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selah
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 11/17/2009 8:34 AM (GMT -6) |   | The most convincing thing to me WOULD HAVE BEEN someone to discuss this VIEW with humility. Well, Corey did.... so that's helpful. But it still seems like he's "got it down" now. And that's how I read the rest of you. Which is great for you, I guess. But not helping to convince me at all. Did D or T even read the kierkegaard quote I posted above? I met with a prof at Luther over that! JUST like many of us people, Kierkegaard was WRONG. Don't even get me started on Greg's last year or two from the pulpit. He's HUMAN... and that means he's APT to be WRONG at some point over his 20 yr pastoral career. Get it?
So I'm not "angry" in the same way you guys were before you "arrived." I'm more sad that I'm not seeing humility in the way youre talking about something YOU all seem to KNOW as TRUTH ...that the rest of us call (at the very least) a NON TRADITIONAL view.
Anyhoo, I'm not selling out sk (awww sk  ) I'm not selling out GB (awww GB). ... all I'm saying is that they, like Tom, D, Corey and ME are human ...and therefore flawed in our thinking.
Please also remember I worked in counter-cult ministries for 5 years. We dealt with discipleship cults, biblical gymnastics, and all that. D....for more on that ask Paul Eddy. I may sound like a rookie/dumb/not intellectual online..but that's mostly because I dont have time as a single mom to devote to this! I can have a conversation... and listen to you. But I'm not going to try to put a crack in your o soo tight arguments. I'll share what I SEE, but that's all I can do. So far, I see problems with explicit scripture passages that say some will be in and some willl be shut out. I gave asher the rape example to try to show how we might not have a perfect understanding of God's "love." To D's example about the camel, I think Jesus is specifically giving an example about the rich and the possibility of his forgiveness of them. He isn't saying ALL people are going to heaven. If you want to believe he is, ok. It's just not convincing enough for me.
To Tom's example, I read "bring all things together under the head of Christ" as everything will be restored to its proper/original order. Yeah, got that. But I do NOT read, "everyone will be redeemed." Obviously there are some who will be cast out (according to Jesus) and they will be LOOKING IN wishing they were IN the Kingdom..... yet they willl still have Jesus as their head. Jesus being The head is just a reality statement. So anyway, SO FAR that's what I see. I'm in the conversation because I CAN LEARN and GROW and MAYBE Ill change my loosely held belief about something that matters very little to me over time, but so far, I'm not convinced. That's all I've been trying to say.
And Corey, if UR helps you like that and this conversation is hard at all for you.. I'm sorry. I will completely erase this thread and forget about it. I care way more about you than I care about some doctrine/opinion I hold. Really. Love you!
T
"When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love."
~ Soren Kierkegaard
Post Edited (selah) : 11/17/2009 7:51:04 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 11/17/2009 8:49 AM (GMT -6) | | And I think that's beautiful, C. Really. Problem is, FOR ME, I've experienced something similar to what you're talking about simply through loving God, loving myself, and loving MY NEIGHBOR AS MYSELF. When I do that, it erases everything else. I can LOVE my daughter's boyfriend who is less than healthy for her because HE'S my neighbor/my brother. ... me. same with my co-workers who are mean, same with the person who cuts me off, same with people who lie to me, my EX who had a whole other life! .... But I dont have to believe in UR to do all that. To me, its just about living out the royal command...
"When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love."
~ Soren Kierkegaard
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/17/2009 9:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Wow.
Yes, I read the SK quote. Yes, he's wrong about prayer. Yes, he and the rest of us are human. Yes, we could all be wrong about everything, everything.
But wait a sec, if I could be wrong about everything, then I could be wrong about SK's view of prayer. So SK could be wrong and both you and I, Selah, be wrong about it. We could be wrong about all of it.
I don't know what else I can say to convince you, Selah, of the reality of my confession, of how very sincerely is my belief that I could be wrong on all this, that I could even be deceived. I hold all this VERY tentatively in my hands. Heck, it might be that the vast majority really do roast in hell forever. Piper might even be right in saying such a thing would really make God happy in a way none of us can presently understand. I admit it. I confess it. Open theism might be wrong too. It COULD be wrong! It might ALL be gymnastics. I humbly acknowledge my finite, stunted, inept, and sinful hunger for theological knowledge. I have blind spots. My blind spots have blind spots, and even they have blind spots.
God have mercy on me if I've selfishly wanted UR to be true. Forgive me for wanting it to be true that you really are more loving and patient and capable than I can imagine. I humbly admit that I could be wrong about THAT too. You might not be more loving than I can imagine, because my imagination is as sinful as anything about me. I can't trust myself. Piper might be right. Open theism might be heresy. God you know. I'm sorry for caring about any of this. If UR is wrong, I'm sorry for thinking it was true. If it's wrong, please forgive me for not wanting to give up the joy and beauty of its vision. For if it's false, then it's also ugly in a way I can't see, for you know Lord that all I see is the sheer beauty of everything won back and secure in your loving embrace. Help me see its ugliness Lord. Help me find that joy in contemplating the eternal annihilation of those you love, or some other option, or no option at all. Help me Father. I'm lost without you.
Trying,
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/17/2009 8:33:54 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 11/17/2009 9:53 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Ok maybe I'm being way way way too harsh. If you were being serious with your prayer T, forgive me, ok? I think the biggest difference between our views is that I do NOT believe we can know the full expression of God's love and all that that includes when it comes to redemption. Take the theif on the cross, for example. One goes to be with Christ and one doesn't. In other places Jesus tells his disciples he will cast some out and shut the door. This is the pattern I see consistent throughout scripture....and I CAN see that as loving...because to the victims of crime, justice is loving. You guys have a different perspective on what's love/loving.
This is how I would write a version of Tom's prayer from my side.
God, I could be wrong too. I mean, yeah, you are the same God who killed a ton of people in the OT and I dont understand that as loving. I can imagine the sounds of the moms crying over the children you slaughtered and yet I guess YOU MUST know how that's loving more than I do ...Cuz you ARE love, right? I dont fully understand Love in it's purest form like you do but my friends are telling me what's loving and what's not because they're pretty sure they know when it comes to redemption. We all know piper lost his mind several years ago and he's an old precious man so let's leave him outta this. about Annanias and Saphira, I would say "Wow, God THAT was NOT a loving thing to do .... according to ME." But again you know more than I do so I'm confused. Since my friends seem to know what's loving and what's not and even though they dont have explanations for how the things above were loving when you did them... they have explanations for how you will redeem all - even satan -in the end because they've figured out THAT's THE loving thing to do. All these years I've been thinking maybe you know better than I do about what's loving, but maybe not. Maybe I know. We can't just base things on your concept of justice and your words where you say "they will be shut out" and away from you etc. We have to think this through and apply what WE know (and feel) fits our concept of love/loving. Of course they can't live away from you...they will be with you! What was I thinking? That makes much more sense! Yep, I could be wrong about UR. MY concept of love tells me I should believe it ...and its much more beautiful than your words about separation from you ...so I guess beauty could be the way to go!
The funny thing is I actually DO have space for UR in my head. I'm just not sold on it because it "seems" more loving or beautiful. All I know for sure is that my understanding of the concepts of love and beauty are extremely myopic compared to God's!! That's why those arguments dont help. Open theism is a little different for me because of the prayer factor - prayer avails in scripture AND in real life. Not saying the way the literal "open view" is articulated is fool proof or anything. I'm just saying there are explicit biblical reasons to believe prayer actually does something.
Post Edited (selah) : 11/17/2009 10:00:42 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/17/2009 10:35 AM (GMT -6) | | | Hey, yo. Just keep talking to the Lord in intimacy, Selah. The Holy Spirit won't steer you wrong. May the Lord continue to have mercy on all of us.
PS: Corey, live that beauty, homie. I'm still praying for you. It's a blessing to see God sustaining you so much in the midst of everything. Thanks for the iron sharpening iron. Hallelujah, brother!
PSS: Tom, great stuff. 
"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
Hildegard of Bingen
Know me, Eternal Lover...and help me to know You... Post Edited (One Love) : 11/17/2009 9:40:54 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/17/2009 1:08 PM (GMT -6) | | This conversation just gets better and better!
Corey: Remember... I'm an off-the-chart "P".... closure is NOT AT ALL something I naturally prefer. So I really do understand the instinct to defer conclusion.
Tom: Yes! And the confidence I feel about UR isn't a claim to KNOW, to have erased all doubt. Press me and, sure, I'll admit, "Oh yeah, well, I could be wrong." All I require is a plausible account. After that it's about what WORKS best. And "WORKS" becomes part of the argument in its favor. I argued an existential hermeneutic along these lines in my master's thesis. Hehe.
Selah: I see how people feel more 'loved' when they get some form of justice after being the victims of crime...
Tom: This will SOUND harsh, and I won't explain it well, and I'm not unappreciative of the pain that people feel, BUT...
...the drive that most people have to "get justice" and thus feel loved or...satisfied..at seeing the bad guy suffer is a form of misrelation. We're all sinners really, right? Justice is owed to God, not to human victims. That doesn't mean we shouldn't seek the most beautiful forms of relating in the social realm as we can. By all means. It just means that we shouldn't need it for our own sense of well-being or identity. All that comes from God. What else can it mean for us to "forgive" our enemy?
Maybe I'm being idealistic, but I think this is the heart of the gospel. David, I recall, in Psalm (hmm, which one? 70-something) complained to God about injustice and how all the innocent were suffering at the hands of those with power. He asks God, "Where are you?" Then David says, "I found the answer when I went into your Temple and worshiped. THEN I understood THEIR END."
Our intuitions for justice are of God. I'm not dismissing that. But we have to wean ourselves of our belief that our satisfied existential state depends on the other guy getting what he's got coming, from "feeling better" when the guilty suffer. It's the other guy's SATISFIED STATE that depends on his getting what he's got coming. And he'll get it, FEEL it, because God loves him and his "getting it" will be a means of healing him. But WE no longer need him to get it for our own sense of wholeness.
Selah: ...than if there is no justice or the guy gets off.
Tom: That's just it. The wicked don't get off free. They meet up with the consequences in the afterlife. So what about Hitler? Six million Jews and 2 million Christians suffered at his hands. He didn't suffer for that at all IN THIS LIFE. So we HAVE to let that go and leave justice in God's hands.
Selah: I can't explain what that is exactly...
Tom: A few glasses of a good Cab will clarify everything!
Selah: ...but I can imagine perfect justice probably feels even better.
Tom: For me, Selah, (my "P" notwithstanding) UR is the most just accounting, the most just love and loving justice, conceivable.
Selah: Also, we have biblical accounts of "less than loving" actions (in our view) coming from God.
Tom: Hehe. SISTA! Put Christ at the center and work out from there. Judge everything you meet in terms of the unconditional and unmerited suffering love of Calvary. In that case, there ARE NO "less than loving" actions coming from God. True, we'll struggle to cross every t and dot every i to an accountant's satisfaction, but NOT to that of an artist's. We'll KNOW (because we evaluate from the center out) that whatever God's part REALLY was in Old Testament violence, that part WAS the MOST LOVING thing to do. Annanias and Saphira as well. We just can't parse it out to the satisfaction of our limited perspectives. We want to eliminate the epistemic distance so we don't have to TRUST. But if in seeing Christ we see the Father, then what need have we of such explanations? They're truly superfluous; beside the point. The Cross IS the explanation, the POINT.
Gosh I hope I'm getting this right.
Selah: So to extrapolate that God HAS to redeem everything in order to be "loving" is just really messy to me.
Tom: How about God GETS to redeem everything BECAUSE he's loving? ;o)
Corey, what do you think?
T
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/17/2009 4:19:53 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/17/2009 3:29 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
What about Hitler? Six million Jews and 2 million Christians suffered at his hands. He didn't suffer for that at all IN THIS LIFE. So we HAVE to let that go and leave justice in God's hands.
We'd sure better let it go. What if Hitler (given post-mortem evangelism) came to Jesus after only a little "truth-bearing"? He WAS familiar with Christianity...for sure. What he didn't suffer nearly as much as "others" thinks he should? Seriously, what if it repented pretty much INSTANTLY, which of course God would receive? Anyone who was attached to the punitive idea of justice would end up just like the Elder Brother responds to the Prodigal's restoration...or how the person who worked "in the heat of the day" responding to the grace given to the 11th hour person.
Right? Like what's someone gonna say...
"WTF? God, you gonna let Hitler off with just THAT???? After what he did to all those people? Are you SERIOUS???"
Nope.
Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
Hildegard of Bingen
Know me, Eternal Lover...and help me to know You... Post Edited (One Love) : 11/17/2009 2:37:29 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/17/2009 3:39 PM (GMT -6) | | And this is something we can just look at. Why did Jonah have a problem with God...even at the end? What tendency did Jonah NOT LIKE in how God related with the enemies of God's people?
Just a thought.
But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."
But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?"
Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."
But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"
"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."
But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"
"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
Hildegard of Bingen
Know me, Eternal Lover...and help me to know You... Post Edited (One Love) : 11/17/2009 2:47:00 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 11/17/2009 4:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Proverbs 1:3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;
Love this verse. The idea in it is that when there is a transgression...the event is to be compared to a standard (the best standard would be that the event had not occurred)...then circled about so that you see the event from all possible angles (that of the victim, that of the perpetrator, and that of society, etc) then judgment comes in to restore the situation to as close as possible to a pre-event situation.
This of course is where things get tricky. How do you undo a rape? Obviously you cannot. What then? Eternal conscious torment for the rapist? Who in themselves may have endured injustices so strong that they both warped the person's very being and desensitized them to injustice. But now that warping and desensitization is being passed from the rapist to the victim. What end state of affairs can we call "justice being served"?
The whole idea of misrelation that is being mentioned in this thread is key to any way forward. If there is a state of eternal conscious torment then misrelation continues forever as well, do not forget this. If there is a hell there is NO JUSTICE. The rape victim and the rapist remain misrelated FOREVER! Annihilation while removing one misrelating party from existence leaves the other party STILL with a gap of injustice and now there is NO WAY to fill it!
The problem is in two possible ways of seeing justice. There is the Roman way and there is the Hebrew way. The Roman way smashes the full force of state power down on the transgressor. Justice served! The end state of the transgressor simply does not matter...they surrender their rights, all of them, when they commit the crime. The Hebrew ideal of justice (granted they usually only extended it to fellow covenant members when they should have seen EVERYONE as covenantal brothers) is to restore a state of shalom. If that means paying restitution, do that...then break bread together. Shalom is the goal not the smashing of the unjust.
So, I imagine a situation in which the rape victim and the rapist get together in the eschaton. They have both been judged by God and misrelation to Him and so to reality and themselves has been rectified. Straightening out misrelation to God does something on the order of melting away ALL misrelation. If not totally removing it, it makes it just a matter of addressing the misrelation...calling it by what it is...and all parties involved both see and understand how the other person's misrelation affected the event and how also their misrelation affected it. I can see the rapist falling to the feet of the victim, sorry for the action (their misrelation to themselves), and sorry for the suffering their action caused the victim (the perpetuation of their misrelation into their victim perichoretically). I can see the rapist now expressing genuine love and concern for their victim. I do not believe the rapist forgets his transgression...it is just that now he is even properly related to his memory. So, he can both take joy in experiencing proper relation now and also feel the remorse, waste, tragedy that his actions while misrelated caused. I can see the rapist experiencing his own act through the eyes of his victim. I can see his heart (his restored heart in the image of God) breaking over every second of the duration of his transgression. I can see the victim...now also fully relating...I can see them moved with pity for the current suffering of their attacker...I can see them wanting the suffering of that terrible act to be done with...both their suffering and the current suffering of the attacker...I can see them stooping down to lift their attacker's face towards themselves...I can see them forgiving (literally wiping away the transgression in the sense of removing any ongoing effects) and now embracing their attacker.
SHALOM! | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/17/2009 6:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I agree with you D that IF Hitler instantly managed to perceive the truth of what he did and came to terms with it God would forgive him and that would be it. But for metaphysical reasons I think Hitler will require some time to get to that point. But that’s a different issue.
1) Even with the metaphysical reasons, I think it may take way less time then we may think. Seriouisly. In some sections of Judaism, the time in "hell" is only 12 months. Period. I can see it taking less time than that, honestly.
2) I think it's a motivational thing. Do we WANT for Hitler's time of purgation to be as short as it possibly can, regardless of what that time is? THAT's the question. Do we DESIRE for Hitler to be restored as soon as possible? A person who wants to "see the bad guy suffer" would not have such a desire, I don't think.
"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
Hildegard of Bingen
Know me, Eternal Lover...and help me to know You... Post Edited (One Love) : 11/17/2009 6:00:36 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 11/17/2009 10:45 PM (GMT -6) | | hehe... I KNEW if I used that word "Justice" I'd be in for it. Dumb dumb dumb... and dumb word!!!
Guess I'm the one who can't explain what I'm trying to say, T. You did just fine.
T& D, you know me, I'm not about revenge. Gosh. Think about that for a second.
I used the word justice (knowing it had about 99.9% chance of being taken the wrong way =/) for LACK of a better word at the moment. But all I was trying to do is give a concise "for instance" about another possible way God COULD express love. It was an example. Nothing more. Anyway, guess I'm just not used to this argument-style communication. I'm used to people asking clarifying questions and talking back and forth - counselor style.
SO what have we learned? I shouldn't be on this board talking about controversial issues - especially if I'm holding the minority view. Its a given that I'll use the wrong word here and there and set off a stream of responses that miss the point I was trying to get at in the first place. I think I need people to ask clarifying questions if they're not sure what I'm trying to say - so I better stick to real life communication. THE absolute proof of this is in Tom's comments below... I'll attempt to clarify in brackets just this once.
Hehe. SISTA! Put Christ at the center and work out from there. [REALLY?? hahaha] Judge everything you meet in terms of the unconditional and unmerited suffering love of Calvary. In that case, there ARE NO "less than loving" actions coming from God. [THAT was supposed to be MY point... Wow do I suck! Let me retry! THERE ARE NO LESS THAN LOVING ACTIONS COMING FROM GOD THEREFORE IF SEPARATION FROM GOD IS A REALITY - it MUST BE LOVING.] True, we'll struggle to cross every t and dot every i to an accountant's satisfaction, but NOT to that of an artist's. We'll KNOW (because we evaluate from the center out) that whatever God's part REALLY was in Old Testament violence, that part WAS the MOST LOVING thing to do. [YES - but WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND THAT AS LOVING JUST LIKE WE CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE NOTION OF ETERNAL SEPARATION AS LOVING - BECAUSE WE DONT KNOW EVERYTHING!! WE TRUST CHRIST!!!] Annanias and Saphira as well. We just can't parse it out to the satisfaction of our limited perspectives. [ RIGHT.. blow my head off right now! That's MY point exactly!!!!!!!!!!! HELL COULD BE LOVING FOR ALL WE KNOW!!] We want to eliminate the epistemic distance so we don't have to TRUST. [EXACTLY!!!! One way of doing this (in my mind) is by saying UR IS the most loving and beautiful thing "I" can imagine!!] But if in seeing Christ we see the Father, then what need have we of such explanations? They're truly superfluous; beside the point. [wow, couldn't have possibly said it better!!] The Cross IS the explanation, the POINT. [AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MEN!!]
holy moly I better go calm down now. :)
I guess I'll just wait to talk this out P-style when Tom returns. And NO I'm not playing that dumb dice game, T. I'll dance...but I'm NOT playing THAT game until you hear me out completely...and read WORKS OF LOVE by SK. So there. =P
selah
"When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love."
~ Soren Kierkegaard
Post Edited (selah) : 11/17/2009 9:51:58 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 11/17/2009 10:59 PM (GMT -6) | |
Asher said...
This of course is where things get tricky. How do you undo a rape? Obviously you cannot. What then? Eternal conscious torment for the rapist? Who in themselves may have endured injustices so strong that they both warped the person's very being and desensitized them to injustice. But now that warping and desensitization is being passed from the rapist to the victim. What end state of affairs can we call "justice being served"?
...So, I imagine a situation in which the rape victim and the rapist get together in the eschaton. They have both been judged by God and misrelation to Him and so to reality and themselves has been rectified. Straightening out misrelation to God does something on the order of melting away ALL misrelation. If not totally removing it, it makes it just a matter of addressing the misrelation...calling it by what it is...and all parties involved both see and understand how the other person's misrelation affected the event and how also their misrelation affected it. I can see the rapist falling to the feet of the victim, sorry for the action (their misrelation to themselves), and sorry for the suffering their action caused the victim (the perpetuation of their misrelation into their victim perichoretically). I can see the rapist now expressing genuine love and concern for their victim. I do not believe the rapist forgets his transgression...it is just that now he is even properly related to his memory. So, he can both take joy in experiencing proper relation now and also feel the remorse, waste, tragedy that his actions while misrelated caused. I can see the rapist experiencing his own act through the eyes of his victim. I can see his heart (his restored heart in the image of God) breaking over every second of the duration of his transgression. I can see the victim...now also fully relating...I can see them moved with pity for the current suffering of their attacker...I can see them wanting the suffering of that terrible act to be done with...both their suffering and the current suffering of the attacker...I can see them stooping down to lift their attacker's face towards themselves...I can see them forgiving (literally wiping away the transgression in the sense of removing any ongoing effects) and now embracing their attacker.'''
SELAH: This is a great possibility...very beautiful and creative TO ME and I'm sure others. But YOU AND I can't know if thats what WILL happen. And that's my point. You say "I" can see this or that happening...and "I" can't see this or that at all. But that's the deal. It's not YOU who does the judging. Its not me either. IT's God. The same God who does weird things WE DONT NORMALLY THINK OF AS LOVING in scripture. IF God says hell is loving... I guarantee you ITS loving.
aaaarrrrgh. ;o) Post Edited (selah) : 11/17/2009 10:07:36 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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