The Gospel

[cubinity]

God had something amazing in mind.
It was a paradise.
And the people who populated it were going to be awesome!

He made those people an awesome place to hang out.
Interestingly, He constructed for them a behaving environment.
It would function on its own. It would changing, creative, and interactive.
And, it would be subject to the consequences.

It was a perfect environment for people.
Because people were made to be changing, creative, and interactive, too.
They would reason, and dream, and choose.

Unfortunately, not everything they would choose would be good.
One bad choice introduced a series of bad choices.
As people reproduced, they also reproduced their propensity for bad choices.

Before that first bad choice, God had a plan--a destiny--for His people.
He would lavish upon them the richness of His love.
They would be heirs to all that He had.

After that first bad choice, God came up with a new plan.
At first, He simply cut them off from eternal life, to save them in the long term.
Then, He worked out a way to restore them to the original destiny.
He worked out a way to purify them, and make them rightful heirs again.

This new plan involved Jesus.
This new plan was their salvation.

Before the first bad choice, Jesus didn't have to die.
After that first bad choice, and all those that followed, there wasn't much of a choice.

But, it wasn't like God set out to kill Jesus.
It wasn't as though He set His people up to fail from the beginning.
It wasn't like He made any of it happen.

Sin was not part of the plan.
Sin was not the dream God had for His changing, creative and interactive world.
But, sin was what happened to it.
And the Gospel is what He did about it.

 

[bling]

sin has purpose.

 

[Optimax]

Before God created the first anything, He had a plan.

He only has one plan, that is all He needs.

He planned the beginning to the end because He is wise enough to foresee the result of each action He took. Therefore the answer to everything is a part of the plan.

When God created man he knew man was going to “fall”. That was included in the plan and was first introduced in Gen. 3:15 with the promise of One who would take back what the devil “stole”.
The One being Jesus.

The following scriptures help give us a picture of God’s Plan.
They are scriptures that deal with ‘Before the foundations of the World”.

Mt 13:35 Lk 11:50 Eph 1:4 Heb 9:26 Rv 13:8
Mt 25:34 Jn 17:24 Heb 4:3 1Pet 1:20 Rv 17:8

 

[cubinity]

Before God created the first anything, He had a plan.

He only has one plan, that is all He needs.

He planned the beginning to the end because He is wise enough to foresee the result of each action He took. Therefore the answer to everything is a part of the plan.

When God created man he knew man was going to “fall”. That was included in the plan and was first introduced in Gen. 3:15 with the promise of One who would take back what the devil “stole”.
The One being Jesus.

The following scriptures help give us a picture of God’s Plan.
They are scriptures that deal with ‘Before the foundations of the World”.

Mt 13:35 Lk 11:50 Eph 1:4 Heb 9:26 Rv 13:8
Mt 25:34 Jn 17:24 Heb 4:3 1Pet 1:20 Rv 17:8

I will review your Scripture with the intention of communicating that I accept the truth in these Scriptures and still totally disagree with your conclusion about what they are telling us.

I will do so respectfully, without ignoring anything the Scriptures tell me.

If I miss something, point it out to me.

I might sound argumentative, but I'm really just wrestling with this to find and accept the truth.

Give me a bit to post the Scripture-by-Scripture response, then I invite you to give me feedback.

God bless.

 

[cubinity]

Mt 13:35 – yes, this mentions the foundation of the world, but I don’t see how Jesus speaking parables about a Kingdom that predates the earth is relevant. Maybe you could explain…

Mt 25:34 – The preparation of the Kingdom, as I said in my OP, was the original plan. There is no association between the salvation that had to be worked out after the fall and the preparation of the Kingdom, thus this statement actually supports my OP.

Lk 11:50 – Yes. Prophets have been dying since the foundation of the earth. Tragic. I agree. Not sure how it applies, though. Maybe you could explain…

Jn 17:24 – Yes. The Father loved Jesus before the foundation of the world. I agree. In fact, seeing here that the Father loved Jesus, it would be kind of messed up if, back then, the Father was like, “Yep, I totally love you, Jesus, but I’m going to orchestrate this whole system with people that hinges on me getting you killed. I sure hope that isn’t a problem.”

Eph 1:4 – Yes. Before God made the world, He chose us to be holy and blameless. This supports my OP.

Heb 4:3 – The author here is comforting his/her audience and encouraging them of the promise that they will enter God’s rest, which is being associated with the time God is said to have rested during the foundation of the world described in Genesis. I love and agree with this passage, and find no conflict in it with my OP.

Heb 9:26 – Here, the author is associating Jesus with the established human priesthood, and he/she is making the point that, while human priests have to enter in every year, Jesus need only enter in once. Note that this verse mentions the foundations of the earth as a general reference meant to include all of history. The very says nothing about God’s plan, and does not extend the time period to before the foundation of the world, and thus not to a time before the fall.

1Pet 1:20 – Yes. The Bible repeatedly tells us that Jesus existed before the foundation of the world. Much of Biblically Christology doesn’t make sense if this isn’t the case. However, the existence of Jesus is not limited to His role as the sacrifice. The Lamb predates his slaughter, no?

Rv 13:8 – Key note here is the use of the negative. For example, when Paul says that love does not envy, he is not telling us what love is, but only what it is not, leaving the rest open to being possible. It is a literary strategy to describe what you can’t really put into words. In this case, the passage mentions that the entire population will worship this guy, and that it is a quality of all of them that their names were not written in the lamb’s book of life since the foundation of the world. What it does not say, however, is that everyone else who is not longer dwelling on the earth, were written in that book since the beginning. It also doesn’t say anything about whether or not those saved prior to this event were only those whose names were in there since the foundation. Those would be assumptions made without support from the Scripture.

Rv 17:8 – Again, only says something about those dwelling on the earth at that time. Does not say anything about those who are not.

 

[Tangible]

After that first bad choice, God came up with a new plan.
At first, He simply cut them off from eternal life, to save them in the long term.
Then, He worked out a way to restore them to the original destiny.
He worked out a way to purify them, and make them rightful heirs again.

This new plan involved Jesus.
This new plan was their salvation.

Before the first bad choice, Jesus didn't have to die.
After that first bad choice, and all those that followed, there wasn't much of a choice.

So you think that God messed up when he created man and to fix it he had to come up with Jesus as a plan B?

 

[cubinity]

So you think that God messed up when he created man and to fix it he had to come up with Jesus as a plan B?

No.
Nice leap, though.
I can appreciate that.

I think God is so cool that He created something that thinks, feels, and behaves on its own volition, which was His goal because when this thing turned out to like Him and say good things about Him, He would know that this thing really and genuinely meant it.
Then, that thing that was made to think, feel, and behave, did such things in a destructive way. Not a way that was destructive to God, but a way that was destructive to itself.
So, God being as cool as He is, worked out a way to protect the thing, even from itself.

I see no mess up on God's part in that.
Do you?

 

[ebia]

Before God created the first anything, He had a plan.

He only has one plan, that is all He needs.

He planned the beginning to the end because He is wise enough to foresee the result of each action He took. Therefore the answer to everything is a part of the plan.

When God created man he knew man was going to “fall”. That was included in the plan and was first introduced in Gen. 3:15 with the promise of One who would take back what the devil “stole”.
The One being Jesus.

The following scriptures help give us a picture of God’s Plan.
They are scriptures that deal with ‘Before the foundations of the World”.

Mt 13:35 Lk 11:50 Eph 1:4 Heb 9:26 Rv 13:8
Mt 25:34 Jn 17:24 Heb 4:3 1Pet 1:20 Rv 17:8

Scripture works in both models. It both talks about God having a plan from beforehand, and God allowing things to run their course and then dealing with what actually happens, of trying things out, of genuinely responding, of going through the same sorts of emotions to events and choices as anyone else: frustration, joy, surprise, excitement,....

It's choice, based on Greek thought as much as anything else, that Christian theology tends to see one of those as "true" and the other as anthropomophic metaphor.

 

[cubinity]

Hey, ebia!
Nice feedback!

 

[Tangible]

No.
Nice leap, though.
I can appreciate that.

I think God is so cool that He created something that thinks, feels, and behaves on its own volition, which was His goal because when this thing turned out to like Him and say good things about Him, He would know that this thing really and genuinely meant it.
Then, that thing that was made to think, feel, and behave, did such things in a destructive way. Not a way that was destructive to God, but a way that was destructive to itself.
So, God being as cool as He is, worked out a way to protect the thing, even from itself.

I see no mess up on God's part in that.
Do you?

Well, you seemed to imply that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus was a patch-up, a plan B if you will, as if God didn't know before he created him that man would fall and would need to be saved, that the Cross was not God's intention from the beginning of time.

God didn't have to make up a plan B. Plan A works just fine, thank you.

Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

 

[cubinity]

Well, you seemed to imply that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus was a patch-up, a plan B if you will, as if God didn't know before he created him that man would fall and would need to be saved, that the Cross was not God's intention from the beginning of time.

God didn't have to make up a plan B. Plan A works just fine, thank you.

Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Time and awareness are tricky when talking about God, mainly because many Christians believe God exists and operates outside the confines of time and space.

Thus, when you say "before" in, "God didn't know before he created him that man would fall and would need to be saved," I can disagree with you on the premise that, of course God knew.

The thing you took as an implication of God not knowing was actually meant to communicate that those were not God's ideal results.

Let me explain what I mean.

I hold the belief that God intentionally created us, and in some respects the universe around us, to behave at will and to experience the consequences of those behaviors.

God, ideally, wanted a humanity that willfully chose Him over sin, and willfully praised Him because they wanted to.

Now, He's gotten that from a few select folks in the OT, and has gotten that from quite a few follower in the NT and beyond.

However, I'm not saying God couldn't see the end of how it would all turn out and plan accordingly.

What I am saying is that, looking "ahead," God foresaw the need for a Savior and provided one.

That is not to say that it was caused by unforeseen circumstances, nor that it was not from the beginning part of the plan. It is to say that the need for the cross is a consequence of our sin, though.

I don't see any conflict with the verse you presented in saying so.

I am glad you shared the verse though, as a particular line in it rises questions for me in another conversation I'm having.

 

[Tangible]

Thanks for explaining. I think I see a bit of free willy theology poking it's head above the waters there, and if so, we will have to disagree, since the Bible clearly says that before God saves us we are completely sinful and not only do not want to love God and obey him, we are simply incapable of doing so (Rom 8:7-8, many others).

As for foreknowledge, I tend to agree with CS Lewis' view that from God's point of view, all times are "now". I believe that to God, there is no appreciable difference in perception and sovereignty between any two given points of time.

 

[cubinity]

Thanks for explaining. I think I see a bit of free willy theology poking it's head above the waters there, and if so, we will have to disagree, since the Bible clearly says that before God saves us we are completely sinful and not only do not want to love God and obey him, we are simply incapable of doing so (Rom 8:7-8, many others).

As for foreknowledge, I tend to agree with CS Lewis' view that from God's point of view, all times are "now". I believe that to God, there is no appreciable difference in perception and sovereignty between any two given points of time.

I have been exploring the predestination/free will debate with some others in another thread, and totally and utterly respect why it's a great idea not to let that one derail the conversation. So, I'm actually with you on that.

However, perhaps the point of disagreement is not a matter of whether or not we are capable of choosing God or not, but actually a matter of a disconnected cause and effect.

The Gospel, to me, is a response to something less than God's ideal, and a means of restoring us to that ideal. I don't believe that saying so takes anything away from the divine sovereignty of God, or the Biblical descriptions of Him and the system He is implementing.

However, to say that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the selection of the saints, and the many things that inevitably go along with that, are really just parts of a micromanaged play God has written for His own entertainment, for me insinuates that God is not at all good, and that He takes pleasure in proactively making us suffer, not only in this life, but for most of us, also in the life to come.

I have difficulty seeing God that way.

 

[cubinity]

When I was a kid and I went to church, I thought the gospel was a bird. Just saying.

Thank you for saying.
Oh, and that is, indeed, a stupid user name.
But, I find it kind of charming.
Just saying.

 

[Tangible]

Cubinity, don't misunderstand me as far as election goes. Election is a doctrine of the Gospel, not of the law. It is a comfort and an assurance to those who may be struggling in their faith.

Those whom God has saved have been elected to salvation from the beginning, but that is not to say that God has elected anyone to damnation. That's where the Calvinists overstep the words of scripture. The atonement of Christ was for all sin for all time, and God desires that none should perish.

Salvation belongs to God, he is the sole actor and we are merely passive beneficiaries. Sin, however, is always our own fault. It's not just that we do not naturally love God, but that we really, really love our sin, and naturally recognize no higher authority than ourselves unless it is forced upon us. God is not to blame for the fate of those who reject his gift of salvation.

1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

I think it was St. Irenaeus (though I may be wrong, and welcome correction) who argued that even if man had not fallen, the Word would have still become flesh.

The Incarnation was never simply a fix to the problem of sin, but God's ultimate plan for the universe from the outset. St. Paul says, "All things were created by Him and for Him".

-CryptoLutheran

 

[cubinity]

I think it was St. Irenaeus (though I may be wrong, and welcome correction) who argued that even if man had not fallen, the Word would have still become flesh.

The Incarnation was never simply a fix to the problem of sin, but God's ultimate plan for the universe from the outset. St. Paul says, "All things were created by Him and for Him".

-CryptoLutheran

I don't think it means anything to argue what might have been.
But, I believe in understanding our story, it is still a valuable exercise to ask why the things that happened did.
In the particular case of the cross, it is a matter of cause and effect.
The confusion comes in discussing the cause.

 

[cubinity]

Cubinity, don't misunderstand me as far as election goes. Election is a doctrine of the Gospel, not of the law. It is a comfort and an assurance to those who may be struggling in their faith.

Those whom God has saved have been elected to salvation from the beginning, but that is not to say that God has elected anyone to damnation. That's where the Calvinists overstep the words of scripture. The atonement of Christ was for all sin for all time, and God desires that none should perish.

Salvation belongs to God, he is the sole actor and we are merely passive beneficiaries. Sin, however, is always our own fault. It's not just that we do not naturally love God, but that we really, really love our sin, and naturally recognize no higher authority than ourselves unless it is forced upon us. God is not to blame for the fate of those who reject his gift of salvation.

1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

It sounds like we agree, but I could be mistaken.
It does still sound like you are making a statement about the effects and effectiveness of the cross, which is great.
I feel as though you responded, though, to something I said about the cause.
I implied why the cross happened. It seemed that was the part I thought you were taking issue with.
Perhaps we could discuss the cause--the reason for--the cross, if you want.
As far as its effect and effectiveness, it does sound like we agree there.

 

[Tangible]

OK, for clarity, please restate for me exactly what cause you mean, then what you believe the cause is, with scripture to support your position if you don't mind.

 

[cubinity]

On my way to work, so the Scripture will have to wait until tonight.

But, by cause, I am referring to sin.

God did not arbitrarily kill Jesus for no other reason than He thought it would be fun.

God got Jesus killed for a purpose; a purpose necessitated by sin.

Thus, when we speak of cause and effect in terms of the cross, considering a timeless God, it can start looking like, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?"

The idea of the cross preceded my sin in time (preceded everything in time, really), but the reason for the cross--that is, the cause of the idea--was my sin.

Tricky. Think about it while I'm at work. See if it makes any sense at all. Argue with it if you want. I'll be back later this evening.