Light of Jesus

Psalm 5 and Romans 9 and other passages talk about people God hates. Name one strictly human person who deserves God's love. God has a general kind of love of humanity but as far as individuals He loves the elect and hates the reprobate (aka the non-elect). Even the late George Carlin had enough sense to realize that casting someone onto hell is not consistent with loving that person. And the false sentimentalist teaching of God loving everyone gave him occasion to mock and blaspheme.

My usual response to those brothers:

The context of Psalm 5:5 is the behavior of the wicked. Of course God has a holy and righteous anger and hatred for the sins of the wicked. If you want to generalize that He therefore hates the individuals with an ABSENCE of any type or degree of love you have to support that argument without equivocation and using "systematic theologic logic."

“Aha!” you may say, “God loved Jacob and hated Esau before they had a chance to do anything…therefore…” But we have to look at the context. As a theologian once said, “A text without a context is a pretext for a proof-text.”

According to Romans 9:11 the context of 9:13 is election. What do the elect have and what will they experience? They have redemption and will experience ultimate redemption when they are returned to the One who paid the price for them. God’s love for Jacob is a certain type or degree. His love for Jacob is to the degree of “redeeming love.” The hate that God has for Esau is the absence of that redeeming love. If you assert (like the Arminian) that God’s love/hate has to be equally distributed to all men (the same kind, type, degree; all or nothing) without any freedom of choice on God’s part, you must prove that without equivocation and using “systematic theologic logic.”

When John uses the word world/kosmos in the first three chapters of his gospel it is the word for the created world including its inhabitants. I understand that context determines the use but to jump back and forth from “world of the elect” to “world of the reprobate” in such a short space seems illogical and untenable to me. “For God so loved the world…” It is incomprehensible love for God to enter His own creation to save anyone. For someone to say that “world” only means the “world of the elect” or means that only when their hermeneutic calls for it is equivocation and they have just stepped off the foundation of explicit biblical statements into the realm of “systematic theologic logic” in order to support their preferred system.

"What is this "systematic theologic logic" you speak of," you may be asking. It is this: willingness to ignore context, reinterpret passages, and equivocate on words to support a system of theological interpretation.

You sure made the part in red hard to read. I managed but ouch. I'd recommend doing that part again readably. Thanks. :D

Do you think it's fair to say that God only seperates the sin from the sinner in terms of eternal salvation and what goes into that? I've heard it said in response to "God hates the sin and loves the sinner" that "God casts sinners into hell not sin".

Sorry, if you are reading on a small device I guess those colors could cause a problem, but that meme is pretty big on a regular size screen.
For the elect, God made Christ to be sin for us 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Christ bore our sins in own body on the cross 1 Peter 2:24, therefore God is able to remove our sins from us as far as the East is from the West.
Our Standing before God is justified and righteous while our State is still affected by our daily lives including our sins. So in eternity sins are removed from the saved.
I am also of the same understanding of Piper when he says, "God doesn't cast sin into hell, He casts sinners into hell." For anyone whose sins where not placed onto Christ they are sent to hell to pay for those sins.
I do not see how Scripture could affirm some type of "divine double jeopardy" where Christ paid for every sinner's sins and yet the unsaved have to pay for their own sins in hell.

I think of ten penniless criminals who must either pay a hefty fine or go to prison. Someone comes along and pays for all of them. Then you ask "How many went to prison?" and when the person says none you go "Well then how can ppl go to hell if they are all paid for?" :D

That being accurate and to add to my previous statement I do not affirm a "limited atonement."

I affirm that the intent of Christ's atonement was limited to pay for the sins of the elect, so only the elect are ultimately redeemed. However, I can't see the scope of the atonement being limited to only the elect for at least two reasons.

1. There are other sacrifices that point to Christ that were made for groups of people but had to be personally applied by faith by the individual in order to be efficacious (effectual.) Like the first passover, the blood had to be applied to the door posts by faith. I understand that the saving faith to apply Christ's blood is a gift from God only given to the elect.

2. Explicit biblical statements: 1 John 2:2 and 2 Peter 2:1 A whole lot of "systematic theologic logic" goes into the interpretation of those in order to support a limited atonement.

Sounds like some kind of limited atonement. I don't think it's wrong to think "God cannot fail. Anything He does with a desired end in mind where He fails to reach that desired end would be failure. Thus His intent vis a vis the Atonement did not include the salvation of the non-elect." It is inherently impossible to approach any proposition free of any interpretive grid. So in what sense could Christ be the propitiation for the sins of the whole world? Those in hell cannot rightly claim that God's eternal wrath was turned away/satisfied/PROPITIATED or else they would not be in hell! The 2 Peter false prophets are surely unregenerate. Are we to assume them all elect? Why wd we given what is said of them? Perhaps there is a common grace benefit in terms of the purchase ("bought them") and the propitiation. I'm certain as to what those passages don't teach.

I'm certain as to what they don't teach also. They don't teach that Christ's atonement was intended to pay for the sins of the entire world including the "false prophets" in particular. Or else God's purpose would be hindered on man's choice. Like in the illustration of the penniless criminals standing before the judge and someone else pays their fine so none of them goes to jail. The synergist will say, "But one may refuse to accept the payment and still go to jail." That is not how our legal system works. Once the fine has been paid the legal requirement is over and only an unjust judge would send someone to jail whose fine was paid for.
However, every illustration we use to describe the things of God will always break down somewhere. We are talking about God’s legal system where He pays the fine Himself and chooses to whose account it will be applied. He can pay the entire fine and apply it to a limited number of criminals. The criminals are still guilty before God and have grounds upon which to claim “he is unjust.”
The way I think of it is that Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient to pay for everyone but the blood/sacrifice still has to be applied individually. It is only by God’s mercy and redeeming grace that anyone experiences the application of that sacrifice. More about the false prophets…

Sorry to blow up your notification box but something just occurred to me. Someone saying "Please Jesus love me!!!" with a sufficient understanding of what Jesus' love really is couldn't still be an enemy of God dead in trespasses and sins (and thus Christ's love is the opposite of a most likely nope in this scenario!). This plea is followed by the accurate statement "Or else I have no hope" though one might hold to a false hope (as many do). There is no internal battle between wanting Christ's holy love (the real deal) and choosing the illusion of self-rule (autonomy) and the suicide swamp of sin. I imagine I'm pretty much preaching to the choir here but the "Jesus Loves Me" parody seems a little muddled. :D Have you heard of the "Amazing Grace" spoof on Arminianism called "Arminian Grace"? I first saw it on the net in the early 2000's.

I don't mind talking about theology. I'm a huge theology nerd myself and can talk about it all day. I know that "Please Jesus love me" is not an accurate depiction of what Scripture teaches about fallen, unregenerate man who are enemies of God.

I first saw this parody used to troll Calvinists. I use it for the same thing but to start theological conversations that will hopefully be profitable.

The thing is that in synergistic churches people are taught from nursery through primary, through youth group, all the way up through adult classes and in every service it is mentioned: a false application and misrepresentation of God's "common love" for humanity as being individual love for each person regardless of them being sinners. So synergists do believe Jesus has saving/redeeming love for each of them and it is "their choice" as whether or not they will "love Jesus in return."

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He just loves men a little more than women, the FSM loves all
(Priest of the FSM)

Equally