The Evangelical Universalist Forum

The Presence of God

:sunglasses:

And if cut off from the vine, the branch withers.

I love this Moltmann quote: “The more I love God, the more gladly I exist.”

Alex, this analogy, further explained by WGH Holmes, is helpful to me. Ever since it was pointed out to me that God had mercy on Paul because of his unblief I’ve been wrestling with how to understand God’s grace more. I feel, intuitively, like to understand it is everything. The grace in UR is what I believe has had the most impact on me and the grace/love I’m able to show to others. It’s wonderful to be able to attribute all we are and will ever be to God’s efforts. This analogy of the vine and the branches really shows our salvation could never be earned because we cannot exist on our own. Without God there is no life.

I like the vine analogy too. It’s also helpful in Romans 11 where it shows that even though someone can be cut off, it doesn’t exclude them being grafted back on again :sunglasses:

Yes, this question from Paul, "Did they stumble beyond recovery, " follwed by the nice explanation of how it is possible to be cut off and grafted back in is very informative.