There's a Psalm about that I think, isn't there? Something like, "You're mistake was thinking I am altogether like you"?
Truly something we need to keep in mind. We don't set the intellectual pace with God.
Much love!
One of the Best Explanations I've seen on Satan's sin.
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Truly something we need to keep in mind. We don't set the intellectual pace with God.
Much love!
But to the wicked God says:
What have you to declare My statutes,
Or take My covenant in your mouth,
Seeing you hate instruction
And cast My words behind you?
When you saw a thief, you consented with him,
And have been a partaker with adulterers.
You give your mouth to evil,
And your tongue frames deceit.
You sit, speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother’s son.
These you have done, and I kept silent;
You thought that I was altogether like you;
I will rebuke you,
And set in order before your eyes.
Now consider this, you who forget God,
Lest I tear in pieces,
And none to deliver:
Whoever offers praise glorifies Me;
And to him who orders conduct
I will show the salvation of God.
(Psalm 50:16-21)
What have you to declare My statutes,
Or take My covenant in your mouth,
Seeing you hate instruction
And cast My words behind you?
When you saw a thief, you consented with him,
And have been a partaker with adulterers.
You give your mouth to evil,
And your tongue frames deceit.
You sit, speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother’s son.
These you have done, and I kept silent;
You thought that I was altogether like you;
I will rebuke you,
And set in order before your eyes.
Now consider this, you who forget God,
Lest I tear in pieces,
And none to deliver:
Whoever offers praise glorifies Me;
And to him who orders conduct
I will show the salvation of God.
(Psalm 50:16-21)
Pythagorean12
Active Member
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
And of course. Paul said everything that exists is both of and from God.
All the many prophetic passages in the bible are there to tell us God predestined everything prophesied.
Does that make him a monster?
Or was that a question more apt to be asked in Genesis. Or all those passages in all those OT books that talk about God killing or sending death to those whom he chose to kill for his own reasons?
When the fallen world is a creation of God.
When there was sin in heaven before this world existed.
And then in the NT we read of a kind and redemptive minded God.
And Jesus, who was the word, God, made flesh, portrayed a different attitude entirely. Even changing his former OT law regarding the reciprocal justice described in Exodus 21, Leviticus 24, Deuteronomy 29, Wikipedia.
Eye for an eye tooth for a tooth or, Ain takhat ain
Which then leads some to consider in that new light the reference to the Elohim in the OT.
A term derived from the Sumerian culture and that pertained to multiple nature deities. Transformed into a singular reference after the former Babylon captivity of the then polytheist Hebrews, or Jews.
Either way, makes for an interesting discussion or debate I think.
Does he punish them?Does God just put people on the earth whom he knows are going to fail, just so that he can punish them?
Was it by one man that sin entered the world?
How did sin enter but that
God put a tree in Eden that was the one and only thing off limits to the first people he created?
If Eden was to be a garden paradise by God's will, why would he put a tree there that was forbidden?
When, if God intended Eden to be paradise and Adam and Eve to live there eternally he wouldn't have installed a gateway to eviction and separation from him.
Paul tells us that where there is no law there is no sin. Which was created by the creator first and in the beginning ? God's law.Or sin?
And don't forget, long before Eden Lucifer sinned in heaven.
That's your question. Presuming you've read the OT what is your answer?
This is I think an interesting undertaking.
Look to find in the OT how many people God killed. Directly or through others acting on his command.
Then look to see how many people we're told were killed by Satan.
And they're still suffering the consequences. Look at a map of the middle east. Compare the land area of Israel that is the land God promised them.Proverbs 16:9...
"A man may plot out his course in his heart,
But it is Jehovah who directs his steps."
If this is speaking about a believer (and all OT scripture is directed to Israel) then all that tells us is that in spite of what "a man" plans to do, it is Jehovah who directs his steps.....think about it. For a Jew, having God direct his steps was the way to stay in his favor. No one knew the consequences of not doing that more than they did....
Gigantic consequences there.
If we think about and act on the direction we want our lives to go and the bible tells us that while we do that it is God who puts us where he wants us, what else is there but to accept but that God, whose word tells us he preplans and executes his will amid his creation, prophecy, is to be believed in that Proverbs passage?
Who has power over creation? The clay? Or the potter?
Brakelite
Well-Known Member
Man was made in the image of God. That meant that man needed to have a choice. Without that tree to choose to reject in favor of God's instructions, A&E would not know that love is a choice. God wanted them to know and experience love. Loving someone is a choice. If everything was good and held no threat of rejection, then love would have been mechanical. Who doesn't love when all is well and there's no test? Jesus said to love our enemies. That's the test for us. In the garden Eve had it easy. She walked with God. Spoke face to face with His Son. In an entire forest there was but one tree to reject. Today, the choices are harder. There is now only one way. One tree to choose and reject all the others. Everyone is a potential enemy and them we must love. But it's still a choice. We would never have known that choice without that one tree.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
I have no problem whatsoever acknowledging Jesus as the "Son of God"...it is after all, what he called himself.(John 10:34-36)
But never once did he claim to BE THE God. (ho theos)
So now we need to define "deity".
Strongs defines "deity" as..."'ēl" in Hebrew which means.....
- god, god-like one, mighty one
- mighty men, men of rank, mighty heroes
- angels
- god, false god, (demons, imaginations)
- God, the one true God, Jehovah"
That is "theos", which means....
"a god or goddess, a general name of deities or divinities.
- spoken of the only and true God
- refers to the things of God
- his counsels, interests, things due to him
- refers to the things of God
- whatever can in any respect be likened unto God, or resemble him in any way
- God's representative or viceregent
- of magistrates and judges."
So where does Jesus fit into this definition? He never once claimed to be God, nor did he ever say that he was equal to his God and Father. He is actually called a servant.
So naturally, if Jesus is a product of the one true Deity, then, according to the above mentioned source, he must be a divine personage.....correctly called "theos" but not "ho theos".
Jesus is the "Son of God" and rightly deemed "a god" by the Hebrew and Greek definitions.....just not in English because pro-trinitarians want Jesus to be "ho theos"...when he never was.(John 1:18)
That might be the way you want to spin it, but does that idea hold up under scrutiny?
If it was his own life.....then why did God the Father have to "send" him? (John 17:3)
The "authority" that Jesus has in any respect, is God-given. He has no authority to act on his own, but does all things in imitation of his Father. (John 5:19)
God made him King...he did not crown himself. (Daniel 7:13-14)
God made him Messiah by orchestrating his birth from the line of Abraham's descendants. (Genesis 22:16-18)
Before his departure from this earth God gave Jesus authority over everything in heaven and on earth. (Matthew 28:18)
If Jesus was God, then all those scriptures make no sense. These are two entirely separate individuals who are not equal and not co-eternal.
Hebrews 2:17-18...of the man Jesus....
"Consequently, he had to become like his “brothers” in all respects, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God, in order to offer a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the people. 18 Since he himself has suffered when being put to the test, he is able to come to the aid of those who are being put to the test."
Since when is a "father" spoken of as a "brother" to his own "sons"?
How can Jesus serve as a High Priest to his God, if he IS God?
An immortal God cannot die.
There you have the logic of the scriptures fighting with the doctrines of men.
Pythagorean12
Active Member
The first standout problem with that scenario is, after God created everything including people in those six days, he looked at it all and judged it Good.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
In the Bible, there were very few humans whom God foreordained to carry out certain roles within his stated purpose, as I have mentioned before.....but that doesn't mean that God chooses to know all about every human who has ever lived.
I heard it illustrated this way....."a locksmith knows how to unlock every lock....but that doesn't mean that he has to unlock every lock, just to prove he can".....I can see why God has just allowed humans to multiply....and what will be will be, as free willed creatures. They would soon show him what kind of people they were and he would judge them by the choices they made, not by any pre-destination.
Prophesy only pertains to the doing of God's will as it fits within his purpose to bring his Christ into the world and to redeem mankind and then to apply the rule of his Kingdom to bring us back all that we lost in Eden. God has predetermined only what pertains to those things...nothing else.
No, God can never be a monster. He can be God though and as the Creator is free to determine what his own justice demands.
The fallen world is not God's creation...it is satan's creation with the help of his willing minions, both angelic and human.
When pagan nations attacked his people, God responded as those nations would have done themselves, to demonstrate his superiority over their useless gods. All those nations would come to against Israel in the name of their gods, but Israel came to her own defense in the name of Yahweh, who defeated those enemies even when his people were outnumbered. He was no monster.....but was simply god-shaming those enemies and giving them a taste of their own medicine.
Whoa....where did that come from? Reference please....
He was the same God because he does not change.....we just see different sides to his personality. And redemption was always the reason to send his Messiah.
Since I see nowhere in scripture where Jesus ever claimed to be God, you will have to qualify that statement for me...
Hebrews 1:3-5
"And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become so much better than the angels, to the extent that He has inherited a more excellent name than they." (NASB)
Jesus was the "exact representation" of his God and Father, so how could he present a different God?
A "representation" is not the original......and how does God become better than the angels....or inherit a name more excellent than theirs?
That aligns with no scripture that I know....
Well I guess if one is going to debate scripture, it helps to stick to scripture....
Because free will is the right to choose, even if its the wrong choice you still have the God-given right to make it. But no choice is free from consequences. That tree was God's property. Out of all the trees in the garden, that was the only one he claimed as his own. He had the right to expect his intelligent creatures to respect what belonged to him. What they did was steal from God....something so serious in its implications, that it carried the death penalty. That tree represented God's sovereign right to set the limits of human freedom. To challenge God's Sovereignty was the crime, not just the eating of a piece of fruit.
That would have been a very short term arrangement. What Jehovah did was to include all of his intelligent creation to experience an object lesson, in the benefits of obedience, verses the detriment of disobedience.
The first rebel was not human, but roped the humans in to his desire for worship....so rebellion was introduced in both realm and the only way to prove the rightfulness of obedience to Jehovah as our Sovereign, was to hand the world over to the rulership of the "god' they had chosen to obey....and the rest, as they say...is history.
There was a law and they broke it. The penalty was death, which they eventually suffered.
Satan is never called "Lucifer" in the Bible, and there is not a word about satan sinning in heaven before Eden.
Yes I have studied it quite extensively....
Out of those two, who alone has the right over life and death?
Out of those two, who alone can restore any lost life that he chooses?
Out of those two, who alone has justice as the basis for his actions.
When God was warning the people that a flood was coming in Noah's day, was it God's fault that they all perished? Didn't Noah preach to them the whole time that he was constructing the ark? Was there room on board for more humans if necessary? It was a huge structure and the whole top floor was for the humans to reside. How many people can you fit onto modern cruise ships? Are we seeing the same things all over again with Christ's imminent return? (Matthew 24:37-39)
Well, you see, I do not believe in predestination....I believe that God has foreordained things in accord with his purpose, but not the details about how a person will, or will not respond to the Bible's message. That is up to the individuals' free choice.
The Promised Land was pictorial of a much larger part of God's plan for this earth...in his original purpose, mankind were the "fill the earth", not just the garden, so the whole world will become like the garden of Eden, when God's purpose is complete. No heaven or hell...just unending life on beautiful planet Earth.
At the moment it is the clay, still vainly clinging to the devil's world to get it it out of trouble.....but the Potter has had his great plans all along. Nothing has changed his purpose for mankind or the earth.....because what he starts, he finishes....(Isaiah 55:11)
That is because at the end of the sixth day it was...."very good". He was well pleased with his accomplishments and ready to allow 'nature to take its course' so to speak.
Sin did not enter the picture until the beginning of the seventh day......but that is what the seventh day was set aside for.
These were not 24 hour "days", but extended periods of time that may have been thousands or even millions of years long. The Hebrew word translated "day" (yohm) has a range of meanings. It doesn't just mean a 24 hour period. So creation was not the wave of a magician's wand...it was the deliberate crafting of creation over eons of time. The Creator is not constricted by time at all.
There is no declaration (like all the other days) to suggest that the seventh day has ended. I believe that we are still in the seventh day and at the conclusion of it, when God's purpose is back on track, God will again be able to say that "everything is very good".
Pythagorean12
Active Member
That is a huge protracted reply that character limits won't allow me to address and keep it in proper context so to have my response make sense.
And really I think that is just fine.
You have arrived at your own system of belief that is in part extra-biblical & un- biblical at the same time.
Making for what would be an enormous undertaking on my part to respond in order to correct error. While at the same time being fully aware that would be a presumptuous supposition on my part.
Having said that, I wish you well with how you see God.
i'm stuck on, why does 'in the image of God' have to mean man necessarily has to have a freedom to hate his Creator?
this, to me, is a very humanist-centric view. to me, this needs to be qualified & supported, not just stated. it is an ubiquitous view nowadays, but i have never once seen a justification for it: it is simply stated ((as you have done)) that love without volitional choice is no love at all.
but let me tell you: i love a woman; i have loved her for my whole life, since the moment we saw each other, and she has loved me also from the same moment. it is beyond out choice - it is as though we were created to love one another. it is beyond circumstance and beyond our actual choices and how our lives turned out. we love one another, even after treating each other terribly over the years. it is unavoidable despite our individual volition.
and let me tell you: i have a son, and i love him. similarly, that is not a choice on my part; it is ingrained. i cannot help but do so - even if i try not to, i do. he has despised me - i love him still. i have neglected him - he loves me still. think about it: however many grievances you have, do you not love your mother? is that really your conscious choice? Or does something inexplicable & innate override your will, bend your will, conform your will to its truth?
so having the experience of loving a woman, and loving a child, i find myself utterly at odds with this common explanation of 'unless you volunteer to love someone without any hint of coercion or prodding it isn't really love' -- to me ((freely admitting my personal idiocy)) that smacks of humanism. of the idea that the freedom of human beings is the true & only sovereign over all theology.
i hope this makes sense: i'm not at odds with you, but you take a position that to me seems absolutely incompatible with my objective experience.
i agree.
@Aunty Jane you are so far off i don't know where to begin, i know you won't listen ((as demonstrated in this thread)) no matter where i begin, and it would take so much effort to try to correct you -- so much probably wasted effort -- that i have hardly the strength to even bother replying.
however unlike Mssr Pythagorean, i do not think that's 'just fine' -- not at all. the truth is important. & not that i think Mssr. P. doesn't view the truth as important, but that i think in saying what he said, he places fellowship over truth in a dangerous way: the danger being to you, Mmse. Jane. you are, in my impression, fraught with error and vanity, which vanity supersedes my ability to correct you error. you are simply not listening to @marks & myself, when we are trying to instruct you, and this hinderance isn't something that can be corrected by more persuasive or apt teaching.
with deference to Mssr Pythagorean, i am remembering in my heart the proverb, rebuke a wise one, and they will love you: rebuke a fool and they will hate you. i have come to a point in my life that i would rather offend someone with the truth than maintain a friendship or a decorum by keeping silent, even while i recognize that loving speech should be gentle.
Mmse Jane, you deny the divinity of Christ, and to me, this means you aren't even Christian. you are a believer in a vain, humanist bastardization of the true way, and one day you will learn the truth of that, not by our efforts but by the power of God who is our only Savior, when He reveals Himself to all, in judgement. you will ((should)) forgive me, but i am growing old, and as such also growing very tired of tiptoeing around heresy for fear of offending the heretic. my wish for you is that you go back through this thread and read carefully what we have been trying to show you. you set those things aside and centered on a puffy little partial recognition of some of the things modern liberal Judaic theology has spoken about -- to the exclusion of the full story even of those modern flawed views -- as though it was any kind of counterpoint. i think marks will agree, that instead of actually addressing the issue at hand ((to wit: the person of Christ)) you sidestepped it, loving argument above life ((because knowing Him is life)).
to that point -- let me give you a link to a lengthy dissertation, that you really ought to read. you ought to read it because (1) it directly addresses your irrelevant diversion and (2) you come across to me as the sort of person who has 'just enough knowledge to be dangerous' -- i.e. you know a few things, but instead of being humbled by knowledge you are puffed up by it, and this is a sure sign that the breadth of your knowing is small -- in the same way that an undergraduate physics major thinks he can explain the entire universe and becomes full of foolish pride, thinking there can be no god, as contrasted with a phd student in the same field who has learned enough to recognize that the universe is humanly inexplicable, and there must be a God.
so read this:
Exodus 3:14 | A website dedicated to the interpretation of Exodus 3:14
and i am not saying i agree with everything in that link, but i am saying that look, you do not know anywhere near as much about Exodus 3:14 ((I AM / Ego Eimi)) as you are trying to portray yourself as knowing, and that's evident to anyone who has thought about the topic or delved much into the history of its interpretation. you said at one point, 'do some research' -- well, do so yourself. what you're going to find out is the same thing i've ((we've)) told you from the beginning: Christ is God, He says so Himself, and you are going to bow before Him, even if it means breaking your knees to do so. the truth of the matter is that the scripture as an whole allows no other consistent interpretation.
i am writing out of concern for your knees, that they not be broken.
Deus vult
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