Does God react, relent or change in response to man?

What God decrees always comes to pass.To deny this is to deny the God of the bible.

I am not sure how a person reads this....says he is a believer..then says it is not true sometimes

 

Yes...God ordains the means as well as the result...He is never surprised ,confused , etc as some would post.

 

You are talking about a whole different subject matter of how much communication did Jesus' divine nature have with Jesus' human nature. So that's why I haven't addressed it. I have given Scripture showing that God knows all things. If that's true, then God knew that He was going to give the 15 years before He told Isaiah that Hezekiah was going to die.

 

Not exactly, He did that Himself.

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.​

Hebrews 2:16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.​

Hebrews 1
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

HankD​

 

God decreed that Hezekiah needed to get his home in order, he was not going to recover and he would die.

Did that happen?

 

But it's not really a whole different subject. Christ's natures cannot be separated. This was the issue in the early church. The fact of the matter is Christ was fully divine when He made that statement. He was omniscient. That combined with the passage in Philipians 2 stating Christ "emptied Himself" need to be dealt with. The fact is, it is a mystery whether one will admit it or not.

 

Does God react, relent or change in response to man?

In other words, does God answer prayer? Yes, of course. I can't imagine a noncalvinist having any assurance of that fact, since in his eyes man's will is sovereign.

 

Shocked...another "man is sovereign" post by Aaron. You say that so much, Aaron, maybe you are the one that really believes it?

 

Not having read each and every post in this thread, I do not know if these verses have been used. If they have, I am truly sorry, but I do think they will prove my point:

James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Lev. 26:3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;

4Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

5And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

6And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

7And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

8And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

9For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.

10And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.

11And I set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.

12And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.

13I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.


Read verse three very close and you will see that God stated "if ye will walk in my statutes and keep my commandments", He would do all those things listed in the following verses.

Deut. 28:1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.

1 Kings 11:38 And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.

So I think these verses show that God "interacts" with all of His creation, and especially those who have been saved.


i am I AM's!!

Willis

 

Hezekiah was told to get his house in order.
Where do you read that .....God decreed.....that he would not recover and die?
If you do not mind me saying so webdog...sometimes you have a habit of letting your thoughts run on,and you add things that really are not there, or you try to consider all manner of what if's {that is okay in the sense that it helps to think thru an issue} but you must keep in mind that more often than not these speculations outside of the word into the philosphical realm are not going to stand .
Whatever is decreed comes to pass all the time, or it could not rightly be said to be decreed.

 

But, no one has asked what was God's purpose in telling Hezekiah to get his house in order... Did God, as He does so many times, test Hezekiah?

That seems to fit the biblical evidence much more than anything else. Also, God does a fair amount of testing--especially with Moses and the Israelites--and it is common for Him to do so.

So, discern God's purpose in sending Isaiah to Hezekiah and we might get much closer to an answer.

The Archangel

 

Is this speculation? Is this just "one of my thoughts"? Here's one:

Isaiah 38:1 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover."

Here's another:

2 Kings 20:1 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover."

Let me ask you this...did he die? Did he not recover?

 

How is that relevant? Do you think He lied to Hezekiah in order to test him, because that's exactly what it is if He was merely testing him.

It does if one cannot accept that there is a tension in Scripture concerning the matter.

I believe I have, and I do not believe God would use a lie in order to test us.

 

It is one of your thoughts.I know what hezekiah is told.The question was where do you see it said that God decreed it? Answer the question.

Evidently what was decreed was that God had already purposed to extend his life span 15 yrs, because that is what came to pass.

Was Nineveh overthrown in 40 days? We could do this all day.
Isaiah 38
1In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.

2Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,

3And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.

4Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,

5Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. This prayer and the result[15 year extension] was what was ordained to start with. The word of God through Isaiah was the means

 

How do you figure it to be a lie when God tests someone?

God required Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (all the while knowing He would stop Abraham). This certainly was not a lie.

The fact of the matter is this: God puts His people to the test all the time. Sometimes the purpose is quite evident, sometimes it is not.

With Hezekiah, the purpose is evident--Hezekiah, though he was considered a very good king, was quite proud and self-centered.

Also, consider that the testing of Hezekiah is not chronologically listed in the accounts--therefore the inclusion of the account serves more than a narrative purpose.

Consider that. Find the testing. Discover the ultimate answer.

The Archangel

 

I believe that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and immutable. The passages in the bible that seem to teach that God changes his path based upon what he has learned from humans are simply anthropomorphic.

It is not logical or biblical to believe that the creator can learn from the created and change his path based on that knowledge.

God is clear that if he was a God of changing emotion that his holiness would have made him destroy Israel a long time ago. But does not change and he has not destroyed them. The reason he has not is because his holiness and justice are satisfied because he has already made the choice to pour out his wrath upon the wicked and that will come to pass exactly as he predestined it to come to pass.

Malachi 3:6
6 “I the LORD do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.

 

"This is what the LORD says" is not a suggestion, is it? If this is not a decree, then I guess we can discount the other times where God spoke through His prophets or where we find "This is what the LORD says".

In addition if it was already purported to extend his time by 15 years, there would be no extension as it would have been part of he normal lifespan. The fact these were additional years shows these were added years NOT part of his decreed lifespan, that these came after hearing his prayer.


The story of Ninevah is not a good comparison as it further supports my position of God relenting AFTER their response to His decree. The difference with Ninevah as compared to Hezekiah is one was a threat and the other was not.


10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

 

If an untruth is told to garner a response it is a lie. If God was not going to really kill Hezekiah and he was not really going to die as He is already knew Hezekiah's response, the text is not truthful as it states this occurred as a result of Hezekiah's prayer.

"The prayer of the righteous availeth much".

 

How are the many passages in Scripture describing "anthropomorphism"? What keeps us from chalking anything and everything God says to man as anthropomorphism?

 

Because "I change not, because if I did you would have been destroyed a long time ago" is a definitive statement from God about himself.

Proper scriptural interpretation must observe the law of non contradiction. If those statements did teach that God did change and was not immutable then Malachi 3:6 would be contradicted.

So we know that they are anthropomorphisms. For the infinite to communicate with the finite he must condescend or leave the finite uncomprehending anything at all.