So you know the mind of God and what He is doing with His creation?
I know that God is love; that he is also light, truth, pure, holy, merciful etc etc.
I don't believe that someone who hates sin, could himself have created sin. I don't believe that someone who is perfectly holy could plan and create evil, wickedness, pain and suffering.
Originally Posted by Hismessenger
I said to you it matters not what you think, the word of God is true or do you not believe his word being strong in yourself?
I believe his word, you clearly don't believe, or accept, my explanation - which was not made up from my own head, it's all Scriptural.
Do you believe the Scripture which says that good trees cannot bear bad fruit, nor bad tees, good? (Matt 7:16-20).
This is true of God too. He created us, loves us, sent his Son to die for us, has made us his children and given us every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph 1:3). We did not deserve this, he did not have to do it - it was his pleasure and will to do it. How could a God who delights to bless and save fallible human beings like us, have possibly created the evil and sin that would only be forgiven and overcome by the death of his Son?
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Yes he created them for him, but everything that God created was good. He is perfect, how could he do otherwise?
It was not that he deliberately made anything evil, but he gave us, and obviously the angels too, freewill. Lucifer chose to try to overthrow God. Lucifer corrupted the other angels and some of the principalities and powers. They were created good, they became corrupt.
If God created evil - then he is not good, and not love. Which means the Scriptures are wrong because they say he is. If God is not who he has revealed himself to be, how do we know if we can trust him to help, save, guide and heal us and do what he has said he will do?
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
You miss the point. Evil is a created thing which only has to do with the plan of God. It is not a part of God other than a direction he has set forth for some things in His creation.
Yes everything that He created was good, good for the purpose he created it for. Purpose came first, then the creation to fulfill that purpose. How do we know we can trust Him you ask, because he is the author of your faith and when you submit to His
will, then trust becomes a non factor. We walk by faith trusting that He who created us knows what he is doing even when we perceive it to be something that we understand is evil, it still has purpose FOR HIM.
The other part which you fail to see is that If God didn't create it as part of His plan, then He didn't know everything which we know to be impossible for He has and never will be caught unawares of what Is happening in His creation since He planned it all, and I do mean all. Tell me what there is that isn't encompassed in the word all.
The other part which you fail to see is that If God didn't create it as part of His plan, then He didn't know everything
How so? God did not create evil, but he gave both men and angels the ability to choose to reject him if they wished. They did wish; they chose to disobey God's command and go their own way, so sin entered the world. God didn't create the sin or disobedience, but he did make it possible for it to happen.
My own belief is that God created man and gave us the choice to reject him. He knew what would happen - as you say, he knows everything, nothing takes him by surprise. He knew that the fall would happen before it did. Peter later referred to Jesus as the lamb who was chosen before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20). God knew even before he created Adam and Eve that they would disobey him and mankind would need a Saviour, so he appointed one.
When the serpent was cursed by God after the fall, God said that it would be the seed of a woman that would bruise his head. This was fulfilled on the cross when Jesus overcame sin and death and broke the power of the devil.
It's difficult to say with certainty why God did this - why create when he knew the rejection and heartache that he would receive? I think it was because God wanted people who would choose to love, worship and serve him, rather than puppets who served him perfectly and said "praise the Lord" when you pulled a string because they had no other choice. Which of us wants someone to love us only because they have been made/bribed to do so?
So I still don't believe that God created evil. But he made the decision to let us choose. And he must have given the angels that same choice too; otherwise Lucifer, who was an angel of light, God's messenger and created good, could not possibly have wanted God's power for himself and tried to overthrow him.
That's not eay to understand, and may be wrong - I wasn't there and don't claim to know everything. But I cannot believe that God who created everything and declared it to be good, sitting back and saying, "well, that's going to be a bit boring now. I think I had better create evil and suffering to make it a bit more interesting. In a few years time I can flood the earth and start again, because the evil will have got out of control, and in a couple of thousand years I'll go down to earth myself and die a painful death, to put an end to the evil and death which I decided to create."
Apart from the fact that a holy God who cannot tolerate sin and required sinners to make sacrifices before they could approach him, could not have created something which is so opposite, alien and intolerable to him; he'd have had to have been a masochist to do all that, not a God of love.
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
God knew even before he created Adam and Eve that they would disobey him and mankind would need a Saviour, so he appointed one.
Yes God knew for He had already ordained Christ to bring glory to himself through the salvation of man. Can you not fathom this reality. They had to fall as part of His purpose for Christ. They didn't choose to fall, they fell by design or else there would have been no need for Christ. They had to choose the way they did because God had ordained it to be for His purpose.
Yes God knew for He had already ordained Christ to bring glory to himself through the salvation of man.
God wouldn't have appointed a Saviour if he hadn't known that we would need one.
He could have created us all as puppets - given us no choice at all about loving him. He gave us free will. Free will means a free choice. If God had somehow engineered that choice so that we would sin and need rescuing, that would not be a free choice. He might as well have created us puppets and saved himself a lot of bother.
Originally Posted by Hismessenger
They had to fall as part of His purpose for Christ. They didn't choose to fall, they fell by design or else there would have been no need for Christ. They had to choose the way they did because God had ordained it to be for His purpose.
That makes it sound as though God appointed Jesus to die on the cross for our salvation, then created mankind and said, "I already have a Saviour lined up, so they have to sin. I'd better make sure they do sin, because otherwise I won't get to cause myself lots of pain and hassle or send my dear Son to earth to be rejected."
That's ridiculous. If God appointed Jesus as a Saviour, he did so because he was well aware that we would sin and therefore need one. He gave us free will. WE might have said, "oh well there was a chance then that Adam mightn't have sinned". There WAS; that's what freewill means - a choice - but God still knew what choice we would make.
If Adam hadn't sinned after all, and God had already appointed a Saviour, that would have meant either that God didn't know everything; he'd worried about something that was never going to happen, or that one of Adam's descendents would have sinned.
Unless you're trying to say that the only way we could really know God's love and goodness was to be made to experience pain, suffering, spiritual death, fear, confusion, and then when Jesus came along to rescue us from this, we'd all be extremely grateful to God for saving us from the sin which he had decided in the first place that we had to commit, so he could show how great he was by rescuing us.
Sounds like a Muchaussan's-by-proxy type of God.
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
If Adam hadn't sinned after all, and God had already appointed a Saviour, that would have meant either that God didn't know everything; he'd worried about something that was never going to happen, or that one of Adam's descendents would have sinned.
Thats the point exactly. Christ was chosen for His purpose before mankind was even created to have what you believe is free will. We had no will when He was ordained so God had planned for the fall and then salvation for Him,His Glory.
Just as you said, we would be grateful for this salvation and give God all the glory for it. This is what the word says that God desires. He said that He would not share His glory with anyone.
Thats the point exactly. Christ was chosen for His purpose before mankind was even created to have what you believe is free will. We had no will when He was ordained so God had planned for the fall and then salvation for Him,His Glory.
Just as you said, we would be grateful for this salvation and give God all the glory for it. This is what the word says that God desires. He said that He would not share His glory with anyone.
God had glory before the world began, he had angels who served him and had glory, honour, majesty etc. God had glory after he created Adam and Eve and said that it was good. Adam and Eve existed for a while in a world with no sin. It's true that Lucifer had rebelled against God and was on the earth, but Adam and Eve had not disobeyed their creator. God had glory then. He gave Adam the task of naming the animals and looking after the earth. Adam and Eve had a perfect relationship with their creator.
God did not have to MAKE them sin so that they would appreciate him, they did that already. God did not MAKE people sin so that he could get praise for rescuing them - that would be almost sick. What about in the days of Noah when sin was so wisespread that God said he was sorry he had ever made mankind and sent the flood? What chance did those people have to be grateful for God's salvation - they died? And it wasn't all for Noah's benefit either, he was already a God fearing man.
Why, throughout the entire OT, would God have been angry with people for not keeping his covenant and sinning, if he knew that he had made them to sin? That they had no choice and the existence of sin in the world was all his fault? These people had only done what God made them do - so why would he have sent plagues, wars and allowed some of them to die.
Why would Jesus have come to rescue us from what God had created us to do and MADE us do?
(To be continued after church.)
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
The angels were created as part of the creation just like heaven and hell. Yes God had Glory but we are created to worship him and to praise Him to his glory .
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