Posted on 08/14/2012 7:14:46 PM PDT by Phinneous
The Jewish belief in angels goes as far back as the Book of Genesis, where we read about angels calling out to Abraham at the binding of Isaac, angels appearing in Jacob's dream, Jacob fighting with an angel, and many more accounts of angelic activity.
(Excerpt) Read more at chabad.org ...
NO God does NOT know the number, IF He did there would be NO reason to have this flesh age. He did however, as Paul says know the ones who already proved their love and loyalty, they are called the elect.... Many are called but few are chosen. There can be no such thing as 'free will' IF the outcome is already decided.
What about the Talking Donkey?????
What about the Talking Donkey?????
Numbers 22:28
Then the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”
Peter 2:16 But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—a beast without speech—who spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
Numbers 22:29 Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”
I like this one too.
Of the many called, why are so few chosen? ... Because God honors our free will, and so few will let Him do 'it' (save them from their inherited self).
Paul was not allowed to follow his 'free will'. As Paul says some were chosen/elected before the 'foundation of this world'. Some were/are predestined to do specific things because they have already demonstrated their love and loyalty. I also think that given the promise in Isaiah 3:4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them." means that some 'spoiled brats' were sent at appointed times because the masses turned their backs collectively on the Creator.
Nothing is beyond HIM.
2. By this sort of local movement an angel may, at will, be present successively in several places and thus may be said to pass through the space between the first and the last place of the series. Or an angel may cease to apply its powers in the first place and begin to apply them in the last, not passing through the space between.
Dude.
To God, Who knows the end from the beginning, to say that something or someone is predestined is not to say that a specific act or thing is determined before time begins to unfold. What it does indicate is that by God's plan, if/when a person exercising their free will does A, then B follows.
I had this same discussion when I mentioned during the Christmas season that Mary had free will and could have said she would not give her womb to carry the Christ child. God knew she would say yes though, even before she said 'be it unto me', because God has access to all of time, past, present, and future. Time is a volume, though we are curiously made to sense it as a linear phenomenon ... perhaps because that allows us to exercise free will and faith, rather than have 'foreknowledge'. God did not violate Paul's/Saul's free will.
Not to belabor the point, but here is a little essay which might help:
The One God evidences Himself in the work He is doing The following will be 'a way' to understand the notion of the trinitarian nature of the Deity, not a strictly Biblical explanation, but one which is applicable to the teaching of the Bible. Here goes:
God The Father Almighty is greater than His creation, thus greater than dimension time and dimension space, thus we may think of The Father Almighty as beyond time and space but not prevented from touching and indeed penetrating His creation.
The universe of space and time is likened to a bubble: what is inside the bubble is in time and space. But the nature of what is inside the bubble is only partially understood in modern Physics.
The Bible relates scenes which defy the simplistic notions we use for assumptive science. We'll get to that 'assumptive' notion shortly, but let us make the statement that God The Father Almighty is as comfortable outside the bubble as He is inside the bubble.
Modern Physics has discovered that the balance of forces and tensions sustaining the universe necessary for human life to arise within the universe is extremely delicate, on the order of a mathematical improbability, represented as a 'one in less than' fraction so tiny that a one over a one followed by more than one-hundred zeros defines the probability that the whole thing remains in balance! Such a delicate balancing act is but one of the continuing 'works' of the Holy Spirit of God. It is by the Spirit of God, The Word, that the universe came into existence and it is said in the Bible that by His Spirit the whole is maintained.
But the Bible also states that The Word was with God in the beginning and was God. In John's gospel we find that Jesus is The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us. So, inside the bubble Created by The Father Almighty, sustained by God The Holy Spirit, is the Word, God made flesh Who dwelt among us. The Creator does not stop being greater than His creation bubble, nor does His Spirit cease to sustain it all in balance, when Jesus comes in the flesh to dwell among us.
Here's an address to 'assumptive science limitations': Now, when one reads the Tanakh/Old Testament, one finds scenes like the fifth chapter of Daniel where a being is in one spacetime 'where/when' reaching into another 'where/when' to write on the palace party central wall of king Belshazzar. Just the forearm/hand is seen in the where/when of Belshazzar and the party folks, the rest of the being remains in 'another' where/when.
God The Father Almighty created this 'other' where/when, His Holy Spirit maintains its balance and separateness from our where/when, and Jesus has moved in and out of this other where/when: as shown when He resurrected from the tomb without rolling away the stone, just passing out of the tomb where/when, into 'another' where/when; then back into our where/when as He spoke to the women come to the sepulchre; and when He appeared in a locked and shuttered room with the disciples present; or appeared suddenly with the disciples walking on a road and broke bread with them then left our where/when to go to the 'other' where/when.
The trinitarian nature of God is shown in the Bible, even in the Tanakh. Trinity IS the nature of God as we have been given to know. Even in the Old Testament/Tanakh, we do have instruction on the Three nature of God as Creator, Sustainer, and Deliverer. God Is manifested as three yet one, seen identified by 'the work He is doing'.
With each manifestation, we are given to realize His presence simultaneously as Creator--because we exist in the realm He created, as Sustainer--because the balance is too delicate to stand alone without His sustaining the separation and interdependence, and as God with us in the person of Jesus our Lord and Savior.
Angels and devils undermine monotheism which is God alone.
Hang on there. God DOES know the end from the beginning, does he not? Before he even created the world, he already knew all those who would come to Him as well as all those who would reject him - this is because God is omniscient which means having complete, infinite or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things. However, this is not the same thing as saying God predestines who will or who won't be saved. Why God chose to do it all anyway is a mystery that I don't think our finite minds are all that capable of grasping. It doesn't change, however, that God certainly DOES know the "number". If he didn't, then he would be just as subject to time as we are and he would not be eternal or infinite. He would not be the I AM - the self-existant one and he would not be the only, true Almighty GOD.
What is the Jewish view about the angel called Lucifer, aka, Satan?
I like that. Thanks.
The Bible tells us that Jesus could not sin because His seed remained within Him. His Seed is His Godness in His human-kind spirit.
In the Spirit of Jesus is God.
In the flesh of Jesus was human-kind.
We have a body, a soul, and a spirit. Jesus as The Word has always been God, with the Holy Spirit and God The Father Almighty.
When Satan came to Jesus in the Wilderness, Satan tempted Jesus, that is to say Satan did the tempting, the offering, but Jesus because His Seed remained within Him was not tempted.
When Jesus prayed to The Father, Jesus was directing his soul (not His Spirit) into communion with The Father so as to behave as a man.
When Jesus cried out on the cross, 'Eloi Eloi lama sabakthani' He was letting us know via the witnesses there that His Spirit was no longer indwelt by Godness and He died as a man in our stead.
When His Godness returned in the tomb, the wrappings nor the rock could hold Him, for His Godness was now unimpeded by the flesh though indwelling the body. Jesus left the tomb with His human-kind body, and can now appear in that body anywhere in spacetime He so chooses, hence the Christophanies of the Old Testament.
A slight modification-— they exist because He created them within the system of creation. A slight tangent:
When you hear “Kabbalah” don’t think about Madonna, please. It is the teaching of how an all-powerful G-d can “contract” Himself down into a tiny physical world (our universe.) There are infinite worlds in between His essential state and our planet. On one plane are angels.
So they exist, but we are forbidden to worship them..that undermines monotheism.
God knows the minute of each persons death, but He doesn’t know who will find Him? Isn’t God all-knowing?
Perhaps ‘freewill’ is really just a belief? After all, even though what is believed to be ‘freewill’ is exercised continuesly, how would anyone prove that that exercise of ‘freewill’ wasn’t just part of God’s plan or destiny, and had to happen that way?
I have long struggled with the concept of God’s omniscience, especially when juxtaposed with the concept of human free will. I do believe that God is omniscient, but I am not sure what all omniscience entails. For example, I have 2 children. Does God know the name of my THIRD child? I submit that He does not, but that does not make him not omniscient. An omniscient being can only know that which CAN be known. My feeling (at least today) is that God gave man free will, and that He could make man’s free choices unknowable, by Him or anyone else. (Of course, in most cases God, and most of us, have a pretty good clue as to what a choice might be in a certain situation, but that is not the same as knowledge.)
God knows all that CAN be known. He does not know that which cannot be known. He is omniscient.
God has told us His name is I Am ... we struggle with meaning for concepts like ‘omniscient’, ‘omnipresent’, ‘omnipetant’ because we do not realize that dimension Time is a volume, not a linear expression as we perceive it limited as we are by His creating us this way for now ... As a volume, all of Time and Space are accessible to The Mind of God, and The Word of God, and The Power of God.
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