Instead of hardening their hearts it should have put the fear of God into them, that was its point.
By this can I infer that you are a Christian because you're afraid of what God will do to you otherwise.
Faith writes:
God's reason was to punish Jesus for OUR sins, remember, since He had no sin of His own, and our sins deserve such a death.
That is a terrible perversion of Christianity. John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that He gave us the son. Your version would be that God so hated the world that He killed the Son.
People killed Jesus. God resurrected Him.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
My view is the traditional Christian view, not a perversion, yours is the perversion but we've had this discussion beforfe and this is where it always ends up and what more could possibly be said? God so LOVED the world that He GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON. That's what I believe, not your perversion. We are at the usual impasse. Shall we leave it there? Please?
Actually Faith yours isn't the traditional view. Your view is a view that primarily grew out of the reformation and has been largely centred in the US.
Faith writes:
Shall we leave it there? Please?
OK. I will just add that Jesus' call is a call on our lives. It is a call to a vocation of spreading God's love into the world, regardless of our theology. It is important that we don't let our theology interfere with our carrying out that vocation.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
The Reformation reestablished the original church or at least the essence of it as it was before the Roman politico-pagan church usurped it in the seventh century, and I'm quite sure your theology doesn't have any songs written for it.
Augustine has comments that support both sides of the issue. He's very strong on the Reformation doctrine of faith alone however, or grace alone or Christ alone etc., despite being all over the map in general. Origen is considered a heretic by many.
Let's be clear, GDR, all the Reformation rpinciples are in the Bible, spelled out in particular by Paul but also in the book of Hebrews. Your weird theology is the deviation, the perversion, not mine.
Let's be clear, GDR, all the Reformation rpinciples are in the Bible, spelled out in particular by Paul but also in the book of Hebrews. Your weird theology is the deviation, the perversion, not mine.
Certainly the reformation ended many of the excesses of the church and primarily indulgences. However the reformers did emphasize the importance the Scriptures, as a gift from God, but they did not endorse inerrancy.
I didn't "screen out" anything. Those principles are in the gospels too but Paul said them particularly clearly and I remember what he said better. But of course I can go track them down in the gospels too.
Three of the gospels state that He came to serve not to be served and to give His life a random for many. If He bought us, ransomed us, that's His doing, not ours.
John 3:16 is a way of saying that whoever believes on Jesus will be saved, period, no other condition implied.
When Jesus washes the disciplies' feet He calls them clean. That is a way of saying He does the cleansing of our sins.
The very word "gospel" means "good news" and your idea of the gospel is far from good news, but the principle that Jesus came to save us and that nothing in our salvation is up to us, fallible wretches that we are, THAT is good news.
Again I point out that Jesus said He is the Lord of the Sabbath and that the Sabbath was made for man, and the Sabbath means rest and it's based on God's resting from His works on the seventh day. Jesus is our rest from our own works because He did the work of salvation that we are unable to do, giving us rest from the endless effort to be the loving person you insist iw what He asks of us. He knows we're fallen, the idea that He would ask that of us is ludicrous. We are only able to love "because He first loved us," and really, only because He died for us and sent the Holy Spirit to empower us to love. We fallen wretches aren't capable of the love God requires and you fool yourself thinking it possible. "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." All the "love" you think we are asked to do is dirty rags in God's eyes..
Three of the gospels state that He came to serve not to be served
Jesus is saying that He came to serve the one He called Father. That is what we are called to do. How did Jesus do that. By loving and serving others. That is what we are called to do.
Faith writes:
ohn 3:16 is a way of saying that whoever believes on Jesus will be saved, period, no other condition implied.
The trouble is that you misconstrue what it means to believe. You have been in a number of discussions about Donald Trump. You believe in him. When you say that you are saying that you believe in him and what he is doing.. You support him and might even campaign to get him re-elected. Others don't believe in him or in what he is doing. However, nobody is disputing the fact that he is president. You believe or don't believe in what he stands for.
Jesus also said to follow Him. If we are to follow Him, it again isn't about believing that He has good ideas, but it means actively living out our lives in the way of service, love, peace and forgiveness that He calls us to. We aren't called to that so that we simply get rewarded in the next life. We are called to that as God does love and care for us and all of His creation, and He wants us to actively care for it as service to Him.
All humanity is called to "believe" in what Jesus stands for which is simply spelled out in my signature, or as Jesus says in Matthew 7:12 "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets."
Faith writes:
The very word "gospel" means "good news" and your idea of the gospel is far from good news, but the principle that Jesus came to save us and that nothing in our salvation is up to us, fallible wretches that we are, THAT is good news.
It is very good news. God through the man Jesus established a "Kingdom" with Jesus as King, made up of people to serve that King by serving His creation in preparation for the time when He renews this world and His heavenly dimension and our earthly dimension becomes one.
I don't pretend to know how that all plays out, what it will look like or how my life plays into it. No doubt all that represents some ultimate purpose in the heart and mind of God expressed in ways that we can vaguely comprehend. It is all about the faith that we are created beings and that we are here for a purpose and in the life, message, death and resurrection of Jesus we have been given a glimpse into that purpose.
So by faith we are called to serve that purpose and we are to have faith that ultimately God will look after all mankind with perfect love and perfect justice. I'm not about to tell him or you what that looks like. I simply trust Him
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
As a woman I reserve the right to change my mind but I'm kind of sorry I changed it about stopping this discussion. Anyway you cut off quotes and then answer the part that wasn't important but I'll have to come back to that later. Meanwhile John 3:16 promises eternal life. You turned that into some kind of unrecognizable hash. But I guess I'm too tired to think about it right now.
I’m surprised that you object to GDR’s reading of John 3:16. His point is that mere intellectual assent is not enough. The Book of James makes exactly the same point.
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