And it glorifies God when God saves them from the captivity that they were once blinded by.
You have an inquiring mind, which is definitely evident given how almost all of your posts are questions seeking answers. Unfortunately, a finite/temporary mind cannot contain or comprehend all that the infinite/eternal God is, and must eventually rely on belief and trust, which would be the roots of faith. This is why when someone says they "know God" it must always be they have a trusting belief that they are acquainted with Him according to what He has shared with that person about Himself; and he or she is trusting that what they were told is true. It cannot ever mean they are omniscient or good, because only Yahweh is that. And it is important to remember that part of God's justice is that a person will not be judged according to any more than he or she is able to understand at the time. This ties in with something that is touched on at various points in scripture, and is why I agree with T.U.L.I.P. even though I wasn't raised in Calvinism or even familiar with it until several years after being convinced of God's sovereignty and Christ's authority. Here is the gist of my own understanding of it:
And I want to preface this by saying all that I am, and any ability I have, has been granted to me by my Creator. All praise, blessings, and glory be to Yahweh in the highest, in submission to the authority He gives the Christ. I am not wise in my own eyes, but an absolute simpleton and fool. My birthday is on April 1st, and, no matter who I tell this they rarely believe me unless I show them some sort of official identification. So please remember I am just an imperfect being hoping on being made worthy and perfected in Christ, sharing something that God gave me and wants me to share with anyone with the ears to hear it.
Mankind, as finite beings within an infinite one, are not the authors of themselves, and so cannot possibly be the authors of their own destiny. They are born from the elements, they pass through their place and time, and then they pass away; and all without their permission being asked or considered whatsoever. As the lives of humanity are products of their place and time, they are bound by the laws of cause and effect that have produced their place and time. However, these things are not to be thought of as "theirs" because they possess any of it, but because they have been assigned them.
As many that have studied the natural/physical world have discovered: By and large, without being freed from the workings of this world, human nature is dictated by biology, biology is dictated by chemistry, chemistry is dictated by physics, and physics is dictated by immutable preexisting laws laid down by God himself; and it is all on a temporary basis, with a beginning, middle, and end (it is scheduled). As long as one is bound by this chain of cause and effect one is a slave to it, whether blind to his or her state or not, and cannot in any way choose to disobey it. Essentially then, as a part of this world, one must share in everything that is slated for this world, including it's destructio
n*. But, if and when someone is offered salvation from it, there is a way out of this state of "slavery to sin". The way is not easy, cannot be earned or deserved in any way, and cannot be done by any mere natural desire for self-preservation; because that would more or less be based on the instinct of fearing physical death (it includes, in fact, the erasure of that instinct. Hebrews 2:15).
Even if salvaged and freed from all the aforementioned, you are still told "you are not your own" 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
When Christ says "I will not say much more to you, for
the prince of this world is coming.
He has no hold over me" he is essentially saying he is not bound by the world's workings. He is free of its instincts, intentions, desires, expectations, fears, and destiny, and the regional ruler of it has no authority over Christ whatsoever. Christ is not, has never been and will never be, a slave to it. He was willing to give up everything it has to offer, in order glorify, obey and be present with His Father. And any person that Christ is given the authority to free from it, will also follow this path exemplified by his words and example of living on Earth. Such an example cannot be chosen and followed without something more being given to an individual than than what nature dispenses.
Now, when Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven, to where where were they cast down to? Where does Satan roam about looking for whom he may devour? Where does he have only a limited time to ruin and separate as many souls from knowing, loving, and serving their creator as possible? Where, and when, and over whom, does he have any jurisdiction at all? God is the sovereign ruler, He controls every finite and created being that exists within Him, so Satan can only have control over what the sovereign God allows him to. But any that are freed from being slaves to sin are not free to do as they please. Such people are no longer concerned with, or bound by, the laws or inclinations of this world, but are then called "slaves of righteousness" or "slaves of God" and then are living according to His laws (the moral code expounded and lived by the Christ) and are content here if they merely have food and clothing 1 Timothy 6:8. Either way, once freed from being a slave to this world and the sin it is enslaved by, absolute "freedom" or "lawlessness" is not allowable or available to a created being, but rather is held out as a deception that the devil promises one in exchange for a soul's eternal destiny- Not a good trade, by the way. Anyone that says they don't have to conform their lives to the commandments given, and are "freed from the law" because Jesus lived righteously for them, are quite probably deceived, along with all those that don't or will not ever even be shown that obedience to Christ's example is what is necessary to please God (and that can only be done if one is given the opportunity, which is why it states "to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10).
Are many deceived into believing they are free when they are not really? Yes, but they are not unwillingly deceived. To a certain extent your other thread is correct, sinners choose what they want; and what they want and love more than God is something in this world, and that is what keeps them bound to it and obeying it. They believe they are free when they are really still enslaved. When the world is destroyed, such will be destroyed along with it.
Adam and Eve entered us all into this slavery, and the blindness of it, through their disobedience. We are enmeshed in it and blinded to it and by it, we lust for it and cannot see beyond it unless we be salvaged from it; and will remain slaves to it unless freed from the chains of it. However, were they ever really free? The choice then was still a matter of who they would be a slave to, a just and Loving God or an unjust and vicious natural world; and were they able to make an informed choice, if they didn't really know what He meant when He said they would surely die from their disobedience? God only knows, the rest of us must deal in possibility and probability. But when you read that "through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." it is convenient to automatically think 'oh good' I'm glad he was obedient, so now I'm saved without having to do anything'. But that would be a fatal error. Rather look at it as the narrow, steep, and way of great difficulty. Because, from a natural/carnal mindset it's easy enough to keep following Adam's example, and quite nearly impossible to give up one's life to living Christ's example. Only the elect will be allowed and given that ability. The rest of us stand as much chance as Adam and Eve, and the devil only has control over those God allows him to. So trust that God is in control, and if given the will and ability to, imitate Jesus the Christ's example of living and, if need be, dying.
n*along with the promised destruction of this universe, there is the promise of a new heavens and earth. Those that are taken along are the ones headed for the perfected version of this fallen one we are currently in. Incidentally, this also fits with the scientific theory that the universe is always being crunched and big-banged into existence, along with all that exist within it. "The Big
Crunch is one of the theoretical scenarios for the ultimate fate of the
universe,
in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the
universe re-collapses, ultimately causing the cosmic scale factor
to reach zero or causing a reformation of the
universe starting with another
Big Bang." This is just my uneducated guess, but the worlds to come may be many, if not infinite in number.
** another point to be made about T.U.L.I.P. is that while many misunderstandings crop up about OSAS one must still have the Spirit of Truth to discern what the reality of scripture is. There are a couple of verses that state one cannot have salvation forcibly taken from them, and that those in which
salvation is completed cannot forcibly be taken from God's grace. There are a dozen or more stating that the offer of salvation can be neglected, abandoned, shipwrecked, turned away from, rejected, or that one can be deceived out of it Hebrews 2:3. Can salvation be lost? Evidently so, but only by those not given the will, ability, and opportunity to see it to completion. Consider this, if one must be willing to leave, husbands, wives, children, properties, and even his or her "own" life for the sake of the kingdom, what does it take to get to heaven? Would many even choose leave behind this world without a supernatural trust in something better waiting for them? Can anyone get there without being willing to give up everything else this world has to offer? The good news is that there is a way out of the slated destruction of the fallen world and into heaven, the bad news is that, for those that have filled up on and prefer the old wine, a person can't just hope and wish his or her way there.
