God makes us sin.

[Gospel Guy]

Not saying you are right or that you are wrong, but, what do you make of this ...

1Co 5:4-5 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Or how about this one ...

Luke 22:31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. (which reflects how God brought judgment on Israel when David was tempted to number the people, which becomes an allegory of the offering that Jesus identified himself with).

Or this one ...

2Co 12:7-9 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

The OT is rich with these analogies.

Nothing in any of these suggests that God Himself is putting evil on people... Paul simply experienced satan assigning a demon to cause trouble everywhere he ministered in an effort to stop Paul... it was what we would call today a "pain in the neck"

If I said the devil was a "pain in the neck"... years from now, someone would see that and teach from the pulpit that "yes, this brother had neck problems and God never healed him..." which one would have to have help from the devil to believe since this is nowhere near what happened. The same is true for Paul.

Paul eventually learned how to disregard satan's attacks and God's Word flowed thru his ministry like a river (see Acts 28:30,31), so much so that Paul wrote most of the New Testament.

What you have to remember is that protection in the New Testament is only found when we live IN CHRIST which is what walking in the Spirit is (see Romans 8)

God is seeking to bring people in to the Body of Christ... those that refuse and choose to live IN ADAM, are subject to the wiles of the devil... which is trouble and destruction.

 

[Ajax 777]

You haven't come to the understanding yet of the nature of temptation which is outside of God but common to man.

No, I just have no understanding of what you're playing at. Seems to me you're going around in circles and never really arriving at a destination. I'm not sure what your motive in this topic is, but it sure seems superfluous and self-centered. So I'll just say "The Lord judge between me and thee."

 

[PrayerandPeace]

God allows sin. That is a HUGE difference from making us sin. Don't confuse the two.

thank you.

 

[x141]

Nothing in any of these suggests that God Himself is putting evil on people... Paul simply experienced satan assigning a demon to cause trouble everywhere he ministered in an effort to stop Paul... it was what we would call today a "pain in the neck"

If I said the devil was a "pain in the neck"... years from now, someone would see that and teach from the pulpit that "yes, this brother had neck problems and God never healed him..." which one would have to have help from the devil to believe since this is nowhere near what happened. The same is true for Paul.

Paul eventually learned how to disregard satan's attacks and God's Word flowed thru his ministry like a river (see Acts 28:30,31), so much so that Paul wrote most of the New Testament.

What you have to remember is that protection in the New Testament is only found when we live IN CHRIST which is what walking in the Spirit is (see Romans 8)

God is seeking to bring people in to the Body of Christ... those that refuse and choose to live IN ADAM, are subject to the wiles of the devil... which is trouble and destruction.

No doubt.

Just to clarify, we told ourselves we were naked, which plays out with the coming of the law in the same manner, with the penalties or reward of obedience as opposed to disobedience, we are scattered before our enemies, or our enemies are scattered before us, also likened to the table we eat from, and our face which has to do with identity, or who your Father is. It is just another form of the garden scenario.

 

[x141]

No, I just have no understanding of what you're playing at. Seems to me you're going around in circles and never really arriving at a destination. I'm not sure what your motive in this topic is, but it sure seems superfluous and self-centered. So I'll just say "The Lord judge between me and thee."

That describes the wilderness journey well.

The same as God's in the wilderness.

This will be the third time he has.

 

[Ajax 777]

God does not make men to sin. Men have made that choice for themselves.

 

[Ajax 777]

And I do not mean to exalt myself in this discussion in any way. X141, while I do not agree with your hermeneutical methodology, are we not both brothers of the same Father? We should be building each other up in the faith, not striving with each other and lording ourselves over one another! Let us both agree to disagree if need be, but love one another as brethren are meant to.

May God bless you in all you do for Him. If either of us be in error, may He correct us according to His Truth, and may we not harden our hearts at the sound of His voice.

 

[x141]

I am in no way, shape, or form offended, and honestly, don't care whether someone agrees with me or if they don't agree with me, or even what they think of me for the matter. It's not about me.

If you take nothing from what I have wrote, understand this one thing about the nature of temptation. It is an image (even what I wrote) that things become to us (in our mind) from without, that seed our mind gendering thoughts that give life to the this image (which becomes confusion to us first before it becomes a to uss a light called out of darkness), which in turn snares our soul to the revealing of our nakedness, which is not out of order.

We only eat freely of any tree of the garden when we don't eat of our own, and keep the commandment which equates to the feast of Passover, as much a Jesus' soul did as the Lamb of God.

 

[Messy]

I believe satan caused and invented sin and God didn't even know Lucifer would sin.
Just posted this somewhere else too:

Job 38:1
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
earth: erets Hebrew Lexicon :: H776 (KJV)
Revelations 13:8
All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
world can also mean: the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human family
Greek Lexicon :: G2889 (NKJV)

A foundation usually requires a certain amount of destruction in the preparation of the ground, and then the materials that make up the foundation are laid down. The Greek noun ('katabole') for 'foundation' suggests something 'cast down' (cf. 2 Cor 4:9, Rev 12:10), because the related verb is made up of the word for 'throw' or 'cast' and a preposition that often conveys the sense of 'down'. Hence the meaning of the noun is that of a foundation which is laid down (cf. Hebs 6:1).

So if He was slain from when God recreated the earth and created man, that was because God knew they would sin and He had a salvation plan.
If He was slain from the foundations of the earth, it would imply God knew Lucifer would sin, but if it was when He created Adam (the recreation, I believe the GAP theory, that before this world there were others which fell in sin when Lucifer sinned), I doubt if He knew Lucifer would sin at all.
How could He create Adam in His Image, without knowing good or evil, innocent? God is Light, He never sins, how could He know (know = to know by experience) good and evil or even think about the possibility of darkness? He's Light and in Him is no darkness at all.
What I believe is He only got to know it when Lucifer sinned, because then He had experience with evil, someone who was good and His Lightbearer and worshipleader sinned against Him.
I see someone else believes the same:
Why did God create Satan? | Understanding the Books of the Bible

 

[RDKirk]

I believe satan caused and invented sin and God didn't even know Lucifer would sin.

God is omniscient. He always knew what Lucifer would do. Being eternal, He was seeing what Lucifer would do before He created Lucifer.

 

[JimB]

God is omniscient. He always knew what Lucifer would do. Being eternal, He was seeing what Lucifer would do before He created Lucifer.

Yes, I believe this. But I also believe that when he created Lucifer and humans he created us with freewill. He didn’t cause us to sin … we chose to sin. But he gave us freewill, not that we would sin, but that we could love because without freewill to we could do neither. C.S. Lewis discussed this when he wrote ...

"Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on. If God thinks this state of war in the universe is a price worth paying for free will--that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings--then we make take it it is worth paying." (Mere Christianity)
​

 

[RDKirk]

Yes, I believe this. But I also believe that when he created Lucifer and humans he created us with freewill. He didn’t cause us to sin … we chose to sin. But he gave us freewill, not that we would sin, but that we could love because without freewill to we could do neither. C.S. Lewis discussed this when he wrote

I'm not sure Satan has free will. Actually, scripture denies "free will" as it is discussed by secular philosophers. What we have is a single choice to be slaves to our flesh or slaves to Christ--and no philosopher would call a single choice of which master one serves to be "free will." That's "pretty darned limited will."

Moreover, because God established a plan of reconciliation before He even created anything, clearly the Fall itself--and Satan's role in it--was part of God's plan.

A major difference between Satan and man is that God did provide for man a plan of reconciliation--which does not exist for Satan. God created hell for Satan--there doesn't appear to have been any plan for Satan to reconcile himself to God.

We can say, of course, that God knew Satan would never accept reconciliation...but God also knows the men who will not accept reconciliation, yet scripture does not say hell was made for "Satan and men" only for Satan.

I think Satan was created precisely and deliberately for the purpose he has served, an "ignoble vessel" (2 Timothy 2) "fitted for destruction" (Romans 9). Is that a problem? Romans 9 tells us it is not.

Romans says something else very interesting:

I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.

I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. -- Romans 7

This says an obvious thing very clearly: Without a law there would not be sin. If God had never said, "Don't eat of the tree," then it would not have been a sin to eat of the tree.

It's not about the tree--the tree was not toxic, because scripture had already told us everything was good to eat. God could have commanded anything--"Do not pat your head while rubbing your stomach"--and the result would have been the same. It was about obeying the commandment...but if there had never been a commandment, there would not have been anything to break.

Paul tells us something else, though, that is less obvious but shatteringly significant. The commandment not only makes sin possible...the commandment makes sin inevitable.

And if it wasn't inevitable just from the command...God created Lucifer as a catalyst.

Unless, of course, we ascribe to a God who is kinda stupid and kinda dumb and kinda weak...who built a nice little sand castle that got kicked over by that mean ol' Debbil, and now God has to fix it up again. But I don't believe in that kind of God. I believe in a God whose plan is unfolding just as He intended from before creation.

 

[JimB]

Sure, Satan has freewill and so did the angels who chose to join him in his rebellion against God. Freewill is what makes angels and humans higher animals (beings) than the rest of God’s creatures. Feral animals operate on instinct; humans/angels on freewill.

 

[RDKirk]

Sure, Satan has freewill and so did the angels who chose to join him in his rebellion against God. Freewill is what makes angels and humans higher animals (beings) than the rest of God’s creatures. Feral animals operate on instinct; humans/angels on freewill.

Then why did God not provide a path to redemption for Satan?

“What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” (Mark 1:24).

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.
-- James 2:19

Well, if the demons knew all that and were terrified of their fate, would not some percentage of them repent--if they had the same freedom as man to choose obedience or disobedience? But not one repents. Not one. Can they?

 

[JimB]

Then why did God not provide a path to redemption for Satan?

I'll ask him when I get to heaven.

 

[Gospel Guy]

God established a plan of reconciliation before He even created anything, clearly the Fall itself--and Satan's role in it--was part of God's plan.

No, it's not part of God's plan... just because He knows what is going to happen in advance, does not mean it's His will for it to happen or that He has a hand in making it happen... that would make God a sinner!

James 1:13-15
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man:
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Then when lust hath conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.


God is not testing or tempting man with evil, otherwise what the Holy Spirit says in James is a lie!

 

[Messy]

Unless, of course, we ascribe to a God who is kinda stupid and kinda dumb and kinda weak...who built a nice little sand castle that got kicked over by that mean ol' Debbil, and now God has to fix it up again. But I don't believe in that kind of God. I believe in a God whose plan is unfolding just as He intended from before creation.

I don't know if He knew. Actually I don't care either. If He didn't He wasn't stupid, but like Adam: innocent, naive. I'm naive, so I believe God was too.

 

[x141]

I don't know if He knew. Actually I don't care either. If He didn't He wasn't stupid, but like Adam: innocent, naive. I'm naive, so I believe God was too.

You are both right and wrong at the same time, God is not naive, you are the God that is naive.

 

[Gospel Guy]

Then why did God not provide a path to redemption for satan?

Jesus said hell was created for satan and his angels and that the punishment would be eternal... did Jesus lie about this?

Or, is it satan lying, claiming he's gonna get saved and start living right?

 

[Messy]

You are both right and wrong at the same time, God is not naive, you are the God that is naive.

Yeah you must watch out you don't create Him in your own image. He's not naive now, but I wonder how Someone that created a naive innocent Adam, all Light, only having good thoughts all the time could even think of the possibility of darkness, Lucifer sinning. If there was a preAdamic world and they all turned into demons, hellbound forever, what's the use of that? He had no plan to redeem them. With man He knew what would happen, because then He knew evil and He had a salvation plan.
I don't recall it's anywhere in the Bible that He foreknew it, the only tekst is from the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, which can also mean mankind.