Posted on 07/06/2007 6:51:34 AM PDT by xzins
ping
How could God get insulted, when He created those same people that insult Him, knowing what they are going to do?
Free will exists.
But I'm missing the music to his concluding lyrics which seem to ring of a works-based salvation...
"...if we bestow alms, if we be humble. For this also taketh away sins...
if we be humble and contrite, shall be able to obtain abundant lovingkindness...
If we confess our own sins and condemn ourselves, we shall be cleansed from the most of our defilement. For there are many ways that purify.
...thou wilt be able to obtain the kingdom, by these means purging off thy sins themselves, and wiping off their stain...
And God grant that we all, having purified ourselves here by confession..."
Do we "purify ourselves" by our confessions? By giving alms? By helping the poor? By forgiving others? By our humility and contrition?
Or did Christ accomplish this once for all the sins of His flock by mercy alone?
And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." -- Hebrews 10:10-14"By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
I think the problem is some philosophies teach that we sanctify ourselves. But the correct perspective must always be the Holy Spirit is the agent for our sanctification. It is His function to correctly align our hearts to God's will and righteous intent for our lives, and I don't find that anywhere in this piece.
But if God cannot be wrong, and He knows what we are going to do before He even creates us, how can we do anything other than what He knows we will do?
I, too, like the thrust about ignoring God but having concern for the opinions of humans.
I think that there is a difference in obtaining sanctification via works, and having our sanctification confirmed by our works. It’s similar, I would think, to the perseverence of the saints in an era that hadn’t yet spelled that out.
Also, Chrysostom was writing in about 400, so there is some theology present which at that time which we’d both disagree with.
And yet Christ was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world by the direct purpose and intent of God in order to pay for the sins of His children. Read Isaiah 53 --
"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin..." -- Isiah 53L10
If you read all Scripture with Christ's resurrection as its focal point and the explicit purpose to all history, then life becomes a lot clearer.
None of that means that you don’t have free will.
An addicted alcoholic can be predicted to take another drink. That doesn’t mean that he has to.
On the other hand, God is the activating cause of everything.
I also think that Belshazzar insulted God by desecrating the temple ware.
It’s pretty clear that Ahaziah insulted God by consulting the Baal-zebub of Ekron.
Ananias & Saphira insulted God by lying about their donation.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
So, I should feel worse about insulting Hildebeast than I do because she's a "magistrate" and soon-to-be "king", and it's totally acceptable and reasonable for her to retaliate with intolerable punishment?
Isn’t that prediction made by a man, not God? If God is the activating cause of everything, and He knows what you will do, how is there real free-will? Wouldn’t God knowing what you are going to do, pre-empt your ability to do otherwise, regardless of what you may think you are going to do?
God’s a sensitive fellow because he had a poor relationship (a non-existent one) with his parents. It’s an offshoot of his abandonment issues.
I have no idea what God thought about that. Didn’t He know that the crucifixion was going to happen, even before Christ was born? If He did know it was going to happen, and He cannot be wrong, then how could it NOT have happened?
I do think it is inappropriate to be rude to dignitaries; not so much for their “person” but for their office. The bible offers support to that notion in Jude.
On the other hand, injustice is contrary to God’s will, so Hillary will answer.
The fact that the answer to your question is difficult to understand does not negate the reality of those presuppositions.
Whatever is, is as God wills, ultimately. But between our daily lives and God's "ultimately," there's a lot of living and striving and work to be done.
All as God wills.
It's really Satan who tells us we're autonomous. He wants us to believe we have free will so we can do his will. If we believe that God alone controls our lives and even Satan's life, then we can better resist him.
"And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." -- Isaiah 30:21
Wasn’t satan created by God? Didn’t God also know what satan was going to become and what he was going to do?
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
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