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601	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies !	on: July 17, 2013, 10:33:21 AM
Quote from: savedbygrace on July 15, 2013, 11:51:56 AM mbg Quote Reconciliation is not necessarily legal justification. Did you understand post 125 and the points articulated ? Rehearse the points with me even if you disagree with them. Reconciliation and justification should not be mixed. In reconciliation we are seeking Christ for who He is in our own realistic experience. Our intention is not to obtain acceptance through some act of contrition. I speak of protestant contrition. ie.. confession of sin or taking the cup. But we are aware of Gods position as ruler of the whole earth and the language of reconciliation presented in a way that it defines our own experience. In the ultimate sense we are most aware of our purpose in the high priestly position. We do not approach God in the communication of being destroyed because of our circumstances but we order our words as being passionate for our causes and having respect , reverence for Gods governance. Our struggle is grace and comfort to the abused. We are on the path of scorn. We receive the cultural scorn against Christ. We develop a love for Christ to the extent that we lose many relationships in this world. In our loneliness we experience being an outcast. We are driven to overcome all opposition. We experience being surrounded by opposition on every side. We are experiencing the communication of a mad city. We see the opposition at the level of the opposition of our culture. We are the most real when we understand Gods world view. In this experience we feel cut off for the sake of our brothers. We are receiving scorn because God is angry. We feel our culture. What is the only hope? It is like experiencing contractions to giving birth to a new baby. We are growing down in the righteous indignation of God. What is painful becomes pleasurable in God final declaration over all evil. We find absolution in the illumination of God as judge. Our experience is recorded in heaven. This record is the tears we have shed that build up as if we experienced the contractions of birth. Our wish for our own deliverance grows in our looking for Gods special favor of speaking salvation to our hearts. We experience deep calling to deep. As the depths of our hearts experience the call we are expanded in our desire. Desire grows as God digs deeper. Out of these inward contracts we birth a new deliverance. Justification is never up and down. It is our confidence in the struggle.
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602  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 16, 2013, 01:35:16 PM This is a soft ball here. Some people think that Christ just came to the earth to die. But here it describes what Christ did to obtain redemption for His people. When we think of the final redemption it is a down payment for a person who is bought out of slavery. Slavery in the ot sense is more than sin but its being accused as an enemy of the political system. God speaks in the law not from mount Sinai but from heaven where He is the governor of the whole earth. His response to all governments and systems of this earth is to find them wanting. No government has ever lasted from the beginning of time.  All governments end in slavery of the poor and oppressed, widows and orphans. Gods intentions is more than just a personal deliverance from sin but its to show the value of the price by overruling all the wealth on this earth in delivering political prisoners. God has been ruler through all generations. What is the price of redemption of His people? It is not only Lamb of God being slain from the foundation of the earth but it is His retribution of those who deal treacherously with other men. So God as a reconcile r takes vengeance in His defense of the reconciled. The blood of men is the price of redemption. When Christ came to earth He came as a peace maker to bring all the nations who delight in war to an end. The picture is David coming into Jerusalem after war bringing the political captives back into Jerusalem. It was not a social program but it was God setting up His glory over Israel. It was God ruling over the earth over all the nations. God rules through preventing war and allowing peace. All the nations around Jerusalem proclaimed that the Lord has done great things for them. God prevents the nations from threatening His people. Christ came to earth to take a host of captives to heaven. He ascended up to heaven and takes the position of ruler over the whole earth. Everything is put under His feet. He is awaiting the time when He will take vengeance on all those who oppose His government. He will exact the punishment in accordance with the suffering of His elect. The whole history of the opposition of redemption will be the purchase price of the final redemption when God will reward His people and enact their vengeance.  This is the context. Reply Quote Notify

603  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Self-santification on: July 16, 2013, 12:25:32 PM We are people who struggle in society with willing. Some imagine they have authority over the will not only themselves but in others. Ultimately the only time when the struggle in the will is ended is in the final redemption of all things. But until then there are always powers that are too strong for us that represent sin and destruction. So there is only one power that is above all wills. It is Gods. And God controls all circumstances because He controls all wills. If God did not control all wills then the inhabitants of the earth would all commit suicide in an instant. God is most free to do as He pleases so that we are most free to choose for ourselves. God gifts us with His will. But we cannot change our will or any will in our own strength. All the changing of the will is done by Gods power. Our desires are for our good but we have no ability to accomplish what is good in ourselves. Our highest act of our will is in praising God and giving Him all the glory. We advance with His power alone that overcomes all opposition. Ultimate it is for our own good. His strength must be in display of all people. We oppose idols. Because idols are dead things. So we oppose the will of idol worshipers. But we cannot make them change their will. God must act to bring all men down who oppose Him in order for Him to be successful through our will. We cannot will good unless God brings the opposition down. God must reduce men from thinking they are gods to just being men. All trouble in this world is created by men who oppose God. We experience this trouble as we experience the power of opposition to God. This is the definition of our spiritual struggle. If God does not act then we will experience pain and sorrow in our struggle in our opposition with other wills. Our victory is when God brings all things under His dominion that is our obligation to experience success.   Reply Quote Notify

604  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Self-santification on: July 16, 2013, 11:50:25 AM The bible is a book that gives us the most realistic look at the self. Some people imagine that God is sovereign only in that He blesses those who look away from themselves. The christian experience is real in the definitions we attach to words. Gods power is in the context of how the bible describes us as a self. Our individual self is brought into focus when we know God as a self. Growing in the understanding of self in the christian context is like being trained in a program in which everything is anti intuitive to what we desire to do for ourselves. So this creates a reality in which we see ourselves outside of ourselves. God loves us with an eternal love. He gives His attention to our physical health and spiritual health. He does not examine us as opposing our growth. So God loves us like Himself and it is our desire to see this in experience. Gods love for us is greater than our  dread and sorrow in this world and is interacted outside of our view of the circumstances and stimulus of this world.We cant experience goodness, faithfulness, kindness etc in our receiving communication in this world.Our best experiences and most realistic experiences is when we react to Gods love rather than the present stimulus of the world. What we face may be disconnected in Gods love that brings an uncommon reaction. So in a sense the worlds best love is hate to Gods inward communication to us. We choose everything for ourselves. We are made to enjoy things as Gods gifts to us. Some things are excessive but in Gods mind it is not always a matter of self control. God always takes in this world and gives it to others. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. So in a sense work is not blessed because of the effort but its balance out only in gifted rewards from God. But in this world it is working to obtain. God loves us beyond our system of self gratification. So He recreates our excessive times and He sustains us in our lean times. In our seeking God we find the ultimate pleasure and satisfaction in receiving what we do not deserve for ourselves. Reply Quote Notify

605  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 16, 2013, 10:58:28 AM You inbetweeners do not know what you are talking about. See i gladly say that ive been praying the Psalms for 30 years. If there is any evil communication I see it. Im not proud as having a stake in this but because i offer myself as a big pillow. Im a spiritual romantic at heart. The bible is like a  romance novel to me. It makes me live in the future with real characters of both my long term memory and my imagination. It cannot be described or altered as a reality that can be defined as my own imagination because it is contained as truth in my mind and no matter how it is depicted by other people it will always win out. It recreates itself every day. I hope that other people will pray the Psalms. I would have a kindred spirit. But to oppose this communication is not to oppose me but its to oppose how the bible teaches us to have fellowship with our Father. Non of this intellectual stimulus is for head knowledge. It is in a relationship language. Other wise it is just dead words to my ears. Reply Quote Notify

606  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 16, 2013, 10:35:49 AM Ah... the inbetweener theology. God offers and it depends upon us to be saved. Some people say that God is sovereign but man is responsible but He will not be sovereign in our choices. So they create a contradiction by depicting God as someone who reacts to the events of this world in both extremes. God is an impersonal moral code that is set into motion in which He is experienced as the ultimate dread when we sin and a friend when we repent. God is robbed of His power and Christ is robbed of His wealth. But we know that God declares all men guilty so that He might be proved rite in His judgements. This means that God never sees any person on this earth as righteous in themselves. What is the only hope of those who belong to God? It is based upon His covenant of redemption. When we experience the christian life it is only successful when God makes it successful. But the inbetweeners imagine that there is no good in believing that even if we struggle with sin we hold the confidence that we are accepted for the purpose of wishing destruction on whatever opposes us. In their world the opposition of guilt, shame, fear are Gods instruments of change. The bible describes the believer as being delivered because he knows its in the believers best interest. But the inbetweeners create a reality of the ultimate divided person. We hear hours and hours of contentious wrangling about christian sincerity being under confident in the outcome of our religious experience because something is always preventing us from the good that we are promised in the end. The actual trap in our path is our vacillation between good and evil. We are saved into a new Family. We are loved by a Father that cannot fail. We no longer are condemned. We no longer are under the power of the old life. We are free from blame in this family. Our lives do not belong to us. So we face a foe who opposes who we belong to. He is the great accuser. He will use any method to destroy Christ name. He cannot overcome Christ rule. But the Devil can attack those who are represented by Christ. Not every thing that we confront is the devils fault. But his accusation that God is not able and we must seek to stand on our 50 percent if we are to trust God is his attempt to draw us under the power of the curse. The only way that we can go is to kill sin and destruction. We have no other choice. If we draw back then we will vacillate between two opinions. The end of our faith is to see us gifted with both positive and negative victories. We can only obtain grace by standing firm in grace. But at the same time we rejoice in the total destruction of wickedness. There are many arguments to get us to accept the voice... "He trust in the Lord .. let the Lord deliver him." This will make you weak and ineffective. Reply Quote Notify

607  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 15, 2013, 10:39:24 AM Reconciliation is not necessarily legal justification. But its two separate parties being brought together. The parties are not legal parties but are distinguished as two separate beings...so the core connection in reconciliation is having each persons desires united. "Justification" is a declaration of legal justification in the relationship. Reconciliation is subjective and objective. It is not subjective in man per say and objective in the letter. But its both subjective in the work in man and objective in the result of the work on the heart and in the action. Reconciliation is complete in man at a point and time. sbg has not established what reconciliation is not by introducing other verses as the method that he says he follows. Is all he does is use verses that say men are reconciled to God while they are enemies. But there are other verses that describe when they are reconciled other then a blanket statement about being reconciled at birth. The legal desire is written on the heart. It is part of a mans self preservation. It is out of the workings of the 5 senses, conscience,desire, will, and emotion. God has made man to be whole by creating alignment in the soul of man. God acts in this meta physical way of communicating His holiness through word. Not only is the spiritual part of man designed in the cause , means and ends through Gods breath or His life through His word, but the physical structures of the universe are ordered by Gods counsel. So reconciliation is God defining the true self as distinguished from the God self. A holistic understanding of the relationship is to distinguish the body from the spirit. Reply Quote Notify

608  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 14, 2013, 02:21:56 PM The creation speaks. All of the destructiveness in creation is how God evidences His renewal of all things. The sea rises up with waves then covers every area it moves upon. This is how God speaks in history. It is not perfectly still but it is always churning. God at different times in history has risen up to display His perfect justice and faithfulness. When God works on behalf of His elect all things work together in perfect harmony as God plays the music of the perfect refuge in the working of all things for His glory and our good. The creation has declared God perfect government. Our glory is to declare the works of the Lord in creation and in history with words ordered to be pleasing and praise worthy to Him. We speak to God about His works. We give God all the glory. In speaking to God as He describes His works we bring the perfect to bear upon the imperfect. We are rising up to the heavens as all things are unified in creation and history. This is looking at God who is perfect justice, faithfulness, kindness, wealth, honor and glory. Gods light is His exalted eternal attributes coming from the highest position of the universe to shine in our face. This is who we ascend to in our prayers. By telling God what He has done by the works of His hand we are forming our prayers for a petition. Our petition is in the context of our feeling low as we exalt God. As we exalt God our desire for deliverance grows. This is the context by which we spread our arguments before Him. If God is all truth it is the only source of redemption. There is no deliverance outside of Gods revealed truth. Gods written truth is His speaking to us in our language as evidenced in a refection of the His design in the heart and in creation.  The description of His human parts and the total language of the physical creation become an eternal language that orders all events in His perfect government to work out for our good. The light shines in our faces as the voices of all things become eternal voices for Gods glory. Our desire to bring heaven to earth is beyond our ability and becomes a mystery. In this we learn to fellowship with our Father. Reply Quote Notify

609  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 14, 2013, 12:46:15 PM Quote from: Joker on July 14, 2013, 06:47:42 AM Just as a suggestion:  Instead of thinking in terms of legal acquittal and subjective reconciliation and imputed righteousnes and that sort of forensic obfuscation, think in simpler terms of trusting God, being loved by God, loving God, loving your neighbor, being forgiven by God, and forgiving your neighbor.  Justice, Mercy, Faithfulness, and the Love of God:  The weightier part of the Bible.   Is this subjective or objective reality? lol So obviously by sbgs presupposition we have a lot of secret agent christians out there. They dont think about God because they do not have a desire. They live a life in their imaginations because they do not think that God separates the wicked from the righteous, so they plot evil on their beds, devise wicked schemes against their neighbors and when they are struck to their hearts about their hardness then they curse God. And yet in this imaginative world they are reconciled. So God has created this world as His culture of abuse because He is silent in His subjective reconciliation. So there must also be subjective justice. lol No one would praise God for who He is because after all any action by man whether good or evil would have no bearing on the outcome of evil. God has reconciled His elect of whom no one knows except God which makes God a party of destructive actions against the poor and helpless. Wow? if God is silent in His response from heaven then love is all subjective. If love is subjective because of the potential for universal reconciliation then God has His hands tied in responding to the cries of His poor ones. All of His promises and covenants would be neutral because subjective reality is necessarily objective reality at some point outside of the knowledge of men. He could not change people through His dogmatic and objective description of this earth. His just word would be silenced.We could not praise God in defense of these destructive plans of man to demand eternal punishment because of their spurning God. If reconciliation is subjective then God could not reduce the wicked to knowing they are men without hope. No one would be reduced enough to be delivered for their crimes against Gods kingly rule. If Gods reconciliation is subjective then His curses would be blessings. Because men are marked by their counsel whether good or bad. Every false counsel is a crime against their fellow man. To counsel falsely is to curse another man. The wicked say" we own our lips who is our master?" They bless the greedy and revile or curse the Lord. There are only two forms of counsel. The counsel of the wicked which is a distinct way of going from the righteous. There are only two roads that men walk down. There is the road of the counsel of God or there is the destructive road of the counsel of men. One road is blessed and the other road is cursed. The righteous go down the path of Gods counsel because they seek His counsel nite and day in His word. But the wicked go to the path of destruction because they will not have God in all their thoughts. But if the wicked are reconciled they actually bless others through their false counsel. Reply Quote Notify

610  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Why did God do that? on: July 13, 2013, 12:39:26 PM God gives us a thinking life which is our personal counsel. If the text said that God twisted Pharaohs arm to reject His demands then it would be making God out to be cause of the evil. But God does not have a condition that is fatal and destructive. It is not Pharaohs demands that he get his way that shows what the world is like. After all men do things for their own well being..both the righteous and the unrighteous. If God were to demand compliance without allowing it to work out for His purposes then man would be instantly self destructive. Ive never seen God force a man to put a knife to his own throat. And if God were to force a person to walk in the way of destruction then how could the righteous believe that their steps in the use of these means would be of any significance? After all God tells men good things in order to show them they should not do the bad thing. It would mean that God twist the righteous arm through positivism. But we know if we find that anything in this world is too strong for us it is made real by God allowing or withholding. When God is most free then we are free. These second causes become alive in us because we know that those things that are too strong for us cause us to become out of alignment with the order of this world...which is the place of freedom. They are like angels who keep us from the potential to remain in a desperate state. Reply Quote Notify

611  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 13, 2013, 12:23:41 PM Quote from: savedbygrace on July 13, 2013, 06:34:39 AM mbg Quote I am not a guy who puts my trust on scripture as a proof text. So you will rarely see me using different scriptures to prove my doctrine That's a problem, and the difference between you and I. I use scripture to understand scripture, whereas it sounds like you use perhaps other means and sources to make a point about what scripture says. That's not good, and its not scriptural debate. It may be debate, but not Theological debate. Quote Then please explain the Ephesians passage so I can see how you compare. mbG No I will not explain it. That's you putting more work on me. Eph says nothing to contradict or discredit what Christ done for those He died for. You either believe it or you do not. Now does Rom 5:10 teach that those Christ died for were RECONCILED to Him WHILE THEY were ENEMIES or not. Yes or no ? sbg Yes I can see how serious you are about proof texting to a guy who asked you kindly. Reply Quote Notify

612  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 12, 2013, 05:59:31 PM I am not a guy who puts my trust on scripture as a proof text. So you will rarely see me using different scriptures to prove my doctrine. Although I think there is a place for looking at scripture and distinguishing its parts in being aligned with all the doctrines i do not think it is necessarily the end of what scripture was intended to do. Systematic theology is only one part of the building of a healthy view of scripture. The point of living with a holistic view of scripture is answered how we view God and how we see that everything is one as God is one. God created us as He is a spirit and a being. As the Trinity exist as three different persons but one substance in light of their desire expressed in the will so the more we understand who God is then we will understand who we are and out purpose as God created all things to bring Him glory. The more we glorify and enjoy God the more we will see how all things work together in perfect harmony and the more we will be satisfied with our purpose. God not only works to unify all things but He lowers Himself to have fellowship with us. This means that God has decided to speak in one word all the words that He has revealed. He has united the truth not as a word but in the spirit of all the words in one word. One word of God is powerful enough to transform us and bring us holistic healing. This is what we look to... we long for a word of salvation and our hearts are united in one spirit of salvation in which Gods glory flows one way.  But we are touched with the spiritual effects of sin. We not only have sin dwelling in us but we experience the dread of sin which is the destructive effects of sin as a spiritual opposition. We understand the destructive presence of sin because we experience guilt, shame, and fear. So we are free from the curse of sin but we still must push the curse away. We have made a confession that we will remain strong but we experience always straying from our original confession. So in growing we need to strengthen our resolve . We need to expand our spiritual awareness not just renew our resolve. We do this by embracing our own history.. we avoid thinking that we are instantly a different person by doing something to change ourselves. We look at the negative experiences and we curse the curses.This is a war of spiritual change in an instant against our defining ourselves by our present view of reality, how people define reality that affects us as to their definition of us and the distance we experience as we view Christ as He responds in a unified way as a complete refuge for incomplete people.  We are moving toward blessing as the Spirit makes us aware of the reigning powers that dwell in us like peace, comfort, faithfulness, goodness, kindness. etc. So we seek to burn away the old dross which is our familiarity with the curse of sin by cursing the curse ..that is growing down... or strengthening our resolve through unburdening our anger and looking to stand on His work for us. We embrace our weaknesses through decomposition. Reply Quote Notify

613  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 12, 2013, 05:28:04 PM I agree the Epistles were written to a specific church who were already reconciled. If we just take one word ..like world ..take it out of the context of who the apostle was addressing then we can give it any meaning we want. But most of the nt words have various definitions and should be interpreted according to the context. The apostle could be saying in reference to the uses of the whole world, all men, everyone a few different approaches. One is that the gospel went from the nation of Israel to all the ends of the earth. So He may be distinguishing between the gospel centering on one nation in the ot and then it was extended beyond that nation. (the one I hold to) Or he could be saying that Christ death had the potential to save the whole world but He designed it for His elect. (I dont hold to this position). or He could be saying the whole world meaning all the people in the world. But this would not be consistent with the context because all of the prepositions used in speaking about the death of Christ are in the personal pronouns of the elect in the different churches. Its very simple reconciliation is a word that speaks of the kind of relationship that a christian enjoys with Christ. If a person does not know Christ then He has no relationship with Him and thus is not reconciled to Christ. Reply Quote Notify

614  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 11, 2013, 12:32:39 PM All of Christ teaching comes from the ot law. Christ was not making a new law. The ot is not obsolete. It is revealed in the nt.  The law was given to show man his sin. The law was given to Israel. It was given so that God through Israel could ultimately save the nations. How did God work through Israel to spread His kingdom into the world? He did not wait for Israel to comply with the law. God decided to give Israel the law so that He would show the whole world He could use a sinful people to ultimately be successful in bringing His salvation to the ends of the earth. God did not chose Israel because of Israel. He chose a remnant that was Israel but not all people were true Israel. God came to specific people within the nation because He decided to save individuals. So Gods anger was not just directed to the nations who were law breakers. But the account of Israels history was one of unfaithfulness. This teaching of unfaithfulness is not talking about sinners who are saved. Unfaithfulness is a word that describes people who are religious but who worship other idols. God in deciding to create a people through personal interaction proved Himself faithful by making the elect successful. Salvation is in a refuge that creates a view in Gods people in which the world is passing away. Gods people have a view of the old things in the past. So when we confess that unfaithfulness is being a traitor our view is where we came from and not who we are. Salvation is all of God and all of us. It is upside down. God gifts us with all things, we confess we are unable, and we advance wanting to be successful for us. In confessing that salvation is not in who we are or what we have done we confess as if we were saving ourselves. If salvation is real He must save you personally. We do not want to be treated like the unfaithful who remind us of the past. If we understand salvation we always want to be delivered as if are saving our own skin. We live in our own minds as God rules on the earth as a kingdom that is in us. Reply Quote Notify

615	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies !	on: July 11, 2013, 10:11:00 AM
Ps 18 25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful,     to the blameless you show yourself blameless, 26 to the pure you show yourself pure,     but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. 27 You save the humble     but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. The context of this passage is describing the relationship that a believer has with God. It is a description of the success that the elect have as they confront the troubles of this world. There are many different ways of approaching how our lives parallel Gods way of working in this world in a general sense..for His glory and for our good. The question for Gods people is "How can God who is the supreme judge deal justly in this world in which both the righteous and unrighteous are marked with sin?" If in fact God responds in like manner to the actions of men then how can the righteous avoid Gods displeasure and justice? Here in this Psalm we see how God forms His judgments in light of the personal nature of how He deals with His people and how He responds in their circumstances. God has absolute power to judge mankind. This judge in this passage has determined the injustices that are in this world and has decided to enact His wrath upon the wrong doers. He does this by bringing His government to bear upon the inhabitants of the earth. But in a surprising move He actually looks upon those who deserve His justice that He will look away from their punishment and instead create good through making them dependent upon Him. This description of Gods work in this world as He works to justify all events as He responds with eye for eye is made complete through Him drawing in His elect to trust completely in Him through this covenant refuge. God describes Himself as the necessary creator of all events and the only success in justifying those events. He demands absolute dependence upon His judgements and the strength to overcome all evils in this world. Justice is made real as we approach our God as He is lifted up upon His throne. When His covenant people come to God in humble worship He responds by intervening in the conflicts of this world to set them rite. In this covenant defense God promises to shield His people from the troubles of this world by causing them to overcome all opposition in this world in purposing it to spill over to the reward of the future world. How does God do this? By judging the world with a just consequences that are unimaginable. At the same time He causes His covenant people through humility to grow in their dependence upon Him as they come closer to this reward the final victory over all evil and Satan. Within this just action God is shrewd in responding to the evils of this world. So God not only overcomes evil with good but He uses disaster and evil for His own purposes and for our good. God creates two very different societies as He describes how He turns the events of this world through Him being shrewd. The world through unbelief schemes against Gods ways and in many subtle and shrewd ways God reverses those schemes as the judgement that He enacts upon the wicked.      616  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 10, 2013, 12:09:11 PM Reconciliation is object in the work of the Trinity. It is a family relationship. The Father sent the Son and was well pleased with His work. The Spirit applies the work of Christ. God is pleased in working out reconciliation for His purposes. In this sense it is reciprocal in the Godhead. But it is also subjective in that Christ dwells in us by His Spirit. Christ takes our place in our view of every attribute of reconciliation. He becomes our life. He is the eternal Son of God who acted to save His people. He has come into the world to deliver us from all the powers that held us captive. As humans we cant understand how we are united to Christ as He meets every need as a reflection of the perfect man who dwells in us. So we need Him to reveal this closeness that He has in and through us when we experience mystery. The subjective reality meeting the objective experience.  Reply Quote Notify 617  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Everything begins and ends in God on: July 10, 2013, 11:23:35 AM Is human weakness a violation of the law? The standard of meeting the laws requirements is to be able to come to the aid of those who need to be saved. How can men be held responsible in a far view who belong to Christ?..in the account of the cross were mourning as they stood there? In Christ humanness He wanted to be delivered from death. Is silence of men in responding to His desire part of the violence done to Him? I do not believe that the response from heaven was silence in the sense of helplessness but it was divine hate for sin that we cannot fathom. I guess Christ endured the silence of men as taking the curse of them being inhuman. The ability to defend Christ was a divine longing that was fulfilled in Christ at His resurrection. The curse of death had to be satisfied. We have the desire in us of divine retribution. But its not really the absence of personal anger ..instead of thinking of mixed desires in us...since we have the delivering desire of Christ ..the retribution is contained in us as it is contained in His word. Human weakness is expressed in obedient helplessness meeting divine retribution as the definition of health to the bones. Remove Reply Quote Notify 618  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 10, 2013, 10:28:57 AM Quote from: savedbygrace on July 10, 2013, 10:16:54 AM joker Quote Here, let me help: rec·on·cile  (rkn-sl) v. rec·on·ciled, rec·on·cil·ing, rec·on·ciles v.tr. 1.  To reestablish a close relationship between. 2.  To settle or resolve. 3.  To bring (oneself) to accept: He finally reconciled himself to the change in management. 4.  To make compatible or consistent:  The figures would not reconcile. God is Reconciled to those Jesus Christ died for while they are enemies. Does the scripture teach that ? Answer yes or No ! Rom 5:10 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Your like the guy who buys a bicycle and upon opening the directions rips all of them out except the direction that you like the best. Reply Quote Notify 619  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 10, 2013, 10:14:43 AM cont Let me make a distinction about biblical discipleship and a subjective view. Biblical discipleship goes beyond the moral equation to allegiance. Christ gave impossible standards in our being His disciple. In reasoning as if the universe were purely moral we would conclude that He offered conduct that equaled the whole observance of the law. But we know that He taught in a holistic way and not focusing on the outward. Its one thing to say that there is a way to save your life if you adhere to a certain standard or to say that if you want to save your life you will lose it. Christ was describing a community whos connection went much deeper than the moral standard of men. It was through abandonment and allegiance to a society in which the view of this world was more than a 50 percent balances out the other 50percent. It was an acceptance based solely upon His actions at the most trying times in the account of His death ...the perfect example of His ears being pierced. And by this success  through His perfect will alone brought a host of captives in His victory into eternity. The whole world was brought to a place of silence in the sacrifice of Christ. The whole world turned their backs upon the Lamb of glory. Christ took upon Himself the declaration of the law that curses all men. There was no promise of blessing in the religious observance of that day. The temple worship was dead. There was no longer a spoken prophecy through the urmin and thumman. Christ alone in His work provided a refuge to the captives from the great flood of iniquity of this earth. In the cross death came together to meet life in Christ. The perfect law keeper blessed some men with eternal life and outside of His perfect will He cursed the rest. He not only came to this earth as a preacher of the righteousness from heaven but He became that righteousness for His people. His will is transferred to His people through this one act of obedience. This is the perfect law of liberty. "as for the deeds of men...by the word of Your lips..I have kept myself from the way of the violent." Violence is a word He hasnt spoken on our behalf of which blessing is only found in Him becoming our righteousness on our behalf. The whole law is connected like a string equaling one curse of death and outside of total obedience issuing blessing the eternal words spoken are violence. Reply Quote Notify 620  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 10, 2013, 08:48:08 AM It is living in a dream world to say that the state of the world that we now live in is evidence of Gods total success when we observe the destruction that men create in the lives of their fellow men. You either must imagine that God loves men as they destroy the world or you must pull one scripture out of the context of the other scriptures to support your theory. The reality is there are only two kinds of men and both kinds are necessary because God evidences His design by delivering some men from the destructive control of other men. Gods word is a real description of the great gulf that exist between good and evil. His eternal love is unchanging and can be trusted because nothing happens by chance outside of His faithfulness so that there are no saving promises to the wicked. If there is trouble in this world God must design complete safety for a group of man outside of the all men being capable of destruction because of original sin. He cannot deny Himself. He cannot offer something to the wicked in an around the back way and then promise the righteous that He is unfeigned in His love. If God loves some men then He must show that love not only by the relationship of the transference of gifts to those men but in His actions in this world to defend them. God is very simple but men go astray and imagine this world to be a man centered world. As there is a great gulf that stands between good and evil so there is a great gulf that stands between God and the wicked. Reply Quote Notify 621  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 09, 2013, 04:41:58 PM Quote from: savedbygrace on July 09, 2013, 03:30:23 PM Quote from: mybigGod on July 09, 2013, 01:01:08 PM Ephesians 2 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  Rom 5:10 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. The apostle is describing the same relationship in Eph. 2 that you have been quoting in Rom 5. This puts the time of reconciliation in the context of the apostles teaching. You are saying that reconciliation of the elect starts from before the foundation of the world and is applied at birth. But here in Eph. the apostle is describing living among the heathen and acting like them because he did not have peace with God. He makes a clear statement that even tho he was marked out as elect before Damascus yet he was still an object of Gods wrath. God is Reconciled to those Jesus Christ died for while they are enemies. Does the scripture teach that ? Answer yes or No ! Rom 5:10 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Then please explain the Ephesians verses so i can see how you compare. Reply Quote Notify 622  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 09, 2013, 01:01:08 PM Ephesians 2 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  Rom 5:10 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. The apostle is describing the same relationship in Eph. 2 that you have been quoting in Rom 5. This puts the time of reconciliation in the context of the apostles teaching. You are saying that reconciliation of the elect starts from before the foundation of the world and is applied at birth. But here in Eph. the apostle is describing living among the heathen and acting like them because he did not have peace with God. He makes a clear statement that even tho he was marked out as elect before Damascus yet he was still an object of Gods wrath. Reply Quote Notify 623  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 08, 2013, 09:01:13 PM Quote from: savedbygrace on July 08, 2013, 06:46:16 PM mbg . Quote I mean if God reconciles His elect before they actually come to faith then because we dont know who these people are we can assume that God reconciles all men That would be presumption. What about those who do not come to Faith, obviously they were not reconciled to God by the Death of His Son. And besides, not all men are reconciled to God as enemies/unbelievers, since some enemies are under the wrath of God Jn 3:36 36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. Grant it, we may not know who they are, but we do know they exist, and so should never say all men without exception are reconciled to God while being enemies. So this equation equals all those who are elect are reconciled... we are dealing in semantics.. with a warning about systematized control...it would be presumptuous to say that you know a man who is unsaved that is in the elect category in his condition. So your talking about mystery here and its not wise to mix mystery with reality. Unless of course we are talking about physical markers of which i have dealt with. Reply Quote Notify 624  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 08, 2013, 06:22:23 PM Joker hasnt changed from his armininus stance since ive been on this site. So it doesnt surprise me. But let me address this matter of universal reconciliation. I mean if God reconciles His elect before they actually come to faith then because we dont know who these people are we can assume that God reconciles all men. But this is a mute point really. Because if the elect come to Christ they are reconciled. In the end it does not change the two groups. I mean in looking back for any christian is through the eyes of recreation.  But if sbg is talking about baptism as a sign of the covenant that reconciles the person who later expresses belief in Christ then this is a works doctrine. This is taught throughout the bible that salvation is by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone. What does it mean to exercise faith? It is to place our trust in Christ work alone as satisfactory to atone of all our sins and that He alone delivers us from sin and destruction. Salvation is a matter of becoming more and more like Christ in our identity and being transformed into the image of Christ. This is what David does. He uses allegiance language. To become more like Christ we must deny all those ideas that are false and confess all the truths of our being His servant. As God illuminates us.  Our confession is always that we are seeking this one thing. People say that our lives are made up of different occupations. Marriage, work, recreation etc. But the christian experience in transformation is getting more and more of the skin of Christ. Biblical salvation is our coming in the name and authority of the Lord in these different areas of our lives. All of the human qualities of the perfect image are found in one focus. In this we are given gifts to achieve what we are required in all areas of our lives. So in exalting Christ we must hate all other images. This is more than an acknowledgement but its a devout attitude that is developed as we image Christ. The way that David described His focus on the one image was do deny that any physical act had power to enable him to be saved, while at the same time extolling a sacrifice of thanksgiving as the only acceptable understanding of the power of salvation. Basically as he denounced the sacrifices as essential to being delivered he became more passionate in his praise to God. What was this context of which he reasoned like this. It was in the context of military victory. There was an image of man that opposed the conquest of the righteous cause. It was the image of Judas. He confronted people who opposed his causes as a king. The image of Judas was a man who took justice into his own hands. He avenged blood outside of war. Basically what we are saying here is that God describes the image of Christ in a way that we cannot but understand. A physical act with a spiritual application. But not everyone accepts all the words of God. The lesser view of righteousness was what developed that skin. As time goes on that skin of Judas is exposed. Reply Quote Notify 625  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 07, 2013, 02:13:04 PM cont Any communication of Gods love is for man and not God. God is perfect in His relational qualities. So all of His attributes are successful because they are the beginning of the success and the end of the success. God does not share His glory with any man. This means that God is most free to act because His love is the only acceptable love to Himself. In this man has a complete free access to finding all that he needs in Gods glory. The most free experience of man is to find every need met in perfect dependence upon God. God has given man all that he needs in His word. This means that how God loves Himself as being kind, gentle, good etc in the pleasure of His work brings man to a place of transparency. God works in perfect holistic refuge. All of mans abilities and gifts create the experience of transparency. God has given man all the words he needs to align all of these attributes of man to work in symmetry of Gods faithfulness, kindness, goodness etc. He has not only communicated this through His covenant legality but He has explained to man how to become transparent by giving man words as a free moral agent. In responding to God as a separate self, man experiences symmetry in this fellowship. How man experiences love is how he knows what he needs and what confidence man has is how he knows Gods word as Himself suffering if it is not accomplished. Reply Quote Notify 626  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 07, 2013, 01:48:09 PM God established His relationship with His people through a covenant. This is a covenant of redemption. The basis of the relationship in this covenant is His law being established. Otherwise the covenant would be established through pragmatism. So the foundation of this covenant was based upon believing in something that would transpire in the future based upon what God promised. How did God provide the authority as the foundation of how He would accomplish all that He promised? He legally bound Himself to His word. In doing this God condescended in this relationship to be in a position of fellowship with man. But for God to be able to establish this fellowship with man He had to take care of the violations of the agreement on mans side. So the success of this fellowship is how God acts toward man according to His legal accomplishment in Christ so that all of the questions in how man experiences the just consequences of this relationship is purposed to work out for his good and Gods glory. A relationship is based upon the words of the two parties. These words that are spoken have a legal foundation. This is the law of love. A personal universe is one in which fellowship is experienced through a language that has no flaws. The experience of the love of God is how He describes Himself in communication to man. He not only speaks the words that are true but He transfers all of His attributes in which His words are creative. This means that all of Gods counsel , His faithfulness, goodness, kindness, long suffering, and patience create success going out to the object and returning to God as glorious. This is all through the work that was accomplished on the cross and ordered in Gods counsel from eternity past. The work was accomplished by the perfect legal acts of God. Any creation of success based upon the symmetry, beauty, and purpose of the object of Gods affection is through this creative law of love.   Reply Quote Notify 627  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 06, 2013, 11:55:30 AM There is an undercurrent here that needs to be addressed. If in fact God elects us to salvation then all of the benefits that He purposed to give us or has given us in time past puts us in the position to make those benefits real. This idea framed in a way that makes these benefits automatic so that we all start on equal footing. Which puts God in the position to force compliance. I question any teaching in a cultural sense that seeks to create order through universal democratic equality through divine enforcement. The gospel is a message of salvation ie "deliverance." The central power of it is to protect those who have experienced the dread of sin and the curse. To depict it as something that puts us in the position to be delivered and its left up to us places God in an anti-nomian position. The focus is on what we can do to make God successful. It comes from both sides of the equation of universal ability. One person says that God chooses us and because He is absolutely sovereign then all of this christian communication that leads to success comes to us automatically. The other side is that God will not force the will to compliance in saving men so its left up to man to come to God through equilibrium free will. We know that if God commands a thing then He gives the ability. This equation is weighted on the presumption that all of the benefits come to us through the free exercise of a divine initiative. The reason that the success of the gospel is always felt is in the provision to allow as the basis of obedience. The sensitivity of deliverance is a way of guarding the heart. So these realms of power that is experienced as we go from one glory to another is as the holistic context of the Psalms teaching. But both sides have neglected a very obvious teaching that is part of the thread that goes through all of scripture. It is the heart of the gospel message. If in fact the gospel goes from point A to point B then the message of all things equal nullifies one side of the equation and puts man in the drivers seat. If the gospel is focused on deliverance then it is weighted to move forward in Gods protective shield. The mode of deliverance is made sure because it surrounds us on every side.The question is in their context making man able "how can a sinner who stumbles be made successful in a moral context? " Is success tied to sin alone? If you take the teaching of the curse out of the the context of the passages of the Psalms then mans reaction to the law is the mode to the success of the gospel. Which is the same thing as equilibrium willing. But if in fact the reaction to the law as it declares the sinner guilty is part of the curse then the gospel is no longer a passive resistance to sin and wickedness. Gods surrounding shield is a teaching of deliverance with one purpose to bring sin and all of our adversity to an end with a power that overcomes all other powers. It puts teeth in deliverance.   Reply Quote Notify 628  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 04, 2013, 02:01:52 PM The righteousness that we are said to possess is not our intrinsic righteousness. Our position as a child of Adam was that we were enemies of God. Our enemy is a traitor. "If I forget you oh Jerusalem may my rite hand forget it skill,, may my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth. Oh daughters of Babylon...happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us ...he who gathers your infants and dashes them against the rocks." In the biblical sense an enemy is someone who receives retribution not satisfaction. So in all of our lives we are playing an enemy to ourselves. I mean intrinsically. So the righteousness that we enjoy is one of position and not intrinsically ours. Its actually Christ righteousness put to our account. Its not our righteousness together with His. He accomplished this through His perfect obedience. If we say that its our righteousness then we must justly argue that we have the same kind of obedience as Christ. Now listen carefully. Christ success in His obedience ..on that level ...is not just something that argues on our behalf as we are all sin and in need of an arbitrator. But in the ot it is depicted as He substitutes His life for ours. He takes our disobedience that argues that we are unworthy and He alone makes us worthy by going before us and doing all the work necessary to make us worthy. This means that there is no point where we can say that we deserve reconciliation. The point of reconciliation is that our sin accounted to us is a double strike against our worth in being reconciled. So God does not speak like we are special before we are delivered. But the point of being at peace with God is to be absolutely free in the relationship. Not even our servant hood is tied to our obedience but to being a member of His army...which was required to all Israel. We are servants because we fight and obtain the victory. So there is a mysterious reversal of our experiencing freedom and peace. Its doubly weighted against our being accepted because of our works. Rather the only reason that we have peace with God is because He made vessels of wrath into vessels of mercy. But intrinsically we are totally depraved in this life. Im not trying to be "better than"  but I argue like I pray the Psalms... Reply Quote Notify 629  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 04, 2013, 12:33:52 PM cont... now I will discuss a very controversial subject. In my experience this subject brings me a lot of struggle with people. But it is my purpose to live by a principle of peace and I do not want to be taken out of context. I believe that as we exalt God we become more absolute in how we speak of His power and authority. We sort of climb to a position over all these things in the world by rising up through word and Spirit embracing all of scripture. We embrace every word as if it was our very life. As we learn to approach God through the holistic teaching of His word we draw near more and more to making what is unseen to be seen. We are passing through this veiled view of reality into a place where all things will be reconciled. But at the same time in Gods view all things have already been reconciled. We live with the view that we ascend to that future view but then the veiled view breaks into this view that is too wonderful for us to imagine. And we are never satisfied. We seek to rise up to a higher view with a greater desire. God has established complete peace that is future that we dwell in now. His peace that we possess passes all of our understanding. But we struggle because the approach to peace in Gods view seems to be backwards from our approach. We think that the peace that is established is something that is obtained by a process. We are not easily adapting to the supernatural breaking into time and space. We resist the desire to see that God responds to events that are worse than we could imagine and He works in ways that are to wonderful for us to imagine. So we are always looking through the natural ..fleshly eyes. We have a very hard time growing down because we are touched by the infirmities of our flesh and we do not know how to rise up above the trouble. But as God has established His peace beyond the experience of this world so He has brought it near to us in the lowest experience. God through His decree has destroyed destruction. His fire has brought the valuable elements to the top of the boiling of the gold. Behind Gods use of the terrible events of this world is His reconciliation at all times with all things. In Gods view all the powers that oppose Him are beyond the heat of the fire. He has through His reconciliation turned the fire away from His people and destroyed destruction. Gods desire to reconcile all things is to push the curse away from His people.  Reply Quote Notify 630  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 04, 2013, 12:08:04 PM God is reconciling all things unto Himself. To say that reconciliation has no fundamental purpose in the context of the world in light of His own is to deny the reality of reconciliation. If the purpose of reconciliation is to establish peace where there was war then the question is what does this peace look like? If God is not as concerned for the general welfare of all people even outside His "house" then as He is negligent in the world which is where those in His house dwell then what kind of God is it in which we draw near to? If God has brought His covenant people into a relationship of grace then how can He establish peace within the context of the covenant relationship if His own people suffer in the house in a servile relationship, while God has no purpose in how he governs over the world whos sins affect the reconciliation that God has purposed in this covenant? How can we believe that God has delivered His people through the establishment of peace if He has this divided purpose? How does God work to reconcile all things unto Himself? Does He create the history of the world and then put Himself under the dictates of second causes? If God reconciles all things then He must be in a position of authority in His purpose to establish this peace. Our purpose is not to reduce God by focusing on one word of scripture ,trying to make God a person that we can use for our own prosperity. But we must acknowledge there is a greater purpose that is mysterious to us from Gods view of reconciling all things unto Himself. As God is seen in the balance of His ruling from His throne... that throne that is not established as a physical seat but the establishment of His power through His governing counsel then we can have a more circumspect look at the purposes of His creation of all His created beings. Gods general disposition in relationship. This will put our importance in this broader view into perspective.