Best Reply to “From Eternity Past”

I wanted to share this reply because I believe it is instructionally significant to the thread’s theme concerning God’s omniscience and omnipotence.



Here's what I think:

God created everything.... including evil. If God did not create it, it wouldn't exist.

God does not do evil, but the fact that evil exists IS GOOD, because it will ultimately glorify Him through the eventual destruction of it.

Too many people want to let God off the hook for evil in the world. But the bottom line is that God does not want to be let off the hook. God is sovereign overall and nothing in the universe happens outside of God's sovereignty. He will accomplish all his purpose (Isaiah 46:9-10).

The fall of the angels in heaven was ordained by God. He was not "surprised" by it. If God did not ordain it, it wouldn't have happened.
Same for the fall of Adam and Eve. Replace them with any other couple that you know and they would have made the exact same decision. It's all good fun to call them idiots or to say "they screwed us" by sinning, but it's folly to claim that had you or I been in the garden back then that we would have made any other decision.

God does not cause the sinner to sin. He doesn't need to. The sinner will sin by default. More often, God restrains us from sinning, way more than we probably ever know (Gen 20:6).

When explaining this concept, many people use language that God "allows" sin to happen. I personally don't believe this is the best word choice because "allowing sin" implies that God is relatively unengaged and is somehow discovering humans conducting sinful acts as history plays itself out. I believe that all sin is ordained by God and is part of His design. The scripture says He declared "the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done." (Isaiah 46:9-10) He declared it! He declared all things not yet done before they would happen. He wrote every day of our lives "when as yet there were none of them." (Psalms 139:16) This is predestination. It is a script that is being played out according to His purpose and for His glory. Predestination is not a discovery of people's choices through His divine foreknowledge. It is a sovereign ordination of things not yet done.

- A Forum Member

 

Though evil came by God’s creation, this does not incur attribution to Him as doing evil. The crux of this issue concerns His foreknowledge of evil coming into creation, because that which is foreknown is that which is foreordained, thus He preplanned everything according to His “perfect will” (Rom 12:2).

He foreknew Satan would be “a murderer from the beginning,” who “abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44). The fact Satan was “the anointed cherub” and “wast perfect in thy ways,” was an insignificant position because God knew eventually “iniquity” would be “found in thee” (Eze 28:14, 15).

This concept only partially parallels God’s foreknowledge of man’s iniquity, the difference being that His plans of redemption involved man only, for angels cannot be “heirs of salvation” (Heb 1:14). All angels were created, but only two humans were created and the remnant incarnated, thus bringing into reality by His preplanning, those who would be “born of God.”

 

I believe Satan and Adam were created apart from the sinful nature and that this nature came into being by the choice of the created, because there was a time when there was no "iniquity found" (Eze 28:15) concerning the Lucifer, and that Adam was "good" (Gen 1:31), thus also apart from the same.

The crux-issue is the fact that since God foreknew everything, He ordained (preplanned) everything to serve His purpose. This is the reason for the thread, to exhibit God's control, which in knowing, the believer can be assured that He works "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Rom 8:28).

Concerning predestination of the elect, the issue will most likely remain mostly unknown in its fullest comprehension and I believe this is the crux-passage why: "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour (Rom 9:21)?

 

Hi Steaver - Thanks for your reply and letting me know about the book.