bmoynihan said:
If God is all knowing then he not only knows what has been but also what is to be, thats what Christians believe, right?
Ok so when God created the heavens, the earth and Man he knew that man would turn against him. He made us this way! So why did he bother with what happened in the old testament? Why bother with Moses and the Jews if he knew that they wouldnt be able to get to heaven that way?
Jesus birth happened quite recently, so what happened to the souls of the people who died before Jesus was born? Is it fair that just because God had not decided to send Jesus yet that they should go to hell?
Or maybe God could have just made us naturally kind and nice to each other. No original sin, but still with the option to turn against him if we wanted. Seams a very strange thing for a god to send a imperfect creation to the earth, knowing they would mess it up, and then sending a fix in the form of him son to fix Gods error!
Hello there!
I can understand what you mean, it seems illogical for an all-knowing God to create a world that he knew would end up a mess, but can I suggest something.
When we turn to the first page in the bible [after the introduction etc lol] we read that
"In the beginning God created the heavens and earth" [Genesis 1:1]
Interesting? Well, turn a few more books and you come to one in the New Testiment called John, and at the start of that we read
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." {John 1:1-4]
Woaw! Now there is something! The Word is Jesus, now read that again with 'Jesus' instead of 'the Word'. It is through Jesus that all things are made. Now think of this.
The Godhead comes together and decides to create the earth and create mankind, mankind a freeminded people who God can love and love and have a friendship with. But God knew that when he did this that years later he would have to send himself, his son Jesus to die as a living sacrifice for man, the Godhead would be torn, God would go through pain and suffering, unimaginable. In knowledge of this, God creates the world.
Why did God create the world when he knew the situation of sin, because he knew the situation of his death and still went ahead, because of one thing, love. Love for you me and the world.
As for those under the Mosaic Law, well in Ephesians we read that
"When he ascended on high,
he led captives in his train
and gave gifts to men." (What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)
Whatever way you want to interpret that we can possibly say that those captives include the jews. The Jews went to a place called paradise, or Abrahams bossom. When Christ died, we could speculate that he took them with him to the Fathers throne, and they are there today.