But if god is all knowing then he knew all of this was going to happen....Satan/Eve....then by your logic(wich,by the way use to be my logic too) it would still be wrong for him to create anything or anybody,if they were destined for any kind of hell....even if they were completely free.He still would know that they would not choose his way,thus damning them.Dont you see...This was the only way for him to demonstrate his great love for his people....none of us would come on our own....not without his call!Our ways are not gods ways...your elevating us too much....we are tiny,finite....he is infinite...he could make a zillion of us,then start over and make a zillion more....and so on....his mind is infinitly wiser than ours...how could he demonstrate his goodness to his sons...if not by showing us the evil,or his infinite mercy,if not by showing us how merciless we are to one another....the perfect contrast.we are a gift from the father to the son.a perfect love gift!
Ephesians 1;3-12
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he[a] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will� 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9And he[b] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment�to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
11In him we were also chosen,[c] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession�to the praise of his glory
one must ultimately ask who created Lucifer and who created Adam? If God is all-wise and all-knowing it would have been within His power to have created man and angels without the possibility of transgressing against Him. To suggest that God had not decreed all things to come to pass is to say that God had a made the worst oversight by creating creatures that would eventually strain His good creation.
One would be right to assert that God is not the author of sin and that man is responsible for his own sins. But in the midst of this assertion we are not to also dismiss God's perfect counsel and will that nothing is given up to chance because nothing or noone else has the power over His creation. If this is not so, then God is weak and can be overcome by another power.
Ask yourself also this also - why must there be trees in the middle of the garden that have eventually become the instrument of man's fall? Who place the tree there and who made the tree attractive to the eyes? Was the serpent's present in the garden a chance encounter or what God had decreed?
We may try to wiggle ourselves far from this truth but the fact remains as I have underscored in so many posts (and you may have not read them all )that God in His determinate wisdom decreed the most wicked event in the world. The death of His Son in the hands of man. God had decreed that man must participate. He had purposed even before the foundation of the world that Jesus would come to earth to be murdred. If then therefore there is a murder decreed by God there must be a murderer or murderers that would accomplish this.
After praising God as the Creator Acts 4:24 we read in vv27-28 part of the prayer not accusing God of sin but acknowledging His sovereignty even on this most heinous crime - "For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel (the ones culpable)...TO DO WHATEVER YOUR HAND AND YOUR PURPOSE PREDESTINED TO OCCUR. The NIV states it as "They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen."
Hard to understand and even accept knowing that we worship a holy and just God. But Peter and John knew better. Instead of shying away from this in fear that unbelievers might accuse God of perpetrating sin or authoring sin or somehow just blame the men the killed Jesus without reference to God's sovereignty, they glorified in God and praised Him this way.
Similar to Job's statement to his wife after his health, nature, a fire from heaven, the Chaldeans and the Sabeans (humans with wills of their own) have conspired to devatate him and his household. After all these things he did not sin against God with his speech and even acknowldge that we must learn to accept adversity or evil from God which does not exclude that attacks of the Chaldeans and the Sabeans.
The worst thing to do about this is to shove it as far away from our sight and just concentrate on human will and human culpability and build our doctrines of God's sovereignty around that. If they were bold enough to mention this in the throne of grace, in the presence of God and glorify Him with it, I do not see any reason why we cannot acknowledge this in our doctrines. And I do not see why in the midst of their prayer that I should mark this doctine of God's sovereignty a heresy.
Palms 76:10 For the wrath of man shall praise You...
Ephesians 1:11 (God)...worketh ALL THINGS after the counsel of his own wil
i have read a good amount of this thread...not nearly all i must confess as many of the posts were very long, but a good amount....and have just a few thoughts to share. its possible that these have already been debated/covered in portions that i didnt read and if so i apologize...but i would like to humbly offer my opinion.
on the original topic of loss of salvation and a few points i would like to make sort of pertaining to that/arising out of that in the discussion thread...i believe...
1) it IS possible to lose your salvation. once saved is NOT necessarily always saved - john 15 implies this.
2) someone truly living fully in the grace of god will not lose their salvation - if you are living in the grace of god you will of course sin - sins cannot separate you from god when you are living in his grace however. jesus paid the price for our sins once for all on the cross with his death and resurrection. - galations, hebrews talk about this...
3) separation from god occurs when we separate ourselves from the grace of god by choosing to live as if we were still under law, not grace - its a subtle mindset shift that drastically affects our life - and one the enemy is constantly trying to get us to give in to. when we surrender as a result of his attacks (guilt, shame, fear, humiliation) to a way of thinking that binds us to the law again, we are in fact separating ourselves from god and that place of righteousness his grace affords us...paul talks about this...you have now become a victim of the sin of unbelief. unbelief that jesus' sacrifice on the cross is all that is needed, unbelief that we are in fact righteous by the grace of god, uneblief that sins cannot separate us from god. unbelief that god's grace is big enough to cover anything...and so on...this leads me to my final point on/surrounding this subject
4) the only unforgiveable sin is the sin of unbelief. think about it - how can god forgive unbelief? he himself said the ONLY way to be saved was to believe in jesus, that he is the son of god, died on the cross and rose again and to confess it. now, tell me - if you dont believe (and YES that is a sin - see john 16:8-9) and god has clearly said belief is necessary for salvation, how can he overlook (forgive) that? even if he were to say, i forgive you your sin of unbelief, he can't make you believe...'cause we all have free will...forgive means to pardon and put behind you - as far as east is from west...so even if god "forgives" your unbelief, you still wont believe...therefore its not truly forgiven...
i dont know about you, but seems pretty straightforward to me.
now, just a couple thoughts on free will/god knowing man would sin etc...as came up in the last couple posts...
1) man has complete free will.
2) god knew before he created us what would happen - and hard (impossible?!) as that may be for our minds to comprehend that doesnt take away our free will.
now, allow me to elaborate a bit. god created man for relationship with him. that is our original created purpose - to be in relationship with god. god created angels to serve, worship and adore him. lucifer was head of the worshipping angels until pride crept in and ultimately lead to him leading a rebellion against god, which ended in him and one third of the angels being cast out of heaven and bound on the earth. hell was originally created for them - it will be their place of final, unending judgement. man sinned as a result of lucifers anger and jealousy toward god - he wanted to get back at god and so tried to take down his prized creation - and succeeded. god then had to send his son, jesus to reestablish our direct connection with god. now im off track tho....so god created everything, and created it perfect. perfect love, perfect worship, perfect good, perfect relationship.....NOW...heres the kicker. in order for there to be perfect love there HAS TO, absolutely HAS TO be the possibility of the opposite happening. without choice there can be no perfect love, no perfect worship, good, relationship or anything else perfect. without the possibility of hatred there cannot be true love - if there is no choice its not genuine and therefore is not true or perfect.
so because god wanted perfect relationship with man, he therefore HAD to allow for the POSSIBILITY of that relationship not being there (the reason for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) - and lucifer knew that and took full advantage. god had to give us free will because he wanted us to truly love him.
now, i know i didnt include a ton of scriptures in here...honestly i dont have them all memorized and dont have the time to look them all up right now - have to work early in the morning - but please believe me when i say i am not just spouting random stuff off the top of my head. i have spend countless hours studying the word, sitting under biblical teaching and in discussion with my friends, church leaders, pastors and other people i highly respect on these topics.after much study i believe that what i am saying is biblically sound...you may disagree with me, thats fine and you are absolutely allowed to have your opinion...please however dont disrespect me by saying or implying that i am not studied, have not put in the time and/or dont know what im talking about - i fully realize that i have things to learn still and am more than willing to discuss...but would appreciate your mutual respect in that discussion.
PS - i forgot to say...PLEASE, please, please dont misinterpret what i am saying in the last bit of my post to say that god created sin - i am NOT saying that in any way, shape or form.
GodsJude...I struggled with questions for a long time because I could see no purpose....but the purpose is our choice...I believe completely in free will. But even though I had questions...I didn't hate God because I believed He had my best interest in mind no matter what...I just figured I didn't know what I was talking about, and it turns out that I didn't. And about the last post...wasn't angry...it just frustrates me that people can look at God that way...and maybe it's not even that...it frustrates me that other people...looking in to a christian church...see these beliefs and say "forget that, God is a tyrant". Something must be wrong. Because the way I believe...God goes out of His way to NOT be a tyrant.
Manofgod...He knew it was going to happen but He let it happen anyway...because doing anything different would interfere with His created beings free will:nahnah:. And I agree none of us would come to God of our own choice, that's why God comes to us first...but our beliefs part when you say He forces it on us. God himself created us with the power of free will, I'm not putting us any higher then God did:nahnah:. God created us with free will. God put the tree in the garden so He would be beyond reproach. Why make creatures with free will if you never give them choices? He gave everyone the only 2 choices that mean anything in the universe. Obey God, or serve yourself.
God did not create sin. In fact, by letting it happen He might very well be able to eliminate sin from His "free-will beings" forever. His saved humans from this world will be a reminder forever of the effects of sin, and if God decides to create something else, we will be there to warn them of the consequences. I don't believe sin will enter God's universe again after this...but not because we won't be able to sin...we will choose not to...just like Adam was supposed to choose in the garden. It'll be easier next time though...no Satan...and we will have the scars in Jesus' hands to remind us of the price...
Perseverance comes about through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us that the elect will finish the race because Jesus will not lose a single one of his sheep, that the Holy Spirit will finish what he started, that the Holy Spirit has sealed us for the day of redemption.
A love for Jesus. A change of heart toward how we view sin. Conviction following sin. Confession and repentance. A change, albeit sometimes a slow one in some areas, in our character throughout the sanctification process.
^^ If those are lacking, then we should question our salvation. If those are present, then we know that the Holy Spirit indwells us, and we have full assurance of our salvation according to God's word, even when we sin again.
