Again...
Christ completely destroyed sin once for all when He became sin for us...
Then why do we still sin, Zao, at least from time to time? Sin has not been destroyed in full yet. But it certainly will be...
He completely destroyed death once for all when He rose again from the dead.
Okay, well then in the same vein as directly above, why is there still death? Why are there still folks dying? Death has not been destroyed in full yet. But it certainly will be.
This is the simultaneous now and not yet. And to what we're talking about, the Kingdom of God is here now ~ since Jesus walked the earth, as He Himself said ~ but is not here in its fullness yet. But it certainly will be.
and:
1 Corinthians 15
20 But now Christ has risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruit of those who slept
21 For since death is through man, the resurrection of the dead also is through a Man.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all will be made alive.
23 But each in his own order: Christ the first-fruit, and afterward they who are Christ's at His coming.
..."at His coming." I'm thinking the answer to this is yes, but I'll ask it anyway, really rhetorically, to make a point: Yes, "at His coming..." which is still yet future, right? I'll just consider it a given that your answer to that is yes. So Paul's talking about an absolute certainty, but then and even now still an event that has not yet occurred. I mean, there it is, "will be," in verse 22, so obviously in the future, at least then. You believe that even now it's yet future, right? But even now, we can live in that certainty. Ergo... now
and not yet.
Do you truly believe that Christ's defeat of sin and death needs to be "completed" before the resurrection of the body from the dead that has come through His resurrection can take place?
Yes, but I think not quite in the sense that you hear me saying what I'm saying. Completed more in the sense of consummation, rather than anything really yet to be done or left undone. "It is finished," He said with His last words on the cross, and I think we agree on what that means ~ everything
needed to accomplish the redemption of all creation and to achieve the final victory has been done. But yet, redemption is not yet complete (but surely will be) and the
final victory has not been won yet (but surely will be).
If so, then what you believe is not biblical.
If my context were what you seem to think it is, then no, it wouldn't be biblical. But that's the problem, it seems. See directly above.
The source of any word and of all words that oppose the Word of God is the father of (all) lies. He is only able to speak his words of deception to created human beings while God permits him to do so...
Okay, sure, I agree... but I'm not even sure how you got here...
....if the created human being does not believe the lie, then Satan has NO power to deceive that person.
And again, in the same vein as above, why then do we still sin? Satan's deceptions, which take many, many forms, tempt us to sin, and we still succumb to that temptation from time to time. So, again, I would say that Satan
does have the power to deceive that person, but something ~ Somebody (with a capital 'S'... well, a capital 'H' and a capital 'S'...) actually ~ is keeping that from happening... <
smile> We have the Holy Spirit for now, Zao, and He helps us in our temptation. This is the struggle within, which Paul describes in himself in Romans 7. But... there is therefore now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus, and nothing and no one can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8).
It makes no difference to the fact that the devil has no power to deceive except that which is given him through the faith of created human beings in his lies...
<smile> Again, what is faith, Zao? And where does it come from? Who gives it? 1st Corinthians 12:4-11 will be helpful here, particularly verse 9 there. And Hebrews 11:1 is the very definition of faith. And once we have it, we have it.
So, with that in mind, your saying "the devil has no power to deceive except that which is given him through the faith of created human beings in his lies..." If you're saying that the devil's power to deceive any one person is proportional to the degree or portion of faith that one person has been given, then I might at least somewhat agree. But still, the devil's power to deceive is what it is, and for the Christian, the Holy Spirit is at work in him or her helping him or her to overcome it. And ultimately we will, as we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus, through Him Who loved us.
...God does not ordain sin and evil...
I think you'll agree that God
uses sin and evil
sinlessly to accomplish His purposes. We can talk about what it means to ordain something, but it should be sufficient to say that to ordain something
does not mean sanctioning it; ordaining and sanctioning are two very different things. At any rate, God works all things ~
all things, Zao, which includes sin and evil ~ together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. That surely does not mean that God is guilty of sin or evil, but He can ~ and does ~ use those things to accomplish His good purposes.
Proof - hard evidence - that what you say about Satan being bound from deceiving the nations now, is...
...that members of all the nations ~ Gentiles ~ are responding to the Gospel and coming to repentance and believe in Christ Jesus. This was my initial point, and proof that we are in the midst of God's millennium, the thousand years ~ to be understood as
a fullness of time, not literally one thousand 365-day periods ~ in which He is building His Israel, bringing it to completion. The number is symbolic, intensely analogous to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 50, that the cattle on a thousand hills are the Lord's, and also to what Peter says, that to God, the great I AM, Who is in what we might call the eternal now, a thousand years is as a day, and a day as a thousand years. A slight digression, there, but God is building His Israel, bringing it to completion, and that is absolutely certain to happen. <
smile> Then will be the end of this current age,
"these last days," which is obviously present tense, in the sense of Hebrews 1:2... present in the day it was written and present now.
Grace and peace to you.