[GCFL-discuss] Fw: Re: Opening

[Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List]

On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 22:40:44 -0700 "Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies
List" <gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net> writes:
Matthew 25:31 
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him,
he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be
gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as
a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on
his right and the goats on his left.

Lance
John 8:32 "You will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free."



Hi Lance, 

Nice to hear from you. I'm not sure what you meant to say by presenting
these verses, but that is the beginning of the citation I referred to in
responding to Rev. Ev. <Oh, I see later that Quama provided the
remainder.>

My point was, if you read a little further, there will be people who
never heard of Jesus, or never knew that they professed faith in Jesus or
did anything for Jesus, who will be amazed to hear "I was hungry and you
gave me to eat..." etc. and on that basis welcomed into the reward
prepared for them since the foundation of the world. Likewise, there will
be people who consider themselves devoted servants of Christ who will be
dumfounded when they are sent over to the goats, because "inasmuch as you
did it not for the least of these my brethren, you did it not for me."
Notwithstanding any other presentation in any other book or chapter, and
taking as a given that EVERY word and verse are true, I can take no other
meaning from this than that there will be non-Christians welcomed into
paradise.

As to the appearance of conflicts with "No one comes to the Father but by
me" and similar statements, I reconcile them as follows:

1) God obviously looks at these things in a much more complex way than
the human mind, looking for simple explanations, can accept. As long as
we find a simple guide to our own relationship to God, we need not worry
too much whether our neighbors found exactly the same path. We do need to
worry about those who have found no path, because they are empty, and
Satan himself is a great emptiness, a void.

2) Since the reward is premised on "inasmuch as ye did it for the least
of these my brethren, ye did it unto me" -- they WILL come to the Father
"through me" whether they know it or not. That is probably the strongest
one from an evangelical perspective.

3) John 14 has, I believe, and this is only my belief from my own reading
and study, been grossly misunderstood. The question the disciples asked
was not "can non-believers be saved" but "how can we know the way" and
"show us the father and it suffices us." Jesus was dealing with the
disciples on their own lack of faith and understanding, and Phillip's
question bordered on idolatry. This was not a dividing line between the
saved and the unsaved for all time and all humanity. Its dangerous to
take a single verse out of context, especially when other verses, and
chapters, pose a different message.

But, I don't know what your original meaning was, since you only cited
the text and didn't say. So I won't run on any longer.

Siarlys
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