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Galatians 2:17 "But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! |
| AMPLIFIED |
Galatians 2:17 But if, in our desire and endeavor to be justified in Christ [to be declared righteous and put in right standing with God wholly and solely through Christ], we have shown ourselves sinners also and convicted of sin, does that make Christ a minister (a party and contributor) to our sin? Banish the thought! [Of course not!] |
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Thank you for such a detailed answer! But I must ask you to clarify something that you wrote. Please be patient with me if I am asking things here that, by the sounds of things elsewhere, might already have been hashed over to the point where some people were getting somewhat emotional. That is not what I want. I just want to try and sort out some of my understanding (and no doubt some mis-understanding) about predestination (and at some point a little later on, about limited atonement), and to do so in as rational a way as possible ("rational" here meaning both logical and free of emotion). You see, I don't seem to fit very well into either the Arminian or Calvanist camps (and that might not be a bad thing!), and I want to know if that is because I don't understand one or both of them well enough.
So, with your permission, a question from your response:
You wrote:
"The understanding of it hinges on grasping the meaning of the word 'decree.' To decree something is to simply declare that that thing shall happen. In the case of God's sovereign decree, the decreed event can either come from God causing it directly, or by God allowing it to happen."
How does God's action of decreeing that something will and must take place equate to God simply allowing something to take place, especially if He would really rather that the thing not happen in first place? To my way of thinking, (and I have certainly been wrong before and will be again) fore-telling or predicting that something would happen is a very different thing than decreeing that it will and must happen. Is there something that I'm missing here?
And I could ask this same basic question of you from several of your paragraphs. For example:
"From eternity past, God knew that His creation would rebel against Him." To me, that speaks of God's fore-knowledge. That is different than predestining something, isn't it?
or...
"God, by creating the agents involved and allowing them to sin on their own, decreed what would come to pass." To me, "allowing them to sin on their own" seems to speak of something other than what Spurgeon was talking about when he said "In eternity past, God did most wisely decree...and [did] in a most holy and infallible manner execute all his decrees, without being author of the sin of any creature."
There are a few other places that I could I quote for you, but fearing that I might be laboring my point, please permit me one more. You said "The simple fact is that God is in control of every infinitessimal detail of His creation. Nothing happens unless He ultimately allows it...." As your statement reads, I don't think that there are many believers from either camp who would disagree with it in the slighest. But if by the phrase "in control of" you actually mean that all these details are absolutely predestined, that they are that way precisely because God decreed that they would be, and that God has not left any room for them to be any other way (which is what it seems to me that Spurgeon was saying, and which is what I have understood the Calvanistic view of predestination to say), then that must mean that God would be the author of sin (which, I presume we both agree, cannot be). I don't know any other way around that conclusion. Please show me how you have avoided this.
This is a long post. Thank you for your time and consideration. It is appreciated.
Bob |
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Answer:
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Bob:
I guess the hardest part about the Reformed view to accept from our finite perspective is the idea that God pre-determined that sin would (temporarily) be a part of His grand design. It is more than the case of him allowing sin; you are correct. He actually decreed that sin would exist on the earth by virtue of His creation of Lucifer and a human couple he knew would succumb to Satan's treachery.
Another very good example is the crucifixion. Was that a part of God's plan? In other words, did he intentionally send His Son to the earth for the express purpose of being murdered unjustly? I think that most Bible believers will admit that He did just that. What Reformers would argue is that He also orchestrated events so that there would be a party of Jewish leaders called Pharisees would emerge and eventually become hypocritical "whitewashed tombs" that would be His instrument in the death of Jesus Christ.
Now the sticky point comes from this question: did God cause the unjust death of His Son? I hold that the answer is "yes," and I think Scripture supports that as well:
"But the LORD was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand."
--Isaiah 53:10
Here we read that God "was pleased" to actively participate in the crucifixion. However, we also see that the guilt of actually killing Jesus rests on the Pharisees, not on God:
"Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become."
--Acts 7:52
We have a seeming paradox here. God orchestrated events so that Christ would die; it was no accident, and it was far more than a case of "a necessary contingency to insure optimal design." As I stated before, this is "Plan A." On the other hand, it is the Pharisees who bear the blame for the actual murder of Jesus, through which people who are guilty of rebelling against our Holy creator are saved.
Now the question you seem to be interested in is, "Did God MAKE the Pharisees sin?" The Pharisees were born sinners, so the answer to that is "no." On the other hand, God directed their innate sinfulness through circumstance and withholding repentance so that the very act he decreed (the atonement) would take place.
We see the same thing in the case of the Pharaoh. Pharaoh was already a sinner, but God hardened his heart so that he would not be "saved," so to speak, so that God would be glorified through the Exodus. Could God have changed Pharaoh's heart so that he would "let His people go"? Absolutely, but he chose rather to utilize the Egyptian's innate sinfulness for His purposes. Does that mean that Pharaoh was not responsible for his actions? No; he was not willingly cooperating with God, although in God's sovereign decree he did just that.
Same holds true for Satan. Satan chooses to be evil, but we see in Job 1 where God most actively directs that evil in a particular direction (Job-ward).
So we see from Scripture that God brings into existence evil people (after all, isn't that exactly how you and I started out?) for His purposes. Some He doesn't save. Some He does. Both are responsible for their own sins. God shows mercy to the latter, but both groups of people God decreed would exist and both serve his purposes.
Romans 9 gives a much more lucid argument than I have here regarding "vessels of mercy" and "vessels of wrath" (imagine that: the Holy Spirit explaining it better than me!). It is undoubtedly a hard issue to wrestle with from a finite, human perspective, but the bottom line is that on a certain level God intends that sin exist for now and that it work for His purposes. Just as he brings Moses and Paul into existence for His purposes, so he brings Pharaohs and Pharisees into existence for His purposes as well. Our roles are decreed, and yet we are guilty of our own sin, not God.
Complicated? Yes, but also very biblical!
Feel free to respond, Bob. I don't mind wrestling throught his issue with you at all!
--Joe!
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| Questions
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RWC |
Sun 08/19/01, 9:37pm |
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Reformer Joe |
Sun 08/19/01, 11:39pm |
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RWC |
Mon 08/20/01, 1:14am |
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Reformer Joe |
Mon 08/20/01, 4:30am |
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RWC |
Mon 08/20/01, 12:39pm |
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Reformer Joe |
Mon 08/20/01, 3:02pm |
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Lionstrong |
Mon 08/20/01, 4:30pm |
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Gregrook |
Wed 08/22/01, 1:43pm |
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RWC |
Tue 08/21/01, 2:29am |
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Justin White |
Tue 08/21/01, 3:58am |
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Morant61 |
Tue 08/21/01, 6:19am |
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Justin White |
Tue 08/21/01, 6:56am |
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Reformer Joe |
Wed 08/22/01, 4:45am |
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Morant61 |
Wed 08/22/01, 5:02am |
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Reformer Joe |
Wed 08/22/01, 5:43pm |
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Morant61 |
Wed 08/22/01, 5:46pm |
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RWC |
Wed 08/22/01, 7:24am |
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Reformer Joe |
Wed 08/22/01, 7:05pm |
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RWC |
Thu 08/23/01, 8:42am |
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Reformer Joe |
Thu 08/23/01, 11:43am |
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Norrie |
Thu 08/23/01, 9:22pm |
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RWC |
Fri 08/24/01, 1:51am |
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Reformer Joe |
Fri 08/24/01, 4:21am |
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Norrie |
Fri 08/24/01, 6:24am |
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RWC |
Fri 08/24/01, 1:21pm |
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Norrie |
Fri 08/24/01, 5:23pm |
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RWC |
Fri 08/24/01, 1:34pm |
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Reformer Joe |
Fri 08/24/01, 1:41pm |
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Norrie |
Fri 08/24/01, 5:04pm |
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Reformer Joe |
Fri 08/24/01, 7:08pm |
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Reformer Joe |
Fri 08/24/01, 7:16pm |
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Norrie |
Fri 08/24/01, 8:45pm |
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RWC |
Fri 08/24/01, 12:37pm |
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Reformer Joe |
Fri 08/24/01, 6:57pm |
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RWC |
Thu 09/6/01, 1:03pm |
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RWC |
Tue 08/21/01, 12:54pm |
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Justin White |
Wed 08/22/01, 12:35am |
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Ray |
Tue 08/21/01, 12:46pm |
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RWC |
Tue 08/21/01, 1:31pm |
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Ray |
Tue 08/21/01, 4:21pm |
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Reformer Joe |
Tue 08/21/01, 5:32pm |
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RWC |
Wed 08/22/01, 9:19am |
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Radioman |
Sun 08/26/01, 11:24am |
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RWC |
Wed 08/22/01, 9:32am |
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Reformer Joe |
Wed 08/22/01, 7:56pm |
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RWC |
Thu 08/23/01, 8:57am |
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