, safe and warm. Not at all.
Revelation 1:12-18 (NASB)
12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands;
13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash.
14 His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.
15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters.
16 In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength.
17 When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last,
18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Lol, true! He is a righteous King whom it's the greatest most uncomprehendible pleasure to be even thought of by him
Then why did he create us ? I think God desires interaction with his creation, at least that has been my experience
.Sounds like Calvinism speaking .
Moses spoke to God and God repented of the evil He thought to do unto His people .
Tenchi
Member
Then why did he create us ? I think God desires interaction with his creation, at least that has been my experience
Why does He desire such interaction? To fill a need? If so, then He is not perfect. And if He is not perfect, He is not God.
Calvinists don't get everything wrong.
Yes. How does this pertain to God's not needing anything?
Because God loves all of us .
There is a difference between desire and need . I desire to own a 2023 Nissan Z but I don't need one .
You are welcome to start a thread somewhere to which points you agree with . I am 0 for 5 .
God needed Moses's advice , at least God took Moses's advice as we can see in these verses .
Exodus 23
| 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. |
| 11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? |
| 12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. |
| 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. |
| 14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people. |
God did not need his advice. God is all knowing, He knew what Moses was going to ask of Him and before the beginning of time before there was a Moses God's will already had the plan of what He will do. Why did the situation play out like that? We don't know we cannot encapsulate an infinite God into a finite brain, by definition.
Even if it is, if it's biblical, it's unrefutable.
Jethro Bodine
Member
You may only be able to understand 'love' in terms of selfish human love.
Our frailty, our lack, our dependence, our vulnerability is what provokes God love for us.
Humans love when selfish conditions are met. We love that which satisfies selfish carnal desires within us, or blesses us, or benefits us, or furthers our goals. That's the selfish, conditional love of humans. That's not how God loves. God loves where there is need in others. And the result is life. His life. The life he says we will have when we love as he loves.
Jethro Bodine
Member
I have found various parts of Calvinism to be very easy to refute Biblically.Even if it is, if it's biblical, it's unrefutable.
Jethro Bodine
Member
God is a Father who cares about the well being of those he has created.
Tenchi
Member
Right. But this is an expression of His nature, not some need He has. He loves us because He is loving, not because we deserve to be loved, or God needs to love us.
Right. And in regard to God, that difference is, I think, very important!
I don't mean TULIP. Many things I believe about God, about Christian doctrine, Calvinists hold to, as well. Though I don't subscribe to TULIP, I do believe in the atoning work of Christ on the cross of Calvary, the deity of Jesus, the trinitarian nature of God, the reality of eternal hell, etc. - all things in which Calvinists also believe.
I'm glad you added the last bit of this sentence. Really, I don't think God took Moses' advice so much as He relented in what He intended to do for Moses' sake. It would be a blasphemous thing, I think, to believe that Moses saw things more clearly than God did, that Moses' understanding of events, and his heart toward the Israelites, was superior to God's. If any of this were true, God would not be God. I understand what God did, then, not as a concession to the greater wisdom or rightness of Moses' understanding, but as an acknowledgment of the promise He had made and the virtue of Moses' pleading for his people.
Did you get the point of the video or did you have pre-concieved notions? Mr. Baucham was addressing those who think Jesus is some cosmic Santa Claus or needy deity who can't survive or bear life without us. He quoted Scripture, where is yours?
Well we are talking about this specific one not various parts.
And if you do have those, what are some examples if you may? (I'm not a calvinist btw I'm a biblicalist)
I don't know where that conclusion came from when nothing hinted toward. Look at John 3:16, 1 Corinthians 13 for biblical examples. The difference between love and niceness is that love is divinely defined, but niceness can be molded by anybody.
Have you ever took advice you did not need ? I have often thought about what God knows about the future and I wonder If God left some variability in the in-between parts of the final outcome , with God's interaction with mankind being the wild card .
Tenchi
Member
These unpleasant "digs" you can be sure will keep me from interacting with you.
God loves us because He is loving , true . And If we seek to live a Christian life and follow Jesus and worship God with all our heart and being a greater love from God is in store for us !
Calvinists believe in the atoning work of Christ on the cross of Calvary ? Are you sure about that ?
Where was Moses heart at in this ? It was with his people , his fellow Israelites that he had lived with, the individuals . Moses loved and cared deeply for his flock . Was Moses love for the Israelites different from God's love ? Yes it was because it was from a human standpoint .
God knew what reasoning Moses was capable of but would Moses choose to use the capabilities God has blessed him with ! I would believe that God was happy to hear the advice from Moses , I think God would be proud that Moses heart was with the people .
Moses did not see things more clearly that God but Moses saw them from a human standpoint .
Jethro Bodine
Member
Be offended if you want. I can't control that. Notice I used the word 'may' in the hope that you would not be offended.
But anyway, most Christians do not know what differentiates God's love from the only love we humans know, our human conditional love. God's love is unconditional and not selfish.
Tenchi
Member
But this assumes there is some "standpoint" inaccessible to God, which would mean He is not omniscient. But if God is not omniscient, if there is some knowledge constituted of a "standpoint" that He doesn't possess, then He is not God.
Do you believe, then, that what God had intended to do in judgment of the Israelites was inferior to Moses' way, that Moses, as a contingent, finite, ignorant, sin-cursed person, saw better, more rightly, than God did? I hope not!
Which was not a positive insofar as his standpoint diverged from God's. I think we saw God's mercy, and patience, and love of Moses' desire to protect his people from punishment in God's relenting in His judgment of them; we don't see something superior, something better, in Moses' pleas for the Israelites, though. To think so would be to enlarge Moses and diminish God.
Lol! Most of them do, anyway. I can't speak for every person identifying as a Calvinist.