Be / do good because "you're told to"

[Jamie Gigliotti]

This assumes the doctrine of penal substitution, a doctrine that has been questioned to put it mildly. I think it fails to understand the purpose of judgment and what is revealed in Christ. The purpose of judgment in is the establishment of a community of shalom, not punishment for the sake of punishment. Secondly, it fails to grasp that Christ is not simply a sponge for the wrath of God. What Christ does is to take the wages of sin, that is the implicit consequence of sin, upon himself for our sake.

Against penal substitution I will simply echo the question of the renowned theologian Robert Jenson: How can one think that killing his Son would soothe the wrath of God? If we rather conceive of the cross as God representing humanity and taking the consequence of sin upon himself, that is death, and breaking the chains of death in the resurrection (a reality we participate in through union with Christ), we are not stuck with the bipolar depiction of God that results from penal substitution. Rather God becomes the physician that heals mankind by taking the destructive forces of sin upon himself.

There is judgment. The problem I have with your view here is that you separate the identity of this judge from the revelation of God in Christ. The judge is none other than the crucified Son, who is the kenosis of infinite love and forgiveness. His judgment is a judgment of love, and the final judgment will be consumation of this. All knees shall bow to Christ Jesus and participate in Him and his resurrection.



Any lack of thirst is a symptom of sin itself. I trust in the love of God to be strong enough to eventually awaken thirst in everyone. The love of God is stronger than sin and death.

To suggest a remnant for eternal suffering is for me the same as saying that God's love is not strong enough, that sin is not truly defeated. Darkness will indeed be destroyed. In my eyes, the error is in thinking that some people are only darkness, which is an implicit dualism of absolute good and absolute evil. That goes against the essential doctrine of evil as privatio boni, which goes against the idea of creatio ex nihilo. And if we were to conceive of pure darkness and pure evil, such a being would be destroyed by the judgment of God, not persist in eternal suffering.

The ideas you mention sound great! I wish they were all true.
Jesus didn't mince words. He has convinced me He said what He meant and meant what He said.
I'll be honest. The idea of eternal punishment sounds horrific. Long before I ever read the words, "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" I had a dream where I was gnashing My teeth into bloody painful mess and I couldn't stop. My worst nightmare; literally!

"For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption the is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation, by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Romans 3:23-26.

Propitiation/Hilisterion(greek)/appeasement/payment. This Cross demonstrates, proves He is just. And also His love. It is needed.

Agreed that by His wounds, His love we are healed.

"But God shows his love for us that while we are still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

Can the love of the Cross be fathomed? How wide, how long, how deep it is? It can understood and known more and more. To say that if there is eternal separation from God(which is punishment, no doubt) then He is not love or His love is diminished, demeans the love and sacrifice of Christ and the Cross! It is a trap of the Devil. He can't be love if He punishes. You can't understand His love until you experience it.

The only way that makes sense is that the Spiritual self, the soul can not exist in time as we know it. To be here one moment and gone in the next, but is eternal that exists in a location as we understand that.

 

[Jamie Gigliotti]

Poor, poor, poor analogy. The child does want to please his / her parents, sure. The child does fear some kind of a punishment as a result of disobeying...however, the child is not under duress to "please the parent or else BE TORTURED for all of eternity. You need a G-d for something as abhorrent as that!

Shalom!

Have you seriously attempted an understanding of Holiness? Think the purest spring water on the planet and add raw sewage. God is not in Hell punishing. The inmates may be running the asylum though. The punishment is the eternal seperation from Him. He has shown great mercy. He suffered for you and you mock and ignore Him. None the less, He at the door waiting for you because of His love for you.

 

[pqmomba8]

Have you seriously attempted an understanding of Holiness? Think the purest spring water on the planet and add raw sewage. God is not in Hell punishing. The inmates may be running the asylum though. The punishment is the eternal seperation from Him. He has shown great mercy. He suffered for you and you mock and ignore Him. None the less, He at the door waiting for you because of His love for you.

You can not possibly not see the strawman in your argument! OK, let's just say, for the sake of this dialogue that G-d does exist (ummm, which one of the 5,000 or so G-d's that man ever created, btw) and as a punishment for your rejection of Him / Her, or not "towing the line" in following a doctrine, you do not win the prize of spending the entrnity with Him / Her. Why then are condemned to be TORTURED? G-d can just press the delete button and poof, you (or your soul, in this case) cease to exist.

I go back to the root of my original argument at the start of this thread - most "G-d fearing" folk "obey" because they are scared wittless of being TORTURED for all eternity. Very few of them actually admit that and rationalize the whole "infinite love, holiness, blah, bla, blah" but at the end of the day - it's the PAIN and SUFFERING that compells them to do it. What an aweful way to live one's life.

 

[Jamie Gigliotti]

You can not possibly not see the strawman in your argument! OK, let's just say, for the sake of this dialogue that G-d does exist (ummm, which one of the 5,000 or so G-d's that man ever created, btw) and as a punishment for your rejection of Him / Her, or not "towing the line" in following a doctrine, you do not win the prize of spending the entrnity with Him / Her. Why then are condemned to be TORTURED? G-d can just press the delete button and poof, you (or your soul, in this case) cease to exist.

I go back to the root of my original argument at the start of this thread - most "G-d fearing" folk "obey" because they are scared wittless of being TORTURED for all eternity. Very few of them actually admit that and rationalize the whole "infinite love, holiness, blah, bla, blah" but at the end of the day - it's the PAIN and SUFFERING that compells them to do it. What an aweful way to live one's life.

And as I said before only His love compels. When I was severely wronged and I did not want to forgive and trust in His Justice or Him at all. I suffered greatly because of my lack of Him and His loving presence. When I finally got to the point where I surrendered again to my need of Him; it wasn't because I was scared of Hell. My life was Hell. I didn't forgive because of fear. I forgave because of His loving presence.

 

[Delmar]

You can not possibly not see the strawman in your argument! OK, let's just say, for the sake of this dialogue that G-d does exist (ummm, which one of the 5,000 or so G-d's that man ever created, btw) and as a punishment for your rejection of Him / Her, or not "towing the line" in following a doctrine, you do not win the prize of spending the entrnity with Him / Her. Why then are condemned to be TORTURED? G-d can just press the delete button and poof, you (or your soul, in this case) cease to exist.

I go back to the root of my original argument at the start of this thread - most "G-d fearing" folk "obey" because they are scared wittless of being TORTURED for all eternity. Very few of them actually admit that and rationalize the whole "infinite love, holiness, blah, bla, blah" but at the end of the day - it's the PAIN and SUFFERING that compells them to do it. What an aweful way to live one's life.

If it could be proved to your satisfaction that Jesus Christ willingly gave His life so that you would not have to be TORTURED for all eternity and that He is risen from the grave, would you worship Him?

 

[jzeidler]

...or you're going to burn FOREVER if you are ot / don't do good...



were my thoughts today after arguing with a "G-d fearing" man (orthodox Jew at work) that without G-d, there is "no way you can have a good moral compass". (What absurdity...I told him to go and re-read the Hebrew Bible, especially, Leviticus, Deutoronamy and Exodus. Some pretty immoral stuff there being commanded by G-d.)



Anyway, I came away with the following thought:



Nothing could be lamer than appealing to a being's vanity to "do the right thing" to avoid eternal punishment.



Case closed.

You know what, your right. There is nothing lamer than thinking that you have to do the right thing because your told to or you'll burn in hell. It's stupid and anti-Christian. Christ said "he who the Son sets free is free indeed." This freedom is a freedom from all law. Moral and every other. In another passage in the NT Paul was asked by a man "what must I DO to be saved." Paul answers by saying, "belief in Jesus and you'll be saved." There was nothing about works to be saved or to stay saved. Those who say otherwise are not living a life in the new covenant in Christ but they are under the old covenant under Moses. So in conclusion, you're totally right because our works have nothing to do with being or staying saved. They also have nothing to do with our holiness because in Christ we have been made already the righteousness of Christ and as Christ is now so are we in this world. Have a good day friend.