Comments on The Rebel God: an angry God?

"Say Sharky I've been meaning to mention I've been...

2007-01-17T20:38:00.000-08:00

"Say Sharky I've been meaning to mention I've been reading the book _Seventy Times Seven"

thanks for the tip, I'll check that out. My all time favorite books on forgivness are "A Grace Disguised" and "Les Miserables"

Anon, I'm not sure where you are getting the idea...

2007-01-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

Anon,

I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that I think God "cannot punish". If you read the post again you will see that I said "we all are subject to God's wrath".

You equate God punishing with "caring about evil", but do you want God to punish you for your evil?

I'm happy that God does not simply care about sin, but cares for sinners and thus goes beyond the consequences of breaking God's law (punishment) and breaks in with saving grace to take us out of the trap of our sin.

But what do the words 'grace' and mercy even mean ...

2007-01-17T19:27:00.000-08:00

But what do the words 'grace' and mercy even mean if it is impossible for God to punish, to even want to punish? If it is inconcievable for you that God can even want to punish evil then what God is showing is not mercy, is not even unmerited favour, its an inability to care about evil,

thanks for this post...really helps to clear some ...

2007-01-16T04:12:00.000-08:00

thanks for this post...really helps to clear some things up for me.

also, it's great to see that you are in the blogosphere!

I think I would grant the point that God is angry ...

2007-01-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

I think I would grant the point that God is angry about sin, probably even more angry than we are. How else would we understand the account of the flood, or the Last Judgment?

The part that's dangerous is that everyone always seeks an excuse to justify their own sin; and when we begin to use God to justify our hatred we're less than an inch from becoming the demon masquerading as an angel of light.

I don't think we "get" mercy until we really understand what you have said a few times: we ourselves are the evildoers, we ourselves are on the wrong side of things. If justice were the whole of the story, we ourselves would be beyond hope.

Justice is right. Redemption is better.

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Say Sharky I've been meaning to mention I've been reading the book _Seventy Times Seven_ (author's last name is Arnold). If you haven't seen that yet I'd suggest looking through it. It has a lot of good material along your lines of interest for forgiveness and the creative application of love to a broken world.