What if Satan reformed?

Satan wasn't programmed by God to work evil. Traditional theology understands passages in Isaiah and Ezekiel (which I would have to look up, isaiah 14 I think) to reveal that he was originally the greatest archangel, who then fell and took many angels with him, who are now the demons. They now work evil. Being a murderer from the beginning refers to his work in Eden seducing Eve I believe, which brought death into the world.

There is no such thing as faith without evidence, it's just that people don't remember what persuaded them. The Bible is evidence, evidence of miracles for instance, seen by many witnesses. If you believe the witnesses you have the evidence of the miracles they saw. it's foolishness to deny that many honest witnesses. I believe what all the witnesses said about what happened as recorded in the Old Testament, as well as what all the witnesses said about what happened as recorded in the New Testament about what Jesus did, all the miracles he did and his resurrection from death. I consider that I have lots of evidence for my faith in him, in what he taught, in what he did, and beyond my own personal experience of that there are the thousands whose writings about all that also hang together and confirm it.

In my view, yes, a delightful slavery to a loving Master. Hard to imagine I suppose. Like Bob Dylan said, "Ya gotta serve somebody," makes all the difference who.

Ah well, I should have learned by now there's nothing I can say here that won't get a slap in the face for my effort. I know who I'm serving. I also know who you're serving.ABE: By the way, keeping in mind that the subject of the statement about fruits is false prophets, what fruits do you ascribe to me that you think deserve such nastiness?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

For the record, Christians are often referred to as the Lord's "servants" in scripture, and John MacArthur wrote a book showing that the term in Greek is most often used to refer to slaves. Scripture says believers have been bought by the Lord, in other words we belong to Him. Therefore we are slaves. But His "yoke is easy and His burden is light." We were formerly the slaves of Satan, now we are His. "Ya gotta serve somebody." I can. First, the phrase is "by their fruits" not "works" and since when can unbelievers judge believers by any standard anyway? Unbelievers of course can't tell who anybody is serving. It's believers who are counseled to apply this standard. Even Christian works mean nothing to unbelievers. Being nice, "tolerant" of sin, giving money to the poor, that's about the range of works acceptable to unbelievers and you don't need to be a Christian to do those things so it's no standard at all anyway. Denying the Bible and supporting the murder of the unborn or gay "marriage" are good works according to unbelievers, as well as, sadly, some very confused believers.Teaching people to avoid what the Bible calls sin and warning of judgment to come for unrepented sin is not regarded as a good work, defending the true doctrine is not regarded as a good work, and so on.As for "fruits," I've seen this standard most tellingly applied to Roman Catholic doctrine as producing bad fruits: celibacy of priests producing molestation of children for instance. Doctrines making the Pope and RC system authoritative over all people have produced millions of murders of dissidents. There's the fruits we should be looking at. Not the sins of individual Christians, for instance.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yeah but your eyes are not trustworthy. Got a lot more of those qualities than I used to have, that's for sure, and I'd bet if you detailed exactly what indicates my lack of this or that quality it would be from an unbeliever's perspective as I already discussed, not a believer's. Love for instance is not accepting abortion or gay marriage, it's warning people of God's judgments against that sort of sin. Meekness, for instance, is obedience to God rather than man. Bet that wouldn't be your definition.

You have NO clue.Oh there is no doubt Jesus was fully human, but without our fallen nature. That's a big difference.What Jesus knew in Gethsemane was coming against Him would have killed YOU just to think it if you'd had to face it. For Jesus who had enjoyed close communion with the Father all His life to be forsaken by Him on the cross was a loss you couldn't even imagine since you never had to experience such a thing.Nobody argues against good works as the result of salvation, only that they aren't the means of salvation.And that's absolute nonsense the idea that He sends anyone to Hell at all -- we're all born fit for Hell and send ourselves there, but what He did is die so we don't have to go there. There's certainly no threat of going to Hell once you've received the forgiveness of His death for your sins either.Your theology is rotten. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You aren't thinking, ringo. What the two thieves faced was nothing like what Jesus faced. Remember, He took the sins of all of us into Himself to atone for them, He took OUR punishment, not just the punishment of a thief, He endured being forsaken of God for all of us, which has been our lot since Adam sinned. We can't begin to understand what that means but your comparison is ludicrously paltry. You compare the loss of the supernatural presence of God to the loss of the temporal and spatial presence of a human mother. You have no clue. You dare to say ridiculous things about experiences you have no clue about.Your theology is rotten. Right, the unbelievers' mistake. You have no clue to what salvation means, don't mind applying silly terms like "magical" to it out of ignorance, and dare to impute your own paltry view to people who know better. Who said it takes no effort to do good works? What kind of nonsense are you pushing here? Works done in the power of God count, those done in the flesh don't, there's no difference in effort involved that I can think of, just that one is motivated by God and the other by human flesh.Your theology is rotten.And He doesn't send anyone to Hell. He saves people from the Hell they are going to from their own will.Your theology is rotten.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's not the sins but the punishment for the sins that hurts.

Heinlein hasn't a clue. I recently listened to some sermons by John MacArthur in which he emphasizes that theology is what it used to be known to be, the queen of the sciences. Wish I could remember where he said that, don't know if it was in his recent discussion about gay marriage, "We Will Not Bow" or his series in 1999 on the creation-evolution conflict, "The Battle for the Beginning." Also heard part of a sermon about the end times. All are at You Tube but since I don't think anyone here would bother to listen to any of it I won't offer any more precise references. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.