Quote:
There is not one recorded instance in scripture of any prophet, apostle or Christ himself calling sinners in either the Old or New Testaments to repentance and faith by telling them that God loves them. Not one"!
Huh? That's the point of the entire gospel where the narrative is didactic (Rom 5:8...https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/Ro5.8 ... joined to Jn 3:16...https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/Jn3.16)
|
Oh, no, no. Foul! What you're trying to do here is hardly exegitical! You're taking two unrelated passages and attempting to synthesize them in order to support your thesis.
And just as importantly, the two different passages you cite don't meet my criteria which specifically calls for any instance of gospel preaching that calls sinners to faith and repentance by telling these sinners that God also loves them.
Rom 5:8 is dealing with God's elect, i.e.
us, we and us again. Paul does not have in view in this passage any and all sinners indiscriminately. Of course, God loved his elect from all eternity! This precious truth harmonizes quite nicely with all scripture.
As far as Jn 3:16 is concerned, this is a classic example of
eisegesis, whereby you read into the passage something that is not only not in it, but would also present numerous contradictions with other passages which teach differently. This particular passage should be understood from the mindset of God's Old Covenant people -- the Jews! To a Jewish mind, there were only two kinds of people in this
world: Us and Them, that is to say Jews (the chosen ones) and Gentiles (the rest of the nations!) This is precisely how the vast majority of Old Covenant Jews would have thought! And this thinking would have been entirely consistent with how God thought about his covenant people and the non-covenant people of the world. See, for example, Gen 12:2-3; Ps 2:8-9; Isa 49:6. And these three passages harmonize quite nicely with Rev 5:9. The "world" is the Jewish and Gentile
nations which God loves -- but not in the sense of each and every person in those nations.
One last thought before moving on: With all the bad gospel presentations that sadly abound in today's church that tell people that God loves all sinners, one would reasonably think that the scriptures would contain at least two or three such examples that would support such bold declarations. But, again, I challenge you to find even one.
Quote:
"The Father's love is also conditioned upon His Son's obedience"!
This is dreadful. In one act of eternal, omnipresent existence, God contemplates the idea of himself. Since the entirety of his divinity pours out into that thought, the thought is God, The Word (Jn 1:1...https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/Jn1.1)[since we think in words], the Son. The Father loves the Word/Son, pouring out the entirety of his divinity into that love, so that the Love is God (Holy Spirit).
The Father loves the Son because with the Holy Spirit, God is Love (1 Jn 4:8 https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/1Jn4.8).
In that same John ch. 10, "I and the Father are One" (v.30...https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/Jn10.30). The Son shares the same nature as the Father, i.e., divine nature. In his Incarnate human nature (Jn 1:14...https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/Jn1.14 ) Christ embraced obedience to the will of the Father, which was by nature his own divine will- the embracing of the Cross as an act of divine love that man be restored to his original vocation of an adopted son through grace , co-heir with Christ (Rom 8:17...https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/Ro8.17).
In no way does this advocate for universalism (versus the contingent aspect of God's will (Mt 7:21..https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/Mt7.21), but neither does it reject the antecedent aspect of God's will (1 Tim 2:4... https://biblia.com/books/nasb95/1Ti2.4).
|
[/quote] (emphasis mine)
"Dreadful", you say? Perhaps at first blush. But to a pious Jew, with a good working knowledge of the OT scriptures, Jesus' words would not only have rang true, but would have been very comforting and reassuring that Jesus was truly the Holy One of Israel -- the promised Messiah! To this kind of Jew, Jesus' words in Jn 10:17 would inspire genuine faith in and love for the Messiah because what Jesus said comports so well with numerous OT scriptures. "The reason my Father loves me" -- right here and now -- in my God-incarnate form -- as the God-Man -- is because I obey him. I was sent here to this dark, forlorn world, in time and space, to perform my Father's will. To execute his redemptive plan for his chosen people. Let's think about this for a few moments.
Scripture teaches that Jesus is the [morally] spotless Lamb of God, without any [moral] blemish. Jesus
knew no sin! There was never a time here on earth that Jesus even remotely entertained the thought of sin. And we know from scripture that God
hates sin, c.f. Prov 6:16-19). He hates sin because it is
antithetical to his holy character -- in fact to his thrice holy nature (Isa 6:3; Rev 6:8)! Holiness being the most exalted of all of God's attributes. God's holiness governs all that he is.
And as we saw yesterday, God must hate every unrepentant sinner because sin itself resides in the heart of every such sinner. All men are sinners by nature. In fact, I'll go even further and say that God cannot love any sinner, apart from the holy character of his Son and his atoning work on the Cross.
God's love for any sinner, therefore, is based entirely on the merits of Christ! This is why God can love only those whom he predestined in eternity to be
in Christ. This is precisely why so many scriptures qualify God's love (for the righteous, blameless, God-fearers, etc., while others explicitly state his hatred for unrepentant sinners -- because all such sinners are
outside of Christ -- outside of a personal covenant relationship with God! God's Word is totally consistent with itself!
So...to a pious, God-fearing Jew, Jesus' words in John 10 would have been very comforting and reassuring because Jesus was affirming numerous OT scriptures about who God loves and who and what he hates. Jesus was reassuring his listeners that his Father loved him because he resolved to do his Father's will. That teaching would have soundly resonated with any pious, God-fearing, upright Jew.
Finally, we should not forget that Jesus often told his disciples and others that he was
sent by the Father. That he actually
came from the Father! That only He has seen God! And scripture teaches that no evil can dwell with God (Ps 5:4). So, couple this truth with Jn 10:17 and we have a very powerful picture of just who Christ is.
