dermdoc said:
TheGreatEscape said:
dermdoc said:
So does God determine who are the unregenerate?
And I am a Christus Victor guy.
Keep begging the question that I have answered multiple times.
So, in this purification state of being, in what way are the unregenerate becoming purified? Are they repenting? Is the fruit of the Holy Spirit being evident among the transitioning ones?
I believe that just like any good Father, Abba God uses corrective punishment for all people. Even after death.
And I believe the fire you mention is one of purification.
Curious as to where this wrath was in the Prodigal son parable?
Or the one lost sheep or coin?
And the Holy Spirit produces listed fruits. Wrath is not one of them.
{And I believe the fire you mention is one of purification.}
Here is your problem. Purification is related to the atoning work of sanctification for individuals lavished upon to receive. This means to cleanse, to purify, and to wash in the word of regeneration, which is found in Titus, for one example.. So you are thusly limiting the atoning work and leaving sanctification up to man's own efforts in the beginning. And then claiming eternal security? In the beginning boom! God spoke and Justification and Sanctification both were tied into the atonement. For it is written that the lamb of God was slain before the foundations of the world. Because rejection of Christ is a sin. And Christ died for all sin. That has to mean only for those chosen to receive. So now this rejection of some receive justice. No one is getting injustice. Do you ever really believe that anyone apart from Christ will ever atone in hell for his sins against an infinitely Holy God? You don't really hold to original sin.
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And limiting the atonement from being all efficient and ever so sufficient to never allow his chosen ones to enter into this so-called purifying fire of yours is a contradiction. Namely the judgement fire in Scripture connects to what John the Baptist taught. And the consuming fire mentioned in Hebrews 12 is that of judgement. "For our God is a consuming fire. It's not what you are stating. The purifying is the work of the Holy Spirit. There were visible flames on the heads of the saints at Pentecost. The non-saints just scoff. They don't receive this sanctification and their works condemn them to hell.
For the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son
and is connected to the atoning work of justification, sanctification, regeneration (see the first part of John 3), and glorification in which God is omnipresent to connect and not be separate. Behold the golden chain confirms this in Romans chapter 8:29-31.
You are falsely dividing the work of sanctification, also called the purifying work of the cross and resurrection, by which the Spirit made us alive together in him (Ephesians 2 also mentions the walk as in living), which when he made alive his saints are also tied to sanctification and the only purification mentioned. And when Scripture is silent, then we must be silent.
How does the purifying sanctification work out into our lives? It is through faith a gift in the finished work of Christ alone. And the preaching of the Gospel everyday to ourselves of this atoning justifying by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone, to the glory of God alone, etc. Faith is an infinite overflow from the recreation resurrection power to which would be compromised by your confused distinguishing of the judgement just wrath of God under the headship of Adam.
Dismissal of the work of sanctification or purification of God's believing saints alone and the dismissal of the choice in Christ; for your assertion to obtain this process state through which the unregenerate unrepentant are eventually takin into heaven after their sanctification in Christ alone is a huge mistaken.
Let's go over Ephesians 1 again on the Christmas page in which I once again was instigated upon to respond.
Or, is everyone predestined and then you have not conversed with my OP on Romans 9 that the Gospel is only for the elect of every nation, tribe, and tongue?
And you must essentially be stating that the Gospel skips over and disconnects from both God's omnipresence and the atonement work in which all the wrath of God for his elect was poured onto the eternally begotten Son. And you are claiming that this Gospel will also purify those in your version of hell and is not connected to the atonement propitiating or extinguishing of the fire of judgement?
Now that we have established that Christ's atonement is not separate from God's omnipresence. We know this because some receive mercy and others receive what is just. For God is also just. It's the overflow of his essence and holiness.
No one can be a victim claiming injustice. Original sin.
What was the atonement for but to be received? A gift of faith, lest any man boast. But, I suppose you are in this manner much for the freewill version of choosing salvation, but those in this supposed "state of being hell"are then processed to heaven, not according to any choice at all and that is NOT what we Reformed believe at all. For as the Father wills and the Holy Spirit regenerates and makes us free to choose gladly, Christ's example of how this joy leading to repentance according to Christ who endured the suffering, even death on the cross, was written that he endured such for the joy set before him.
Was this joy set before him to damn those in unbelief?
Not at all. For it is written that God takes no joy in the destruction of the wicked. But because his justice overflows into his creation, he exalts his mercy over his justice for some. And the rest can never atone for what Christ has done. You would absolutely have to diminish the sinfulness of sin to beget this doctrine of partial atonement that only saves those who can save themselves. May it never be!
And now your view is in a crisis. So not only is the Gospel disconnected from the work of redemption in the death and resurrection power that only his chosen individuals receive, but now this purifying Darwinian like evolution occurs without faith for those who are in this process to heaven hell of yours disconnected from what the Scriptures teach of election and atonement.
For I estimate in your view that God is there purifying those in hell without the work of the atoning cross of which separates the judgement of God into your pseudo-purification fire that you have mentioned. For this is against the Scripture to which only speaks to the people of God in the washing of the word connected to Christ's atoning work, namely through the cross, which you must falsely apply to the unregenerate under Adam's original sin in this evolutionary state to enter heaven? May this thinking be anathema.
For the wrath of God's fire of judgment cannot ever be escaped. This is what Jesus claimed in the parable of the rich man in the Gospel of Luke.
Now that you know that there is no such thing as the sanctifying work of the cross disconnected from the God who is also in hell where Satan and his minions are the wardens is far more terrifying.
Because Christ was sent to atone for the justice of God upon the unjust. So why would hearts bent towards unbelief need to be purified for even just one second in hell? This makes the atonement of no effect and you can see this in your rejection to believe not that Christ has atoned for our rejection of choosing him by taking out a heart of stone and putting in a heart of flesh to become the recipient of the Father's immutable, unchanging, and unchallenged will that no man can thwart for his glory alone to actually impute mercy. The other view is not mercy in God's courtroom that in some ways our human courts are designed to reflect.
For a man who is found guilty has to pay a sentencing to atone for what was done. In fact, up until the 19th century when a man was put to death for murder in Scotland; the court published that "John Doe" was justified by the state of Scotland on this date of May 24th, 1799 in the year of our Lord. There was no purification in some limbo state that you suggest. This would be injustice.
A man who is found guilty for rejecting Christ in God's holy
court by sovereign election will receive true mercy that the world has never known and on Christ's account the man will show the fruit of the Holy Spirit to believe. Believe is a verb. And the Holy Spirit is omnipresent when he hovered over the waters in Genesis 1. And would the Holy Spirit just be there uninvolved to purify those vessels of dishonor meant for hell for them to enter heaven without a drop of Christ's blood to bring faith required to enter heaven? "For the just shall live by faith, no?"
And on the Prodigal Son…He was still alive. He was not dead. Your argument will not stand.
The lost sheep and the coin still existed physically in reality in the parables told. The sheep were not dead. The coin was not destroyed out of existence. The coin was still in this old world which will be burned and recreated when we receive our glorified bodies in the new heavens and the new earth.
And this is also interesting. So these being sanctified into heaven from hell will then be brought back into resurrected bodies to be judged? How are they being purified if they haven't been judged in the court of the great white thrown yet?
And so when Christ comes back to judge the living and the dead; will these unregenerate who were presently living not also be in the resurrection of all of mankind? Then instantaneously sent back to be purified or sanctified in this hell state of yours without physical bodies only to then be saved apart from the omnipresent atonement of the universe? Then to be sent back to heaven and receive again physical bodies in a second resurrection, unfounded in the sufficiency of Scripture. Think about all of this for a minute. The entire structure is invalid.
And the Holy Spirit's fruit are his fruit. We have nothing in ourselves but him who both wills and performs his good pleasure both in us and through us in the world.
For the Holy Spirit can be quenched but he has sealed his elect (Ephesians 1:13). So that is my point. The Holy Spirit does not have the same office but to convict of sin and regenerate some men by the will of the father. But he is also in perfect unity with the Trinity of the same substance and apparently killed Ananias and Sapphira when he dropped them dead for lying to him.
So in hell what a terrible eternal state. For the death angel of the Holy Spirit can never be unquenched. No blood to apply to the doorpost there. With the gnashing of teeth at him doing what is too terrifying to be spoken. He is omnipresent of the same substance of the Father and the Son in perfect harmony for all eternity. Omnipotent and omnipresent the Holiness of the Holy Spirit must scream wrath of God against the only able to bear the fruit of the flesh in the state of hell. So how is this ever going to purify them. For they will either be so angry or weep so much that they cannot, I imagine, even speak.
For the devil is a created single being. He and his ridiculous lying minions are also said to be in eternal hell. They with the non-elect will be wailing and screaming if they could ever open their own mouths from the pain causing them to gnash their teeth both in disgust and despair.
If Angels had free will and fell and you believe men have free will as well and this alone is how they all fell for not obeying the Gospel of grace; then how on earth do you not also believe that the devil will also be sanctified into heaven?
Remember that the Bible also teaches that those higher ranking beings are also elect and non-elect. The Bible makes this comparison to we who believe to elect Angels. And also uses the same connotations of the word elect for humans to receive true mercy.
Also, unto King Saul was sent by the Lord an evil lying spirit.
And in the book of Job, remember that the devil went to God to ask permission to test Job's grace alone righteousness and granted faith in God. For Job properly responded to his wife. Job said "Should we only accept the good from God and not the bad?"
So you say that you believe that God is the same in both Testaments. This is a test for all of us.
Fo his holiness is highest attribute and is still a mystery.
The three in one and the one in three is rational to God and goes beyond our reason. The universe reflects this unity and diversity, but only God is infinite.
And the Trinity is the high point of all revelation from God to man in Matthew 28:18-21.
Yet, we struggle and try to rationalize divine sovereignty and human responsibility? For it too is a mystery.
Why he chose us and did not choose others, brother, we will never know. But don't you think in heaven that the thought of this determined election, without human freewill having final say in God's immutable plan; drives us to more gratefulness forever for the stone of the tomb that only God could roll away and we could not muster and birth our own faith which is eternal grace?
