Questions on original sin

I don't know. Would He have created more people.....created us? If so, then we would all be perfect and sinless. But we wouldn't have the opportunity to live in Heaven with God. I don't know about God's perspective. I know He hates sin and did not desire for sin to come into the world. I don't think I can answer this question.

Only if God continued to create people...us. Only then could we have a perspective. I suppose it would have been just fine with us because we wouldn't know any different. We would have fellowship with God, but we wouldn't have had an opportunity to know His grace and mercy. Again, I don't know.

It doesn't hurt to talk about it, but I don't think it matters. But moot discussions are sometimes profitable especially when they cause us to think about what we believe.

Yes, God knew everything about creation before He even started.

No, nothing catches God by surprise.

I don't believe that the bible supports that people catch God offguard. God knows...literally.....everything. And He knew it all before He even created anything.

Tricky question....yes and no.

Creation does not have its own power outside of God's will. God, in His Sovereignty allows for free will. Creation has its own will inside of God's will. I can choose to sin or not to sin. I can choose to eat a bagel for breakfast or a piece of toast. I can take the freeway to work or at the last second, I can take the backroad.

God is Sovereign and in His sovereign Hands lie His children and their free will. It's like you and I holding a cricket in our hands. That cricket can hop around madly or it can sit still. It can sleep or it can play a song on its legs. But ultimately, we are in charge of that cricket's fate.

God holds creation in His Hands. Creation has free will inside those hands, but God can alter even the free will of creation as He so chooses. He can change our circumstances, change our hearts, and alter world events.

God could have and can still create things to His Pleasing. He still does. Just think how many people were not in the Twin Towers on 911 that should have been and whose lives were spared. I do not believe that murder is God's will. I do not believe that terrorism is God's will. But He allowed it to happen and knew when He said, "Let there be Light", that it would happen.

Just because things happen that are sinful and evil does not mean that God's Sovereign will is being undone. Christians still sin. Sin is against God's will, but christians in their sin do not unravel the will of God.

God knew when He created everything that Hitler would be a madman and that people on the BB would fuss and feud. Those things fight against God's will or go against God's will, but there is nothing that any human being can do that will alter God's will nor negate God's will.

Not to tempt Adam and Eve.

Not to test Adam and Eve.

But because He loved them enough to let them have their own purpose of heart.

Do we want our children to obey us and respect us because they are afraid of us or because they love us with all of their hearts?

Adam and Eve disobeyed God and paid a horrible price for it. But they returned to God. Eve, in the middle of her punishment of having to bear children, marveled in her own body and praised God and acknowledged His wonderful work in her body.

Adam taught his sons to revere God. Unfortunately, Cain, in his own free did not. But Adam taught them nonetheless.

They returned to God's affections. That's the true love of God and the true relationship with Him.

No. It is not biblical to believe that satan has power of his own making.

The only things satan can do is what God allows him to do.

God and satan are not opposite sides of the same fence. They are not yin and yang. They are not a little white angel sitting on one shoulder and a little red devil sitting on our other shoulder.

God is Almighty Jehovah.

The devil is simply a creation. A creation doomed for eternal damnation. A creation that can only slither around and can only torment for a season.

Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.

God did not create us to be mindless nor robotic. The devil was allowed in the garden for the same reason that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was forbidden.

 

Well, when you do read everything I said, I'll come back and talk to you about those two points you brought up.

Sorry about the blue ink and unorthodox fonts. I didn't know people couldn't read them.

 

I would think that a parent would want their child to love them and obey them out of their own intent rather than to fear them and obey them out of trying to avoid punishment.

Yes, the bible talks about the fear of God. Proverbs says that it is the beginning of wisdom. To fear God is to respect and revere the fact that He is Almighty God and we are nothing but clay. I don't believe to fear God mean to be scared of Him.

I do not believe that the bible uses the fear of hell and punishment as reasons to obey God. Hell is real and God does punish people. But are those the reasons we obey?

I'm not afraid of hell. I'm not going there.

I welcome God's chastisement of me. The bible says that God chastens those whom He loves. Whenever God chastises me, I thank Him for it. He is telling me that He loves me.

Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Obedience to God should be a sign that you love Him.

If a person is walking the chalked line and trying to do all of the "thou shalt's" and trying to not do all of the "thou shalt not's" and his only motivation is to avoid hell and avoid making God angry, then I say that his efforts for are nothing.

If you take food to the bereaved to score points with God and to balance out the points you lost in last night's fight with your spouse, then that act of charity is for nothing.

Yes, we should fear and respect God. But out of love. Psalm 119 is a quite lengthy passage about the love of the commands of God.

But to obey God's commands to keep Him from punishing you or to avoid hell is just grasping for eternal fire insurance. And I believe that there is no such thing.

 

Yes, it will change. And sooner than you think or are prepared for it. :flower:

Parents have to smack little children's hands and spank them and for older children ground them and take away privileges. That's part of parenting.

But also part of christian parenting is teaching children to obey because it is the right thing to do based on love of their family and love of Godliness.

There will come a day very soon that your child is not in your presence and he will say to himself, "Daddy's not here to smack my hand.....he won't see me doing such-and-such."

That attitude follows children into their teenage years and they have the attitude that "What the old man doesn't know won't hurt him."

That's all a normal part of life. And for the protection of the child, I believe that christian parents should be more proactive in the discipline (not the punishment) of the child, if not to prevent these things from happening, at least to curb them a great deal.

Involving the child in setting the boundaries (of course, you ultimately make them), discussing why the boundaries are their in the first place and allow the child to explain the boundaries to his favorite stuffed animal (for their benefit and your amusement), practicing what to do when tempted by various misbehaviors (as silly as that sounds, it works), and have periodic family discussions that remind everyone of the boundaries and why they are there.

I don't believe that for the christian that they (hell and being scared of God's punishing us) are reasons to obey God.

Jesus said that we are members of the body (the church) and that the gates of hell can't prevail against us.

God's punishments are loving chastisements. Sometimes they are very harsh chastisements and are unpleasant to endure. But His love for us outweighs His disappointment in us and His need, stemming from the fact that He is Holy and we are not, to remold us and sometimes break us.

For the unbeliever, hell and God's wrath are reasons to turn to God in the first place. We are saved. Saved from what? Hell and God's Judgment.

Pastor Larry, christians are not to be scared of God. I don't mean an arrogant "He doesn't scare me" type of attitude. And our lack of being scared or frightened doesn't mean that we approach God with frivolity. We approach Him with solemnity.

How can we be scared of Someone who protects us with His feathers and His wings? (Psalm 91:4)

How can we be scared of our God who, the bible says out of his love for us, is our takes care of us completely as Rescuer from all trouble, whether from the devil or from our own making. (Psalm 91:14-15)

I believe that for the christian, the fear of God is to revere Him and to be in awe of Him at all times. Hebrew 12:28-29 says that christians are part of an unshakable kingdom. A perfect kingdom that God is preparing even as a consuming fire. And our response to Him is to revere Him and be in perfect awe of Him and to be gracious (thankful).

You know what does scare me, Pastor Larry? Myself.

I scare me. When I let God down and am a poor testimony for Him. That scares me. Not because I am afraid that He will do something terrible to me and he just might. But because I am sorely afraid of hurting Someone and offending Someone who is so Holy. I do not deserve to be saved. I do not deserve for Him to love me nor lovingly chasten me.

But He does. And I find Him to be great and I try to serve Him with reverence, soberness, solemnity, awe, and gratitude.

Fear is acknowledging that God is Holy and I am a worm.

Fear of God changes our behavior. It makes us submissive to Him and it makes us love His commandments and welcome the times that He must break us or remold us.

We are not frightened, but we are in awe. We are not scared, but we do revere.