The Love of God - John MacArthur

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Enoch111

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It's my own description of MacArthur's teaching, that God loves everyone, but that He loves the elect with a better kind of love.
MacArthur had to come up with this nonsense in order to justify his false gospel. Let's just stick with what is actually stated in Scripture. And people should stop misrepresenting what is said in Ephesians about predestination.

A careful reading and study of Ephesians will show that it is believers who are predestined for perfection. And since the whole world in invited to believe, all could be predestined if all would believe.

 

farouk

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MacArthur had to come up with this nonsense in order to justify his false gospel. Let's just stick with what is actually stated in Scripture. And people should stop misrepresenting what is said in Ephesians about predestination.

A careful reading and study of Ephesians will show that it is believers who are predestined for perfection. And since the whole world in invited to believe, all could be predestined if all would believe.
I find John MacArthur quite sound and balanced, actually, for the most part.
 
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reformed1689

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A sincere love. A genuine love. But a substandard love, not enough that they can come into the kingdom.

How sincere is that?

OK, you don't have to stay in Jail, I'll pay your $1000 fine. So I go to the clerk, give him $500, and say, OK, I've done what I said.

God is love. God is not "loves". God is love and that love is supreme, as all that God is. God is not, Greater Love and Lesser Love.

God does not love with a second-rate love.
Do you not believe there are different kinds of love? Because, last I checked, the New Testament specifically uses multiple types of love. Philos, Agape, Eros.....ever heard of these?
 

marks

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Do you not believe there are different kinds of love? Because, last I checked, the New Testament specifically uses multiple types of love. Philos, Agape, Eros.....ever heard of these?
I have. There is also storge, familial love. Eros is not actually used in the NT.

But as I understand MacArthur, that's not what he's talking about.

He's trying to make sense of the doctrine of limited atonement, I think, and has to somehow explain that God loves everyone, yet God does not save everyone.

If you answer how it is that God loves all but does not save all, and you believe that God has chosen some for eternal life and glory, and others for eternal suffering and shame, than you have to conclude that God's love is different for some than for others. God's better love is salvific.

If we say that God has different loves even as man has different loves, not do we make the error in thinking God is like us, but look at what these loves are. It's our preference for different flavors. We love our families in one way, our friends another way, and we think so little of the word love we use it literally for ice cream flavors.

God we love with the highest love - if we do, that is. We want to love others with the higher love, and not the lesser loves. But how do we say that God has lesser love?

Are we not to love everyone the same? And if this is what God calls us to, how would we say that He is less than that?

This is the issue I have with MacArthur's view on this point. He makes out that God is less than what God tells us to be.

Much love!
 

Stan B

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Both Ephesians 1 and Romans 9 through 11 have to do with Israel, God's chosen nation. God didn't literally HATE Esau, He just chose Jacob to further the line to the Messiah. Adam - Seth - Noah - Shem - Abraham - Isaac - Jacob - David - Jesus

So . . you have merely proclaimed that your god is a liar; the father of lies?? You are questioning God's declaration, just like Satan did in the Garden of Eden: "Did God REALLY say this?"

When my God declares in Scripture that He hates someone, I believe Him!!
 
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Enoch111

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He's trying to make sense of the doctrine of limited atonement, I think, and has to somehow explain that God loves everyone, yet God does not save everyone.
How can anyone make sense of Limited Atonement when it is a TOTAL FICTION? It is as fictitious as Purgatory.
 

Enoch111

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Total fiction? Oh boy, here we go.
Yeah. I already showed you that your fictitious interpretation of *world* is false. Now do I need to show you that Limited Atonement is equally fictitious?

Christians have no need -- and no business -- dealing in fictions. They have God's Truth in their hands.
 

reformed1689

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Yeah. I already showed you that your fictitious interpretation of *world* is false. Now do I need to show you that Limited Atonement is equally fictitious?

Christians have no need -- and no business -- dealing in fictions. They have God's Truth in their hands.
Where did you show me my interpretation of world is false? What post was that?
 

marks

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How can anyone make sense of Limited Atonement when it is a TOTAL FICTION? It is as fictitious as Purgatory.
Well, you just come up with this sort of stuff that God loves with lesser love. Makes no sense at all!

Much love!
 

CharismaticLady

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So . . you have merely proclaimed that your god is a liar; the father of lies?? You are questioning God's declaration, just like Satan did in the Garden of Eden: "Did God REALLY say this?"

When my God declares in Scripture that He hates someone, I believe Him!!

Just because our English translations say "hate" doesn't mean the Greek does.
 

reformed1689

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Just because our English translations say "hate" doesn't mean the Greek does.
Oh brother. It says miseo. Do you know what that means? Since you probably won't take my word for it, here is a lexicon:

88.198 μισέω: to dislike strongly, with the implication of aversion and hostility—‘to V 1, p 763 hate, to detest.’ οἱ δὲ πολῖται αὐτοῦ ἐμίσουν αὐτόν ‘and his fellow countrymen hated him’ Lk 19:14. Expressions for ‘hatred’ frequently involve idiomatic phrases, for example, ‘to kill in the heart’ or ‘to spit at someone in the heart.’

Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 762–763.
 
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Jay Ross

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Oh brother. It says miseo. Do you know what that means? Since you probably won't take my word for it, here is a lexicon:

88.198 μισέω: to dislike strongly, with the implication of aversion and hostility—‘to V 1, p 763 hate, to detest.’ οἱ δὲ πολῖται αὐτοῦ ἐμίσουν αὐτόν ‘and his fellow countrymen hated him’ Lk 19:14. Expressions for ‘hatred’ frequently involve idiomatic phrases, for example, ‘to kill in the heart’ or ‘to spit at someone in the heart.’

Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 762–763.

So you have given us the meaning of the transliterated Greek root word, "miseó," and not the actual meaning of the transliterated word found in Romans 9:13 which is "emisēsa," which I understand only appears once in the New Testament and is more in keeping with "loved less."

Hebrews 12:14-17: - 14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; 16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. 17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.​

Now Jacob was not loved by Isaac as much as Isaac loved Esau, because Esau was a skilled hunter and cooked the game he killed for his father to enjoy.

Isaac announced that he was going to give his blessing to Esau, which was contrary to the Word of God concerning the twins before they were born, possibly 75 years before he actually died, because he was not well and his eye sight was poor.

Yes in Malachi 1:3, God is quoted by the Prophet as saying that He hated (H:8130) Esau, but it is not the exceeding hatred of H:8135,rather it is better understood to have a meaning of "a hate of" someone or an activity undertaken by that person, rather than a pure hatred of a person as the Hebrew root word, H:813,5 would imply.

Oh brother, perhaps it is you who has not done your research properly.

Shalom
 

reformed1689

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So you have given us the meaning of the transliterated Greek root word, "miseó," and not the actual meaning of the transliterated word found in Romans 9:13 which is "emisēsa," which I understand only appears once in the New Testament and is more in keeping with "loved less."

Hebrews 12:14-17: - 14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; 16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. 17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.​

Now Jacob was not loved by Isaac as much as Isaac loved Esau, because Esau was a skilled hunter and cooked the game he killed for his father to enjoy.

Isaac announced that he was going to give his blessing to Esau, which was contrary to the Word of God concerning the twins before they were born, possibly 75 years before he actually died, because he was not well and his eye sight was poor.

Yes in Malachi 1:3, God is quoted by the Prophet as saying that He hated (H:8130) Esau, but it is not the exceeding hatred of H:8135,rather it is better understood to have a meaning of "a hate of" someone or an activity undertaken by that person, rather than a pure hatred of a person as the Hebrew root word, H:813,5 would imply.

Oh brother, perhaps it is you who has not done your research properly.

Shalom
Even if you go with love less, however the word is still properly translated hate, you still have two different levels of love. God does NOT love all equally nor does Scripture teach that anywhere.
 
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