Thread: If God is omnipresent does the term 'in His Presence' mean something other than just His presence?

Originally Posted by victoryword

There is some truth to that and passages such as Job 1:11-12 and 1 Cor. 5:5 makes a strong case for it. But I would not say any of that without qualification. My book and other writings give more detail about how all of this works in Scripture. One example is the fact that people actually start out forsaking God before He forsakes them (Deut. 31:16-18; 2 Chronicles 15:2; 24:20). We actually leave God's umbrella of protection.

Numerous Scriptures show God pleading with the Israelites to return to Him so that He would not have to remove His protection from them. But when they constantly reject Him then He is left with no other choice but to leave because He has been pushed away. However, when they repent and return to Him after suffering God jumps right back into action and rescues them from their oppressors.



That is a good observation because many do think that I teach a passive judgment of God which is not completely true. God is actively involved but not in the way that you might be implying that I teach but especially others who traditionally teach about God launching fireballs to kill those who angered Him.

God is active, as I stated above, in continually pleading with His people to return to Him so that He would not have to remove His protection from them. When they choose their idolatry over Him then He finally says:

Deuteronomy 32:37-38
37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,
38 Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.

In other words, you want to forsake God and worship false gods, then depend on them to protect you. It is unreasonable for God to keep protecting those who prefer to continue sinning. The fact that He even remains protecting them for some length of time when they fall into sin shows His great mercy.

That is how God is vindicated in all of this.

Only Calvinists believe that God issues his wrath against people who could not have done otherwise than what they did. Everyone else believes that man sins first then God issues his wrath (in whatever way). And if man hadn't decided to sin of his own choice then God would not have removed his protection etc. Are you sure you aren't simply arguing with Calvinists and confusing non-Calvinists in the process ?

I don't see what you describe as "vindicating" God above as particularly different to what I have personally believed for decades. The only difference seems to be that God can and does take care of the punishment himself some times, he doesn't only "permit" others to do so.

Originally Posted by victoryword

I don't recall in my post saying anything about God issuing wrath against people who could not have done otherwise than what they did. Where exactly did that come from?

@@@Only Calvinists do. You don't and nor do Arminians.

I did say, "....others who traditionally teach about God launching fireballs to kill those who angered Him." This is believed by many in Calvinist and non-Calvinist camps. Since you stated, "that God can and does take care of the punishment himself some times" then you believe a form of this. In other words, you believe that God directly punishes people by personally inflicting sickness, natural disasters, etc.

@@@That is not what I said. The examples would mainly be fire going out from the manifested presence of God in the OT and killing people. Not by sickness, natural disasters etc but by the fire itself.

I believe all of this occurs because we live in a fallen world that is prone to disastrous events that God is often working to prevent. When men choose to rebel He releases His restraint on these things He was holding back that sin brought forth in the first place. I have shown in my writings that a strong Biblical case can be made for this position and any Bible passage that states that God had any direct involvement can be interpreted in the permissive sense.

Apart from reading the books I have written on this subject you probably may not ever understand how a legitimate case can be made for this from the Bible itself. It would be difficult and time consuming to lay out all of the Scriptures and factors for this on the forum or social media. That's why the memes are on social media to encourage those who have embraced this truth and for those who may be interested in this truth and want to learn more, which means reading the books (several which can be downloaded as .pdf files for FREE).

@@@That isn't the point. You're not saying anything that is very different to what most non-Calvinists believe and it doesn't "vindicate" God any more than in my example of someone removing the mosquito net then people get malaria.

.

Originally Posted by victoryword

Well Colonel, I explained it as best as I can. If you insist on believing that what I am teaching is not different than what Calvinists teach even though I insist it is not even close to hat they teach (probably the extreme opposite of their teaching) then I will leave that to you.

I already stated that it is the opposite of Calvinism. Which doesn't imply that it is free of the mindsets involved in Calvinism. For instance :

Calvinism : Foreknowledge implies predestination. God predestines and has foreknowledge

Victorywordism : Foreknowledge implies predestination. God does not predestine and consequently cannot have foreknowledge

Same mindset, different conclusions

ying and yang, opposite but part of the same whole

Originally Posted by victoryword

I think you are confusing open theism with the doctrine under discussion. The doctrine under discussion (God "punishing" by removing His protection) is believed by some open theists and rejected by others. It is believed by some who embrace exhaustive foreknowledge and rejected by others who believe in exhaustive foreknowledge. Example: the majority WoF believes most of what I teach and very, very few of them, if any of them at all, reject exhaustive foreknowledge.

No, I'm not confusing that. I was pointing out that the idea that God is "vindicated" because he is being (according to you, without exceptions) permissive in his judgments is similar to the Calvinist idea called "single predestination" where God "passes by" the non-elect which somehow vindicates him from singling them out for hell. Both ideas sound somewhat pleasing in an emotional sense but they don't alter the facts involved.

Please show me where Word of Faith teaches that Satan (with God's permission) torments himself in the lake of fire.

Originally Posted by Colonel

Please show me where Word of Faith teaches that Satan (with God's permission) torments himself in the lake of fire.

Even if God had managed to make Satan do that it still wouldn't work. The reason why is that Satan is totally evil and therefore totally perverted. He's a sadomasochist and takes as much pleasure in being tormented as he takes in tormenting others. Where things like pain and sickness affect human beings that want something better it doesn't matter to an absolute sadomasochist. But the pure, holy fire coming from the presence of God affects a devil, including Satan himself. Only such a punishment handed out directly by God himself could affect Satan and that is what he currently dreads, the fact that he has been conquered by Jesus and will therefore share in God's wrath on the sinners and on everything that is unholy. Unholiness does not and can not take pleasure in being exposed to holy wrath.

Originally Posted by Colonel

...Satan is totally evil and therefore totally perverted. He's a sadomasochist and takes as much pleasure in being tormented as he takes in tormenting others...

That's a new one to me, don't think I've ever heard that before. Got scripture?

Originally Posted by krystian

That's a new one to me, don't think I've ever heard that before. Got scripture?

This is a very fundamental issue.

1 John 3:8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

The devil is the author of sin so whatever sin you can find a human being committing, the devil is the author of it and his heart is full of it. He's a fallen angel and angels aren't that different to human beings at the heart level even though their faculties may be somewhat different. Angels are made to display the fullness of God just as human beings are made to and they can pervert themselves accordingly, just as we can.

Earthly/sensous and demonic wisdom are connected :

James 3:14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.
15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.
16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there

John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and the desireS of your father you want to do.

1 John 3:10 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

In Jewish terminology, being a child of someone without being the physical offspring implies that one is a loyal follower of and is learning that person's thoughts and ways.

It would be foolish to think that one can out-sin the devil or come up with a sin that the devil hasn't already authored. If that skews your perception of Satan or even makes it less "clean" then so be it.