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NASB | 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 2015 | Galatians 2:17 "But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ [by faith], we ourselves are found to be sinners, does that make Christ an advocate or promoter of our sin? Certainly not! |
Bible Question:
Hi Joe, Please permit me to ask this of you again. You write: "He did know from eternity past what their choice, would be," This speaks of God's foreknowledge, and that is a very different thing than predestinating Adam's choice to sin. Do we agree on this? And then you continue: "and He decreed that the sin would take place (i.e. he would allow it I thought that we had agreed in previous post that, from the Reformed point of view, God's action of decreeing (at least certainly as Spurgeon intended the use of that word) is not the same thing as God simply allowing something to happen. So again I ask, can "decree" really mean "allow?" And then you write: "it did, however, originate in the hearts of our first parents" But if that particular sin (and indeed every other sin that has ever been committed or ever will be committed) was truely *predestinated* by God from before the foundation of the world, then that must make God the originator (source, cause, author) of that sin. How can it be any other way? If you can explain this to me, that will explain this thing that seems, to me at least, to be a complete contradiction within the Reformed point of view (meaning strongly Calvanist). Bob |
Bible Answer: Bob: I didn't say decree didn't mean "allow." What I had said before that it is MORE than simply allowing something. Here's the way I explained it in the context of God's sovereign will at a teen camp this summer: God's sovereign will includes everything that He either actively engages in or actively permits to occur. Both fall under the category of "decree," and both were ordained from eternity past. Also, both play an active role in God's overall plan to glorify Himself. While He is not the author of sin, he directs the sinful hearts of men in such a way that His purposes are accomplished. Again, we still have a "problem" to resolve from either point of view, because God created those who would later sin, so in a way I suppose that we could say that sin exists because of God (in the sense that if He had not created anything, sin would be nonexistent), but He didn't create it Himself. He created the creators of sin would be the best way to put it. That is something every Christian would agree with. --Joe! |