Don’t be too surprised Paidion there’s nothing new under the sun… even the smug self-appointed religious elites of Jesus’ day charged his works to Beelzebub. 
True, but what Eusebius and Jeff are proposing is just the reverse, isn’t it? Attributing Beelzebub’s works to God.
Is that really necessary, Eusebius? You say that as if it is my habit to obfuscate. Could it be that my posts are clear to others, but that you lack understanding?
Neither.
The difference between them and true believers is we don’t ascribe the works of God to Beelzebub.
“Hath evil overtaken a city and God not done it?” Amos 3:6
Read the book of Job. Notice that even though Satan brought all the evil on Job and his family and business that Satan is not blamed? God is said to be the One Who brought evil on Job. And God said that what Job said was correct. Job’s slaves were killed. His children killed. His livestock stolen. Job given boils. God did it all. Get over it. God is the One Who is working all together for good.
That’s the problem then. I am dealing with an unbeliever. This is why you can’t see the truth.
The Scriptures are clear “God sent His Son into the world”
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” . . . to the death of the cross.
Rom 8:32 Surely, He [God] Who spares not His own Son, but gives Him up for us all, . . . ."
1Jn 4:10 In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loves us, and dispatches His son, a propitiatory shelter concerned with our sins."
eusebius to Paidion:
[size=150]Unbelievable…[/size] IMO Eusebius this borders on shear arrogance. Just because Paidion may “believe” other than you do does NOT constitute him as the “unbeliever” you so claim. [size=150]Shame on you![/size] 
The discussion about God’s sovereignty over all, including his sovereignty over evil, has been debated in this post for quite a while and also in other posts in this forum. No one is really persuading anyone and instead this discussion is becoming more of a fighting match. So I was questioning the value of the discussion and if there was any productive direction to take the conversation.
We could point at further Scriptures such as Isaiah 30:26 and Romans 11:32 which precisely explain who caused the brokenness in our world and why and also who alone will fix it. The question is an important one and a question filled with great passion and in fact I think the focal point of Paul conclusion in Romans. However, everyone here in the forum appears to be understanding and speaking from a particular framework of understanding. I think everyone might go as far as to agree that each of us could be leaning on a framework of understanding that helps, however, does our framework hurt? Does our framework connect to dots beyond or at odds with the Scripture itself?
So for fruitful discussion to continue each of us would have to commit to laying aside our framework when it parts ways with the plain statements of Scripture. Or at least patiently wait and reserve judgment until the question has been further digested.
Paidion has explained above in this forum post that he does not accept that Christ’s death on the cross has atoned and propitiated God’s wrath against his sin and against mankind’s sin once for all, that is that Christ forgave the entirety of mankind’s sins, past, present, and future in one moment at the cross. Paidion’s theories of the atonement and justification do in fact part ways with Christian belief. Paidion has said that himself that he does not believe this, yet trusting in the atoning work of Christ at the cross is the very heart of what it means to be a Christian.
Which raises some questions:
How should the believer, be cooperating with this atonement?
What should they be doing? How should they be behaving?
What should be their daily Christian goals?
The first question is the wrong question to ask. It should rather be stated: “The believer should merely believe Christ died for our sins.”
The second question posed above should be answered with: “A believer lives his life in harmony with how much he believes the evangel.”
The third question posed above should be answered with: To grow in the grace of God and study God’s word and live in accord with the faith.
It is not a matter of cooperating. The Bible never states it that way. It states it as believing God and living a life which honors God and Christ. But this too is from God. It is by God’s grace that we do anything which brings honor to Him:
Php_2:13 for it is God Who is operating in you to will as well as to work for the sake of His delight.
God gets all the glory.
No, he is an unbeliever.
How does one know, if when a person “professes to be a Christian”, they are actually a believer or not?
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 and Romans 4:24,25 is the answer to your question. No one can believe if they are not chosen first. One must first be chosen in Christ before the disruption of the world in order to believe that Christ died for our sins, was entombed and roused the third day. One CANNOT believe that if they are not chosen.
Greetings Davo,
In Eusesebius’ thinking, to be a “believer” is tantamount to believing in penal substitution. So, in keeping with his paradigm, it makes perfect sense to pronounce me an unbeliever. I well understand this thinking since, until I was 25, I thought in much the same way. I believed in “predestination” and “eternal security” (actually “unconditional security”) and deemed it my mission to convince everyone else of the same. My eyes were opened from reading Clarence Jordan’s “The Sermon on the Mount,” as well as from studying second-century Christian literature. Those early Christian writings convicted me of my false beliefs and I repented of them before the Lord. After that, I came to better understand Paul’s writings as well as other scriptures, instead of interpreting them to fit my former thinking which I had absorbed from preachers and others who had influenced me.
It would also be true, for the Eastern Orthodox and anti-baptists. They don’t believe in penal substitution either.
No, I don’t believe in penal substitution.
Joh 3:16 For thus God loves the world, so that He gives His only-begotten Son, that everyone who is believing in Him should not be perishing, but may be having life eonian."
I rather believe in inclusion. But these are merely theological words which sometimes hide the truth. It is much better to stick with scripture. You can read more about “Substituion or Inclusion” here: concordant.org/free-media-librar … lications/ it is in the middle column.
Hey! Let’s all go off on another rabbit trail! Of course, the sermon on the mount does not show “eternal security.”
But Jesus said of the believer that whom God had given Him He will never lose.
Paidion, the Scriptures state “Christ died for our sakes” (Rom.5:8). But that does not say “substitution.” When Christ died, all humanity died (see 2 Cor.5:14). God saw all mankind in Christ when Christ died. He put the old humanity to death IN the death of Christ.
I realize you can’t get this since you are not a believer. But maybe God will open your eyes to the truth. This is not said with any smugness at all. I am just being factual. It is not one-upmanship.
Sorry, either one believes or one does not. It is not a matter of believing peripferal matters such as Trinity or how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. This is concerning the one thing which makes one a believer or not. If one believes God that Christ died for our sins, was entombed and roused the third day, that is proof of one’s salvation. No one can believe that if they are not chosen to be believing. It is not a matter of being brotherly or not. It is just being factual. If you don’t have any children and I tell you that you are childless, that is not being unbrotherly. It is being factual. It is not a matter of putting someone down for their unbelief. Billions of people today don’t believe the evangel. Many church goers don’t believe the evangel. They are unbelievers. It has nothing to do with being brotherly or not. Paidion is not my brother. He is someone who posts on these boards. Sorry if that offends you. Well, not really, but you understand I’m sure.
It is my understanding that Christ died in order to bring us the truth of God. This truth puts to death an old belief system in which God causes evil and therefore we have no power over it.There are many who still cling to this notion and continue to spread this false ideology because it is beneficial to those who seek power and control over others. However, we now know our own sin is the real cause of evil, and should we give up the sin and follow God, our lives will change.
This reminds me of a passage in C. S. Lewis’s preface to his Mere Christianity:
I would never categorize the dogma of the Trinity as “peripheral”. It was the focus of the First Ecumenical Council held in Niacea in A. D. 325 (the main hero of which was St. Athanasios of Alexandria) and of the Second Ecumenical Council held in New Rome in A. D. 381 (presided over by St. Gregory of Nyssa). Together these councils composed the Symbol of Faith, which the Orthodox Church repeats in each divine liturgy. All of our liturgies are thoroughly trinitarian, frequently invoking the Holy Trinity. What Eusebius calls “peripheral”, I recognize as central. What Eusebius regards as definitive (i. e., the modern Protestant idea of justification, adapted from Augustine of Hippo via Luther and Calvin), I regard as heterodox.