10-19-2016, 10:32 AM
(10-18-2016, 04:19 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Ah, but that is what that verse means. Even you wrote, "His choice to have mercy or not is all his own." Exactly. That's my point. You're still under the impression you can influence His mercy after you just admitted the choice is "all his own."
You're a sinner. We all are. We are all destined for hell without His mercy. He will have mercy on whom He wants. You are a sinner the same as a murderer. If God chooses to give the murderer mercy instead of you, that is His choice. Who are you to question His choice? Because God is God, if He were to show mercy to a murderer instead of a sinner like you; that's just, because God can't be unjust.
It's one of those inconvenient truths Christians don't like to admit because it is another major contradiction.
Read this . . . https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-59-god-unfair-romans-914-18
It's not an "inconvenient truth".
Okay lets step away from the bible for a second and think about this in "real world" terms.
Lets say you tell someone "I'll be nice to you if you give me a glass of chocolate milk". This person then comes back to you with a glass of chocolate milk, and as a result you start being nice to them.
Did the person bringing you the chocolate milk FORCE you to be nice to them?
The point is God is not FORCED to have mercy on us, it's just that in order for us to fully receive that mercy we must obey his will. But doing God's will does not force God to have mercy, it just allows us to receive it. A person who does not obey God and is sent to hell isn't sent to hell because God was forced to send them there. God had full control of sending them there. Basically all the bible is saying is that God is a judge that needs no jury to "do" anything and his actions are not forced by any outside being or entity.
It doesn't mean God andomly chooses who to have mercy on. If God has mercy on someone there's a reason. If God doesn't have mercy on someone there's a reason. It is not random. But any reason for why God has mercy does not force God to have mercy, it's just a reason for why God did or did not have mercy, but he didn't have to as if someone told him he had too.
