Trinity Broadcasting Network

[SIKSIKA]

lmorovan: Response to God & Sin

"You say that it is not against God's nature to forget. I disagree for the simple reason that if He forgets anything, he is not All knowing."

Response: God can choose to limit some of His attributes. For example, He has chosen to limit His sovereignty by giving men a free will. Likewise, as you have stated, He has chosen to forget our sins, because when He looks upon us believers, all He sees is the blood of His Son.

But I believe His holiness is a different story. Being holy is like being pregnant, if I may use that analogy. A woman cannot be a little pregnant - she is either pregnant or not pregnant.

In regards to holiness, one is either holy, without any sin, or unholy. Once one commits one sin he is no longer holy. God could not choose to limit His holiness, because once He did, He would no longer be God. Therefore I must disagree w/ your analogy about my ability to commit a crime, because I have the sinful nature to do so. God does not.

Response to your comments regarding the Holy Spirit: Pls accept my apology for not understanding your points concerning the Holy Spirit. I made an incorrect assumption about what your were trying to say.

"Jesus never rebuked the Pharisees for not repenting."

Response: You are totally incorrect on this. In Matt 12.41, Christ states this: "The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here."

Jesus is rebuking them because the Ninevites repented at the teaching of a foreign missionary, who only preached to them for 40 days, and yet, the Pharisees continued to reject the preaching of One greater than Jonah for 3+ years. True, he criticized them for doing wicked things, but the only wicked thing which condemns a person to hell is not accepting Christ as Saviour.

"Of course they didn't use those words. But it was them who developed the doctrine of election,...: "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other."

Response: This passage is not referring to the rapture of the Church, but rather to the Second Coming of Christ w/ His Bride (Church) at the end of the Tribulation for the believers who survived through the Great Tribulation.

When discussing the "elect" we must be mindful of three things: 1) The unsaved are going to be held responsible for not accepting God's offer of grace & mercy; 2) God's election is according to His foreknowledge (1 Pet 1.2); 3) We are to "give diligence to make your calling and election sure;...". If election determined our final fate before the foundation of the world, then how do we make our election sure?

"...you cannot state that, before teaching them what is the Gospel, who are the lost, who are the saved, why did God elected some for Salvation and some for eternal damnation..."

Response: I did not say nor do I believe that God has predestined people to go to the lake of fire. Without free will, man is not a morally responsible sentient being.

"Now, if God's will is for all men to be saved, what could possibly prevent Him from doing so? Paul tells us about it in Ephesians 1:4,5: "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will."

Response: God chose us to be 'holy & blameless' after we are saved. This verse does not imply that He chose some to be saved. And verse 5 states that He predestined those of us who responded positively to the Holy Spirit's call "will be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ,..."

Pls look at Romans 8.29 - "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son,..."

Does it make sense to say that God foreknew what He had already predestinated?

God's predestination of the elect could not precede His foreknowledge, for then He would not be omniscient. Likewise, His foreknowledge could not precede His purpose, for His purposes had always existed.

(Acts 15.18 - "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world ('aion' - 'eternity')." God has known from eternity what things would happen in the hearts and minds of men, and for that matter, in the entire universe.

I believe what "could possibly prevent Him from doing so" is the free will of man. God has chosen to limit His sovereignty by allowing men to willfully choose & thus accept or reject His offer of salvation.

In His Name,

NJMARK50