The Evangelical Universalist Forum

How do you defend God's love against His other attributes?

Yeah, if all the Law and Prophets hangs on Love as highest commandments/principles, as Christ affirmed, then I take that to mean even all the examples of wrath, punishment, etc. within those scriptures all hang on/are driven by Love.

Also, if anything done without Love is nothing/vanity (1 Cor 13), and God’s character and actions and will are not vanity or emptiness, then I think there must never be any non-Love in Him.

Have you had a chance to read George MacDonald’s ‘Unspoken Sermons’? Tom Talbott’s ‘Inescapable Love of God’?

Love is the root and the reason for all things. This rose has some thorns on it. They are there for a reason, tho we may not fully understand it until later.

I think through Gomer, in the book of Hosea, YHWH draws a really good picture of how God uses adversity and correction to bring repentence and break a hard heart or a stiff neck so that He can redeem it.

In my opinion, God doesn’t have “other attributes” which are not grounded in love.

Luke 4
*16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”
20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him.
21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” *

Notice that in quoting this scripture from Isaiah 61, our Lord stopped quoting in the middle of a sentence. Let’s see what the end of the sentence looks like:

To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God. (Isaiah 62:2)

Why did Jesus stop in the middle of the sentence?

  1. Was it merely accidental?
  2. Did He suddenly get tired of reading?
  3. Or did He do it intentionally?

If He did it intentionally, what was His purpose? Could it be that He had no intention of proclaiming vengeance in any form? That would have been in keeping with His message to His disciples—not to seek vengeance, but to love their enemies.

It is also possible that it was because He could not yet say, of “the day of the vengeance of our God”- “today this scripture is fulfilled”. That day is yet to come.

Yes. I have considered that possibility, Eaglesway. But I rejected it for the other view because God’s judgments are not vengeful, but remedial.
Moses and the prophets sometimes taught that God was vengeful, punishing, and instructing the Israelites to destroy their enemies, including babies (but not virgin women, of course.) But Jesus and the writers of the New Testament taught that God corrected evil doers, even as a loving father corrects his children. It is for the benefit of those corrected, not a penalty for wrongdoing.

It is true that the English word “vengeance” occurs 5 times in the New King James Version of the New Testament. In 4 of those times, the word is “ἐκδικησις” (ekdikāsis), a word that means “doing justice to all parties.” In the 5th occurence (Jude 1:7), the word is “δικη” (dikā) which simply means “judgment” or “sentence.” In Jude 1:7, those given over to whoredom, will suffer the sentence of lasting fire unless or until they repent.

I’m with the Kruger idea - it is an expression of Trinitarian love.

As I see it, the Bible says that God is love. But it doesn’t say that God is justice.

His just actions are an expression of His love.

Regards,

Mike

Valliant,

I’m on the side of the trinitarian essence theory of love and justice; thus God’s wrath still has the object of bringing people to justice in love. Even in the OT there are many scriptures testifying to this idea. Including Isaiah 62, where after “the day of vengeance of our God” is proclaimed on rebel Israel (rendering her forsake and desolate), God promises (verse 4, only two verses after where Jesus stopped short of quoting the “day of vengeance”) that in the Day of the Lord to come she shall be raised to queenhood again (as an evangelical sign to the pagans), and become a crown of beauty and a royal diadem, and “It will no longer be said to you ‘Forsaken’, nor to your land will it any longer be said, ‘Desolate’; but you will be called ‘My delight is in her’, and your land, ‘Married’: for YHWH delights in you and [to Him] your land will be married.”

Even the portions Jesus quoted are a promise of restoration to rebels already punished by God for their injustices, leading to their repentance. But the people in the synagogue in Nazareth didn’t want to hear the implied critique in the context of those verses; they only wanted to hear the consolation and to enjoy the delivery of the guest preacher. Which, as later rabbis complained, were the two unspoken rules of guest preaching at synagogues: be pleasantly entertaining, and under no circumstances ever criticize Israel. (Thus they quipped that of course God stopped sending prophets after the synagogue system was set up, for which prophet never criticized Israel?!) Notably Jesus only gets in trouble when He forestalls their coming complaint (about why He didn’t start His career in Nazareth, “Physician heal thyself” being the moral of a parable actually preserved elsewhere in the rabbinic tradition later, teaching that charity starts at home), by pointing out that God found pagans and worse even pagan military oppressors more worthy to show miraculous signs (leading them evangelically to faith in God, not incidentally) than Israel sometimes.

He failed the second unwritten rule of being a traveling synagogue preacher, you see: never criticize Israel. :wink: But His proclamation that Isaiah was being fulfilled in their hearing implied a critique of rebel Israel, having already been punished for her injustice, being visited for release from that punishment by God. (It also tacitly implied, though they didn’t seem to catch it, that YHWH was speaking to them right that moment where they could physically hear Him.)

I get your thinking, but I am not sure that it squares that verse away for me, so I was wondering about the translation of vengeance. Like krino, mistranslated as damn or condemn when it really original meant indemnify or “make right” as in balancing scales.

The word damn comes from a french word dammun which was a legal term that was both a positive and negative word for geting justice done- whether by reward or by loss, and it morphed into its present use about the time of the KJV translation. So apparently ekdikasis means a similar thing, which as I see it still is not fulfilled.

In that view, that day has still not come, unless one is a full preterist or something like that- the day when God meters justice to all is yet to come.

Indeed… problem resolved. :exclamation:

See, when preterists say things like God has already dealt out justice to all back at the sack of one city and one temple by a Roman army in 70 CE :exclamation: , I start to lose my patience with them. http://old.wargamer.com/forums/smiley/headbash.gif

Edited to clarify: which you may not be saying (or I hope not), Davo. I only mean that this is an example of the sort of thing full preterism ends up requiring, which in my not so humble opinion is worse than blithering nonsense.

Lol… you’ll find the pain actually goes away when you stop beating your head against that wall Jason. :mrgreen:

Religianity in whatever garb misses that redemption is complete and that God is at peace with His creation NOW; and has been since the Cross-Parousia redemptive event of AD 30-70, a biblical generation (40yrs). The NT is all about THAT transitional period, the time of the firstfruit saints where what Christ ratified at the cross was outworked to fullness ON BEHALF OF all Israel and thus consequently the world in his parousia. It is actual history, “it is finished!”

It is this paralysis of analysis that developing Christendom post parousia has tied itself up in knots of “is it love, or is it justice”, “is it freewill or is it determinism” yada yada yada fill in the blanks ad nauseam. We don’t have to work at keeping God happy… He loves his world!

Yes there ARE endless principals wherein WE can learn to better live with each other that are to be drawn from the Scriptures, but this endless assumption that there is STILL yet more to do IMO just misses the boat.

Back to the rationale; for example…

As I understand it, Jesus went no further at that point because he was proclaiming “the good news” (gospel) to Israel, i.e., “your God reigns!” IOW… Israel, your exile is nearly over, “your redemption draws nigh!” Those who caught the message were blessed, those who didn’t would indeed suffer the full measure of “the days of vengeance” (Lk 21:22). That this ultimately was part of Israel’s covenant restoration (mercy) in no way lessened the righteous judgment (Mt 23:34-38) some would “have their part in” (Rev 21:8).

Jesus left off that latter portion of Isaiah’s quote but in time bemoans the stubborn blindness that would see its inevitable reality play forth…

I repeat Jason… it is history, God actually did it; so you can ease up on the head-banging. :smiley:

Thanks to all :slight_smile:

Bob Wilson - I sometimes wonder why I sometimes cling to that whole, ‘God is love, but He is also just’ deal. It does seem contradictory! Also, I never thought about Rom 2:7-8 like that. Thanks for the new perspective!

Mike, I first met Kruger in ‘Jesus and the Undoing of Adam’. He’s awesome.

Right there with you dandelion :slight_smile:

Micah, thank you for asking. Yes, I have read a few of McDonald’s sermons. ‘Justice’, in particular, was very moving (and almost made me a convinced believer in UR :laughing: ) I have not yet read Tom Tallott’s book.

Eaglesway/Paidion - Good words :slight_smile: I remember reading in a Richard Rhor post about Jesus omitting that phrase from Isaiah. thought provoking indeed! I think that Jesus just simply meant to not include the idea that God is angry with us, but what do I know?

With you there Davo :smiley: It kind of reminds me of the never-ending debate between calvinism and arminianism. Divine love vs. Divine Will (or justice I suppose).

JasonPratt - WHOA. Never heard about this!!! I really appreciate context. The thing I wonder about Isaiah is, yes, there’s a lot of universalistic evidence in Isaiah 60 and so on, but I can’t get over the idea that the book ends with the well known ‘And they will go out upon the slain who have rebelled against me their worm does not die’ passage. I can guess that this passage, in context, has more to do with an earthly judgement, but the fact that it follows the universalistic passages unnerves me. If the Isaiah 66 passage could be interpreted as earthly, it seems to me that the Isaiah 60, 65 passages could also be interpreted as operating in this-age-space as well. How would you go about interpreting that? Also, head banging-smilie ahahahahahahahaha

Hey guys, also, between The Inescapable Love of God (Talbott) and The Evangelical Universalist (Parry/G. McDonald), which one would you recommend reading first? I have yet to read either and was wondering which to start with.

Talbott’s book was a convincer for me, so I recommend it. (Though it must be said I haven’t yet read Parry’s book).

Regards,

Mike

Both books are a tour-de-force! If you want the most focus on the Bible and its’ trajectory, I’d start with Parry. If you prefer to start with more focus on rigorously logical philosophy, I’d start with Talbott. But both come at it addressing both approaches. You can’t go wrong.

My personal preference is Parry’s work but I couldn’t have said it better than Bob above.

While 70 AD may have been history for the nation of Israel, imo, it does not include the aspect of the day of visitation that will come upon the whole world, which Paul describes this in Romans 1 and 2.

I mention this not to refute full preterism as much as to present the possibility that the day of vengeace that is omitted from Jesus’ quote is the Day Paul speaks of… a Day of reckong for all men, jew and gentile, based on the secrets of their hearts, whether they had the law or not, according to the testimony of their conscience in the light of His presence. As a Day of reckoning, rather than of "vengeance( I think Paidon demnstrated that vengeance may not be a great translation) Paul begins laying a foundation on eternal judgment for the Romans, who are a predominantly Gentile church.

Romans 1

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Romans 2

6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.

12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16** This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
**

That Day does not fit within any historical context I kno of and imo this is the Day Jesus omitted, because it does not fit within the statement, “Today these words are fulfilled in your hearing.”

Just ordered a hard copy of Unspoken Sermons and a copy The Evangelical Universalist by none other than Gregory MacDonald!

Blessings to all

VW

Valiant,

when Jesus quotes that verse at the end of Isaiah, He follows it up (in Mark’s report) with an explanation that everyone gets salted with the unquenchable fire, which is the best of things, and leads us into being at peace with one another. So while the scene is, I expect, meant as a physically historical portrait of something to come, it has a larger spiritual fulfillment on the way (which clearly hasn’t happened yet) that fits with universal salvation, too.

Did I mention Daniel 12? – I can’t recall. The same rare term for abhorrence is also used there (the only two places in the Jewish scriptures, so far as I know), in relation to the resurrection of the wicked, a few verses that often get cited against universal salvation. But only a few verses later, Daniel asks the angel what the end result of all these events will be, and the angel replies that in regard to the end time, “Many will be purged, made white and refined, but the wicked will act wicked and none of the wicked will understand, but the instructors will understand.” Back in verse 3, “the instructors” are compared to those who lead the many to righteousness: they will shine brightly like the expanse of heaven and the stars AHD OLAM (which could mean forever and ever). The wicked in other words won’t understand what the punishment and contempt is for, but the instructors will understand it’s for purging, making white and refining the wicked, leading them to righteousness. Compare with Rev 22 where the righteous will keep doing what the righteous do even though the wicked keep doing what the wicked do: the wicked continue being filthy, but the Bride keeps going out with the Spirit to exhort those outside the NJ to slake their thirst, wash their robes and obtain permission to enter the NJ to be healed by the tree of life.

This makes a big difference in the interpretation of Matt 13’s parable of the wheat and the weeds, too. For one thing, it clarifies that, in this case, Jesus is talking about two categories of people, not about two states of a person (unlike the wheat and the chaff). Jesus quotes Daniel 12 in describing the wheat as shining forth (like the sun in GosMatt, like the blue sky and the stars in Daniel into the eons of the eons). That means the wheat are the instructors of Daniel 12, who will be leading the wicked to righteousness, even though the wicked won’t understand the purpose of the purgation. Those who are raised from death to eonian contempt or abhorrence would be those who, by contrast, are not concerned with leading the many to righteousness.

But of course the resurrection of the evil and the good and the fulfillment of all justice in leading the evil to good all has happened already when the Romans burned the Temple down back in 70 CE. According to some people. :wink: Didn’t you notice the glorious reign of Christ we’re living in now with God being all in all? :stuck_out_tongue:

The pain is why I beat my head against that wall, actually.

I certainly don’t need full preterism to solve the false dichotomy between love and justice, or to work out the relationship between free will and determinism. But the fall of Jerusalem is (only one among many of) the bleadingly, beatingly obvious problem with happy statements like “We don’t have to work at keeping God happy… He loves his world!” We don’t work to earn God saving us from our sins, and we don’t work to earn God’s love for this world, but if God was perfectly satisfied with the Passion in the sense that you’re requiring, He wouldn’t have continued with zorching Jerusalem.

Even you realize redemption in some sense wasn’t complete on the cross, or you wouldn’t be including a parousia (which blatantly didn’t happen but never mind) at Jerusalem as part of that “redemptive event”. But the only way the parousia can count as being part of the redemptive event is if redemption occurs in it or because of it, and that is simply not true about the fall of Jerusalem: the wicked were not raised in the resurrection along with the departed good, and the wicked were not led to be good after and due to their resurrection. Nor is Jesus reigning now in some fashion clearly different from any way He was already reigning in 60 CE or 30(ish) CE after His own Resurrection and Ascension. What Christ ratified on the cross was clearly not outworked to fullness at the Fall of Jerusalem, even on behalf of all Israel – and the idea that God needed the wreck of Jerusalem (instead of its regularly prophesied salvation – not the salvation of righteous Israel either, but the salvation of rebel Israel from foreign invaders) to finish what was already finished on the cross, means you have no leg to stand on when criticizing “religianity in whatever garb” for “missing that redemption is complete”. Either it was complete on the cross in some way that its completion can be worked out and realized later, or it was not complete on the cross. You can’t burn the bridge you criticize others for crossing (the finishing is finished later) and still insist on traipsing across that bridge yourself. If the fall of Jerusalem helps finish what was finished on the cross, other things can, too, in principle. If God’s punitive vengeance of righteous judgment can include the fall of Jerusalem after the cross, it can include other punitive vengeance of righteous judgment after the cross, too, where injustice and rebellion still continue. The full measure of that righteous vengeance sure didn’t happen at Jerusalem in 70: or we would all be living in a world now wherein all that is left is the endless application of principles to learn to live better with each other (drawn from the scriptures or otherwise).

But we aren’t all essentially sinless now and only needing to endlessly learn to live with each other better.

That will be history one day, but it isn’t history yet.

And having people insist that we’re already there, in a world swimming in blatant evils and rank injustices, is what leads me to to lose my patience with them. http://old.wargamer.com/forums/smiley/headbash.gif

Amazon has officially exceeded my expectations of service! Got my copy of The Evangelical Universalist next to my computer right now and will jump in as soon as I finish this post!

Jason,
I don’t believe you did mention Daniel 12, but I’m sure I would have wondered about it eventually :wink: Wow, I never even thought about that verse that says “many will be purified”. I guess that accounts for the different opinions about Gehenna that were circulating among the Rabbis around the time of Jesus. Thanks for the perspective!

Thanks to all,

Val