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NASB | Genesis 6:6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 6:6 The LORD regretted that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was [deeply] grieved in His heart. |
Subject: How does foreknowledge preclude free? |
Bible Note: I like how the ESV translation highlights what a purposeful God he is. All God has ever promised either has been or will be accomplished! My only concern is that people will logically conclude (if we cannot demonstrate Scripturally that God does not always choose to know the future, nor does he need to know every detail about it to accomplish his will) that God is the cause of everything that happens. On the other hand, we need to prove that no human or spirit creature could possibly prevent God from fulfilling his word. Humans can predict the future with very limited success and virtually no ability to control it. God on the other hand can accurately foretell the future, and in addition, see the heart. He knew that "stiff-necked" Israel would, as a whole, reject his son. After all he witnessed as they persecuted and killed the prophets he sent previously to bring about a change of heart. He pleaded not for the many that he knew would not listen, but for the relative few he knew that would. How did he know? He made us. He knows our capabilities. The many prophecies about specific details carefully recorded for the honest-hearted to identify the Messiah were facts he foresaw from his look at the future. 2 Peter 3:9 states: "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." The concepts of patience and wishing can not coexist with foreknowledge of the kind that many imagine. Many of God's other awesome qualities, such as love, justice, wisdom, depend on his limiting his ability to foresee the future. Just as his love does not restrain his power, but works perfectly together, so it is with his foreknowledge. |