Posted on 11/19/2012 5:43:55 PM PST by kjam22
Interesting discussion yesterday with a variety of opinions. Just curious what some here might believe and why...
Isa 14:12-15
(12) How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
(13) For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
(14) I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
(15) Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
Yes, the very first sin of Lucifer, in which he became Ha Satan is recorded as the sin of arrogance.
It isn’t the case he believes he can win. It is the case he believes he will make himself as the most High. Winning really doesn’t have anything to do with it.
The human race is created in the angelic conflict as witnesses in Satan’s appeal trial.
What all Creation will come to grasp without equivocation is that God’s decision in eternity past to condemn the fallen angels is just.
It is not the case that they can simple live parallel lives without bothering anybody. They will by their nature attack everything righteous and will attempt to even remove believers, who have been bought with a price, from the love of God.
What this discussion is missing is that nothing in creation is out of God’s control, and that includes Satan. Satan, meaning “adversary,” is the adversary of mankind, not of God. Whatever Satan is doing is still part of God’s plan.
bfl
I am perfect ‘in Christ’. Something who is ‘California by choice’ will NEVER get!
I’ve got several ... here’s the newest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VciTnYA4Bfk
Adorno wrote...
“God “knew” that Satan would become “imperfect” all along, therefore, God decided to create something that he (God) knew to be imperfect and evil.”
PRIDE goes before the fall whether the fallen be angel or man.
It is Lucifer’s pride that compelled him to speak the 5 “I wills” in Isaiah 14:12-14 found in other replies here. It is his pride that keeps him in opposition to God and deceiving man.
Lucifer was not created imperfect or evil....he had the potential (as do we all) to become it. He chose.
God stands outside time and sees all things and all times as if they are happening now. This gives Him perfect knowledge outcomes.
To us, with our little ape brains the seems like predestination...that God created sin and picked winners and losers at the start.
He did not. He created life. Lucifer engineered his own fall not God. Adam, and in turn each of us, do/did so as well when we rebel against Him in arrogance and pride.
A farmer sows a field knowing full well that weeds will grow, but still he sows.....he wants the good crop and tolerates the bad to get it. So it is with God.
...They will lose, but they don't see it...
That's my take on the question too. If Satan really believed he would be defeated, he'd likely try to negotiate terms - and blame humans for their own downfalls. He'd be constructing a clever plausible-denial self-exculpation laced with claims that Jesus Christ died for his sins too. Also, out of prudence, he'd tell his minions to cool it so as to make the plausible-denial excuse credible. "Let them tempt each other, then we deny!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74b20RjILy4
we did this one a couple of years back..... I like it pretty well...
Funny how within most populations there is always a hardcore 1/3 of Leftists.
I’m going to give you a giant promotion:
You are God. Capable of creating anything. Would you create a bunch of preprogrammed robots and quickly bore as they operate predictably or would you give your creation instructions and a free will and let the decide their own fate, with rewards and punishment based on their chosen paths?
Basic
Instructions
Before
Leaving
Earth
Read it!
Happy Thanksgiving.
Of course He knew what Satan would become. And He knew that man would follow him.
Why did He allow it? What would the alternative be? Eternal bliss, unearned and entirely without contrast? I don’t claim to know God’s thinking on all things, but He never struck me as the type to create an endless utopia inhabited by spoiled immortals who never knew anything but absolute euphoria. He’s the Lord, not mankind’s sugar daddy.
I’ve struggled with a lot of theological questions over the years, but the “why does God let bad things happen” question (which your Satan question is a variant of) was never really one of them. The answer always seemed fairly obvious.
he knows he cannot defeat God-
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation%2020:10&version=ESVUK
“and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
In the meantime, he will try to cause as much damage and harm as he can.
Your post makes the assumption that, mankind cannot be creative and capable of wonderful things without the existence of evil, or the capacity to do evil things.
Why do you think that?
What would happen if another angel decided to rebel, but instead of doing the whole hell thing just decided to go way off in a third direction and not actively recruit souls but just rule over their little corner of the universe and start their own thing disgusted by both god and satan...
Would they be worse or better than satan?
:)
Without free will, we cannot be good. We can only be what we are compelled to be... essentially, God's robots.
You're getting very close to answering your own question.
No.
Sin is missing the mark in God’s Plan.
A creature with volition to perform His Plan or to rebel from it has the ability to sin. Sin is not acting per God’s Plan. It is anything other than God’s Plan.
Unlike humans, of which only two were ever made perfect, we all are born dead to Him spiritually. Once we become cognizant of Him and have the opportunity to accept Him through faith in Christ, we have an opportunity for redemption.
Fallen angels do not have a redemption solution for sin because they were created with perfect volition and eternal life.
God’s magnificent Plan required our condemnation before our salvation with eternal life.
In the Biblical account its simply astounding that 1/3 of the angels in heaven went along with the demented Lucifer and got kicked out of the glorious heaven.
The original “47%”...
I suppose the angel would be relatively anonymous, like Derek Taylor or Neil Aspinall.
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