Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children

[steve]

In the book "Raising Hell," Julie Ferwerda lists characteristics of loving parents. She kind of assumes that God is a loving Parent Himself, since that it the distinct impression given by Jesus—in fact, it may have have been the one unique fact that He was sent to teach us. She lists the following. I found them interesting and relevant to our discussion:

Loving parents make sure the punishment fits the crime;

Loving parents understand that there are factors behind disobedience;

Loving parents demonstrate fair and consistent character;

Loving parents ultimately long to be restored in relationship;

Loving parents never give up

Really simple observations. What remains to be determined, then, is "Is God a loving Parent or not?"

Of course, there are some who will say that God is not everybody's "Parent," for not all are His children. I do not believe that this point can withstand biblical cross-examination.

[jriccitelli]

I know we 'all' have these verses in our Bibles. I do believe that this point 'can' withstand biblical cross-examination, my commentary is the underlined parts;

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name (John 1:12)

'You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him (John 8:44)

God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. (Hebrews 12:7-8)

'Make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. (1John 3)

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4)

'I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality.22 Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.23 And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.24 But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them--I place no other burden on you' (Rev 2:21-24)

[jriccitelli]

Steve; 'Since the scriptural case for eternal torment approximates absolute zero (as it would clearly be the invention of a different God than that of Jesus Christ), and since the proof for extinction appeals primarily to verses that do not address afterlife issues, we are left to ask what postmortem arrangement have the scriptures left open to us that is most in keeping with what God has told us about Himself'

This is exactly where I was going, my next question was to be; 'To you Steve, what is the general purpose of God giving us the Bible?
(I usually say; The Bible was given to reveal God and to reveal man. Or to reveal Gods character and nature and to reveal mans character and nature)

Steve; 'Universalism can't be proved by the scriptures listed. They simply show the character of God to be a certain way. Thus, hell has to be a certain way. Hell is not the one corner of the universe that remains out of God's sovereign control. It is part of His program, and serves His purpose—like everything else He made'

I think this post reveals a lot about your theology, and argument 'for' universalism. I understand you can debate both sides of an issue, as I also could do for something I disagree with, but I would never lead anyone to think as a teacher I 'agreed' with such a view.
First of all it 'seems' you continue to try and pull this back into an argument against ET, and I am as mad at the ET doctrine as you are, I agree ET is a different god (An effective god in getting people to repent, but clearly wrong)
But I see punishment, annihilation, and extinction as the obvious answer once eternal is debunked. I do think this is clear since God unquestionably does punish, kill and annihilate over and over throughout scripture.
UR is forcing an interpretation of love upon God that 'If He creates He must make anything He creates forever and immortal'. Thus my argument to that interpretation (of love) from the Bible, concerning the scriptures concerning 'men as chaff, I asked if this argument was dealt with already somewhere (?) because of the knee jerk reaction I felt it got when I posted;

Men are but beasts, fit for destruction, vessels of wrath, objects of scorn, like pottery, they are like branches to be burned, like weeds to be pulled up, like smoke, like cows, and like fish;

And my observations to how nature also speaks of Gods nature:

'Animal life is a pretty tough existence to say the least, I think God expects us to observe, take notice and be forewarned! 'You ain't that special', animals grow up and die, animals eat and devour each other, it's the cycle of life. Are we going to 'forever' be upset and whine with God over every bite an animal takes or are we going to 'consider it', and repent and believe the Good News - otherwise we too shall all perish, and under the eyes of 'the same' God as the animals have'

[jriccitelli]

Me and Homer observed as Singalephile observes that most all your 50 or so verses have the context of repenting and believing as mandates to salvation, and not some underlying post-mortum repentance of 'all'. Do not forget I previously stated that I do not rule out post mortum repentance in light of 1 Peter saying as the Gospel was preached to those in prision, but that is not the pit or hell as i see it, and assuming 'all' repenting flies in the face of the repeated theme of a separation, division, casting off of a group and the repeated idea of remnants saved rather than every human Universally, note I would probably back off of Universalists if they were not 'Universalists' - meaning if they admit not 'all' or 'every' single human will or must repent, that is the heresy.
I appreciate your post 'Sing' I was surprised Steve included any Major or Minor Prophets, noting especially Zephaniah, but I better get off to Church…

[steve]

So you think, and so you will continue to think for the foreseeable future. I also once thought as you do. Keep thinking. Work especially on the exegesis department. Blessings!

[steve7150]

I would probably back off of Universalists if they were not 'Universalists' - meaning if they admit not 'all' or 'every' single human will or must repent, that is the heresy.
I appreciate your post 'Sing' I was surprised Steve included any Major or Minor Prophets, noting especially Zephaniah, but I better get off to Church








Just speaking for myself i don't think every human must repent only that postmortem repentance is a very likely possibility because without it justice
seems to me to be impossible.
In Phil 2.11 Paul included the dead as well as the living as confessing Christ as Lord and i think he pointedly expanded referencing a quote from Isaiah to include the dead which is postmortem. Also the end of Revelation suggests postmortem repentance.
Must everyone repent, or will everyone have that opportunity, i can't definitively say but i think God's will is the most important single factor in this issue.

You can call CU heresy , that makes it heresy in your mind, that's it friend.

[steve]

More on the matter of who is and who is not a "child" of God...

Of course, all the proof texts that jriccitelli brought up were anticipated. I would have brought them up myself, a few years ago.

However, there is more than one sense in which people can be called "children" of God. It does no good to quote only verses about one of those senses, and to leave out the ones that speak of another sense.

There are prodigal children, who do not yet share a spiritual or moral affinity with God, and are not yet, in that sense, His "sons." According to Jesus, while they are alienated from their Father, they are "lost" and "dead"—however, it is plainly declared: ".My son was dead...My son was lost..." (Luke 15:24). The lost person is a lost son.

Adam is called the son of God (Luke 3:38), though he rebelled, and we have no record of his repentance. Paul told the Athenian philosophers that all are God's "offspring" (Acts 17:28), which he apparently equated with the fact that "He gives to all life, breath and all things"(v.25). The devil is not a creator and has no power to bring children of his own into the world. Through deception, the devil kidnapped and adopted as his own those who were created as God's children.

Because of our alienated affections, all of the sons of God became, in one sense, "sons of the devil." It is interesting that, in the passage where Jesus tells the Jews "you are of your father the devil," He uses the idea of progeny two different ways. He says, at one point, "I know that you are Abraham's descendants" (john 8:37), and a few verses later, "If you were Abraham's children..." (v.39).

He clearly recognizes two kinds of sonship. One is biological, the other spiritual. My contention is that all are God's biological creation (and regarded as "sons" in that sense) while others also have become His sons by spiritual affinity and rebirth. God wants all of His kids back, and has moved heaven and earth to recover them. He awaits the repentance of those who remain in ignorance and deception. I should think we all agree, at least, on that! Does He see any of His offspring as mere chaff to be burned? Could you see any of your children, whom you brought into this world without their consent, that way—simply because they have gone into slavery and become blind? These are the words that the scriptures use to describe sinful man's condition.

Everyone who is now a son of God, in the sense of spiritual birth, was once a son of the devil. This kind of "sonship" (unlike that of genealogy) is a changeable phenomenon. However, the reason that sons of the devil can repent and be born anew is that God loves them all as if they were His own (according to scripture, they really are His!—Ps.24:1), which is His reason for redeeming them all. If they were not His to love, they would not be His to punish, either.

All people are God's children in His heart. He created them for Himself. Every father knows that a son of his is still beloved and desired even when he is alienated, by foolish choices, from his father. The prodigal son was still his father's son, even in a far country, as far as the father was concerned. The alienation was in the heart of the son, not in that of the father. The father had as much longing and unconditional love for that rebel as for the son who was in his house with him. What father would not know this?

Either God loves all people or He does not. If He does, then what is this love but that of a father for His offspring? If He does not, then Calvinism is true—and the New Testament is false.

I thought God's love for all was pretty much a matter of consensus in these parts. There is no question that people who are children of satan can repent. The question is how badly does God want them to, and how long can He wait?

I find it tragic that any other view of the heart of God toward sinners could have ever been entertained by anyone who has ever seen the example of Jesus, or heard Him speak about His Father. Much more tragic is that such libels have become "tradition" of the churches. A further tragedy is that many reading this will, no doubt, ignore what Jesus and the scriptures say about this, because there are so many traditional Christians who would ostracize them for agreeing with Jesus.

I don't know for sure that all will repent, but I do know the God who is the Father of Jesus Christ and of all that He has created. That goes a long way toward disproving traditional slanders by theologians who seem to treat the Bible as a collection of random teachings on various matters of curiosity, rather than a discloser of the heart of God, and of His amazing story.

[Singalphile]

Thank you, Steve, for the response. I did realize that those verses weren't necessarily meant to prove UR, just to lay the foundation. I appreciate that and your other thoughts, too.

I think I believe the same as you about God's character. I also know that God does not currently do everything the way that I would. Therefore, I cannot insist or presume that he will do everything in the future the way that I would. For example, I might say, "God wouldn't let a group of children get murdered," but then I'd be wrong about that. I might also say, "God wouldn't let some people just die," but.... He is the all knowing creator of everything, and I am not.

steve1750 and jriccitelli, I agree with a lot of both of your last short posts. The case for eternal conscious punishment for even some non-Christians is weak, imo, but the case for eternal conscious torment for all non-Christians is weaker still. The case for eternal death/destruction for some people approaches proof, imo, but the case for eternal death/destruction for all non-Christians is much less certain to me. I can't honestly deny conditional immortality (aka, annihilationism) for some, but I also cannot rule out post-mortem acceptance and/or realization of Christ by some. Someone suggested a hybrid a while ago, and I'll have to revisit that.

Thank you all.

[steve]

Hi Singalphile,

I agree that some hybrid is likely to turn out to be true. God might dignify the most stubborn, if they should insist, with extinction. That would, in my opinion, be consistent with His love and His desire to honor free-will. It is just hard to imagine that anyone would, ultimately, choose extinction over life with Jesus, once they have seen Him as He really is.

There is a lot of Calvinism in a lot of us. It seems obligatory to talk about how hostile unbelievers are toward God (Calvinists have to play this up BIG, because they have to feel justified in their insistence that eternal torment is truly deserved). In reality, of course, most unbelievers are clueless. They don't hate God any more than they love Him. They simply don't know Him (thus are they often described in scripture).

To be sure, there are those who have chosen to hate God. They must be a very tiny minority, it seems—the same minority that disingenuously refer to themselves as "atheists." It is obvious, from reading and discussing these things with most atheists that they do not really disbelieve in God—they are angry at God. Anyone who simply disbelieves would be content to call himself an agnostic. It takes actual bitterness of heart (or else a mere desire to bow to fashion) to call oneself an atheist.

Those who are bitter against God, I think we will all agree, have totally misunderstood Him, and have reacted in great ignorance. Everybody shares a degree of ignorance, but the atheist mixes that ignorance with arrogance—this mix is the recipe for atheism.

I know a woman who was treated like a queen by her husband, but she was so narcissistic that she saw every disagreement as an affront to her ego. At one point, she "snapped" and left her husband. Forever afterward, she spoke the most cruel and fabricated slanders against her husband and sought continually to defame him. She probably did this to assuage her own guilt for having betrayed a caring spouse. People who do this usually paint as unflattering a picture as possible of the person they are betraying.

Those who knew her, and who knew her husband, could see that she was delusional. Her slanders hurt her husband, to be sure, but he knew she was not in her right mind, and he continued to love her, even while years passed and she continued to nurse her bitterness. If she had died, she would have died as a bitter enemy of her ex-husband—but only in her own mind. He was a man who loved His wife as Christ loves the church, and, had she died in that state, and had he been in the position to be her judge, he would have had no interest whatsoever in seeing her suffer or be put to a second death. His desire for her would be to cure her of her mental derangement.

This is how God is toward atheists and all who hate Him. He is like Hosea with Gomer. He is like the Father of the prodigal. He is like Jesus. He does not know how to bear malice. Like a father, he may have to teach through chastisements, but He does not know malice. We sometimes can feel malice—but that is sin in us. I sometimes wonder if those who picture God as wishing to end the rehab of His enemies prematurely are somehow trying to justify the malice they feel toward certain enemies of theirs. If they can convince themselves that God hates these people too, then how can they be blamed for also hating them?

It is said of the queen "Bloody Mary," I think it was, that when she was asked how she could bring herself to torture and kill heretics, she answered, "God is going to send them to eternal fire, what is the temporal fire to that?" (not an exact quote). I think the inquisitors of the middle ages were probably able to justify themselves similarly. Why not hate people who disagree with us? Isn't that God-like? Too bad they never read how Jesus told us to treat our enemies, so that we could be truly God-like.

God is not like man, in man's sinfulness. Though men approximate the image of God when they love their own enemies as He loves His.

[Homer]

This has become a strange discussion. It seems to have evolved into a rather maudlin theodicy. God is love and that's all there is to Him. He is the father of everyone who ever lived and must act just like a good human father toward each of them, never mind that He has seen to the death and destruction of a great number of them and has threatened, through His Son, to do even more. And all Christians who pass on these threats and warnings by saying what Jesus said are libeling God. Seems to me some folks are presuming to sit in judgement of what is worthy of God to do, but that's just my impression.

There are prodigal children, who do not yet share a spiritual or moral affinity with God, and are not yet, in that sense, His "sons." According to Jesus, while they are alienated from their Father, they are "lost" and "dead"—however, it is plainly declared: ".My son was dead...My son was lost..." (Luke 15:24). The lost person is a lost son.

I am continually puzzled about how the story of the prodigal son helps the universalist cause. I thought the universalist idea was that God throws his children into the lake of fire where they are subject to horrible suffering which brings about "free-will" repentance. In the story of the prodigal son the Father did nothing to his son to bring his son back.

Does He see any of His offspring as mere chaff to be burned? Could you see any of your children, whom you brought into this world without their consent, that way—simply because they have gone into slavery and become blind? These are the words that the scriptures use to describe sinful man's condition.

I could not but I am not God. Could you do to your child what God has previously done to millions? Think of the flood and 70AD.

Jesus was the one who mentioned the chaff being burned; I have no argument with what He said.

Either God loves all people or He does not. If He does, then what is this love but that of a father for His offspring? If He does not, then Calvinism is true—and the New Testament is false.

So then all Christians who are not universalist are no better than Calvinists - and they all present a false idea of God. Seems those who believe universalism is false are attacked with the same vehemence once reserved for Calvinists. Ouch.

Loving parents make sure the punishment fits the crime;

Loving parents understand that there are factors behind disobedience;

Loving parents demonstrate fair and consistent character;

Loving parents ultimately long to be restored in relationship;

Loving parents never give up

Really simple observations. What remains to be determined, then, is "Is God a loving Parent or not?"

So here we have it. The good human parent is the standard God is measured by. God is "in the dock". But how is the "punishment fits the crime" to be established? Sounds like the old "finite sin/finite punishment falacy. Sure, we are all judged on what "we have done, good or bad", but what we have done is only symptom of what is in the heart. Has the heart yielded to Jesus as Lord or is the heart in rebellion against God? Seems to me the appropriate punishment for that has been prescribed: the second death.