The Evangelical Universalist Forum

I'm leaving.... but...

Ran.

You have done nothing but say careless arrogant words to hold on blindly to a view that I believe has been shown to be in error. I was in error of the interpretation myself. Ran, respectively show me where you think I’m in error and we can discuss it.

I did show you. You lack the intellectual integrity to see that. I’m done.

Your take on the passage, A37, is beyond desperate and gives new depth to the meaning of the word ‘shallow’.

It’s right there in the context (vv. 20-24, the Greek foreigners who come to see Jesus prompts Jesus’ response that if a seed dies it “produces much fruit,” which fruit refers to the likes of these foreign visitors who embody the scope/intent of Jesus’ saving work) and grammar (the adjective “all” is masculine plural which can only be made to refer to “wrath” after several tokes on a refer have thoroughly worked their way through the lungs).

T

Tom.

Verse 24 I believe Jesus is teaching us the concept of his ministry being multiplied . Jesus never intended for his ministry to end with his death. We as believers are supposed to walk as he walked.

Oh the humanity!

Anybody recording this for HBO’s next reality show?

Take care.

T

Come on guys–he’s at least* trying* now to really discuss something–instead of just dismissing it with a “that’s wrong.”
Cut him some slack, I thought that was his best post yet. :wink:

Sonia

Sonia.

Thank you. I took your wise advise.

Fangs in, guys. BAaron is only just now starting to work on this level. There are definite weaknesses to his attempt, and I realize the claim to have been inspired with the answer is annoying. But maybe God inspired him to try this so that he could learn better. His attempt can be addressed on its own ground without spitting on him. If he doesn’t want to deal with the details, that’s his business. Be calm.

Besides, I thought everyone involved in answering him so far, agreed to just ignore him in the future. If he’s ticcing you off so badly that you can’t respond civilly, then frankly I don’t want to hear complaints to me or the other admin/mods about how BAaron is bringing down the disputational quality of this site. How many people here want me or another mod to go into your comments and edit you for hostile language?

sigh.

If you want the quality of discussion here to be high, then DO YOUR PART IN KEEPING UP THE QUALITY OF THE DISCUSSION! Answer him in detail, so far as you can see to do so–being prepared to agree with him wherever he might in fact make good points–and keep the mockery and derision to a minimum. If you think BA is provoking you to answer fitfully and you just can’t find the self-discipline to resist doing so, then stay the hell away from him. Use the foe tool to help with that.

Meanwhile, here is the thread where he makes his argument. And that’s where I’m going to reply to him, for sake of keeping the topics consolidated. (There isn’t a tool for porting comments directly from one thread to another, or not a mod tool anyway, so I’ve copied relevant remarks there from this thread.)

In light of the developments of late, I suggest an 'Emotional Standards Committee be formed, IQ tests be administered, lie detectors be made available and a rule be established concerning the use of oxymoron’s like “self discipline.”

This place is as if a unpinned hand grenade has been thrown in our midst. :smiling_imp: :open_mouth: :confused: :laughing:

John.
sigh. :unamused:

It is not all about you BA. If you could come to just that realization, I believe you might fare better here. Slow down, pray, breath in breath out. Relax and measure thoroughly the responses of others. This I believe would do your soul good and surely ours as well.

My fangs are back in. :smiling_imp:

(At first, I thought Jason meant “Sink your fangs in him!”)

T

Thanks for the first laugh of the day, Tom. :smiley:

I have a question. I have heard that Pantos cannot refer to anything but humans, but isn’t the word used in Jude 1:25 to refer to all ages, and in Matthew 26:1 to refer to all of Christ’s sayings. It is an admittedly uncommon usage, but it IS POSSIBLE that Aaron37 is correct here, yes? Moreover, Christ DID take on all the wrath of God with His death, yes? So therefore Aaron37 COULD be right. PERHAPS in John 12:32 it is referring to God’s judgement/wrath, yes?

I don’t for a moment claim that {pantos} as a term cannot refer to anything but humans, including for the reasons of the examples you gave.

But contextually John 12:32 cannot refer to Jesus dragging all God’s judgment or wrath after Himself (and not only because that would be highly un-trinitarian as a theology, though the other and far more sober Aaron in this thread wouldn’t care about that along with some other members. :wink: )

The contextual reason why, is because this saying shouldn’t be interpreted apart from Jesus’ prior use of the same saying, reported back in GosJohn 6; and back there, Jesus was definitely referring to people being dragged to Him, including (by local and OT referential context) after the general resurrection! Pagans and former opponents would be coming to Him to be taught by Him – taught by no less than YHWH Himself, in other words, by reference to the OT prophecy.

The local context of John 12 itself counts toward Jesus meaning all people being dragged toward Him, too: when Jesus is talking about judgment there, He says what will be judging people in the final Day is eonian life. Which is part of solving the ongoing mystery across GosJohn about how the Son is obviously and explicitly being sent by God to judge the world, and yet also (as in GosJohn 12) has not been sent by God to judge the world but to save the world. The resolution is that God’s judgment doesn’t have the purpose of not-saving sinners (which people commonly expected, and still sadly expect), but rather the purpose of saving sinners from their sins. This goal of God’s judgment is practically spelled out by Jesus back in GosJohn 5’s report; and going forward again into GosJohn 17, the reason Jesus gives (which doesn’t necessarily exclude all other reasons, but which cannot be excluded by other proposed reasons) for why the Father gives all things into the Son’s hand, which the Son shall not be losing, is for the Son to give eonian life to all whom God has given Him, which shall be fulfilled as surely as the fall of Iscariot (mentioned topically nearby) also fulfills the scriptures.

So, setting aside the huge anti-trinitarian problem of interpreting the dragging in chapter 12 as meaning dragging away God’s punishment upon Himself instead of upon sinners (whom Jesus drags to Himself elsewhere despite their unwillingness – the Son, even on any kind of mere unitarianism, cannot be dragging God’s punishment upon Himself despite God’s unwillingness!): even if the phrase could mean that, which I suppose the grammar doesn’t exclude, and even if somehow Jesus did mean that, it would be very much secondary and not exclusive to the other meaning more contextually established.

In short, BAaron was doing another narrow squinty prooftext and trying to find a way around it. Which is weird: I don’t recall him being a Calv and thus denying that God intends and acts toward dragging all people toward Himself. He could have just denied that God succeeds at it, and claimed that we shouldn’t take the dragging as certain. Or if I’ve mis-remembered and he was Calv instead of Arm, he could have stuck with trying to claim God drags all kinds of people instead of all people inclusively (as a standard move reading into the verse here positions they think they’ve correctly developed elsewhere, which wouldn’t be a faulty tactic in principle.) I don’t know why he was even bothering, aside from sheer desire to oppose us with any stick he could find. (Which is why he left on a potty break and then came back almost immediately, from which this discussion descended earlier in the thread! :wink: )