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NASB | Ezekiel 28:13 "You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the topaz and the diamond; The beryl, the onyx and the jasper; The lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, Was in you. On the day that you were created They were prepared. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Ezekiel 28:13 "You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the topaz, and the diamond; The beryl, the onyx, and the jasper; The lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and the emerald; And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and your sockets, Was in you. They were prepared On the day that you were created. [Gen 3:14, 15; Is 14:12-15; Matt 16:23] |
Subject: origin of the devil |
Bible Note: Brother Jonp, Thanks for the response. Bare with me as I do my best to respond to some of what you have said here. I will do my best to stick to the point. "A good principle in Scripture is to commence with what is clear, and then to move on to what is not clear, and finally to interpret what is not clear by what is clear." I agree with this statement yet I do not see this happening in this particular case. It seems that you have taken a few verses, and, based on your presumptions about Gen. 1:26, assigned those same presumptions. Pointing to Gen 3:22 doesn't begin to present a clear example that would sufficiently clarify 1:26 as referring to Angels. "But ‘like one of us’ here gives a decided suggestion of plurality far in excess of what we would expect to find in a book which emphasises the oneness of God, if God alone was in mind. Indeed if its reference is to God alone then it leaves itself wide open to being interpreted as signifying more than one God." When considering the trinity, I simply don't agree with this premise. Switching the focus to the "knowledge of good and evil" statement and presenting the argument that the angels knew both good and evil does not support the argument in my opinion. I would like to here from others regarding how they see this. The rest of your post does give some good examples of how angels operate, but still does not point to support your position in any way clear to me. I do believe that if there is anything you have written that should serve to bring question to your own argument it should be your comment on verse 27. You wrote. "But Genesis 1.27 makes clear that it was God Himself Who was involved in creating man, just as He alone created all things." To clarify, I believe you meant it WAS GOD who created.. vs. "who was involved in creating..." If you do not mean/believe this please correct me. But the value of your statement is in it's pointing back to vs. 26. If the "US" and "OUR" refers to both God and the angels, then how could we possibly interpret this verse as saying anything other than man was created by BOTH God and the angels? If God said "let us make" and was speaking to the angels, then the "us" being God and the angels did in fact create man. I'm of the opinion that either of us believe that. What we have agreed on is the importance of context and the only proof positive interpretation method is that of Scripture interpreting Scripture. With those things agreed on I would add that the best "context" is the immediate context (though that is my opinion and certainly open to debate). What where there is immediate context that apparently speaks to the point, my thought is that that should be considered with the heavier weight. Where it stands, vs. 27, "God created man in His own image..." (NASB) seems a better and more immediate reference to clarify the preceding vs 26. We're not only dealing with a "our image" issue, we're dealing with a "us create" issue. Otherwise we tend to rewrite vs 27 in such a way as to say "God and the angels created man in their own image..." There would be a false teaching. And jonp, please sir. To present the theory that God simply wanted the angels to "feel involved in what He was doing" is an extreme stretch in the least case. As parents, you and I may in fact mislead our children into believing they are more involved with a task than they are in order to involve and encourage them. But even if it's something as small as bringing daddy the hammer from the tool box, the fact is that the child did participate in the completion of the task. I stress caution in this way of thinking. I find nowhere in Scripture where God misleads His creation in order to make them feel involved. I hope my response is sufficient to cause some alarm and caution at least. It is likely that we all have been guilty of interpreting scripture based on preconceived ideas based on early taught experiences and denominational biases. The work of growing in the knowledge of Him is in that we allow the scriptures themselves to fine-tune our understanding and what we believe. God bless, Jeff |