What is the Purpose of All of This

I think we all believe that the purpose of all existance is to glorify God.

Arminians believe that more glory is brought to God when man chooses of his own volition to love and worship Him.

Calvinists believe that God recieves more glory by irresistably causing certain individuals to love and worship Him.

Personally, I think if that brought God glory he would have just caused the stones to worship Him.

 

As stated on the thread about Rev 14 and the first of 3 angels messages --

God is infinite - all created intelligent beings are "finite" and have an "infinite gap" between themselves and God in terms of "understanding".

God "reveals Himself" through Christ "The Word".
From the very beginning "IN the Beginning was The Word and the Word was With God and the Word Was GOD".

Arminian principle for free will intelligent beings:
Love for God grows through experience and understanding. That is true in heaven AND on Earth. God does not simply zap them with ultimate love.

Peter declares that even Angels study and look into the events on earth. Paul states that we are spectacle BOTH to men and to Angels.

More later.

In Christ,

Bob

 

I believe God's Glory rests in himself and has not the need of man nor creation to display it, but I do believe that God purposed to create to manifest his Glory. I do not believe that God created, nor reacted in after thought to any event presented in any created being. To believe this, IMHO, makes the creature a notch higher on the ladder of 'glory' than the creator. I must react to my environment, because of imperfection, I must describe my deliverance from this world of sin and my own specific bondage to that nature in terms that sometimes sound as if the eternal decrees and purposes of God are founded upon my action; I guard against this kind of language strictly. If God is a reactionist as I am, then He is imperfect as I am and has no sovereign control beyond the imagination of some who claim a sovereignty to God through permitting his creature to 'validate' his claims of Glory. It is my goal and purpose to serve my God and my Savior in so much as I present the Gospel truth and am satisfied that in the eternal purpose of God those who are his will come. If in my ministry my proof must be made by the numbers of men I am able to cajole, coerce or otherwise convince then the God of my salvation is going to be foreign to them in any kind of reality. To show my point I would use an episode from the life of B.H. Carroll concerning his 'conversion' and the resultant lack of 'the power' of God in this experience. During an extended revival meeting he notes that several persons were affected by the preaching, but this did not continue except in sporadic episodes and these latter seemed to be less affected than the earlier such that they seemed to be reacting to the persons around them more so than to the influence of the Holy Spirit. He himself was around 15 years old and some of the older church members were concerned about his eternal condition and this caused them to question him, they did so in the following manner:

Do you beleive the Bible is the Word of God?
Yes.
Do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God?
Yes.
Do you believe God sent His Son into the World to seek and to save that which is lost?
Yes.
Do you believe Christ is the payment for your sins?
Yes.

Then, why are you not saved? Then they presented him to the preacher(s) of the revival meeting and told the story as it transpired. Even against his protests they declared a child of God had been born and the angels in heaven were rejoicing, but he records there was no rejoicing in his own heart. Why? Because he felt not the power of God that he had heard about, he answered each question in the affirmative, that was true, but these answers came from being the son of a Baptist preacher and being taught this things true historically. The learning of them were not made real to his heart by the power of God. He continued to protest, yet the emotional ferver of those around him, including his mother and father (the latter of which should have been more sober if none other were), carried him as in a flood to the baptismal waters, with himself protesting all the way and his hearers answering him this was but the workings of satan to discourage him. Yet he knew the truth in his heart that he had not been affected and this truth made him doubt the truthfulness of the statements he had heard all of his life and even his own answers to those questions, this truth he now possessed was void of all the power of the Holy Spirit of God, because that Spirit was not involved in his regeneration, he did not experience regeneration. This realization that men could not always recognize the absence of what they always insisted upon led him down a road toward atheism. Though studied the philosophies of the world, entered the Civil War and was wounded, because he was of the elect the Lord did call him to that sweet salvation, showing the the power of God to call a man out of darkness inspite of the degree he has fallen into so-called atheism. He had gone so far as to attempt to disprove the Bible compiling over 600 apparent contradictions in Scripture. Though to his happiness at the time of his death he had proven all this number, short of around 30, to be the Word of Truth by the aid of the Holy Spirit.

Let us proclaim the Gospel freely and openly; let the power of the Spirit 'bear witness' with the hearts of those who are his the fact of this truth and let us be faithful in the ministry which we are given.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

In Daniel 7 we see "myriads and myriads" in the court - the Ancient of days comes - and the "Court SITS" and the "BOOKS are OPENED", and then (As Daniel 7 explicitly states) the time comes when "The judgment is passed in FAVOR of the saints".

#1. The saints ARE the subject of the judgment. The books were opened and public investigation was being done in Heaven by the Ancient of Days.

So also is the BEAST the subject of the judgment according to the explicit statements in Daniel 7 - and the beast can only cause havoc UNTIL the judgment is passed and his kingdom is taken from him.

#2. God "did not NEED any of that" - rather He SOVEREIGNLY CHOSE to involve HIS OWN intelligent creation in that courtroom scene. God sovereignly CHOSE to reveal HIMSELF through His dealings with sinners.

#3. Paul states in Romans 3 that God sovereignly CHOOSES to hold Himself up for review and investigation "That though might PREVAIL when THOU art judged".

In Isaiah 1 God says "COME let US REASON together".

In Job 1 God is at council table with other beings and proposes HIS argument and is challenged - and then sets compelling events - experiments - SHOW that His view is in fact - in real life - correct.

Summary -

In a FREE WILL universe - the Perfect sinless being LUCIFER is free to CHOOSE rebellion. (God is not SURPRISED by the future - but He allows Lucifer to CHOOSE). Yet it will COST God 1/3 of the Angels to LET Lucifer CHOOSE instead of "tampering with that current of thought JUST as Lucifer FIRST starts to err - in such a way that Lucifer HIMSELF would not know God had tampered with him."

In A FREE WILL universe - the Perfect sinless ADAM is FREE to choose rebellion. Though it will COST Him the loss of mankind - and eventually the death of His Son to save us.

In a Free Will universe the REMAINING loyal angels are "longing to look into the principles, events, actions of the Gospel" according to Peter.

In a FREE WILL univers TIME is needed for EVENTS to play out - to "demonstrate" the principles of God. "In the FULLNESS of Time" the Messiah comes to earth the first time.

And in the end "THE HOUR of His judgment has come" Rev 14:6-7.

In a FREE WILL universe there CAN BE "War in heaven, Michael and HIS Angels war against the devil and HIS Angels". Rev 12. Choice - free will - armies against armies - NOT POSSIBLE if God is just "zapping beings and events as He chooses".

In A free will universe - events "play out " according to a master plan that REVEALS compelling evidence about God's Laws, Justice, Love, Character and from that flows ever increasing Love to God from those that choose to serve Him.

In Christ,

Bob

 

I applaud Hardsheller's insight in bringing this up.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Just because it "aint easy" don't mean we have "no place to start".

The task of identifying the obvious parts are much easier than the task of speculating on the more difficult sections and proving that speculation to be correct.

Some argue that the entire 6000 year history is "pointless" or at least God does not consider it "a point" to tell us why He allows all this pain and suffering. That other created beings, life, the sin "experiment" is all "pointless" because God is not "providing compelling evidence of anything" since there are no free will beings to "be convinced" of anything or that can "objectively evaluate anything" they are all simply robots - programmed to come to a predetermined conclusion as it pleases God for them to think.

The other model is to "observe" the vast "Judgment" scenes where the all-knowing God INCLUDEs other non-infinite created beings INTO the process. God who IS life and NEEDS nothing - creates OTHER life. God who is all knowing CHOSE to sovereignly ordain a system of "free will" where created beings (as in Job 1 and 2) are presented with "evidence" to support "claims".

Where God calls out "COME let us REASON together" instead of zapping the brains as it pleases him to do so.

The two models look for "evidence" in scripture - and it appears that the "Corporate" compelling-evidence model takes the day.


In Christ,

Bob

[ May 10, 2003, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]