Keep in mind the concept of agency and autonomy. God is autonomous. He has freedom to choose. We have agency if we act in accordance to God's will. In other words God will delegate his autonomy to us if we obey him. However, God will not be beholden to us. If God makes a promise along the lines of "If you do this then I will do that" then God is placing control in our hands.
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LearningToLetGo
Does this mean that God is placing control over our own salvation into our hands? In other words is God allowing us to choose whether or not we are saved? Or is God saying that he will save whom he chooses? Is it both? Is it neither?
LearningToLetGo
"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren." (Romans 8:29)
LearningToLetGo
Who-boy! This is heavy. Does God choose you first? It appears so. How does this play into free-will, agency and autonomy? How does this change the meaning of saved and damned? Are we just characters in God's book? Are we just reading from a script written before time began?
LearningToLetGo
I keep coming back to the fact that God's mind is higher than ours and his ways are higher than ours. Logic won't solve this problem. In many ways it's an (apparent) paradox. Hence faith, which is a form of feeling. We must feel our way through this by faith. We must accept that God is good and he has resolved the paradox, even if we don't know how or why.
LearningToLetGo
"For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." (Romans 6:14) but also "for until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law" (Romans 5:13)
LearningToLetGo
Is this saying we can 'sin' (as in fall short of God's righteousness [e.g. being in correct relation with God]) but since we are under grace and not the law, said 'sin' (lower case) is not a 'Sin' (upper case) that jeopardizes our correct relation (righteousness) with God? It seems pretty complicated...
Okay... let's break this down. Romans 4:4 says that if God responds to works of man then God becomes a debtor to works of man. I.E. This elevates man above God, and that's a big no-no. Romans 4:5 clarifies that God grants his grace as he sees fit, placing God once more above man.