Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bnr-fos!bnr-public!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: God's Will (Desire) Message-ID: Date: 2 Aug 89 01:18:02 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 88 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article fibercom!lab@uunet.uu.net (Lance Beckner) writes: >Second, as it reads, it appears that God is limited in some way. You imply >that if Israel didn't reject Him, God would not have been able to save us. >I think God would have come up with another plan if the rejection didn't >happen. Of course, it did happen, and all we can do is speculate about how >things might have worked under different circumstances. Again, I see God's >foreknowledge of Israel's rejection, and His using that in His plan for >salvation. You have very clearly illustrated a very common point of view which I used to have but have since been convinced cannot be true. I am now totally convinced that every single historical item mentioned in the Bible was part of a deliberately enacted plan by God. This is because I have learned more and more to see aspects of His salvation program depicted as figures in each and every historical episode. I shall tell you what finally convinced me of this truth. God promised Abraham, when he was 75 years old, that he would have a son in his old age, etc. Abraham's wife was 65 at this point, well beyond the normal age around which women cease to be fertile, so he took his wife's advice one day when his faith must have waned for a moment, and had a child, Ishmael, by her maid Hagar. I used to believe that this was just something that Abraham did that was a bit dum, never giving it any significance. I just assumed that God was teaching us the morral truth that He will have things His way when He promises them, and that anything else we try to do will be of little, if no, value. Then, one day while I was paying a bit closer attention to what I was reading, I noticed that Galatians 4:24 and vacinity clearly says that Hagar is an allegory of the law and that Sarah is an allegory of the promise. This taught me that even the most seemingly insignificant historical detail had a spiritual meaning, and that God chose this particular example as a way to make us aware of this fact. Applying this principle to all the rest of the Scriptures, all that God was saying in the Bible suddenly fell into place so marvelously that I became unconditionally convinced that what I had noticed in Galatians 4 was not a whim on my part but was, rather, a now very much appreciated piece of revealed truth that led to a tremendously new way to interpret the Scriptures. I share it with you in the hope that you will see this too, and that this will lead to an alleviating of a lot of doubt about what you may feel the Scriptures are teaching. There is an all too common trend among Christians to doubt, if not outright reject, another person's insight into the Scriptures just because the doubter cannot as yet see a given truth. We must remember that the Scriptures are a revealed truth, and that each believer is not necessarily given the same piece of revealed truth at the same time. I also feel reasonably confident in claiming that the Scriptures could not be a revealed truth if they were merely to be interpreted literally. Please let us take each other's spiritual insights into the Scriptures seriously and treat them as though God has revealed that truth to us through the other believer who presented the view. We must then take that interpretation and check it out against the rest of the Bible to see if it meshes, all the time prayerfully asking God to give us His guidance as we study. Let us also not forget to thank Him when we finally arrive at our conclusion, and finish with a plea that He will guide us to the real truth if the conclusion that we have arrived at is incorrect because He has not chosen to reveal that particular truth to us yet. Now, back to the original topic. I now see that all the historical events have been set out so carefully by God to depict all sorts of spiritual insights, that I can no longer believe that He just set it all up by knowing what would happen. He had to orchestrate that stuff so carefully that there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was all according to His will. You appear to have doubts because the Scriptures tell us how displeased God was. I believe that this is His way of telling us what displeases Him, but not that it was contrary to His will. I believe that His will was to have a few things happen that would displease Him. I am not suggesting, however, that He instigated them. I believe that He just let go of people's hearts enough and in the right ways so that their own sinful nature caused them to elect to do those unpleasant things that He wanted to have done. This makes His abilities even more impressive. He can, aparently, allow a specific bad thing to occur simply by letting go of any one of us in the right way by just the right amount, and that still leaves us fully responsible for deciding to commit that particular sin. Read very carefully the description of how God hardened Pharoah's heart several times during the Egyptian plagues. He would never have made Pharoah sin. The only rational explanation is that He just let go of Pharoah enough so that his natural state of rebellion against God took over in the right way to cause him to refuse to let the Israelites go. Also note that His own enduring of His own wrath could have in no way pleased Him, yet it was most definitely His will to do so. Dave Mielke, 613-726-0014 856 Grenon Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 6G3