The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Luke 12:8-10 speaking and denying? The difference!

Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#1

Everyone

This is another place in scripture that supports Jesus saying there shall not be forgiveness of the sin to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. I believe these verses shed the most light of its meaning. Lets take a closer look at these verses:

8Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: 9But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. 10And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.

Jesus says if you confess me before men I will confess you. In other words, if you confess or acknowledge Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior before men he will recognize you as his brother or sister before the angels. But if you deny and don’t acknowledge Jesus before men as your personal Lord and Savior he will not recognize you as his brother or sister and will deny you before the angels.

Now, notice there is a difference in speaking against Jesus and denying him. What is it? Examples of speaking against Jesus: “Tongues are of the devil” or "divine healing and miracles is not for today "or “I don’t believe in God because…” Jesus said these signs shall follow believers that believe in him. This is speaking against Jesus but is forgivable. Example of denying Jesus: “There are numerous paths of God and there are several ways to God.” Jesus said he is the only way, not “a way” to God the Father. This would be denying Jesus as the only way to God the Father. Therefore denying him as Lord and Savior.

Now, there is got to be a connection of denying Jesus and blaspheming the Holy Spirit. What is it? What are a few of the reponsibilities of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit teaches, testifies, convicts, guides and reveals truth (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:8, 13-14). …The Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin and testifies of Jesus. So, when you “stiff-neck” the Holy Spirit concerning your sin and reject the gospel to deny Jesus as your Lord and Savior… What are you doing? You are hardening your heart to sin and telling the Holy Spirit he is a liar about the testimony he is giving about Jesus. In other words, you are blaspheming the Holy Spirit’s testimony of Jesus Christ and relying on your own way to the Father. To deny Jesus is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit’s testimony of him. You can only play paddy-cake with the Holy Spirit for so long before your heart and mind gets so heardened by sin your beyond being convicted because of the searing of your conscience. Do you see the correlation between verses 9-10?

In conclusion: What is Jesus teaching in these verses? To deny him is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit which SHALL NOT BE FORGIVEN. Unforgivable means so bad as to be unable to be excused or pardoned. Therefore UR is a nice hope, but was never in the mind of God.

Reference: Me ( how do you like those encryptions, Sonia?) :laughing:

A Saved Blasphemer!
Believers and Unbelievers committing the Irremediable sin!
Believers and Unbelievers committing the Irremediable sin!
#2

Right. And Paul said that EVERYONE EVERYWHERE will do that. God said that confession is irrevocable and brings Him glory - even you can’t change that. :mrgreen:

Now what are you going to do? Jesus is happy, the angels are happy and you’re bummed out at the complete victory. Jonah!

#3

How many times are you going to parrot that verse out of context, Ran? Think about it. Why would Jesus distinctively separate this sin from all other sins and waste his time to warn us not to blaspheme the HS because it shall not be forgiven… only to change his mind later and forgive it? That makes absolutely no sense. Jesus does not say one thing and say “Syke” and do another. Hello. :wink:

#4

There’s nothing TO misinterpret! IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN.

Deal with it. It’s the only verse in the Bible (that I can find) that is irrevocable. Meaning: some things that seem final to us may be revoked (or seem to be if one doesn’t take the irrevocable SERIOUSLY.)

#5

Well, since this time you’re referencing yourself, I guess you can’t excuse the statement about UR “never being in the mind of God” as something you got from a Calvinist but which you yourself, as an Arminian, wouldn’t say and don’t believe. Though you might have the excuse that you used to be a Calvinist and still think in Calv vs. Arm terms sometimes in favor of Calv positions.

Be that as it may, it’s worth it’s own thread, where you can deny that God even had the intention to reconcile all sinners to Himself (much less acted to do so, whether they accept that reconciliation or not); while also opposing the Calvinists for saying the exact same thing. :wink:

Meanwhile, on this issue: you’re still reading your position totally into the scriptures, which wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t trying to use these scriptures as positive evidence for your position.

You still have to imagine some way to avoid allowing repentance, for example. There is no such restriction in these verses (or nearby context) anymore than in the other two Synoptic versions already discussed elsewhere. Even if the idea had merit, that someone can sin to the point of God being impotent to lead them to repentance, that’s something you’re reading into the text here; not from it. And certainly you cannot equate the “disowning” or “denying” (un-lambing in Greek) of verse 9 as being in itself somehow crusting the soul beyond the victorious ability of Christ to forgive and lead to repentance, even if the one doing that un-lambing calls curses against himself in so denying Christ!

(Or, you can try, but I don’t recommend doing so, since you’re going to be awfully embarrassed at the extremely obvious refutation of that notion. :mrgreen: )

No, as you yourself recognize, this only counts as a hopeless situation if something shuts down any possibility of repentance. But nothing in the scriptures there (or nearby) shut down that possibility; so, you have to read your notion of what constitutes such a shutdown of possible repentance into the scriptures instead.

Which is ironic. And not only because you’re willing to completely disavow people reading words into scripture that aren’t there (as though you don’t do exactly the same thing yourself, when you very demonstrably do.)

What is even more ironic, is this: even though the term at verse 8 is “avow” instead of (as in Ran’s Philippians ref) “acclaim”–which is a technical term in scripture praising God for His mighty saving victories especially in regard to one’s self though also in regard to others, which all in the heavens and on earth and under the earth will be doing someday–still, the fact of the matter is that one of us is maximally avowing (“like-saying”) that Jesus is Savior and Lord, and the other of us very dedicated to avowing a substantially lesser Lordship and Saviorhood. And there isn’t any way of getting around that.

Put another way, one of us is maximally affirming to the world the name of Jesus (“The Lord Saves” or even “The Lord is Salvation”), and the other of us is denying the full extent of that name.

Which is why I said (before you left the forum in a huff last time) that I won’t have any reason to be ashamed of my universalism before the throne of Christ, even if I’m wrong–for I won’t have been found denying His salvation. Nor His justice either. I will only be wrong about Him being essentially love in His own self-existence.

#6

Why would I excuse it? I mean’t UR was never in God’s redemption plan( not the way UR teaches it) of man. God has always know from the beginning not all will be saved. Although God has provided the opportunity for all to be saved…not all will accept.

#7

So, you meant God intended to save everyone and acted to save everyone and so provided the opportunity for all to be saved, yet the salvation of all sinners was never in God’s redemption plan? That wouldn’t make any sense.

Or did you mean God intended to save everyone but didn’t act to save everyone, only provided a mere opportunity for all to be saved which does NOT count as an act to save everyone? And if that didn’t count as an act to save everyone, does that mean providing the opportunity also doesn’t count as an act to save anyone? Or are you distinguishing between the act to provide an opportunity (which you would not consider also an act to save), and some other act of actually saving? Because if you mean to distinguish along the lines that God acts to save no one until they repent, then really you’re talking about a salvation purely of works where we have to convince God to save us from sin (even though at least we don’t have to convince God to provide us some opportunity to convince Him to save us from sin. That’s a modicum of graciousness, I guess. :wink: )

Obviously, UR teaches the persistence of God to save sinners from sin, just like we teach the scope of God to save all sinners from sin. An Arminian would naturally have to teach that it never entered the mind of God to keep persisting at saving sinners from sin–otherwise the Arminian would be technically a universalist! But then we get to God’s omniscience, which you can hardly avoid accounting in (especially since you brought it up yourself). Why bother making any real (even if only a mere) provision for people to convince God to save them from sin, if God already knows that some people won’t succeed in convincing Him to do so (or maybe even try to convince Him to save them)? Making that provision for them is a worthless action on His part.

If you say it’s due to love, then you’re going to be stuck on why true love (which never fails and which hopes for all things and which will keep on remaining) wouldn’t go on to lead sinners to repentance; or if love acts to lead sinners to repentance, why true love wouldn’t keep on acting to lead sinners to repentance even if true love must also punish sinners. Since no one denies that God does lead at least some sinners to repentance through chastening. This would be especially true if God is in His essential existence true love (which Arms as well as Kaths typically affirm, while Calvs sometimes go the distance of denying it, most famously Calvin himself).

Grieving the Spirit into punishing the sinner is one thing; but grieving the Spirit into outright giving up the eonian evangel (however you care to interpret and apply “eonian”) is an extremely different thing. (Whereas the Spirit never bothering with evangelizing in the first place is Calvinism, not Arminianism!–so that option is closed to you, unless you want to go back to being Calv.) It makes even less sense to claim that the sinner somehow overpowers God so that God the omniscient and omnipotent cannot possibly lead the sinner to repentance anymore!–at the very best, it means that sin can and often is stronger than hope, and that where grace might exceed sin can and often does hyperexceed. Even if that was true, it would be no gospel but a micron of success in the face of overwhelming despair and tragedy.

In any case, it’s once again the universalists who are most fully in favor of evangelization, and the non-universalists who are having to preach a restriction of evangelization.

So, would you say God ultimately and finally fails in evangelizing anyone? Or would you say that God evangelizes no one at all (so that only humans, who might fail, are evangelists)? Or would you perhaps say that God evangelizes only those He chooses to save (for whatever reason, perhaps because He knows He can succeed at those whereas He knows the others will defeat Him if He tries)?–in other words, God only evangelizes the elect and never bothers doing so for the non-elect? And if that latter, then would you say that mere humans (empowered by God?) can succeed in evangelizing the non-elect even though God cannot? Or would you say that we mere humans are expected to evangelize the non-elect, too, even though we cannot possibly succeed any more than God can–while God doesn’t bother to evangelize them at all because He knows better than to try something He’ll fail at doing?

How far into Calvinism are you willing to go from Arminianism, to avoid universalism? Or how far into Arminianism from Calvinism are you willing to go, to avoid universalism? How far do you care to evangelize against the eonian evangel?–how far do you care to preach the failure of the faith and the hope and the love that never fails?

There are plenty of options to choose from, after all, when denying among men that the Lord is salvation (the name of “Jesus”).

But I prefer to affirm and to preach that our Lord is salvation instead. Not least because of Luke 12:8 (and parallels).

Put another way: Mark 3:28 can be interpreted in light of Mark 3:29, or verse 29 can be interpreted in light of verse 28. One of these interpretations is the spirit of reconciliation. The other is not. One of these interpretations maximally acclaims Jesus as Lord and Savior. The other does not. One of these interpretations confesses among men and angels the name of Jesus and the Lord’s salvation. The other denies among men and angels that the Lord God saves.

One of these interpretations is fully evangelical. The other, quite simply, is not.

#8

That post, good sir, is full of win.

#9

:unamused: God’s redemption plan of man was for mankind to have the opportunity to be restored back to him through his Son, Jesus. God knows the end from the beginning and knew not all people would accept this gift of salvation… Did that force God to rethink his plan? Nope, he still sent Jesus for all those “whosoevers” that would accept this free gift of salvation through his Son.

Would God like to see the whole world accept his Son? Absolutely. He knows this won’t happen. He loves all of them. God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked… God honors the individuals free will choice and will not violate it.

Instead of honoring individual choices… UR theology wants to violate the individuals free-will choice of denying Jesus by having them mysteriously changing their minds in the lake of fire when scripture has already established that being tormented by fire does not change ones heart. ( Luke 16:19-31; Rev 16:8-11). This way to salvation was never in the mind of God when he planned the redemption of mankind. :wink:

#10

Aaron, do you agree that if everyone could see Jesus for who he truly is, they would love him? And the same for his Father?

#11

Nope. Heres why: Did not the Pharisee and the Saducee see Jesus for who he truly is? Whats was the result? Read John 11:45-48. They heard about the resurrection of Lazarus.This guy was there, several of them, apparently, and they are coming and they are telling the Pharisees what happened and look what the Pharisees say. This man doeth many miracles. They don’t deny that these are miracles. Well, he’s got to be the Messiah. At least, Nicodemus was willing to say, “We know you are”, in fact, I think he was speaking for the rest of them, he was one of the Pharisees, one of the Rabbis. “We know you are a teacher come from God for no man can do the miracles that you do unless God is with him.” I would have to conclude they know this, they know Jesus is doing miracles, they know it must be from God and what do they say? If we let him alone everybody is going to believe on him and then look what’s going to happen. The Romans will come and they will say well you guys aren’t in charge anymore. We don’t need you to cooperate with us because you’ve lost the leadership of these people. They all believe in the Messiah. The Messiah has come and we’re going to deal with him. That’s all they are thinking of, their position, their power. Justin, it just breaks your heart to think of that. And what do they do? They’re like Esau. They sold their inheritance for a morsel, for a bit of stew or something and Christ said look, if you gain the whole world and lose you soul, you made a bad deal.( the berean call.org I do not endorse all this websites doctrines)

#12

:laughing: Sorry, that disclaimer at the end just got me. Kinda spooky though, that they just so happened to be addressing that to a Justin… :confused:

Anyway, I have a couple of problems with this. I’ll deal with the easiest one first. Would they really have rejected him if they thought he was truly from God? That would’ve been nothing short of foolhardy. But it seems there was likely some disagreement from them, especially at first. Gamaliel gives us a little insight into their thoughts as he advised the Sanhedrin to allow the early Christian movement to be tested by time. Nicodemus came at night and may have been representing a quiet crowd of dissenters among the Pharisees. Eventually, of course, the Pharisees were vehement, hardened enemies of Christ. The more outrageous he acted, the more they opposed him. Even many of his own disciples deserted him.

As for seeing him as he is, the gospels demonstrate that they didn’t. Any who did had to come at night to keep from being persecuted by the others. One group either did believe God was with him or were being sarcastic (not plausible for me to look up references right now). Peter, though, confessed Jesus’ identity to which, unlike the Pharisees, Jesus told him that this was a revelation from the Father. Apparently the Pharisees didn’t really understand (as we can see from the interchange with Nicodemus).

But even the disciples didn’t fully perceive who Jesus was. They were continually amazed by what he was able to do (such as calm the winds and waves) and didn’t even believe he would rise again until they saw it themselves. How are we to believe therefore that they were seeing him as he is?

That’s the purpose of the judgment, to reveal Christ and thus God the Father. Those who knew in their hearts before and thus practiced mercy will be uplifted. Those who did not will be crushed - not by him, but by the revelation of Him.

#13

No, I inserted your name in there. :laughing: My answer remains the same, NOPE!

#14

So is Jesus not attractive enough or does it just take that much virtue to be able to love him? :confused:

#15

Thanks for sharing that, Buddy!

Along similar lines of thought: For me to say that I choose Christ, and others will go to hell because they do not choose Christ, seems to me the same as saying that I am somehow ‘better’ than they. No way I’m going to make claims like that. I don’t think I’m “more good” or more deserving than anyone else.

Sonia

#16

Not at all, because the diference between you and a unbeliever is that you chose to respond to God’s love by faith and accept God’s gift of salvation through his Son and they have not. Life is about making choices. The most important choice one makes in this life is to accept or not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That choice determines where you will spend eternity.God’s redemption plan of man was for mankind to have the opportunity to be restored back to him through his Son, Jesus. God knows the end from the beginning and knew not all people would accept this gift of salvation… Did that force God to rethink his plan? Nope, he still sent Jesus for all those “whosoevers” that would accept this free gift of salvation through his Son.

Would God like to see the whole world accept his Son? Absolutely. He knows this won’t happen. He loves all of them. God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked… God honors the individuals free will choice and will not violate it.

Instead of honoring individual choices… UR theology wants to violate the individuals free-will choice of denying Jesus by having them mysteriously changing their minds in the lake of fire when scripture has already established that being tormented by fire does not change ones heart. ( Luke 16:19-31; Rev 16:8-11). This way to salvation was never in the mind of God when he planned the redemption of mankind. This conversation is getting off topic…lets bring it back to the OP.

#17

Judas Iscariot saw Jesus for who he is. He saw miracle after miracle. He witnessed Jesus in the fullness of who he is for 3.5 yrs and what happen to Judas, Justin? Apparently Jesus was not attractive enough for Judas despite all of what he had seen. I hope sooner than later you’re going to realize not everyone is going to love and accept Jesus for who he is…those people which are already condemned for unbelief… those who remain in it will be found guilty of the eternal sin to blaspheme the HS that has eternal consequences! Again, “NOPE” is still my answer to your question.

#18

Hey buddyb4!

Good to see you feeling well enough to write. And you sound quite sane to me as well!
Blessings man!

As for this expression, surely we don’t take it quite literally though… If so, perhaps some clarification A37??

If taken literally, some curious theology looms; Jesus is only capable of doing the right thing if and when WE are? As if OUR goodness and response and acceptance unlocks HIM to be accepting and forgiving of US? Which would make our morality and ethic of forgiveness better than His! As if we cause, or evoke, God’s grace towards us… But that’s exactly backwards; it is God’s acceptance and grace towards US that evokes in us the proper response.

And the proper evidence that we have truly and honestly and sincerely grasped the depths of God’s grace and acceptance is that we in turn treat others in that same manner. So when God talks about not being able to forgive us unless we forgive others, that’s simply a statement of the fact that His forgiveness has in essence been cheapened, misunderstood, neutered, UNLESS we demonstrate our grasp of it BY extending it to others. To take the “good part” of forgiveness – God’s not holding our sins against us – while not extending that same ethic towards those who sin against US, simply betrays our selfishness and insincerity. In effect WE can make God’s forgiveness of no effect. And Jesus simply paints the picture in the words He does to emphasize not that He does’t forgive, or won’t forgive, but that it’s impotent unless we embrace it and participate fully.

And I think it works the same way with the sin of rejecting the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is the bringer of truth, He’s the one who impresses our minds, if we reject that calling there is no way God can get around that. A response must happen within us. And that response is what unleashes what was already and always there.

Besides, what would even be the point of forgiving the sin of rejecting the Holy Spirit? And what would be the point of forgiving ANY sin that was unconfessed and un-repented from? It would be pointless and meaningless. Yet the forgiveness remains freely available…

Again, clarification??

Of course it’s a very different question, as Jason and other’s have noted, to wonder if eternal and free rejection of the Spirit of truth is in fact even possible… So many other threads on this…

TotalVictory
Bobx3

#19

Hey buddy! Thanks for the post, I totally agree. I was just asking for Aaron’s thoughts on the matter.

Aaron, there is much more, so much more to Jesus than just what Judas saw, especially with his nose in the money bag. Unsearchable riches, in fact. For one, there’s MUCH more to him than just the miracles he did, especially as he intentionally refrained from miracles in some places, which served to make an important point. And there is much more to him than just miracles, which are only a slice of his total ministry. Even his own disciples didn’t understand, as I pointed out before. Their understanding was short-circuited by their traditions, not to mention that what was about to happen was greater than anyone could have ever imagined. We’re still unraveling it to his day.

So for you to say that they were seeing him as he is merely because they closely interacted with him for a few years is completely shortchanging the absolute divine grandeur of his not to mention his Father’s nature. Jesus even said they wouldn’t understand until he sent his Spirit to them afte he left.

So if his own disciples didn’t understand or even fully see him for who he is until the Spirit was sent to them, then I don’t see how anyone can claim to have greater ability than they did (a truth the scriptures testify to). And if our understanding of who he is is dependent upon the Spirit’s guidance, as scripture reveals, then those who are choosing against him aren’t truly informed of what they are choosing against. They only know (or supposedly know) what they are choosing for. But the fact that we are slaves to sin shows that we really don’t even know that much while we are still in bondage to it.

Thus the only way for someone to choose God is for them to be disillusioned about what they are choosing instead. And that’s just what the ages of the ages have been for and why redemption seems to take so damn long (pardon the pun).

As for people not even repenting when scalded by fire, we have all seen, I hope, how iron-facedly stubborn people can be when sacrificing themselves for a cause or what they believe to be good and right - even when it’s not good or right at all. Sometimes these types will even put their most scandalous enemy up on a cross.

#20

If denying Christ before men constitutes blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then we can safely count Peter as being among those who “shall not be forgiven” (Luke 22:54-62). :open_mouth: