ArchivedIs John 3:16 actually an invitation open to all?Nope. You see, I believe that God's a little bit smarter than I am. I don't try to pretend in any way that I can know that mind of God. He could explain everything in the world to me, but I'm sure I still wouldn't understand it, because I'm not God and I don't have the mind to be able to comprehend His depths. The phrase "walk by faith, not by sight" is very applicable to this point. I don't need to be able to see, or understand, everything. I have faith in it because God said so - that's good enough for me. Who am I to say that God has any obligation to explain it to me? When parents use the phrase "because I said so", it indeed may be a copout (although it not always is), but when God says it, it's not a copout, because God has the right to do and say whatever He wants because He is God. And if you can't come to terms with that, then I would submit to you that you need to check your pride at the door and realize who you are in the sight of a holy God. It seems very prideful and presumptuous for you to think that you can know everything that God does and that you can understand His reasoning behind everything He does. God exists outside of time. His knowledge of what is going to happen is not based on Him being able to tell the future. It is based on the fact that everything that happens, happens for Him in the present. He knows "beforehand" what is going to happen, because it is happening in the present to Him. Not sure if that answers your question, but perhaps it might help to shed some light on where I'm coming from. No, not really. As I said, God sees everyone's decision for Him in the present, so it's not so much that He knows ahead of time that they will reject Him as it is that He sees them in the very act of rejecting Him. Foreknowledge is really only a term that has any meaning to you and me because we are creatures bound to time. God doesn't really have foreknowledge in the sense that we understand the word (knowing something before it happens), because God is not bound by time. No, because God does not make us do anything. He gives us the freedom to choose what we will. But a decision that is in the future for us, is in the present for God, so He already knows what we will choose. Confusing, yes. Contradictory, no. I didn't say that you had. I said that you would. The implication is that if I could prove to you election, foreknowledge, etc., then you would not love that God because, in your own words:
Why don't you show me "unconditional" in the Bible. There's alot of words that are used in Christianity that are not used in the Bible. The fact that I can't show the word "omniscient" to you means nothing. You believe that the call to be saved is unconditional because you understand that the character of God demands that that call be unconditional. I believe that God is omniscient because I understand that the character of God demands that He know all things. God's not much of a god if He doesn't know everything. Indeed, He declares in Isaiah 46:9-10: "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:" These verses are a pretty good indication that He knows everything. And they also speak to the fact that He knows the end of things from the beginning. Is that not foreknowledge? I agree 100%! We just seem to be in disagreement on what He actually does do. And the reason that they have concocted these words is because the principles of the character of God that we see in the Bible lead us to recognize that they are applicable. Men "created" the word "omniscient" because as we read about God, we find that He knows everything..... and it flows easier to say "omniscient" (3 syllables) than it is to say "He knows everything" (5 syllables). From I hear you saying, you believe that God does not know everything. I would certainly like to see the Scriptural evidence for that. |
🌈Pride🌈 goeth before Destruction
When 🌈Pride🌈 cometh, then cometh Shame