Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
It is a very, very subtle shift in seeing and a crafty temptation of the enemy. Sadly, it is not uncommon. It is fear of man vs. fear of God at its root. Even this will not prevent the purposes of God however. Our Father will do whatever is good and pleasing and perfect to build His Church and the gates of hell shall not! prevail against her. Amen.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
LOL!!! Actually I was confused for the first 30 years of my Christian life. What really is being denied is that God grants us all things. Humility, faith, grace, repentence, everything.
I find it incredible that many Christians, of all persausions, are unable to accept this fact. We certainly mouth that God gives us everything, but we really don't believe it; certainly not when it comes to violating our philosophy that man is in control.
We rest in the promises and assurances of God as they are written in His word. God has said it, therefore it will come to past. That is one of the reason we put such an emphasis on the word of God, not emotions or the acts of non-Christians. Just about everything can be imitated like the magicians before Pharaoh. God doesn't want us walking by sight. We trust in His promises.
Um...not when God commanded them to run into the Promise Land and kill everyone there. Not much of an opportunity to evangelize in my mind.
The only thing the Hebrews had wrong was that they tried to live by the Law and not by Grace. The Law was only given to show how no one could live by it and to accept God's grace. We must admit this fact. Some still don't get it.
Jer 1:4-5 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, [and] I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
For The One who is omnipotent & omniscient, it is both foreknowledge and foreplanning.
It cannot be otherwise, unless we feel like dissecting The Almighty into non-communicating separate parts.
"Therefore," says the Pelagian, "He foreknew who would be holy and immaculate by the choice of free will, and on that account elected them before the foundation of the world in that same foreknowledge of His in which He foreknew that they would be such. Therefore He elected them," says he, "before they existed, predestinating them to be children whom He foreknew to be holy and immaculate. Certainly He did not make them so; nor did He foresee that He would make them so, but that they would be so." Let us, then, look into the words of the apostle and see whether He chose us before the foundation of the world because we were going to be holy and immaculate, or in order that we might be so. "Blessed," says he, "be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us in all spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ; even as He hath chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted." [Eph. 1.3.] Not, then, because we were to be so, but that we might be so. Assuredly it is certain,—assuredly it is manifest. Certainly we were to be such for the reason that He has chosen us, predestinating us to be such by His grace. Therefore "He blessed us with spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ Jesus, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and immaculate in His sight, predestinating us in love to the adoption of children through Jesus Christ to Himself." - Augustine
The chosen people are the Jews.
We gentiles got included under God’s covenant version 2.0 given to us by Jesus.
And others were cut off.
Um...that's the part they God wrong. God would never do that. At least not the Christian God. It must have been one of those "voices" we all mistake for God.
The only thing the Hebrews had wrong was that they tried to live by the Law and not by Grace
And whose omission was it not to mention "Oh, by the way, don't try to live by the law because none of you will be able to." Why give the law to begin with? And, why would God give the law knowing the Jews will corrupt it and make it obsolete?
Maybe for the same reason the Apostles were sent to preach tot he 12 tribes of Israel...or why St. Paul went to Arabia (of all places) for three years after his conversion...when it was certain the people there would reject Christ. or was is just a "practice run?"
Such little quirks make some of us wonder...like why is human the only creature with a crossed respiratory and alimentary tracts. Others think it's "obvious" and wonder why the rest just don't get it: God gave us crossed respiratory and alimentary tracts in order to "teach" us that we can choke trying to eat and breathe at the same time. Brilliant!
It make for very effective learning. It's like teaching a child not to touch hot stoves by letting him touch a hot stove! If parents used such techniques that would be child abuse. Somehow, when we attribute such teaching methods to God it becomes "love."
The Law was only given to show how no one could live by it and to accept God's grace
That's a heck of a way to make a point, HD. It just doesn't sound like something Christ would do.
We must admit this fact. Some still don't get it
If I know your take on this, you'd say (as you have in the past) that we are who we are, where we are, and what we are because God wills is. If this is what you (still) believe, then don't be putting the burden of admission on God's "tools!" If all the deciding is done by God, then those who, as you say, don't admit it, do so by God's will and not on their own, and if they don't get it it's not theirs to get. Get it? Probably not, but that's okay.
There are probably a handful of people that would. From what we’re understanding of Mother Teresa, it would seem that she would.
But I take your statement as substantially correct. Most people wouldn’t do something without some sort of return.
The human Jesus had emotions, sure - that’s part of the package.
Our relationship with God is quite an interesting philosophical subject. Since God is further above us than we are above viruses, any relationship with Him means that He has to reach down very far to us.
I’ve been thinking about the idea that we can have a relationship with God because we are rational beings. I’m convinced that this is not so. We can have a relationship with God only because He opens up that conduit for us.
It is not the believer who is making the choice, so why even mention them???
It is not the believer’s foreknowledge under discussion. It is God’s.
Therefore, God always knows everything or He is not God. God always controls everything or He is not God.
God cannot be ignorant of those who would have selected Him when He makes choices. “If the works done here (Jeru) had been done in Tyre & Sidon (TS), they would have repented long before...”
Yet, God chose NOT to do things that way, and instead chose this way. Therefore, if God knew those who would have repented THAT TS way, then He also knew those who would have repented THIS Jeru way.
Can there be any denying God’s foreknowledge?
Yet, God chose this way and thereby some others were not saved. Did not God’s sovereign choice then lead to the loss of some and the salvation of others?
One cannot escape predestination by appealing to God’s foreknowledge. Nor can one escape pure sovereign decision by appealing to foreknowledge.
For all is according to God’s good pleasure.
It's a good thing Blessed Augustine deferred to the Church when he realized that his theologoumenna were leading him into the pit of Satan. Because, by the same token, then God has predestined Judas to be Judas and Pharaoh to be Pharaoh and all the evil to be evil. And that is not the God of the Gospels.
Kosta, you are so inconsistent. IIRC, earlier in this thread you insisted that there was no such thing as Satan.
God did predestine Judas to be Judas.
Jesus said that He had chosen 12 and one of the 12 was a devil. He spoke that about Judas who would betray Him.
He already knew. Judas would not escape his predestination.
Maranatha, Jesus!!!
Not initially. In the beginning, in the very raw stage of our faith, we all go through spiritual pride, which is all about us. Mother Teresa of blessed memory was no different. It is only through her own dying that she lost any desire to serve her ambitions but to leave a legacy not of herself but that all the work she did was "of Him" and none of hers (as she stated in one ofher letters). In other words, she reached theosis: she ceased to exist so that one could only see God's work in her.
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