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Message |
Truman
Registered user
Username: Truman
Post Number: 141
Registered: 1-2012
| | Posted on Saturday, May 05, 2012 - 5:30 pm: |     |
Thanks again to all who responded here; you all have certainly given me plenty to think about.
Disclaimer: I realize that God will reveal to us what we need to know, and we are to trust Him regarding the issues we don't understand.
That said, here are some of the issues I hope to one day understand:
1. Didn't sin begin when Satan rebelled?
2. Did this cause imperfection in other aspects of things that were created, or only in Satan and the angels who followed him.
3. Why were some angels persuaded to follow Satan, if he was a created being?
4. Why do Satan and his angels get to keep on living until God destroys them (and evidently can appear, physically), while man has a limited (physical) lifespan. Is this possibly because they ate from the tree of life, while God had not allowed man to do so?
5. Does "Let there be light" refer to the big bang of this universe, or to all physical creation? There doesn't seem to be anything perfect in this universe, but was what we see in the cosmos considered good - or is it all thrown off due to sin?
6. Why does God say "...like one of 'us.'" And "Let 'us' make man in 'our' image." when the 3 God entities are one? Does this reference to "us" occur other places in scripture besides Genesis 1? How were man and woman made in God the Father's image?
7. Why would an all-powerful God be constrained because someone He created ate from the Tree of Life?
Well....River is just gonna Love this post....not, lol. I know some of these questions have been addressed in other threads, and some we won't know while living here. I'm not really asking for answers so much as saying I wish we knew... (and yes, the childhood poem comes to mind: If wishes were fishes, we'd have some fried; if wishes were horses we'd all have a ride.)
Thanks again for the thought-provoking responses! |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 13670
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 05, 2012 - 8:33 pm: | |
Really good questions, Truman. I've had many of them, also. I'm beginning to see that speculating where God has specifically left out information often leads me down a path that deviates from what we're supposed to know and do.
I'm not trying to make an anti-intellectual argument here. I'm just saying that if there was one thing I (and the SDAs I knew) was good at, it was speculating and deriving concepts from fragments of information.
I'm starting to realize that we aren't supposed to know the answers to those questions. For some reason, God has purposefully kept us from having certain information..,especially about life in the primordial period and especially before sin.
The Bible does not tell us when Satan sinned. EGW told us he sinned,caused the angels to rebel, and was thrown out of heaven to earth before God created the world. But Scripture doesn't tell us that. It seems likely, since the serpent seemed to be the body which Satan inhabited and since revelation identifies "that old serpent the devil", but we simply do not know the time frames or details. Further, we don't even know if there WAS any time when the angels were created.
Also, Satan and his minions are not physical beings. They are spirits, as Hebrews 1:14 identifies angels to be. Spirits, it seems, do not become annihilated. Being a dead spirit, as ours are when we are born before being born again, does not mean it does not exist. It just means it's disconnected from LIFE which is in God.
We are not told why Satan has been given permission to continue to function as a tempter and accuser, but for sure he is not "alive". He is dead. He is disconnected from God. Moreover, he has already been disarmed and humiliated at Christ's cross (Col. 2:15). In some way we do not understand, Satan's power and authority have been severely limited and/or curtailed. Jesus' claim on humanity and His human death and resurrection have accomplished a seismic shift in all creation. Satan knows he cannot win, and Jesus' blood and resurrection have disarmed him.
He will be bound in the abyss (remember the demons that came out of the Gadarene demoniac begging Jesus not to send them to the abyss before the appointed time?) during the millennium, and ultimately he will be thrown into the lake of fire.
Regarding the cosmos and whether or not anything is good in it, Romans 8:20-29 tell us that all creation (that's ALL) has been bound to decay, not willingly but by the will of Him who bound it, and creation awaits the revealing of the sons of God when they are glorified.
In some way that we are not told, ALL creation has been bound to decay by God as a judgment on sin. And you're right--an all-powerful God is not constrained by anything, but He does establish rules of existence, and he doesn't always explain them. There's clearly something about the Tree of Life we don't know, but it's significant.
Colleen |
Truman
Registered user
Username: Truman
Post Number: 142
Registered: 1-2012
| | Posted on Saturday, May 05, 2012 - 10:24 pm: | |
Thanks Colleen, your thorough response was very helpful. And, you caught something that I inadvertently included (must be my old SDA programming kicking in...).
In my question #4, I did not mean to say "destroyed" since I wasn't thinking of annihilation. "Thrown into the lake of fire" is the correct term for Satan's fate. My question was more as to why Satan and his angels continue to have access and influence, despite their rebellion (what I would view as sin). And you are right, part of the answer relates to the issue of spiritual vs. physical beings.
Thanks again! |
Doc
Registered user
Username: Doc
Post Number: 713
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 06, 2012 - 8:43 am: | |
Good explanations Colleen,
Adi,
I can't really expand on what I said about "becoming like God," which is why I didn't :-)
I guess I mean we shouldn't read anything into the text in addition to what it actually says. Man becoming like God means he has a knowledge of good and evil which he did not have before. It does not mean anything else, like he will eternally progress and eventually become the god of his own planet, or he now has infinite power and authority, for example.
As to why Satan is allowed to carry on his activities...
There is an interesting passage in Judges 3:1-4 -
"These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (he did this only to teach warefare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): the five rulers of the Philistines ... They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord's commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses."
Just speculating on this basis, the fact that Satan is still around means that God's new covenant people now have to learn spiritual warefare, and they are certainly put to the test as to whether they will remain faithful to God or not.
Just an idea,
Adrian |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 13674
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 06, 2012 - 8:10 pm: | |
Really interesting insight, Adrian. That makes sense.
Colleen |
Adiusa
Registered user
Username: Adiusa
Post Number: 6
Registered: 4-2012
| | Posted on Monday, May 07, 2012 - 1:22 am: | |
Hmm, Doc-Adrian and Colleen, I think the picture is incomplete on the fact that the Canaanites "leftowers" were intended by God to continualy test the israelites.
Being new on the forum I don't want to be labeled as a troublemaker. So please bear with me.
Let me bring in the missing detail to what Doc brought up - it is acualy interesting to say that this verry subject was in my verry FIRST bible study after my baptism in 2003. The pastor that was teaching us, and this came as a shocker for me as it probably will for you,... said that God instructed the Israelites to actualy "kill them all!" and the bible text is in Deut 7,4 with the entire chapter actually. Further in Deut 9 it gives the reason for the "wipe out": it was a judgement on the Canaanites. But Israel actually disobeyed this command and did not kill them all for various resons as you read the chapters with the contest of Canaan. A verry intersting reason is in Joshua 9. One quick google search to see what other comentaries on this subject are out there, I found http://www.reasonablefaith.org/slaughter-of-the-canaanites
So firstly, there was disobedience, then God said, "ok, you will see what you'll get for not listening to me."
I think God's first intention is actually not to "lead us into temptation" but to keep us from evil. The temptation is there because we step out of his word and not because he wants to further "proof" us.
I'm still trying to process this, maybe you can help out into clarifying how this contoversy could be reconciled.
-Adi.
(Message edited by adiusa on May 07, 2012)
(Message edited by adiusa on May 07, 2012) |
Adiusa
Registered user
Username: Adiusa
Post Number: 7
Registered: 4-2012
| | Posted on Monday, May 07, 2012 - 1:59 am: | |
Still trying to process this, I came with the idea that the evil still exist so that the unrepented, non-believer would still have a hard time dealing with evil and look for God. Israel no longer walked with God before the verse in Judes 3:1-4 gives the explanation to why those nations were still there. When the believer faces evil is just a fact that we are not yet sepparated from this world, but the result is to draw him closer to God - like you said, learn spiritual warfare; not whether he will still remain faithfull to God, as you continued in your last sentence...Once saved, always saved?
-Adi.
(Message edited by adiusa on May 07, 2012)
(Message edited by adiusa on May 07, 2012)
(Message edited by adiusa on May 07, 2012)
(Message edited by adiusa on May 07, 2012) |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 13676
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 07, 2012 - 4:26 pm: | |
Adi, yes. That is a significant component. The whole scenario makes more sense when seen from a position of "stepping back" and viewing events from a position of God's sovereignty rather than a human-centered viewpoint.
God DID ask Israel to kill all the Canaanites and possess the land. It was to be a judgment, as you pointed out, on the Canaanites. Israel failed to fulfill God's command to them, and they actually made "deals" with various peoples which allowed them to stay in the land, but they served Israel.
God ALSO used Israel's own disobedience and the resulting trouble they had with the indigenous Canaanites as discipline. It's like God telling Habakkuk that He had seen Israel's disobedience, and He would discipline them. Habakkuk had been pleading with God to intervene with His rebellious people...God said, "I will--and I will use the Babylonians to discipline them."
To which Habakkuk replied, in essence, "NO! Not the Babylonians!" And God's answer was, "Yes, the Babylonians, but then I will punish the Babylonians for the treachery they practiced on my people."
Or take the fact that it was Moses in Deuteronomy who told Israel what to do when they chose a king for themselves, how they were to choose and what the king was to do (Deut 17) in order to keep God's will in his mind. Yet at the time Moses spoke, just before his death, Israel had no kings nor was Israel supposed to have kings. Yet Moses, inspired by God, told them what to do when they had kings.
God's sovereignty means that His purposes cannot be thwarted. He gives us each the ability to respond to Him or not, but there are no surprises to God. Overarching our scope of decisions for or against honoring Him, God has His own purposes, and He brings them about at His own time...and He uses both the good and the wicked to accomplish His purposes.
This is a mystery which is not explained to us. I suspect that when we enter eternity and are not bound by three dimensions and time, these apparent dichotomies will make sense. They won't seem opposed to each other.
For now, we have to believe that both God's sovereignty and our responsibility are facts, and even though we can't explain HOW, they do not contradict each other.
Colleen |
Harpazo
Registered user
Username: Harpazo
Post Number: 22
Registered: 9-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 09, 2012 - 1:13 pm: | |
Adrian (Adi),
Really great to have an engineers perspective! Happy to see you here.
See you Friday.
Carel |
Nowisee
Registered user
Username: Nowisee
Post Number: 1134
Registered: 5-2009
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - 12:00 am: | |
Welcome, Adi! |
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