Featured John Piper

Joseph: "You meant it due to your wicked hearts. God did it for His good."

 

Exactly some of the most glorious events look horrible from a different perspective.

 

If, as John Calvin asserts:

“Creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed.”

How could Israel in the OT be in rebellion? If Israel in rebellion is God's foreordained plan, then by definition they CAN'T be in rebellion because they are doing what God planned from before creation.

 

Israel is held responsible for their rebellion in the same way Pilate, Herod, the Romans, and the Jews who crucified Jesus are guilty...even though it was predestined by God (Acts 4:27-28). So why would Jesus ask his Father to forgive those who tortured them if their torturing was predestined by his Father? (Acts 2:23)

 

Two thoughts.

1) Humankind by the fallen nature is in rebellion - that is not God's fault.

2) Just because God uses the rebellion and the rebellious heart to HIS purpose has nothing to do with God "fore ordaining" rebellion or the rebellious heart.

Certainly God new the rebellious would be rebellious. Just as Pharaoh would have a hard heart. God confirms the heart of rebellion and hardness or will have mercy and grace. He is God, that is HIS authority.

That mere man would call God into question is like the toilet asking the molder, "Why didn't you make me a sink?"

 

But if "nothing happens but what God has knowingly and willingly decreed", how can Israel be held responsible for something God made happen?

 

The same way God held Pilate, Herod, the Romans, and the Jews responsible for crucifying Jesus...even though it was predestined by God (Acts 4:27-28).

 

You're talking in circles.

 

No...i'm not. I'm telling you that the answer to my question is the answer to yours. The same logical processes you use to make sense of Herod, Pilate, and the Jews and Gentiles who crucified Jesus being guilty is what should be used to see the guilt in Israel being rebellion.

It's like Joseph's brothers and the evil they did to Joseph. They were responsible yet Joseph let them know in Genesis 50 that what happened to him was God's doing.

 

Let's try something else.

“In vain I punished your people;
they did not respond to correction.
Your sword has devoured your prophets
like a ravenous lion." --Jer. 2:30

So in this case God caused Israel to rebel (remember, nothing happens without God decreeing it), then he punished them for rebelliousness, yet they did not repent.

God punished rebellious Israel because He wanted Israel to repent. Under Calvinism, only God can grant repentance. Yet, still they did not repent. So how can Israel not repent when God is the author of repentance and He wanted them to repent?

 

I don't use a "logical process" to determine how this worked. I believe the crucifixion, as the central act of love that God did for sinners, was foreordained and so God acted to cause Herod and Pilate to do what they did.

BTW, you need to show where God held Pilate and Herod responsible for what they did.

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup:
isa10
5 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.

6 I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.


hab1
5 Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

6 For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not their's.

7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

8 Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.

 

Well okay then.

So if I don't show where God held Pilate and Herod responsible for what they did are you saying that means they weren't responsible???

 

I agree...........

 

That's right. The Lord raised up the Assyrians for His purposes as a divine club against a godless nation --Israel. Then, He later punished Assyria for its deeds. God's enemies are tools in His hands.

 

Quotes From Goodspeed's New Testament

Your very biblical statement is said to be going in circles!

Acts 2:23 :
"But you, by the fixed purpose and intention of God, handed him over to wicked men, and crucified and killed him."

In Acts 4:27b and 28 it says that Herod and Pontius Pilate, "with the heathen and the peoples of Israel, [carried out] what your hand and will had destined should happen."

It's a joining together of Divine ordination and human responsibility.

 

I do not find John Piper easy to read.
John Piper leaves the door open on gifts.

John Piper has also come out with some brilliant thoughts....so I take the good , leave the rest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIbVvwROuo8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVT3EGvxNkc

 

Neither of you have shown that God held Pilate and Herod responsible. If God caused them to do something how can he hold them responsible? Might as well say Balaam's donkey was responsible for what it said.

 

I destroyed the hammer that I hit myself with earlier today. That'll teach it.

 

Are you trying to convince yourself that they are in the Kingdom of God?

You still haven't grasped the Scriptures we have given you. You are arguing against God.

Are you about to say :"Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will? (Ro.9:19)

One day you will see the light.