Sorry Dave, you were kind of falling victim to my out-loud musings as I work through this stuff. I liked your points, but I wasn’t quite seeing it yet, so I posted that because what I was seeing there in Isaiah looked to me to be running sort of “parallel/counter” to what you were saying. I see now though, that the point that God was trying to make there was that He’s got things under control, no matter how bad they look, and that He is taking “responsibility” in the sense that He is working in all things to make things right.
I’ll apologise in advance as I haven’t read all the replies (theres way more than I was anticipating) but I would have thought some of you would have have the biggest issue with his view on the trinity ?
Hi Dave, sorry I didnt’ see your reply here. I lose track of some of the threads. 
You make some great points as does Melchizedek too. 
I don’t, as I’ve never been convinced of the trinity. I’m open to the strong possibility I’m wrong though.
Indeed Cathrine, those who think they’ve escaped the dilemma only do so by removing the problem. Jesus also promised that those who did not forgive would not be forgiven. He warned the self-righteous that they would be like twigs gathered up and thrown into a fire. But of course, those parts are probably just scribed in by some guy name Adolph. Nevermind the apostles seem to give warnings to believes as well.
It seems to me that there is a choice between two dilemmas:
Accepting that the Bible is packed full of errors and lies, even though these ‘errors’ seem to be consistent in both the OT and the NT, and therefore making the bible unreliable as a historical or divinely inspired text…
or
Accepting God uses temporary pain and suffering to accomplish a lasting good.
As much my mind likes (prefers) a God who never uses violence or pain, the fact that evil exists at all and is being given full reign, means I find it much easier to get my head around God using evil in this evil world- this way the bulk of the Bible is left intact and the ‘cloud of witnesses’ retain their trustworthiness and the ‘problem of evil’ can encompass the problem of a God who uses evil.
Catherine,
How about a third way? God (YHWH) as Jesus has taken the pain and suffering of the world from the world into himself and as the Living Word of God (Jesus the Healer) will bring new birth/resurrection to all creation. This will be made real to all of creation at the moment of his appearing–the justice of God fulfilled. God takes away pain and suffering and overcomes evil to bring lasting good, he doesn’t inflict it on us, he the Lamb takes it from us. Jesus the Living Word of God for ever and ever; the Bible an ink on paper witness that will be part of the former things once the living Word is fully among us as Emmanuel.
Dave
Cathrine,
I think these can both be true. But when a certain motif or theme is stated over and over by people who claim to receive revelation (Jesus, Paul, Peter, John) I think it’s safe to say they weren’t wrong about it. There’s simply too many warnings given for us to dismiss them as error or “paganistic” thinking. We can accept that Paul may have not known the depht of wrongness when discussing issues such as slavery. But punishment is not evil.
I don’t have a problem with Zender’s nontrinitarianism, but I do have a problem with his belief that trinitarians are not of the body of Christ. Zender is unfairly dogmatic, divisive and falls into the same gnostic error that most trinitarians do. And he also makes very, very rudimentary mistakes about what other people believe (in regards to orthodox theology-proper and orthodox soteriology).
very well put ! there are things about him I do warm to, but I also see his explanations and assertions to be at times simplistic !
I agree with your point on his dogmatism too !
Hmmm Dave, I like this, but it seems the NT (and the OT) teaches that when Jesus is revealed from Heaven that yes, the good guys get new bodies and are ‘instantly’ healed, but over a third of the planet’s human population is going to be wiped out and there will be much ‘gnashing of teeth’ I’m sure. Even after the 1000 years or set period of King Jesus’ sole rule, there’s going to be one last fight and only after all this will total healing have taken place and then everything will be reconciled and God will be all in all. Paul warns of these future Judgments in Thessolonians and of course we have Jesus’ words that are more important. Derek Flood would say that this language is ‘sarcasm’ maybe but when Jesus’ words are backed up by Paul and Peter and the others, they don’t sound sarcastic to me- and they are all backed up by numerous verses about ‘the Day of Lord’ in the OT. The language of all these verses doesn’t sound to me like it’s the consequences of people’s own rebellion against God at this time, but rather God bringing about punishments like He did in Egypt with Moses…
‘‘For with fire and with his sword the LORD will execute judgment upon all men, and many will be those slain by the LORD.’’ Isaiah 66:16 
I agree.
but it seems the NT (and the OT) teaches that when Jesus is revealed from Heaven that yes, the good guys get new bodies and are ‘instantly’ healed, but over a third of the planet’s human population is going to be wiped out and there will be much ‘gnashing of teeth’ I’m sure. Even after the 1000 years or set period of King Jesus’ sole rule, there’s going to be one last fight and only after all this will total healing have taken place and then everything will be reconciled and God will be all in all. Paul warns of these future Judgments in Thessolonians and of course we have Jesus’ words that are more important. Derek Flood would say that this language is ‘sarcasm’ maybe but when Jesus’ words are backed up by Paul and Peter and the others, they don’t sound sarcastic to me- and they are all backed up by numerous verses about ‘the Day of Lord’ in the OT. The language of all these verses doesn’t sound to me like it’s the consequences of people’s own rebellion against God at this time, but rather God bringing about punishments like He did in Egypt with Moses…
‘‘For with fire and with his sword the LORD will execute judgment upon all men, and many will be those slain by the LORD.’’ Isaiah 66:16
it doesn’t leave me with even the slightest inclination to believe that Jesus is a John Lennon impersonator
The differences in the two views (peaceful John Lennon/genocidal Adolf Hitler), is that the former, rightly or wrongly, believes that Yeshua fulfills prophecies and surpasses all earlier images of God in the Hebrew scriptures in a way that is in harmony with his revealed character, and that the apocalyptic writings of John of Patmos’ are subversive appropriations of older symbols. The latter, rightly or wrongly, clings onto the literalisticness of the Hebrew scriptures, some ambiguous passages in the Christian scriptures and a simple, literal reading of John of Patmos’ Revelation, and relegates the embodied revelation of Yeshua’s first coming as only a part of Yahweh’s fuller ass-kicking character (and thus, not the fullness of his substance). That’s my understanding of the dilemma anyway.
it doesn’t leave me with even the slightest inclination to believe that Jesus is a John Lennon impersonator
The differences in the two views (peaceful John Lennon/genocidal Adolf Hitler)
not that I wish to get into yet another discussion with you over these type issues, but I feel it my duty to point out your black and white approach to the above ! firstly the type of ‘‘peace’’ offered by John Lennon compared to the type from Jesus, ideologically differ and secondly you are assuming my version is to be compared to hitler 
. Can I also say that if I recall a comment from yourself regarding Zender is correct, that he is ‘‘a lunatic’’ I find that highly ungracious !, I disagree with him over a range of things but I would not go anywhere near that length nor place him in that category
I’d say that Martin is very reactive against “religionism”, and that causes him to sometimes go too far the other way. However, he’s also very influenced by the thinking of the concordant crowd, and so he is very much a dispensational futurist, which is a bit unusual for a universalist. Interestingly, even though He believes in the eventual salvation of all, he insists he is not a ‘universalist’, per se.
Hmm, interesting. I know he’s in with the ‘Concordant Crowd’. I checked out the Concordant folk a while back. The UK branch are not many miles from my home. I’ve had a few telephone conversations with Andrew who heads it up and I nearly went to their annual conference last year, but something holds me back. Their Concordant version of the NT, is very hard to understand. I’ve got a few of the epistles, and even though Andrew says you have to perservere with it, it doesn’t come naturally. 
Maybe they’re a Christian Universalist sect.
The leader of the concordant group, Adolph E Knoch, became what we would term a universalist in the process of translating the concordant literal version of the bible. Martin’s insistence that he is not a universalist is based on his particular definition of universalism (which is basically that "God is too nice to send anyone to ‘hell’).
Stuart, I agree that the peace offered by John Lennon ideologically differs to the peace offered by Yeshua. I thought we were merely using the two labels to contrast the two views (albeit quite dramatically), and not to articulate the underlying beliefs of our own camps. In other words, I am not necessarily saying you are sympathetic to all of Hitler’s ideology. Just as I did not assume you were saying that I was sympathetic to all of Lennon’s.
Regarding Zender’s lunacy, I explicitly qualified that categorization by acknowledging my own — the pot calling the kettle black