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writerdad
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448
 
   Posted 1/3/2002 10:10 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Jesus said that few would enter the narrow gate. Is this verse not a problem for both open and classical believers? For in the open view, doesn't it kind of show God as a failure, his project not accepted by many people? And in the classical view, isn't God see as wasteful and unloving, for he is planning to send the majority of humans to hell? Harold

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excommunicated
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Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 7
 
   Posted 1/3/2002 10:35 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
At the very least the narrow gate statement tells us that the saved are a minority compared to the damned. So I always find it a bit surprizing when so many people around me think that they're saved. Don't they know the odds? Do they really think that they're all that luckey?

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JoeMoore
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 25
 
   Posted 1/3/2002 12:12 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Why must the narrow gate be understood as numeric? Even if 99% of the people were covered by the blood of Christ, they would still need to pass through the narrow gate of His life, death and resurrection. No one would find the gate on their own, so I don't see a contradiction with the 'many' and 'few'.

I'm not saying that's the way it MUST be, I just think it's very easy to get hung up on thinking that all folks in heaven will look like us (of course there is only one Way there).

Joe Moore

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writerdad
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448
 
   Posted 1/3/2002 5:37 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Excellant point, Joe! Thanks!

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geebob
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 94
 
   Posted 1/4/2002 6:04 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
John Sanders in his book by no other name makes a biblical arguememtn that the majority will be saved. He was specifically discussing this passage but I didn't quite grasp his explanation but he points to other parables where the damned hellian is in the exception. for example, the man who refused to wear the wedding garments.

I will gladly pay you teusday for a hamburger today.

-Wimpy
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
 
   Posted 1/4/2002 12:25 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I believe a quick check of the Greek used in the verse shows that the meaning is really "Agonize" and "struggle" to enter through the gate.

That right there, if that's correct, shows that it was already noted by Jesus that there was to be a struggle to enter. There's nothing of failure to God; it is our choice, not God's, if we choose to accept the prompting of the Spirit and accept the salvation message. I'd have it no other way, if you asked me. I value the free will choice God gave me!

Starkman

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