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NASB | Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 1:31 God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good and He validated it completely. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day. |
Subject: god create evil |
Bible Note: Dear Micah, Your presupposition of the "free will" of man predisposes you to seeing "throughout the bible ... God giving man choices." What I see all throughout the bible is man's inability and God's redemptive power. If man has the kind of free will of which you speak, why then are we described as dead (Eph 2:1, 5; Col 2:13; 1 Peter 2:24), slaves (John 8:44; Romans 6:20; Eph 2:2; 2 Tim 2:26), blind (Mat 23:26; 2 Cor 3:14). In your eisegesis you would make man sick, not dead; employees, not slaves; myopic, not blind. Not only is this a repudiation of the Word of God, it demeans the work of God in redemption! If a man is ignorant, all he need do is call for a teacher. When he is educated, he receives the glory along with the teacher for his efforts to learn. If a man is sick, all he need do is call for a doctor. When he is well, he receives the glory along with the doctor for having had the wisdom to seek healing. When a man is dead, he can do nothing. He cannot call out for help. He cannot choose. The teacher and the doctor are equally useful to the corpse. Man's condition without Christ is like the dead man: it is utterly desperate and utterly beyond hope. Dead men are unable to hear or act. Dead men are unable to choose. Think of the narrative in John 11 where Jesus goes to the grave of Lazarus. When Christ calls Lazarus forth, it was not simply a matter of Lazarus hearing the call of God and choosing to respond! Think about what needed to take place. First, the Spirit of God had to restore life to the stinking corpse. That, in itself, was incredible, something that only God could do. Second, the Spirit of God had to heal the disease that killed the man in the first place. Before doing these things, Lazarus could not have heard the voice of Christ, let alone responded to it. Only after these things Lazarus is able to hear the command. Only then does he have the power to rise up and leave the tomb. Son, one day the Lord Jesus will divide the sheep from the goats (Mat 25:32-33). He will divide the tares from the wheat (Mat 13:30). Goats cannot become sheep by sheer force of will. Tares cannot become wheat by sheer force of will. Only God can make sheep. Only God can make wheat. Left to our own devices, no one would choose God. The ability to choose was lost in the fall. God must do His redemptive work to restore a man before he can choose. Regeneration always precedes faith. Yes, the Bible is full of the love of God. But God does not share His glory with anyone. Redemption, start to finish, is a work of God alone, through Christ alone. The only thing we contribute to the process is our sin. God chooses, calls, regenerates, gives faith, justifies through double imputation, adopts, sanctifies, and will eventually glorify. He is the Alpha and Omega. He does it all. He does not leave our salvation to chance or the vagaries of the fickle human heart. He never begged Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Peter, Paul, etc. etc. Yes, He loves us that much! You ask, "is it possible to create true free will and somehow exclude evil?" The old divines answered things so much better than I can. They wrote, "God hath decreed in Himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree. (Isaiah 46:10; Ephesians 1:11; Hebrews 6:17; Romans 9:15, 18; James 1:13; 1 John 1:5; Acts 4:27, 28; John 19:11; Numbers 23:19; Ephesians 1:3-5)" (1689 LBCF, chapter 3, paragraph 1) That answer is succinct and complete, but it might take some study to fully understand it. If you desire truth, you will seek to understand it before you decide if it is correct. If not, you will dismiss it out of hand. You wrote, "Without choice, we cannot choose love and therefore cannot bring glory to God." God brings glory to Himself by redeeming His elect, and passing over the rest of humanity. As believers we show our love of the Lord by cooperating with Him in obedience and submission. However, that is only possible because of regeneration. In Him, Doc PS For those of you who are interested in theological terms, what this young man is talking about is called "decisional regeneration." It is a common component associated with a belief system called "synergism," which is rooted, historically, in Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. These theological perspectives stand in opposition to Pauline, Augustinian, and Lutheran theology, which is broadly known as "monergism." |