Does God choose to limit Himself?

In the beginning the Lord gave to Adam "authority" over all the works of his hands. Adam was now in charge of every thing by God's own decree in crowning him with Glory and Honer. This "limited" God in his ability to change things as Adam was now in authority over all of God creation. Even though Adam was now an overseer of all God'as creation, God was still the owner, and Adam was just a "husbandman" which means "a worker, laborer"

Heb 2:6.. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Heb 2:7.. Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands:

Adam having this authority from God it was not to continue forever, as it was only for a specific time period, and then all things would return back to its rightful owner which is God. Jesus tells us this in a parable.

Luk 20:9.. Then began he to speak to the people this parable; A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time.

( the words, "to let it forth" means, "to lease out")

Luk 20:10.. And at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty.
Luk 20:11.. And again he sent another servant: and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty.
Luk 20:12.. And again he sent a third: and they wounded him also, and cast him out.
Luk 20:13 Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him.
Luk 20:14 But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.

(classic case of Jesus Christ coming to earth to claim what was his, yet those in authority killed the heir)

Luk 20:15.. So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them?
Luk 20:16.. He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others.

Eventually the lease has run out, and the Lord comes, and destroys those husbandman, and give the earth to its rightful owner which is Jesus Christ and his Church!!!

The Lord has always needed a man on earth for which to work through, as the earth was given to man as its husbandman and worker. After its lease has run out the property owner will take back what is his from the beginning, and give it to Christ to rule over for ever!
God will once again have unlimited authority over all the earth, and the man in charge will be His Son Jesus Christ.
 
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Yes.........but doesn't "glorified" bodies = NO FLESH AND BLOOD?

Scripture says that we worship God in SPIRIT and truth and it is our Spirit that goes to heaven after the HUMAN body is buried.

Then we also need to remember that the Scripture says that "we are a NEW CREATION in Christ Jesus".

I am getting a headache!!!!!
But since we get the same body as Jesus, and His was glorified, we will have flesh; glorified flesh. He had flesh. They handled Him. They felt His body. He ate broiled fish as they watched. (We will also eat in Heaven (also why would there be a wedding supper of the Lamb - we must be eating at a supper).
 
But since we get the same body as Jesus, and His was glorified, we will have flesh; glorified flesh. He had flesh. They handled Him. They felt His body. He ate broiled fish as they watched. (We will also eat in Heaven (also why would there be a wedding supper of the Lamb - we must be eating at a supper).
Notice, Jesus's resurrection from the grave included his physical body. Jesus remained on earth for forty days displaying his resurrected body for all to see. The resurrection was not "complete" until Jesus ascended into Heaven and then sat down on the right hand of God. His resurrected physical body was changed into a supernatural body as he was taken up in the clouds to Heaven, in exactly the same way our physical bodies will be changed when Jesus returns. When we read the descriptions of Jesus given by the Apostle John in the Book of Revelations we see that Jesus's body is way different then his resurrected physical body described here on earth.
 
Notice, Jesus's resurrection from the grave included his physical body. Jesus remained on earth for forty days displaying his resurrected body for all to see. The resurrection was not "complete" until Jesus ascended into Heaven and then sat down on the right hand of God. His resurrected physical body was changed into a supernatural body as he was taken up in the clouds to Heaven, in exactly the same way our physical bodies will be changed when Jesus returns. When we read the descriptions of Jesus given by the Apostle John in the Book of Revelations we see that Jesus's body is way different then his resurrected physical body described here on earth.
I would have to say there is no Scriptural evidence to suggest a 2-part resurrection For Jesus where He spontaneously transforms into another type of body as He ascends. There is nothing in the text to suggest such a thing.

When He resurrected as the sun was going down Saturday night He received His glorified body. He showed us what it could do and that it was still flesh, just glorified flesh (what Adam and Eve had originally) - for after all, if we are going back to the restoration of all things (Acts 3 v 21) then we are going back to having the same flesh as Adam and Eve had at first, glorfied flesh.

Therefore by the Scriptures I say our bodies will be exactly the same as what we saw Jesus model for us on the earth after He resurrected.

What you see in Revelation is the glory of the Lord on Him like Adam and Eve would have had In the blessed Garden Of Eden. We can't see that existing in a world of the curse, only where everything is under the Blessing, like it was at the beginning. So when John sees Him in Heaven, that is why.
 
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I would have to say there is no Scriptural evidence to suggest a 2-part resurrection For Jesus where He spontaneously transforms into another type of body as He ascends. There is nothing in the text to suggest such a thing.

When He resurrected as the sun was going down Saturday night He received His glorified body. He showed us what it could do and that it was still flesh, just glorified flesh (what Adam and Eve had originally) - for after all, if we are going back to the restoration of all things (Acts 3 v 21) then we are going back to having the same flesh as Adam and Eve had at first, glorfied flesh.

Therefore by the Scriptures I say our bodies will be exactly the same as what we saw Jesus model for us on the earth after He resurrected.
After Jesus was resurrection from the dead he stayed on earth for 40 days showing himself to his disciples in his resurrected "physical body".
In the resurrection our "physical bodies" change from physical to "spiritual bodies".

Joh 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

1Co_15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

Jesus physical body had not yet changed into a "spiritual body" until he was raised to the throne of God where he sat down expecting his enemies to be made his foot stool.
 
And further, for the resurrection, Jesus was already perfected spiritually and soulishly (mindwise); the only resurrection that took place was His physical body.
Everything else that He got was the result of the victory won through sin being paid for, and defeating Satan and taking back everything that was originally given to Adam. Those things didn't come on Him automatically because He resurrected, they were won legally Through His supreme victory on the cross. They were already His technically Before He resurrected or else how did He lead captivity captive and spoil the demons and make an open shew of them with a victory parade in Heaven?
 
After Jesus was resurrection from the dead he stayed on earth for 40 days showing himself to his disciples in his resurrected "physical body".
In the resurrection our "physical bodies" change from physical to "spiritual bodies".

Joh 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

1Co_15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

Jesus physical body had not yet changed into a "spiritual body" until he was raised to the throne of God where he sat down expecting his enemies to be made his foot stool.
But if that were true, how did His natural body give Him the ability to have the marks of the covenant without them beings wounds, or let Him "teleport" into the midst of the disciples more than once, or let Him disguise Himself to the 2 on the road, or let Him physically travel from earth to Heaven? No natural body can do any of those things. He already had a supernatural body.
 
In scripture we see where it seems God has chosen or make Himself not know certain events in the bible. I'll give one example of this.

God is speaking to Abraham and telling him that there is an outcry from the sin Sodom and Gomorrah is doing and that He needed to go down to see whether they have done this sin and if not then He would know.

In a way this tells us God either doesn't know everything or He chooses not to know everything. Why would God need to go to the city to prove what He already knows?

I fully believe God knows everything and in this instance He chooses not to know and therefore proceeds in finding out what is going on. What are your thoughts?

Fascinating question LanceA

I believe God is - omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and immutable

I find that "time" is a key element to His omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient attributes and all three are a consideration to engage an answer regarding our Lords “operation of limits.”

I speculate as a mere human, does God “manipulate time,” does He “create/envelop time,” or does “time constitute a part of who He is?”

Here is an abstract analogy which cannot compete with the unseen realities of God, but can on a simplistic level provide bearings for speculative discussion to entertain your question of His “operation of limits.”

Analogy
A surfer "leverage’s a wave (water)" which is a powerful substance that can transport the surfer certain distances in variance.

In this analogous example the "waves and water are analogous to “time,” God like the surfer who has a relationship with the water, also has some kind of relationship with “time;” for God uses “time in some kind of capacity” in order to obtain omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient capability.

At first it becomes obvious that our Lords capabilities over “time itself” greatly supersedes the surfers control over the water: for the analogy in its static state would suggest that the “surfer is highly subject in many aspects to the waves that transport,” yet in reverse we can agree quickly that “time is subject to God.” However the analogy is still advantageous because the water and waves provide a observable method that will “transport” the surfer. Thus God also somehow is able to transport or exist through time, which enables this analogy to serve us possible methods to contemplate, yet with obvious higher sophistication and complexity than the surfer or the water.

I will explore three variants that come to mind for how “God might” be connected to “time itself,” which then will enable me to give you a meaningful answer for His possible “operation of limits.”

Manipulation - The surfer would be able to command, the size, distance, timing and direction of the waves, which is at a minimum the power of “manipulation.” God at a minimum then can “manipulate time.” I would say that based on scripture this is the minimum speculative consideration. Thus God can wield time and control it as a timeless and dynamic vehicle or transport to engineer his “presence to be everywhere He chooses to be.”

Symbiotic Envelopment and Creation - If God “envelops and creates or ends time itself,” as an extension of Himself, then the surfer would have a symbiotic relationship with the created water itself, and the water could respond as a “connected extension” of the surfer. Thus the analogous water could be reconstituted into another substance or cosmic substances, it could be changed in volume, function and properties and be wielded as a transfigure-able substance as an extension of His own person. Since God created it, He then masters its properties to envelope His movement and actions. Thus the surfer could cause the water to become the beach, or a mountain.

Constitution - If God is “one with the the water” then the water is a substance that is an actual part of the surfer Himself. The surfer, the surfboard and the water are all made up of the same eternal substance but takes on different forms. Thus God is in the truest sense an “omnipresent substance” also as time is part of that embodied substance. Thus “time itself” is also God.

My answer

I speculate that “time itself” is highly relevant to your question of “operational limits” because in these three options God's relationship to time provides a possible answer for how “His actions can limit His own capability.” If its manipulation then God simply chooses to manipulate time to forbid His own capability, if its symbiotic creation envelopment then God chooses to create, disintegrate, or envelop time at will, and if its constitution of being then He must truncate a part of His own-self, His being.

Therefore though I speculate, I opt for the second option where “time is His creation” and “He will envelope time at will.” Thus if he “chooses not to envelop time, disintegrate time or change its properties” then He by choice can become “unaware” by disintegrating the “time access” that makes Him omniscience and omnipresence possible.

The greatest example to me is that when He forgives us our sin, “He remembers it no more.” He chooses not to know the past, present and future regarding our sin.

In option (1), If He manipulated time then he would have to manipulate time for all beings in order to prevent His omniscience, yet in option (3) if time was embodied then He would have to “sever a part of His own being,” yet if in option (2) He masters time as His creation and all its properties, then He can simply allocate a part of it to be sealed up, compartmentalized or disintegrated as an “unreachable unit of information” to become unknown by His own omniscient knowledge and immutable capability.

Thus my final conclusion unto speculation is that He is able to “change the very properties of time itself as an extension of His own person, and will disintegrate or discard what He deems should be disintegrated, which engineers “His own limits.”

Yet LanceA, I simply ponder it so, and have no fortified objective substrate to make it a solidified claim, thus let us speculate, ponder and imagine the wondrous capability of our Lord and Savior; to marvel at His power that He can hang galaxies in the sky for our observance.
 
But if that were true, how did His natural body give Him the ability to have the marks of the covenant without them beings wounds, or let Him "teleport" into the midst of the disciples more than once, or let Him disguise Himself to the 2 on the road, or let Him physically travel from earth to Heaven? No natural body can do any of those things. He already had a supernatural body.
Jesus is Lord over all things in the physical world. How did Jesus transport himself to the other side without having a boat? How did Jesus "walk through the mist" of those who were trying to kill him? How was Jesus able to have fellowship with Moses, and Elijah on the Mt of transfiguration in Glory? Jesus in his Glorified state is still recognizable to us, and to his disciples who saw him in the flesh. We will still retain our image weather in this earthly or heavenly realm.
 
Jesus is Lord over all things in the physical world. How did Jesus transport himself to the other side without having a boat? How did Jesus "walk through the mist" of those who were trying to kill him? How was Jesus able to have fellowship with Moses, and Elijah on the Mt of transfiguration in Glory? Jesus in his Glorified state is still recognizable to us, and to his disciples who saw him in the flesh. We will still retain our image weather in this earthly or heavenly realm.
But Jesus' body before He resurrected was a natural body exactly like Adam originally had, for the Scripture in Philippians 2 v 7-8 says this was so (He emptied Himself of His divine priveleges according to the Scripture).

He did not operate as the Son of God on the earth until the cross, and that was when He went as the Lamb of God. Up to that point He had to do everything as a regular man with faith in God's Word, just like you and me, just like Peter (who walked on water) and John (who was dipped in boiling oil but came out unharmed) and Paul (whose handkerchieves healed people).

Everything Jesus did and experienced up to the cross was as a man the same as us, or else He was lying when He said that WHOSOEVER believes on Him would do the SAME works He had done and even greater...He can't say that if He did it all as God, because then no one else could do it, and God doesn't tell lies.
 
But Jesus' body before He resurrected was a natural body exactly like Adam originally had, for the Scripture in Philippians 2 v 7-8 says this was so (He emptied Himself of His divine priveleges according to the Scripture).

He did not operate as the Son of God on the earth until the cross, and that was when He went as the Lamb of God. Up to that point He had to do everything as a regular man with faith in God's Word, just like you and me, just like Peter (who walked on water) and John (who was dipped in boiling oil but came out unharmed) and Paul (whose handkerchieves healed people).

Everything Jesus did and experienced up to the cross was as a man the same as us, or else He was lying when He said that WHOSOEVER believes on Him would do the SAME works He had done and even greater...He can't say that if He did it all as God, because then no one else could do it, and God doesn't tell lies.
We must remember what Jesus said about himself, "I can of my own self do nothing...." The man Jesus in his own power and strength could do nothing. Jesus always told his disciples that it was his Father dwelling in him that was doing all the works. Jesus laid down his own will so His Father's will would be done through him! Jesus had total faith in his Father at all times. His Father empowered Jesus to do the thing he did, just like us today, if we lay down our own will and let Jesus in us, he will perform his works through us.
Adam never had God living inside of him. Adam walked with God in the garden, but God walks inside of us, and we are his garden! All things are possible to him that believes, weather in this world or the next!
 
We must remember what Jesus said about himself, "I can of my own self do nothing...." The man Jesus in his own power and strength could do nothing. Jesus always told his disciples that it was his Father dwelling in him that was doing all the works. Jesus laid down his own will so His Father's will would be done through him! Jesus had total faith in his Father at all times. His Father empowered Jesus to do the thing he did, just like us today, if we lay down our own will and let Jesus in us, he will perform his works through us.
Adam never had God living inside of him. Adam walked with God in the garden, but God walks inside of us, and we are his garden! All things are possible to him that believes, weather in this world or the next!
Yes, this is all true, but it doesn't disannul what I pointed out in the previous few posts. Just as in the beginning, the Spirit of God waited for the Word of God and when God spoke, the Spirit did the works. Jesus shewed us the same thing saying the Father's Spirit in Him did the works as Jesus operated in faith on what God had said/shown to Him. Then He said it works the same for us, that is how we do the works He did.
In the same way that we say you drove to church, you didn't actually do the work - the car did, but you believed it could get you there, and it did, and you drove it.
We don't actually produce any power or healing or miracle, but we still "do" it, in the sense that we are His body, the body of His anointing, the body of the Anointed One, and we release our faith in what He is telling us or showing us and He does the work. If we did not lay our hands or step out and say to the storm or tell something to wither or grow, it doesn't happen. God's Spirit within us will not do the miracle or the healing or the multiplication, etc. So we are doing something, it's just not us doing it, a la the illustration with the car.
 
Yes, this is all true, but it doesn't disannul what I pointed out in the previous few posts. Just as in the beginning, the Spirit of God waited for the Word of God and when God spoke, the Spirit did the works. Jesus shewed us the same thing saying the Father's Spirit in Him did the works as Jesus operated in faith on what God had said/shown to Him. Then He said it works the same for us, that is how we do the works He did.
In the same way that we say you drove to church, you didn't actually do the work - the car did, but you believed it could get you there, and it did, and you drove it.
We don't actually produce any power or healing or miracle, but we still "do" it, in the sense that we are His body, the body of His anointing, the body of the Anointed One, and we release our faith in what He is telling us or showing us and He does the work. If we did not lay our hands or step out and say to the storm or tell something to wither or grow, it doesn't happen. God's Spirit within us will not do the miracle or the healing or the multiplication, etc. So we are doing something, it's just not us doing it, a la the illustration with the car.
There is no doubt, man has never been able to do what God has commanded man to do, so he sends his son to fulfill the law that we could not do, and then place the same Spirit that was in Jesus to be our new life. Now it looks like we fulfilled the law our self's, but we did not, Jesus did it for us who lives in us. If we yield our members unto him as a living sacrifice he will continue his work through us. These are the "greater works" that Jesus spoke about. Not greater in quality, but greater in numbers as he now lives in all of his members. We are being rewarded for what Jesus does through us, as if we did them, but we know all the Glory goes to God for what he has done. As long as we have faith in his Word Jesus will continue to work through his Church as we speak, raise our hands, and move as the Spirit leads us to go.
 
Fascinating question LanceA

I believe God is - omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and immutable

I find that "time" is a key element to His omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient attributes and all three are a consideration to engage an answer regarding our Lords “operation of limits.”

I speculate as a mere human, does God “manipulate time,” does He “create/envelop time,” or does “time constitute a part of who He is?”

Here is an abstract analogy which cannot compete with the unseen realities of God, but can on a simplistic level provide bearings for speculative discussion to entertain your question of His “operation of limits.”

Analogy
A surfer "leverage’s a wave (water)" which is a powerful substance that can transport the surfer certain distances in variance.

In this analogous example the "waves and water are analogous to “time,” God like the surfer who has a relationship with the water, also has some kind of relationship with “time;” for God uses “time in some kind of capacity” in order to obtain omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient capability.

At first it becomes obvious that our Lords capabilities over “time itself” greatly supersedes the surfers control over the water: for the analogy in its static state would suggest that the “surfer is highly subject in many aspects to the waves that transport,” yet in reverse we can agree quickly that “time is subject to God.” However the analogy is still advantageous because the water and waves provide a observable method that will “transport” the surfer. Thus God also somehow is able to transport or exist through time, which enables this analogy to serve us possible methods to contemplate, yet with obvious higher sophistication and complexity than the surfer or the water.

I will explore three variants that come to mind for how “God might” be connected to “time itself,” which then will enable me to give you a meaningful answer for His possible “operation of limits.”

Manipulation - The surfer would be able to command, the size, distance, timing and direction of the waves, which is at a minimum the power of “manipulation.” God at a minimum then can “manipulate time.” I would say that based on scripture this is the minimum speculative consideration. Thus God can wield time and control it as a timeless and dynamic vehicle or transport to engineer his “presence to be everywhere He chooses to be.”

Symbiotic Envelopment and Creation - If God “envelops and creates or ends time itself,” as an extension of Himself, then the surfer would have a symbiotic relationship with the created water itself, and the water could respond as a “connected extension” of the surfer. Thus the analogous water could be reconstituted into another substance or cosmic substances, it could be changed in volume, function and properties and be wielded as a transfigure-able substance as an extension of His own person. Since God created it, He then masters its properties to envelope His movement and actions. Thus the surfer could cause the water to become the beach, or a mountain.

Constitution - If God is “one with the the water” then the water is a substance that is an actual part of the surfer Himself. The surfer, the surfboard and the water are all made up of the same eternal substance but takes on different forms. Thus God is in the truest sense an “omnipresent substance” also as time is part of that embodied substance. Thus “time itself” is also God.

My answer

I speculate that “time itself” is highly relevant to your question of “operational limits” because in these three options God's relationship to time provides a possible answer for how “His actions can limit His own capability.” If its manipulation then God simply chooses to manipulate time to forbid His own capability, if its symbiotic creation envelopment then God chooses to create, disintegrate, or envelop time at will, and if its constitution of being then He must truncate a part of His own-self, His being.

Therefore though I speculate, I opt for the second option where “time is His creation” and “He will envelope time at will.” Thus if he “chooses not to envelop time, disintegrate time or change its properties” then He by choice can become “unaware” by disintegrating the “time access” that makes Him omniscience and omnipresence possible.

The greatest example to me is that when He forgives us our sin, “He remembers it no more.” He chooses not to know the past, present and future regarding our sin.

In option (1), If He manipulated time then he would have to manipulate time for all beings in order to prevent His omniscience, yet in option (3) if time was embodied then He would have to “sever a part of His own being,” yet if in option (2) He masters time as His creation and all its properties, then He can simply allocate a part of it to be sealed up, compartmentalized or disintegrated as an “unreachable unit of information” to become unknown by His own omniscient knowledge and immutable capability.

Thus my final conclusion unto speculation is that He is able to “change the very properties of time itself as an extension of His own person, and will disintegrate or discard what He deems should be disintegrated, which engineers “His own limits.”

Yet LanceA, I simply ponder it so, and have no fortified objective substrate to make it a solidified claim, thus let us speculate, ponder and imagine the wondrous capability of our Lord and Savior; to marvel at His power that He can hang galaxies in the sky for our observance.

I really do enjoy your comments GF. Now, just as a matter of conversation, playing the devils advocate position and not in anyway to challenge your comments, allow me to say that most Christian theologians join most of the secular philosophers of the last 2,500 years in saying that God is outside of time. I am not saying that is untrue by the way.

However, if the Scriptures teach that God experiences changes in sequence, would that indicate that God exists in time demonstrating that a temporality is not a necessary attribute of deity. So here is an example of a biblical proof falsifying that a temporality is an essential attribute of deity:

In the eternal state before the foundation of the world God the Son was not also the Son of Man; then He "became" flesh as "the Son of Man" and so the Son remains eternally "the Man Jesus Christ".

1 Timothy 2:5......
"For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus."

It seems that many theologians typically will reject that Rare this statement shows that God has a past, and therefore exists in time. However, would you agree that the Incarnation has eternally changed God the Son, and therefore, also His relationship with the Holy Spirit and the Father, and that the Incarnation demonstrates that God, in this case, in the person of the Son, has undergone change. Would this then be a biblical proof that God is in time????
 
I really do enjoy your comments GF. Now, just as a matter of conversation, playing the devils advocate position and not in anyway to challenge your comments, allow me to say that most Christian theologians join most of the secular philosophers of the last 2,500 years in saying that God is outside of time. I am not saying that is untrue by the way.

However, if the Scriptures teach that God experiences changes in sequence, would that indicate that God exists in time demonstrating that a temporality is not a necessary attribute of deity. So here is an example of a biblical proof falsifying that a temporality is an essential attribute of deity:

In the eternal state before the foundation of the world God the Son was not also the Son of Man; then He "became" flesh as "the Son of Man" and so the Son remains eternally "the Man Jesus Christ".

1 Timothy 2:5......
"For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus."

It seems that many theologians typically will reject that Rare this statement shows that God has a past, and therefore exists in time. However, would you agree that the Incarnation has eternally changed God the Son, and therefore, also His relationship with the Holy Spirit and the Father, and that the Incarnation demonstrates that God, in this case, in the person of the Son, has undergone change. Would this then be a biblical proof that God is in time????
Well laid out. So then, time affects God as it does everyone else. He was angered, pleased, and was regretful that He made mankind as noted throughout the OT. These states of emotion were caused by events that occurred during the elapsing of time. Now this does not mean God ages. His essence is eternal.
Now we have to tackle the part that He knows the beginning and the end. Well, He knows the beginning because He created it from His own imagination with His own Word. The end He can know because He can cause it to happen. This would be His omnipotence. This makes many Bible verses much more understandable. He doesn't know our reactions, but He can cause us to do or think things which affect us. So, in a way, He does know what we will do, for He can cause us to do such. But our reactions and actions are our own, and all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose because He can make it so.
This postulation allows for why bad things happen, and for how God can and does turn it around for good.
This is not a complete rendering of the entire hypothesis, but it is a start. Thanks Major!
 
Well laid out. So then, time affects God as it does everyone else. He was angered, pleased, and was regretful that He made mankind as noted throughout the OT. These states of emotion were caused by events that occurred during the elapsing of time. Now this does not mean God ages. His essence is eternal.
Now we have to tackle the part that He knows the beginning and the end. Well, He knows the beginning because He created it from His own imagination with His own Word. The end He can know because He can cause it to happen. This would be His omnipotence. This makes many Bible verses much more understandable. He doesn't know our reactions, but He can cause us to do or think things which affect us. So, in a way, He does know what we will do, for He can cause us to do such. But our reactions and actions are our own, and all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose because He can make it so.
This postulation allows for why bad things happen, and for how God can and does turn it around for good.
This is not a complete rendering of the entire hypothesis, but it is a start. Thanks Major!

Thanks Moose and I agree with your comments.
 
In scripture we see where it seems God has chosen or make Himself not know certain events in the bible. I'll give one example of this.

Genesis 18:20-21

God is speaking to Abraham and telling him that there is an outcry from the sin Sodom and Gomorrah is doing and that He needed to go down to see whether they have done this sin and if not then He would know.

In a way this tells us God either doesn't know everything or He chooses not to know everything. Why would God need to go to the city to prove what He already knows?

I fully believe God knows everything and in this instance He chooses not to know and therefore proceeds in finding out what is going on. What are your thoughts?
This is a simple explanation.
In the bible we frequently find God presenting scenarios before men. The purpose is to give them a choice to go deeper in God or to withdraw or to rebel. The scenario is deliberately meant to make the decision public for record.
God had Moses do this with Pharaoh. People mistakenly claim that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, because that's what the surface text tells us, but that misses the point. Scripture also tells us that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Why the contradiction? Simply put, God caused the scenario, but Pharaoh decided the result. At no point do we see God overruling Pharaoh's freewill choices. At each bad decision Pharaoh's heart became harder and harder.
The same is true even for Christians when we fight against what we know is God's will, our own hearts get hardened and it becomes more and more difficult to respond righteously to God's spirit working in our hearts.

Initially God had Moses present just Pharaoh with an easy choice, knowing however that it would be rejected. That rejection started the hardening process. The following challenges continued the same work until Pharaoh was completely hardened to God and we know what happened then. Pharaoh did exactly what God wanted, completely of his own freewill. God always knows the end from the beginning, whatever our choices freely taken, just like Adam did.

Thus God was about to judge Sodom and Gommorah for their wickedness. It comes out almost as a passing comment between God and his angels. "Hey guys, shall we tell Abraham..........what do you think....?"
This is just like a good father talking in the presence of a growing son, deliberately provoking curiosity and intervention. I have acted just like that many times with my children, and sometimes they have protested immediately at my supposed plans, just as I had hoped.
Now God knew exactly what Abraham would do here, but for Abraham it was new ground, a mere man standing against the God of all creation and challenging him. You can see Abraham's tentative and fearful approach. It is a wonderful example of fatherhood as God demonstrates that Abraham, a mere man has power with God. God was teaching Abraham about intercession, and about making a stance for truth.

This has nothing to do with God not knowing certain future events, in fact the complete opposite is shown here as long as we appreciate the real character of the Lord.
 
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