Bible Question:
At times God is saddened. Saddened maybe, but not disappointed. How can we disappoint the One who knew everything about us from beginning to end, before we were ever born? Disappoint -- "to fail to meet the expectation or hope of" (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary). How could the omniscient God expect or hope something of me that He knew from eternity was not going to happen? Not trying to be argumentative, Ed. Just offering something for us to consider. Grace to you, Radioman2 |
Bible Answer: Greetings Radioman2! "Can we disappoint the omniscient God?" Yes! Proverbs 17:25 speaks of parents who are disappointed with a foolish son, and the Holy Spirit Himself is grieved when we sin (Ephesians 4:30). Our hardness of heart grieves the Lord (Mark 3:5; Matthew 14:9; Isaiah 54:6; 63:10; Psalm 78:40; Genesis 6:6), and our sin separates us from God (Matthew 27:46). Yet, with all of this grieving, does God not know our steps before we take them, even if we should fail? Yes! (Job 14:5; Psalm 139:15-16; Isaiah 25:1; 41:4; 46:11; Acts 17:26; Romans 8:28-33; Galatians 1:15; Ephesians 1:11). But if He already knows, then why is He still grieved and disappointed in us when we fail? Why? Because God loves us and desires to see us succeed as any loving parent would (Matt. 5:48). God sees a great potential and value in us, calling us when He knows that we are not fully ready (Romans 5:8), but knowing that we can be of great potential for Him (Ephesians 2:7)! And when we are saved, that potential and value takes on an eternal significance, that whatever He gives us to do from now on until forever, when we are there with Him in heaven, that we will continue to glorify Him forever! And as a loving parent as He is, He being able to see both our beginnings here on earth in sin, and our glorious "ends" with Him serving Him for all time, cannot help but to shed a tear when we, who will eventually serve Him in love forever, find ourselves using some of this "free" time that we have here on earth to rebel against Him! I believe that that grieves Him the most- that we, who have already been irrevocably changed (Romans 11:29), would still find ways to cut ourselves off from Him through sin. Our love relationships with Christ always go both ways- when we sin, then both we and Christ know that there has been a severage of that relationship that has happened. And our Savior is very sensitive to that severage, regardless of His foreknowledge of our sin, loving us so much to want to gather us all under His wings if we would be so willing! (Matthew 23:37) Another way to look at this would be Gethsemane, or Christ's death on the cross. Why did God the Father forsake Jesus on the cross (Matthew 27:46) if the Father knew beforehand of what was to come (Matthew 26:54)? It was the separation that occurred between the Father and the Son, due to our sin, that hurt them the most, even though that was His mission, ordained to Him before time began. Why did Jesus have such a hard time in Gethsemane, if He knew that He must suffer so that what has been ordained to Him before time began could come to pass? In Gethsemane, Jesus was about to take on the sin of all creation, for all time (1 John 2:2; Romans 5:6). That is what separated Him from any mere martyr- Christ was the Ultimate Martyr, in that when He was martyred, He also had to face separation from that which was His nature, His very being (Colossians 2:9), having His Father turn His back on Him, His only Source of strength at that time. And the world will never know a single greater moment of grief in time than that moment in time. Blessings to you, Makarios |