I have been thinking about everyone's comments and trying to find something that would be helpful and spark some interest. I do not think much of what is on the top ten list at the Christian bookstores. most of it is shallow "feelgood" stuff.
There was a book written in
the 70's that I think will stand the test of time and be considered a classic. It is titled "Knowing God" and it was written by J. I. Packer. The 16th chapter is called "Goodness and Severity". Packer is a great author and I would recommend anything he has written.
'Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God,' writes Paul in Romans 11:22.
The crucial word here is 'and'. The apostle is explaining the relation between Jew and Gentile in the plan of God. He has just reminded his Gentile readers that God rejected the great mass of their Jewish contemporaries for unbelief, while at the same time bringing many pagans like themselves to saving faith. Now he invites them to take note of the two sides of God's character which appeared in this transaction. 'Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but towards thee, goodness.' The Christians at Rome are not to dwell on God's goodness alone, nor on His severity alone, but to contemplate both together. Both appear alongside each other in the economy of grace. both must be acknowledged together if God is to be truly known.
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> Never, perhaps, since Paul wrote has there been more need to labor this point than there is today. Modern muddle-headedness and confusion as to the meaning of faith in God is almost beyond description. Men say they believe in God, but have no idea who it is that they believe in, or what difference believing in Him may make The Christian who wants to help his floundering fellows into what a famous old tract used to call 'safety, certainty, and enjoyment' is constantly bewildered as to where to begin: the fantastic hotch-potch of fancies about God that confronts him quite takes his breath away.How on earth have people got into such a muddle? he asks. What lies at the root of their confusion? And where is the starting-point for setting them straight?
To these questions there are several complementary sets of answers. One is that people have got into the way of following private religious hunches rather than learning of God from His own word; and we have to try and help them unlearn the pride, and in some cases, misconceptions about Scripture which gave rise to this attitude, and to base their convictions henceforth, not on what they feel, but on what the Bible says. A second answer is that modern man thinks of all religions as equal and equivalent, and draws his stock of ideas about God from pagan as wall as Christian sources; and we have to try and show people the uniqueness and finality of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's last word to man. A third answer is that men have ceased to recognize the reality of their own sinfulness, which imparts a degree of perversity and enmity against God to all that they think and do; and it is our task to try and introduce people to this fact about themselves, and so make them self-distrustful and open to correction by the word of Christ.
A fourth answer, no less basic
> than the three already given, is that people today are in the habit of dissociating the thought of God's goodness from that of His severity; and we must seek to wean them form this habit, since nothing but misbelief is possible as long as it persists.
The habit in question, first learned from some gifted German
theologians of the last century, has infected modern Western
Protestantism as a whole. To reject all ideas of divine wrath and
judgment, and to assume that God's character, misrepresented
(forsooth!) in many parts of the Bible, is really one of indulgent
benevolence without any severity, is the rule rather than the
exception among ordinary folk today. It is true that some recent
theologians, in reaction, have tried to reaffirm the truth of God's
holiness, but their efforts have seemed half-hearted and their words have fallen for the most part on deaf ears. Modern Protestants are not going to give up their 'enlightened' adherence to the doctrine of a celestial Santa-Clause merely because a Brunner or a Niebuhr suspect this is not the whole story.
The certainty that there is no more to be said of God (if God there be) than that He is infinitely forbearing and Kind, is as hard to eradicate as bindweed. And when once it has put down roots, Christianity, in the true sense of the word, simply dies off. For the substance of Christianity is faith in the forgiveness of sins through the redeeming work of Christ on the cross. But on the basis of the Santa Clause theology, sins create no
problem, and atonement becomes needless; God's active favor extends no less to those who disregard His commands than to those who keep them. The idea that God's attitude to me is affected by whether or not I do what He says has no place in the thought of the man in the street, and any attempt to show the need for fear in God's presence, and trembling at His word, gets written off as impossibly old-fashioned--'Victorian', and 'Puritan' and 'sub-Christian'.
Yet the Santa Clause theology carries within itself the seeds of its
own collapse, for it cannot cope with the fact of evil. It is no
accident that when the belief in the 'good God' of liberalism became widespread, about the turn of the century, the so-called 'problem of evil' (which was not regarded as a problem before) suddenly leaped into prominence as the number one concern of Christian apologetics.
This was inevitable, for it is not possible to see the good-will of a
heavenly Santa-Claus in the heartbreaking and destructive things like cruelty, or marital infidelity, or death on the road, or lung cancer. The only way to save the liberal view of God is to dissociate Him form these things, and to deny that He has any direct relation to them or control over them; in other words, to deny His omnipotence and Lordship over His world. Liberal theologians took this course fifty years ago, and the man in the street takes it today. Thus he is left with a kind God who means well, but cannot always insulate His children from trouble or grief. When trouble comes, therefore, there is nothing to do but grin and bear it.
In this way, by an ironic paradox, faith in a God who is all goodness and no severity tends to confirm men in a fatalistic and pessimistic attitude to life. Here, then, is one of the religious By-Path Meadows of our day,
leading (as in one way of another they all do) into the land of
Doubting Castle and Giant Despair. How can those who have strayed this way get back on the true road? Only by learning to relate God's goodness to His severity, according to the Scriptures.
The writer then spends about the same amount of time on the goodness of God, and then the severity. then he finishes the chapter with three lessons we can learn from all this. I also think that unpleasant parts are not being preached from the pulpits.
The Southern Baptist's are the
largest protestant group in the USA. They are a great denomination, but the preachers are taught the sovereignty of God in seminary and
then almost all of them never mention it in any sermon, ever!
The Santa-Clause view of God is worse than ever. "knowing God" was written in 1973 and since then, things have gotten much worse.
If you think my rejection of this post is going to validate your doctrine by labeling me a 'Liberal Christian with a Santa Claus God' you are sadly mistaken. Not only do I affirm this post, but have taken heat for supporting a similar post by you.
Now to the post at hand, James did you read the following when you posted this? :
".... people have got into the way of following private religious hunches rather than learning of God from His own word; and we have to try and help them unlearn the pride, and in some cases, misconceptions about Scripture which gave rise to this attitude, and to base their convictions henceforth, not on what they feel, but on what the Bible says."
*James this excerpt applies directly to YOU!
James, YOU are following "private religious hunches" of Calvin's followers!
Hmmm... tell someone that God loves them, that Christ died for them, all of them, and you are full of fluff and feel-good. You are also said to have a God that is Santa Clause, which I have no clue how that is inserted into the belief that God is love, but I digress.
James it is not what you say but what you do, until you come into agreement with scripture, you walk and talk as a calvinist, depart and you will become free.
James wrote - "And have you noticed that I don't accuse any of the Arminians on this group of "Following James Arminius"? I don't do that because IT'S CHILDISH."
Thank you, James, because other than what I've read that may have been written in this forum, I have never read anything by James Arminius or anyone writing about him. But you do accuse us of turning God into our personal Santa Clause. That ain't cool. :goofball:
James, allow me to repost a second time a excerpt from your topic post, capitalizing the part you may have missed.
....PEOPLE HAVE GOT INTO THE WAY OF FOLLOWING PRIVATE RELIGIOUS HUNCHES RATHER THAN LEARNING FROM GOD FROM HIS OWN WORD; and we have to try and help them unlearn the pride, and in some cases, misconceptions about Scripture which gave rise to this attitude, and TO BASE THEIR CONVICTIONS henceforth, not on what they feel, but ON WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS."
And your answer is what other guys in history believed the same as you?
James wrote -"And have you noticed that I don't accuse any of the Arminians on this group of "Following James Arminius"?
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That's because most people you would classify as Arminian don't even know who he is. They most likely read just the Bible. However, those who read and parrot Sproul, Spurgeon and Calvin and interpret all of Scripture by the Doctrines of Grace are rightly called Calvinist.
