The man of Romans 7

[pnattmbtc]

Regarding the Sequeira quote, it starts out like this:

 Did God know that Lucifer would sin? Yes. Then why did He create him? That’s one of the big questions.

He just answers his own question "yes" without providing any evidence for it.

[pnattmbtc]

 pnattmbtc:  ....you are presenting the idea that God knew Lucifer would sin, and chose to create him anyway, knowing that sin would result.  If your premise here were true, then I would agree with you that God would be responsible for sin....

....the responsibility doesn't lie with God is a key feature of the Great Controversy.  I think you're taking the wrong side here, the side of the enemy.

Then all of Amazing Facts, Jack Sequeira, myself and a host of other folks are on "the wrong side"!  

That's why if an infant, slave, etc is lost God will be at fault for He allowed the problem. 

Rejection of this truth is the reason your theology leads you to subtle legalism. 

The problem is God's.  That's why He saved "all men" in the doing and dying of Christ.  No men will be lost because he was ignorant.  If he is he can blame God in the end.  The only way to be lost is to knowingly reject God's gift in Jesus Christ.

I'm speaking specifically to the question of who is responsible for sin.  I don't see these others saying that God is responsible for sin.  From "The Great Controversy;

 Nothing is more plainly taught in Scripture than that God was in no wise responsible for the entrance of sin (GC 493)

 If someone wants to disagree with this, then I will argue they are taking the wrong side.

[pnattmbtc]

That's why if an infant, slave, etc is lost God will be at fault for He allowed the problem. 

Rejection of this truth is the reason your theology leads you to subtle legalism. 

The problem is God's.  That's why He saved "all men" in the doing and dying of Christ.  No men will be lost because he was ignorant.  If he is he can blame God in the end.  The only way to be lost is to knowingly reject God's gift in Jesus Christ.

This post has all sorts of problems.  First of all, I've never asserted that an infant or slave is lost, so I guess I can stop here, but please, if you're going to make assertions like "Rejection of this truth is the reason your theology leads you to subtle legalism." please present some form of argument.

Anyway, your premise is wrong, so your assertion is wrong too.

[pnattmbtc]

Robert, you still haven't addressed my questions, which is, why would God have acted the way you assert that He did?  I don't see the logic in God's doing what you are claiming, and, more importantly, it does not agree with the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Specifically, why would God take an action which would without question lead to sin given there were alternatives which would not lead to sin?

[pnattmbtc]

Robert (quoting Sequeira) In the Day of Atonement, God will say to Satan, “You are to blame.” And he will admit it because all the evidence is there.

So what is happening on the day of atonement is that the priest will go into the sanctuary and cleanse the sanctuary. He will cleanse the people, the congregation from the guilt and punishment. Then He will take the blame for sin and He will lay it on Satan.

This is from the Sequeira quote.  How can present this, and think I'm on a different side than Sequeria?  Sequeira clearly says that Satan, not God, is responsible for sin. 

[Robert]

For another, there are an uncountable number of beings God could have created but didn't.  By this argument the principle of free choice is violated by all these beings God didn't create. 

Wow...just look at your statement at face value.  It's delusional. How do you know?  Do you have the mind of God, the creator?  

[Robert]

 

Regarding the Sequeira quote, it starts out like this:

He just answers his own question "yes" without providing any evidence for it.

That's because he doesn't claim God like attributes, like you do.... Remember this?

there are an uncountable number of beings God could have created but didn't.  

Your statements are nutty at best....I'm done with your inquisition like questions. Your gospel is badly flawed...it's riddled with salvation by character (another word for works).

Edited August 6, 2015 by Robert

[pnattmbtc]

Robert:Wow...just look at your statement at face value.  It's delusional. How do you know?  Do you have the mind of God, the creator? 

 Why one would need the mind of God to understand this?  This is obvious.  God could have created other planets, other beings, anything He wanted; He's God.

What's the difficulty here?  Are you somehow thinking God was constrained to create the things He did?

[pnattmbtc]

Regarding the Sequeira quote, it starts out like this:

He just answers his own question "yes" without providing any evidence for it.

Robert:That's because he doesn't claim God like attributes, like you do.... Remember this?

???  Sequeira asked a question, which is the very question under consideration (if God created Lucifer knowing he would sin), and answered it "yes" without any argument.  But the whole point was this question!  The very thing he answered "yes" without providing an argument for is the very thing I'm talking about.

What in the world does this have to do with God like attributes?

 

  Quote

there are an uncountable number of beings God could have created but didn't.  

Your statements are nutty at best..

What's nutty about this?  How about, "There are an uncountable number of planets God could have created but didn't".  Do you doubt God's ability to do this?  I'm not understanding the difficulty here.

The point is that there is no free will for creatures which don't exist.  If God hadn't created Lucifer, there would have been no free will principle violated, because a being who doesn't exist does not have free will.  To argue that if God hadn't created Lucifer the principle of free will would have been violated is "nutty".

[pnattmbtc]

Regarding the "inquisition like questions", I'm try to get at the reasons behind the statements you make, as that's the most crucial aspect.  If you look at these factors, it can be seen that I'm actually much closer to Sequeira than you are, which is whenever you quote things by him, I can find contradictions in what he writes from what you are saying.  I'm trying to have a discussion which gets at these core ideas from which the other ideas come from.  I have to go now, so can't elaborate, but would like to when I can.

[Robert]

"From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency." DA 22 (1898).

[Robert]

Regarding the Sequeira quote, it starts out like this:

He just answers his own question "yes" without providing any evidence for it.

You didn't read Sequeira carefully, did you?

The love of God, which is the basis of His government, has no self in it. “Love seeketh not her own.” When you look at it philosophically, the love of self sounds very convincing. “You cannot be happy unless you love self.” So the idea of self-love sounds right. There is that text is Proverbs that says, “There’s a way that seems right.”

So Lucifer felt that his way of self-love was better than God’s way where there is no self. So God said, “Go ahead, I will allow you to develop sin"....

[Robert]

You didn't read Sequeira carefully, did you?

... Lucifer felt that his way of self-love was better than God’s way where there is no self. So God said, “Go ahead, I will allow you to develop sin"....

When Satan rebelled against God in heaven [Revelation 12:7-9], he was really rebelling against the God’s agape love the spirit of His law [Matthew 22:36-40; Romans 13:10; Galatians 5:13-14].  The idea that “love (agape) seeketh not her own” (i.e., self) [1 Corinthians 13:5] was too restrictive to Lucifer.  Consequently he objected to it and introduced the principle of self-love or eros [Ezekiel 28:15; Isaiah 14:12-14]. [JS]

[Robert]

So both God the Father and Christ knew that if they created Lucifer, a perfect being, that he would rebel against heaven's agape love.  Yet they did it anyway.  Why?  As Sequeira states that's the big question.  

[pnattmbtc]

Regarding the Sequeira quote, it starts out like this:

He just answers his own question "yes" without providing any evidence for it.

Robert:You didn't read Sequeira carefully, did you?

I did, but you didn't.  What you responded to isn't the question I was referring to.  Please go back to Sequeira's post, and my comment, and you'll see the question I was referring to. 

[pnattmbtc]

Satan in heaven had hated Christ for His position in the courts of God. He hated Him the more when he himself was dethroned. He hated Him who pledged Himself to redeem a race of sinners. Yet into the world where Satan claimed dominion God permitted His Son to come, a helpless babe, subject to the weakness of humanity. He permitted Him to meet life’s peril in common with every human soul, to fight the battle as every child of humanity must fight it, at the risk of failure and eternal loss.

The heart of the human father yearns over his son. He looks into the face of his little child, and trembles at the thought of life's peril. He longs to shield his dear one from Satan's power, to hold him back from temptation and conflict. To meet a bitterer conflict and a more fearful risk, God gave His only-begotten Son, that the path of life might be made sure for our little ones. "Herein is love." Wonder, O heavens! and be astonished, O earth! (DA 49)

Edited August 7, 2015 by pnattmbtc

[pnattmbtc]

So both God the Father and Christ knew that if they created Lucifer, a perfect being, that he would rebel against heaven's agape love.  

This is the question Sequeira answers "yes" without providing any evidence for.

Assuming it is true that God knew Lucifer would sin if God created him, why wouldn't God simply not create him?  So far the only attempt to address this question is what Amazing Facts said, regarding the principle of free choice, but a being who doesn't exist has no free choice, so this argument doesn't work.  God could have simply chosen not to create Lucifer, and put Gabriel in Lucifer's place to start with.  Why didn't He do that?

[pnattmbtc]

It is agreed that God is omniscient, but there is disagreement as to what that entails.  The disagreement does no lie with God's ability to know, but with the content of God's knowledge.  For example, the way that the future is often conceived of is as a movie which hasn't played yet, but if one could just continue the movie, one could see what would happen.  If the future were like this, single-threaded, then God, being omniscient, would see a single-threaded future.

However, the future might better be represented as trillions of movies, representing all the possible futures, depending on decisions which are made by sentient beings, as well as random occurrences.  God, being omniscient, would see all of these movies.  So God's knowledge of the future encompasses all possible futures, of which what will happen is one of the possibilities.

[pnattmbtc]

Regarding the Ellen White quote, she wrote that God foresaw the existence of sin.  Does this mean that God foresaw that sin could happen, and made provision in case it did?  Or does it mean that God foresaw the certainty of sin's existence, and that sin was inevitable?

There are texts from the Spirit of Prophecy which argue against the idea that sin was inevitable.  Two have been mentioned already.  One is the idea that God is in no way responsible for the entrance of sin.  Clearly if sin were inevitable, then God *would* be responsible for the entrance of sin.

A second text is that God sent Christ at the risk of failure and eternal loss.  Risk entails the possibility of failure, meaning that it cannot be the case that God was certain Christ would succeed, because anything that God is certain will happen will happen, and there could be no risk in this case.

There are other texts as well, which I may share later, but I'll stop here for now.

[8thdaypriest]

Did you ever stop to think, 8thdaypriest, that our future lives are based on God's sense of fairness, not on ours. Was it fair that we should be born in a fallen world controlled by a master of deceit? Was it fair that all those aborted babies get out of this world without having to go through the trials and temptations that all those allowed to live, have to endure? I'm not telling you what is fair as much as I'm suggesting that Able being killed by Cain, when Able was doing all that God asked him to do, doesn't portray a picture of fairness, and that gives great reason for us to have a thousand years to ask all the questions we need to have answered, in order for us to see God's character (after all, He is Love) vindicated. It will make this text make sense in a world that has gone totally out of it's mind.

Whatever you devise against the Lord,
He will make a complete end of it.
Distress will not rise up twice....Nahum 1:9

God is Love!  Jesus saves! 

God does NOT simply say, "you can't understand anyway, so just obey".  He gives evidence - evidence that we can understand.

This ENTIRE painful process began when Lucifer questioned the fairness of God, and His Law.  God knew that His created beings would NEED to agree with His "justice" and "fairness" - in order for them to love Him without fear, for all eternity.  If it were ONLY ABOUT "God's sense of fairness", meaning that His created beings didn't NEED to agree with His fairness and justice, then there need be no involvement of humans in the judgment process. 

The whole process has taken soooooo long, because God (for our sakes) needed to demonstrate the outworking of His love, and His Law (or the lack of it) within the experience of created beings.  Even unfallen beings needed to see this, because they HAD BEEN contaminated with a "seed of doubt". 

In order to recover their love, and to keep their love, GOD had to explain Himself to created beings.  Jesus was God - sending a message - in terms that created beings could understand. 

The "judgment" is not about redeemed human beings passing judgment upon other persons.  It is ABOUT redeemed humanity, understanding and agreeing with God's final disposition of the "lost".  A human being, who has experienced life (with and without) - the Spirit, can look at the record of "works" done by another human being, and judge whether that human being has been treated justly.  Having judged thus (for himself), the redeemed one can feel assured of God's justice as well as His mercy. 

[LifeHiscost]

God does NOT simply say, "you can't understand anyway, so just obey".  He gives evidence - evidence that we can understand.

 

In order to recover their love, and to keep their love, GOD had to explain Himself to created beings.  Jesus was God - sending a message - in terms that created beings could understand. 

The "judgment" is not about redeemed human beings passing judgment upon other persons.  It is ABOUT redeemed humanity, understanding and agreeing with God's final disposition of the "lost".  A human being, who has experienced life (with and without) - the Spirit, can look at the record of "works" done by another human being, and judge whether that human being has been treated justly.  Having judged thus (for himself), the redeemed one can feel assured of God's justice as well as His mercy. 

I understand that we can understand all we need to about God's plans for both the faithful and the unfaithful. Whether we choose to believe what He reveals is left to us. As to whether we can explain the total fairness of God would seem to be less than clear, except by faith and that not of ourselves, especially not in our present fallen condition.

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.....Isaiah 55 Bold theirs' LHC
 

⁶ And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He^[a] who now restrains will do so until He^[b] is taken out of the way. ⁸ And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. ...2 Thessalonians 2

16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory....1 Timothy 3
 

^{OTOH, there is also this to consider.}

31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead....Luke 16

 

 

   My brethren, do not fail nor be discouraged. It is Satan’s desire to cut off communication between God and His people, that he may have opportunity to work the human minds. But pray, my brethren and sisters, pray and believe. Speak judiciously. The Holy Spirit will help those who seek the Lord to know how to do His work. A lifetime of prayer and research will yet leave much unlearned; but what we fail of

learning

here will be explained to us hereafter. The work of instruction begun on earth will be continued

throughout eternity

. There the Lamb of God will lead the host of the redeemed to the fountains of living water. He will impart rich stores of knowledge. He will unravel mysteries in the providences of God which in this life we are unable to understand.

{Lt242-1908 (August 23, 1908) par. 9} 

God is Love!  Jesus saves!

 

 

 

[pnattmbtc]

LifeHisCost: As to whether we can explain the total fairness of God would seem to be less than clear, except by faith and that not of ourselves, especially not in our present fallen condition.

I think our inability to do just this very thing has to do with the delay in Christ's coming.  The importance of our being able to explain God's fairness (or "justice" or "righteousness" -- Romans 3) was well explained by 8thday. 

[pnattmbtc]

If you look at the early part of Romans, we can see Paul discussing the theme of justification, and usually we think of human beings being set right when we think of this word.  But it is clear Paul had more in mind than simply man's justification, as he says things like, "As the Scriptures say about him, "You will be proved right in what you say, and you will win your case in court." (NLT).  Graham Maxwell had a nice way of putting this theme viz a viz Romans 3:21-29, but unfornately I can't remember it :(.  His basic idea was that it is not *our* justification that Paul had chiefly in mind, but God's (and he had a nice argument to prove it, which is what I don't remember).

A super-cool thing about the Gospel is that the same thing which justifies God, justified man (the cross).

[Robert]

Assuming it is true that God knew Lucifer would sin if God created him, why wouldn't God simply not create him?

Ellen White doesn't answer that, now does she?

[Robert]

 

"From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency." DA 22 (1898).

pnattmbtc: Regarding the Ellen White quote, she wrote that God foresaw the existence of sin.  Does this mean that God foresaw that sin could happen, and made provision in case it did?  Or does it mean that God foresaw the certainty of sin's existence, and that sin was inevitable?

Me:  Since God knows no beginning, then God & Christ had Lucifer's beginning in mind.  What does EGW state they knew in their foreknowledge?

"From the beginning (i.e., of the creation of Lucifer), God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. "

So they knew, beforehand, that Lucifer would rebel and becomes Satan the apostate (adversary).  They also foresaw the fall of mankind.  Yet they created Lucifer anyway.  

 

Edited August 8, 2015 by Robert