Right.
Agape love can never be demonic. God can never be an idol.
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It shows up in how you blaspheme the Holy. God is light (holiness) as well as love. God’s love is a holy love. Holiness when applied to God refers to everything that separates Him from His creatures and creation. It refers to moral purity but isn’t limited to it. God’s love is no mere human love. There are ways we are like God and ways we are not. For example:
God is infinite in wisdom and knowledge and sees all events, past present future
God is all knowing
God is all-powerful
God is self sufficient
God is omnipresent
God is sovereign over the universe
We are none of these things. All God’s attributes are holy. His justice is a holy justice. His wisdom a holy wisdom, His love a holy love. Jesus and the Father are one. Therefore the Holy God of the OT is the same as the Christ of the NT. God’s essence is Holiness. He is
Infinitude
Immensity
Justice
Mercy
Grace
Omnipresence
Perfection
Self-Existence
Transcendence
Eternalness
Immutability
Wisdom
Sovereignty
Faithfulness
Love
You’ve made love into a god like C.S. Lewis states. This is demonic. You call the Holy God of the Bible unjust and less moral than your intuitions of human love.
I hardly understood a word of that, I’m sorry to say.
I know that you are aware that there are many words in Greek that we have translated as Love?
I was talking about AGAPE love - which by definition is the highest love, and if it devolves into something else it is no longer AGAPE.
Agape love can never be demonic.
Gen 6:5-7 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
So… through much considered prayerful interpretation you affirm the Holy Spirit has led you into a knowledge that this text above (which you previously use to bolter your claim) actually speaks of SATAN and not YAHWEH… have we got that absolutely correct on this text??
The apostle John wrote twice in 1 John, that God IS LOVE (verses 8 and 16). The word that he used for “love” was “αγαπη” (agape). In saying that God IS LOVE, he was not merely saying that LOVE is one of God’s attributes, but rather His very essence.
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I affirm that any text that ascribes slaughtering people to God is misattribution. Davo, I just laid out my whole case to you above, the thrust of it being,
Specifically regarding the Genesis worldwide Flood, as you may recall, I have addressed it in several threads in this forum; for example, here:
And again, here:
Ok… so I accept that you read Gen 6:5-7 as fully attributable to Satan, and NOT God… I suggest from this your whole case does more violence to the reliability of Scripture than anything else. And your assertion that the Holy Spirit has guided you in this is a huge call, and it hardly seems fair to then tarnish the writer of Genesis with your own “hit-and-miss” modus operandi that really is… “all over the map”.
IF as you say God is Satan in this passage then how Hermano do you have ANY confidence in the reliability of the actual Flood story at all? Your view actually and TOTALLY undermines all other Flood-related texts in the bible — they all, including Jesus, were fully deceived believing as the text ACTUALLY STATES that such was of God; as was the fire rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah etc, etc, etc.
Jesus had very stern words about attributing the hand of God as being the hand of Satan… 
The problem with attributing ALL to Satan…rather than God “somehow”, allowing bad things to happen (or ever “initiating” them) - is this…WHY is God allowing Satan, a free hand - to do what he wants?
And didn’t the Devil, first need to get God’s “buy-in” - in Job?
In my book, whether we attribute bad things - to God allowing (and/or doing) it…or to the Devil, but God allowing the Devil - to do the bad stuff…Is the same, theological and philosophical problem.
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Not only that Randy… what Hermano advocates completely undermines the atonement at every turn to where it effectively becomes non-existent, i.e., the blood on the lintel and door posts signifying GOD’S Passover NOT SATAN’S Passover in that GOD not Satan DELIVERED Israel from bondage, as per…
Ex 12:7-8, 11-12 And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. — And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.
To deny the Passover as Hermano’s position does is toxic for the Gospel… in fact it obliterates the it, i.e., Christ’s sacrifice has NOTHING to stand on.
RIP to your grandmother Qaz. Mines passed away recently as well. I wish you much peace henceforth.
Hermano, while I agree with you that God doesn’t kill people and that He is LOVE itself, and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5), I am surprised that you think all those learned translators have mistranslated 2 Peter 2:5. The rendering you have offered above is impossible because of the grammar of the passage. If “the world of the ungodly” did the action of bringing on the flood, then “world” would be in the nominative case (as subject). However it is in the genitive case and thus must be translated “of the world.”
So the translators have it right. It’s just that the author (believed not to have been the apostle Peter) had it wrong. Clearly he followed the Hebrew writings which affirm that God brought on the flood.
I think we have to make up our minds about the character of God as revealed by the only-begotten God (John 1:18 in early manuscripts) who is also the only-begotten Son of God, begotten as the first of God’s acts. Surely He understood the character of His Father! And the Son was Another exactly like the Father, the exact image of the Father’s essence (Heb 1:3). Prior to the Son’s revelation of His Father’s character, that character was misunderstood by the ancient Hebrews.
And how did the Son of God reveal the character of His Father?
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God is kind to ungrateful people and to evil people (Luke 6:35). If He is kind to them, clearly He doesn’t kill them.
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Jesus taught His disciples:
I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:44, 45 NAS95)
Jesus disciples, who were brought up with the Hebrew mindset of striking out at their enemies, asked Jesus a question:
…He sent messengers on ahead of Him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Him. But they did not receive Him, because He was traveling toward Jerusalem. When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” (Luke 9:52-56)
Didn’t Jesus suggest here that to lash out and kill people whom you think do not treat you right has its origin in a different spirit—that is, an evil spirit?
So if we are Christians, we will accept Jesus’ teachings about the character of God and reject the understanding of the OT writers or the writer of 2 Peter who believed them.
I know many greatly fear disbelieving anything that has been written in every manuscript that has been collected into the library we call “the Bible” (The Book). I remember one Christian teacher saying that if we think there’s anything in the Bible that is false, we might as well throw the whole thing away! For such people, the Bible seems to be a God; everything that is written therein is presumed true. The disciple of Christ, on the other hand, believes that everything which Jesus said, is true.
I recall Peter affirming that God sent the Flood, and that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (2 Peter 2:4-6), but I don’t recall Jesus affirming these as being from God.
But I do recall Jesus saying,
“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth…." John 16:12-13a.
Again, I believe Jesus exactly represents God (Heb. 1:3), and that God is unchanging (Js. 1:17). So, again, in line with other “You have heard it was said…but I say”-type corrections from Jesus—like my suggested John 10:10 hermeneutic filter—we remember the following confrontation about God’s true nature in Luke:
Luke 9:54-56 (KJV)
54 And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?
55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.
I would argue that in this Luke passage, the disciples were being influenced by Satan in wanting to kill people (as had been Elijah before them), not God.
Well UNLIKE you Jesus didn’t airbrush away their texts… in fact he references BOTH these events (Lk 17:28-29) without any qualifying away nor negation by dismissal of their own accepted readings as per their Hebraic history — as per ALL Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic texts. Consider the following…
Lk 17:26-29 And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
Sodom’s situation was LIKEWISE as had been Noah’s before… fully of God. “From heaven” is classic Jesus, meaning… from God! — Mt 3:17; 21:26; Jn 3:27 et al
No doubt you would foolishly argue this, BUT to declare their wrong spirit, i.e., heart attitude was borne of Satan is about as credible as YOUR FALSE CLAIM in attributing your same Satanic machinations to the prophet of God, as you say… “as had been Elijah before them” — just reading the source text TELLS YOU EXACTLY the truth which is a mile from what you are saying…
2Kgs 1:10, 12 So Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. … So Elijah answered and said to them, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.
Did you read that Hermano?… “the fire of God” — NOT fire of Satan BUT fire of God!
Little wonder your present day “universalism” struggles gaining traction and credibility with this constant and rank aborting of the biblical texts. 
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The amount of illogical and unfounded text-twisting, editing and deleting you guys wreak upon the biblical text just to prop up your own doctrinal inventions goes unsurpassed — you could just try believing the text and adjust your beliefs to suit, not vice versa.
God didn’t by some intemperate fit of rage lash out and kill anyone… He was deeply grieved at the continual and increasing preponderance of evil that was running rampant, to which He in Noah was hitting the restart button, which had He not intervened in the Flood such contagion of wickedness would have spread further across the land — yes, the Flood was local, limited to the world as those ancients there and then knew it.
Well no Paidion, you’d better count yourself out of that crowd because actually, no, you don’t believe that… “everything which Jesus said, is true” — as you are on record as typically dismissing the likes of…
Rev 2:21-23 And I gave her time to repent (Lk 13:3, 5) of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.
Mt 10:34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.
Lk 22:36 Then He said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.
Given your own slap-stick approach to the bible WHY don’t you consider it just as legitimate to call into question… ‘God is love’ — like you have little to no qualms in besmirching the veracity of Scripture as illegitimate as it suits your own doctrinal ends — why now be so selective when there is as much credence (none) as anywhere else?
Jesus was Holy not mere human love. His love is a holy love. He is light (holiness). Light is His essence. Holiness. Jesus was an outcast, instigator of conflict, disrupter of unity. A violent Jesus who resolutely makes a whip to forcefully drive moneychangers (bankers) out of the Temple, over-turning their tables (John 3:15). Before, his disciples went out without a money belt, bag or sandals, and lacked nothing. But now, they are to bring a money belt and bag; and if they lack a sword, they are to “sell their cloak and purchase one” (Luke 22:35-36). Jesus the so-called pacifist instructing his followers to buy a sword? It would be as if today he advised purchasing a gun. This Jesus warns his disciples that he did not come to bring peace to earth, but division (Luke 12:51). Not peace, but a sword. Because of him, son will turn against father, daughter against mother, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. Even a person’s enemy will be a member of one’s own household (Matt. 10:34-36).
To quote Robin Parry in “Four Views on Hell”:
His love is a holy love, and holy love is not soppy, fuzzy love, but a persevering love that cannot be compromised. God’s love can even manifest at times as a severe mercy. "His is a love of cauterizing holiness and of a righteousness whose only response to evil is the purity of a perfect hatred. ~~ page 113
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-No doubt rain came from above in the Flood of Noah.
-No doubt fire came from above on Sodom and Gomorrah.
However, Jesus certainly did not say these came from God! We now know that his unchanging Father is agapē (1 Jn 4:8,16): goodwill, benevolence, charity.
On the other hand, “the god of this age“ (2 Cor. 4:4, whom you don’t even recognize exists) is not to be ignored or underestimated: the whole world lies in his power (1 Jn 5:19). He and other unclean spirits have demonstrated their ability to supernaturally kill, steal, and destroy—
- In Job we see that Satan travels "to and fro upon the earth and up and down upon it,” destroying via sickness, “natural” disasters, and humans
- Pharaoh’s magicians performed miracles
- The Antichrist and false prophet will perform miracles
- The Scriptures speak of counterfeit signs and wonders
- The Church Fathers recognized Satan’s influence on nature, via, e.g., “natural” disasters (see specific quotes here by searching for “QUESTION 24: IS SATAN INVOLVED IN EVERY EVIL OCCURRENCE?”)
—and the devil should no longer be confused with God, since Jesus, who exactly represents God, spelled things out in John 10:10—
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
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It is ONLY YOU Hermano in denying the actual texts who then wreaks such confusion… NONE of the confusion you claim is in any such texts. For example… you’re the one claiming Elijah’s actions were incited and wrought by Satan… the text PLAINLY shows what occurred was confirmation he was Yahweh’s prophet, NOT Satan’s prophet as you would have it — there is nothing more to say other than you are just being DISHONEST.
I notice also you’ve remained deathly silent to the FACT that as I pointed out to Randy… your position fully undercuts and undermines the Passover — and then by logical extension all that is linked with that.
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How is this supposed to prove that God sent it? Simply because it came from heaven? If you saw a meteorite coming from heaven and landing on the earth, would you presume that God sent it? “Heaven” doesn’t necessarily mean the dwelling place of God; it more frequently refer to the sky.
WRONG! I do indeed believe everything Jesus said.
Somebody named “John” who wrote Revelation, had a vision.You cannot establish doctrine based on a vision.
What is that supposed to prove? That Jesus commanded His disciples to fight after clearly saying that He didn’t do such!!! I don’t know why He asked each of His disciples to buy a sword. But clearly it wasn’t for the purpose of fighting. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have said that two swords were enough!
Do you think He was saying that He came in order to start wars within families? Don’t you understand that He was speaking figuratively? He was saying that He was bringing a sword of division within families, because some would accept His Lordship, while others would reject it! His very next sentence is:
For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
Clearly He was speaking about the fact that when some family members became His disciples, that would turn the rest of the family against them.
So where does your non-slaptick approach lead you? That God is NOT love?
— like you have little to no qualms in besmirching the veracity of Scripture as illegitimate as it suits your own doctrinal ends — why now be so selective when there is as much credence ( none ) as anywhere else?
WHAT A BUNCH OF BALONEY!
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Given that Jesus is recorded by Luke as uttering these words above I’m thereby referring to Jesus’ use of the term “from heaven” meaning fully from God, as per the likes of…
Mt 3:17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Clearly from heaven is indicative of God’s voice.
Mt 21:25 The baptism of John—where was it from? From heaven or from men?” And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
Blind Freddy can see EXACTLY what Jesus says and means here!
Jn 3:27 John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.
Even John knew and understood the terminology… no, he wasn’t grasping at the shy!
Jn 6:32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
Again Paidion… the might of the metaphor shows from heaven to mean from His presence etc.
If that’s the best you offer for REJECTING Jesus’ words then fine, you should just own it like any other non-believer… but don’t make this FALSE claim that you believe all Jesus’ words when clearly you don’t… you are just bearing FALSE witness. And to try and reframe your excuse for NOT believing all Jesus’ words by claiming “doctrine” is just a joke — what John records were Jesus’ stated words of warning, i.e., Jesus wasn’t bringing ‘doctrine’.
But not only that… given you dismiss the testimony of Jesus according to the vision of John DO YOU LIKEWISE dismiss the teachings of Paul according to his visions of the risen Christ, and consequently all he received from Him?? Likely not… oh how convenient!!
Definitely not… but that where God in His own infinite wisdom determined, love was sometimes tough — consider Calvary, i.e., God sent His Son!
Hermano’s theology brings to mind, this YouTube video:
And I started to ponder this question. And if I invited folks, like Davo, Paidion and Bob - to a dinner party. And I behaved like Captain Picard. Who would best behave like Mr. Data?