R
Ray Martinez
Guest
Genesis 22:12
And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
God says what He means and means what He says, unless of course you have an a priori theological bias to uphold.
The verse above obviously implies that prior God did not know if Abraham feared Him.
Abraham was at least 120 years old in Genesis 22.
120 years old and then God decides that Abraham does indeed fear Him.
God is omniscient but it is delayed until His power can arrange circumstances to find out the one thing He does not know: If man fears Him, which is a synonym for trust and love.
IF we fear God we will do what He says. He wants trust and when we trust God we are loving God - the only way to love an invisible Being.
The one thing God does not know is the one thing He cannot create: Trust/faith.
IOW, we know the gospel is the way of faith apart from the works of the law.
Because humans have the ability to change their minds at will God does not know for sure what we will do in the context defined by the verse, that is to fear/trust/love Him or not ?
He is ready to react in either case but He doesn't know for sure until we do what we do because we have the freedom to do otherwise/change our minds at will.
Hebrews tells us what Abraham was thinking as he was about to slay Isaac - that God would raise him from the dead = (proof that Scripture is Divinely controlled in recording what someone was thinking).
God was convinced that Abraham was going to go through with it - He stayed His hand.
Thousands of years later God did not stay His hand with His own Son on the exact same spot (Mt. Moriah).
Now, God wants to know: Do you and I fear/trust/love Him in response to Calvary ?
The choices of faith to trust God as we go along in life answer the question.
We should hope God will conclude one day, like Abraham, that now He knows that we too fear Him.
Ray Martinez
And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
God says what He means and means what He says, unless of course you have an a priori theological bias to uphold.
The verse above obviously implies that prior God did not know if Abraham feared Him.
Abraham was at least 120 years old in Genesis 22.
120 years old and then God decides that Abraham does indeed fear Him.
God is omniscient but it is delayed until His power can arrange circumstances to find out the one thing He does not know: If man fears Him, which is a synonym for trust and love.
IF we fear God we will do what He says. He wants trust and when we trust God we are loving God - the only way to love an invisible Being.
The one thing God does not know is the one thing He cannot create: Trust/faith.
IOW, we know the gospel is the way of faith apart from the works of the law.
Because humans have the ability to change their minds at will God does not know for sure what we will do in the context defined by the verse, that is to fear/trust/love Him or not ?
He is ready to react in either case but He doesn't know for sure until we do what we do because we have the freedom to do otherwise/change our minds at will.
Hebrews tells us what Abraham was thinking as he was about to slay Isaac - that God would raise him from the dead = (proof that Scripture is Divinely controlled in recording what someone was thinking).
God was convinced that Abraham was going to go through with it - He stayed His hand.
Thousands of years later God did not stay His hand with His own Son on the exact same spot (Mt. Moriah).
Now, God wants to know: Do you and I fear/trust/love Him in response to Calvary ?
The choices of faith to trust God as we go along in life answer the question.
We should hope God will conclude one day, like Abraham, that now He knows that we too fear Him.
Ray Martinez