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Greetings in the name of Jesus,
When I study I try to use the bible to interpret words that I find in the verses I’m studying. Over the years I have learned that there is a literal (outward) understanding of the bible and a spiritual (inward) understanding. It’s the inward understanding that brings life, the letter kills but the spirit brings life.
I have always been taught that God did not create evil. When I apply this teaching to scripture I find it falling short of God’s truth. To think that evil only comes from disobeying God is to miss a very important truth in understanding God’s work and life itself. As you read this study, I pray that the Lord leads you into a deeper understanding of how God works all things together for His purpose and how the rebellious fallen angels can twist the truth of God.
God has created this life in such a way that He gives us freedom to receive life or death, blessings or cursing.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; "that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
In order to have this choice in life between life and death, blessing or cursing there has to be a positive and negative in life. There has to be an adversary or there is no choice. In other words, we need day in order to have night. We need height in order to have depth. We need evil in order to have good. In God’s creation, He created both good and evil. There has to be an adversarial system to make choices in life, it’s what makes life what it is.
Just because something is evil it doesn’t make it unrighteous. There is no unrighteousness in God but He says He created evil. God created evil in order to be the adversary in life.
Isaiah 45:6-7 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
God put this adversarial system in place back in the beginning.
Gen.2:16-17 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Evil doesn’t necessarily have to be sin. God uses evil for His work in this life. All sin is evil but not all evil is sin.
There is a sanctified evil and an unsanctified evil just as there is a sanctified good and an unsanctified good. Evil not motivated by the will of God is unsanctified just as the good that is not motivated by the will of God is unsanctified.
Isaiah 64:6 But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Our righteousness is as filthy rags but it’s still righteousness. It’s righteousness that is unsanctified in God’s eyes.
When the angle was told by God to test Job but don’t kill him, was that angle sinning as he obeyed God and tested Job and didn’t kill him?
Job 2:6-7 So the Lord said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
How about the harlot Rahab who lied when she told the soldiers that the spies had left in order to save the spies. God counted her as being righteous and saved her whole family.
Hebrews 11:31 By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.
God created good and evil in life so we would have a choice in life. If we choose the sanctified things in life, which comes from obeying God’s truth, we will live but if we choose unsanctified things in life by disobeying God’s truth we will die.
Deuteronomy 30:15 "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil,
When Cain was standing before the Lord, the Lord told him that if he chose the right way he would be accepted.
Gen. 4:4-7 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
Life was designed with an adversarial system. Even if Adam had not sinned the tree of good and evil would have still been in the garden. There would still have to be adversary in life to make life alive. God created hunger so we now enjoy a good meal. God created weariness in labor so we can get a good night sleep. Amen to that…
All throughout scripture we find evil doing a task for God. We see people doing things that we would consider sin but God calls it obedience. We see God sending lying spirits and adversaries to people in His creation. We see evil things being done that are evil to us but are meant for the good.
Gen 50:19-20 Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? "But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about, as it is this day, to save many people alive.
1 Kings 22:23 Now therefore, behold, Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets; and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee.
Exodus 32:14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
Exodus 4:11 So the Lord said to him, "Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord?
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
When we suffer through trials we say these trials are evil but they are there to produce a good in us.
James 1:2-4 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
All throughout God’s word we find God using evil to get a job done. Evil is a tool God’s uses to stop the evil that is unsanctified or to bring out something good. Good and evil are necessary in this life as a choice. The problem is that some of us call the unsanctified things, good. In the last days people will call sanctified good, evil, and unsanctified evil, good, and pass laws to make it so. This is why God will cut life short in the end for righteousness sake.
Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
This is where God’s Holy Spirit comes in. We need the Spirit of truth to tell us what is the sanctified good and what is unsanctified evil in God’s creation because since the fall we have no understanding in this area. Lucifer has twisted everything around and distorted the truth of God.
Deuteronomy 1:39 ‘Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there; to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.
If we trust in the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. If we hear Him and obey Him, He will correct our understanding in these matters of good and evil. We will be able to discern what is the sanctified good and evil in life in order to make the right choice.
Hebrews 5:14 But solid food belongs to those who ar
e of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.If we give our lives to Jesus and allow Him to discern good and evil for us and when we obey His Spirit convictions in our heart and turn away from the unsanctified things in our lives. He will remove the adversarial thoughts we have towards God’s will for our lives. This is choosing life over death, blessing over cursing, this is salvation.
Peace and blessings to you all in Christ,
JohnHi John: …….very well written and yes I agree that God created evil for a purpose. 2 Cor.12: 7-10 . is one of the examples. ………….God Bless……..thehappyman
"If we trust in the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. If we hear Him and obey Him, He will correct our understanding in these matters of good and evil. We will be able to discern what is the sanctified good and evil in life in order to make the right choice. "
"Hebrews 5:14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. "
Good saying followed by ignorant saying. which is your statement below.
If we give our lives to Jesus and allow Him to discern good and evil for us and when we obey His Spirit convictions in our heart and turn away from the unsanctified things in our lives. He will remove the adversarial thoughts we have towards God’s will for our lives. This is choosing life over death, blessing over cursing, this is salvation. "
this last statment is very wrong- please stop mixing mens teachings with gods-
(Edited by ringo111 at 8:32 am on Feb. 12, 2004)
Quote Quote: from ringo111 on 8:17 am on Feb. 12, 2004
"If we trust in the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. If we hear Him and obey Him, He will correct our understanding in these matters of good and evil. We will be able to discern what is the sanctified good and evil in life in order to make the right choice. ""Hebrews 5:14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. "
Good saying followed by ignorant saying. which is your statement below.
If we give our lives to Jesus and allow Him to discern good and evil for us and when we obey His Spirit convictions in our heart and turn away from the unsanctified things in our lives. He will remove the adversarial thoughts we have towards God’s will for our lives. This is choosing life over death, blessing over cursing, this is salvation. "
this last statment is very wrong- please stop mixing mens teachings with gods-
(Edited by ringo111 at 8:32 am on Feb. 12, 2004)
Hi ringo111,
Jesus gave Himself as an expression of love in order so that we would love Him and allow Him to correct our thinking.
1 John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
Eph. 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Jesus became the author of eternal life to all who obey Him. Jesus was able to do this because He was obedient through the things that He suffered.
Hebrews 5:8-9 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.
There is no third person Holy Spirit, it’s only the Father and His Son.
John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
The Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ will direct you if you let this mind that is in Christ also be in you.
Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
There are many more verses that speak of the Father and His Son and the unity they share in Spirit in the same way we can be partakers of the same Spirit of unity.
John 17:11 "Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.
2 Peter 1:4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
The most important thing is that we express our love for God through loving others.
John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
John 15:17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.
Romans 13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
1 Thessalonians 4:9 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
1 John 3:11 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
2 John 1:5 And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another.
Peace, love and joy in Christ,
John(Edited by John at 4:46 pm on Feb. 12, 2004)
Yes Right you are. about the subject of Love and getting gods assistance-But the way you recieve that assistance I differ with you about- I will discuss at the end.
Yes Love one another be taught what is right-
I must have missread- Please accept my appologies- It was not the whole statement that was wrong- I just hadnt read it properly.This following line is the statment i had a problem with.
"If we give our lives to Jesus and allow Him to discern good and evil for us"
Was the only thing i had a problem with in that statement- it was not the whole statement.
I thought you were triing to say that somehow you will know what is right by following blindly- But u did not say that in the entirity of what you said. And my rubuke in this instance was wrong.
Please accept my appoligies-
Please could you answer my posts in the other forum. =D I had more time for those.
**********************************
Now on this you are mistaken
You John say:
"There is no third person Holy Spirit, it’s only the Father and His Son. "
*******************************
I ringo111 say-John 14:16
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever–Luke 3:22
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."Matthew 1:18
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.Luke 2:26
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.Mark 12:36
David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: " ‘The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."How can you deny these scriptures???
There is a holy spirit- jesus calls him- a person.
Please step outside of your indocrination.
Which is weird even for a trinitarian. Please read the facts.
*******************************************You say john-
"John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. "
*****************************
I ringo111 say-You take this out of context-
What about baptism or producing good fruits or be cut off??
No it does not means just accept these two facts It means to follow what Jesus said because you know that he was sent by his GOD the ONE TRUE GOD.Romans 6:22
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.John 6:27
Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."
***************************************
You John say-"The Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ will direct you if you let this mind that is in Christ also be in you.
Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: "
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I ringo111 say-Your quote only supports that we should think the same as jesus- It does not however support your statment
of which you john said-
"The Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit"I ringo111 say-
John 14:16
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever–Please stop ignoring this scripture. And please answer my points in your responses.
Seems like i will have to relist all the quotes that tell you who the holy spirit is??
If Jesus was himself being sent- then he would have said ‘I myself will be sent to you’
But he did not!!!
Instead Jesus saidJohn 14:16
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever–and again he says.
John 14
26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.*The holy spirit reminds us of what jesus said- THe holy Spirit is not Jesus.
****************************************Please answer my points. And also in the other threads.
(Edited by ringo111 at 5:51 pm on Feb. 12, 2004)
Hi ringo111
john 14 16-18 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
Jesus is speaking of the comforter when He tells the disciples that they know Him, the disciples knew Jesus. Referring to the comforter Jesus says, "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you." Jesus says, He will come to them.
This leaves me to believe that Jesus and the comforter are the same person.
All throughout scripture we only find worship of the Father and the Son.
We don’t find God tellings us to love the Spirit or worship the Spirit and neither does the Spirit have a throne nor a place with the Father and His Son.
We don’t even find the Spirit in the whole book of Revelation. Where is the co-eternal trinity in these truths.
Also…
John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
The key word here is, know.
1 John 2:3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
1 John 2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
Many blessings,
John(Edited by John at 7:04 pm on Feb. 12, 2004)
You my friend are like talking to a brick wall-
Not only did you not answer my reply’s But you just said the same things over and over of which I have allready addressed-
I hope that anyone reading these forums- I pray they see the trueth above all.
Hi ringo111,
I guess you’re not getting what I’m saying.
(your statement)
If Jesus was himself being sent- then he would have said ‘I myself will be sent to you’
But he did not!!!
Instead Jesus said(God’s word)
John 14
I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.So Jesus does say He Himself will come.
(your statement)
John 14:16
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever–(God’s word)
John 14
but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.Jesus is speaking to the disciples telling them that they know who the comforter is. Who do the disciples know? They know Jesus, He is the only one they knew.
Then Jesus tells them that this comforter will dwell in them. Who dwells in us? Jesus does.
Then Jesus tells the disciples that He will not leave them comfortless that He will come to them. Who does Jesus come as? The comforter.
Many blessing to you,
Brick-wall : )(Edited by John at 7:52 pm on Feb. 12, 2004)
Hi John,
I am very open to understanding truth and I want to challenge what you have said in this discussion (your first post), not to prove you wrong or to prove I am right, but only to discover truth for all of us, even if it proves or disproves your words.
Your point about evil seems to me to be summed up in this quote of yours.
In order to have this choice in life between life and death, blessing or cursing there has to be a positive and negative in life. There has to be an adversary or there is no choice. In other words, we need day in order to have night. We need height in order to have depth. We need evil in order to have good. In God's creation, He created both good and evil. There has to be an adversarial system to make choices in life, it's what makes life what it is.
Just because something is evil it doesn't make it unrighteous. There is no unrighteousness in God, but He says He created evil. God created evil in order to be the adversary in life.
Isaiah 45:6-7 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
So I would like to start with the scripture that you quoted. Isaiah 45:6-7, but I will quote it in the NIV first
Isaiah 45
6 so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me.
I am the LORD , and there is no other.
7 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD , do all these things.And also in the NASB.
Isaiah 45:6
That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun. That there is no one besides Me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other,
7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am the LORD who does all these.So without looking up a concordance for the meaning of the word evil, I will at this stage say that the translators of the above 2 translations (not that it makes it right) do not use the word 'evil', rather 'calamity' or 'disaster'.
However all 3 translations do say that God creates darkness and we can see that he has certainly done this when we look at Genesis 1:2-5
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.So how do we reconcile the fact that God created darkness but yet has no darkness in himself as the following scripture says:
1 John 1:5
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.Here we can see that God has no darkness in him, yet he created darkness, although he never says that the darkness was good, like he says “and it was good” when talking about the light.
My thoughts on this are in some ways similar to yours in the respect that God must give us a choice.
So if God is love, then how can we choose love if there is no other option. So of course God allows for the lack of love which is hate. Same with good. If God is good and we have a free will and if we exercise that will to choose not God, then what other option do we have? The answer is evil.
But my question is this. Is darkness and evil an actual thing or the lack of a thing.
E.g light is a thing and the lack of that thing, leaves us darkness does it not? But it appears that darkness is not a thing itself (maybe a state) rather the lack of light.If I turn on a light in a dark room, then the light overcomes the darkness. But can I turn on a dark in a light room and does that light turn into darkness. No it doesn't. It is not because light is more powerful than darkness, (which of course it is) but rather that light is something that God made and darkness is the lack of light only, which is given to fulfill free will. I am sure that God has no pleasure in the lack of the things that he is and that he has made as we know that sin is falling short of his glory, which is the same as the lack of his glory.
So evil is the lack of good; darkness is the lack of light; foolishness is the lack of wisdom, ignorance is the lack of knowledge, hate is the lack of love.
If this is true, then how can you say that for light to exist there must exist darkness. I am not sure if I agree with your words here. That would be like saying that Satan must exist for God to exist would it not? Yet we know that God can exist without Satan, but Satan does needs God in order to exist.
My understanding so far is that darkness exists as a choice for rejecting light. So if I reject light and rejection is the same as no, then darkness is no light.
Your above quote in navy, included the following below:
Just because something is evil it doesn't make it unrighteousI am not so sure about these words. To me they seem wrong if evil is the lack of good. Yes I know that Jesus himself said that “No one is good except God alone” and yet we know that Jesus is not evil. Rather I would say that he is good because his goodness comes from God. Jesus is not evil, nor a righteous evil if God is the only one who is good and Jesus isn't God.
As far as I know, I do not know of one instance of righteous evil. To me that would be like saying a wise foolishness, although I do acknowledge that there is 'luke warm' (a hot cold), but even this is evil because sin is falling short of God's perfection. If it falls short by 1 mile or 1 mm it still falls short.
Now to say that there is no light unless there is darkness or that there is no love unless there is hate must be error.
What about this: If there is no light then darkness would not be recognized. It would be nothing because it wouldn't have been thought of. A bit like saying that there is no counterfeit 3.00 note because a real one doesn't exist.
If so, then if there was no love, then hate wouldn't exist either. It is only the fact that there is light that darkness can be and that there is good that evil can be. It is not that evil must exist in order for good to exist, rather evil exists because good exists as evil is the lack of good. If light didn't exist, then how could we know what darkness is? It would be a non thought or thing.
In other words, the lack of something is only recognised because that something exists. E.g the lack of money only makes sense if you have money or need it. Otherwise no money is actually nothing and there is no reason to think about the lack of money if you do not need money or if money never existed.
If what I say is true, then light, good, love are not only dominant, but they exist in there own right and not because it's opposite exists.
Maybe we do not differ too much on this subject in many ways, but I felt that you give evil and darkness to much credit as you seem to say that they must exist in order for the opposites to exist, where I think that they exist only to serve our free will. i.e light can exist without darkness, but darkness cannot exist without light, rather darkness is just the lack of light, not a thing or substance. This 'lack of' exists for free will only. Not in order for the thing itself to exist. If your assumption were correct, then Satan could quite proudly say that God exists because I (Satan) exist and if Satan is the Father of Lies and we assume that lies and truth exist together, then he could say that he existed before truth as he would predate that which he creates i.e lies. Such a theology would lead to many undesirable concl
usions and deception.I think that darkness without any knowledge of light is nothing. How could it be explained with no knowledge of light. It wouldn't even be a thought.
Then we come to the scriptures that talk about the next world, the perfect world to come.
Revelation 21:1-
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars–their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”Here we can see a reality where there is no more death or mourning. So in this reality, we do not need tears in order to have joy. Joy is not dependent on the lack of itself. Same with death. It doesn't need to exist in order for life to be.
Rather the old things are thrown into the Lake of Fire for destruction.
Surely the next world will be a world of perfection with no sin and no hate. It will be a place of love and righteousness. Perhaps this was always God's will in the beginning, but our reality changed when our father in the flesh exercised his free will and sinned. Once he sinned he passed that state onto his offspring (all humanity) and we were all born as sinners. So instead of a perfect world where we had a choice to opt out of, we are now in a sinful world in which we can opt out by choosing God's world.
So God is redeeming us back to himself through Christ as you know. Free will still applies.
1 Corinthians 15:24-28 (English-NIV)
24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
27 For he has put everything under his feet. Now when it says that everything has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.
28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.So the lack of good things is being reversed or redeemed, so that all enemies will come under Christ, so that God who is light and the only true source of good, will exist in all things. If this happens will not the lack of good be gone.
A perfect world with no evil, sin, pain, suffering or hate. An eternal world, not a temporal one.
John, just say- Im in the same room as you- or may quote you, it doesnt make me you-
If i only ever said the words that you say- doesnt make me you- Your logic is flawed, please think about it.**********************
You John say:"There is no third person Holy Spirit, it’s only the Father and His Son. "
******************
I ringo111 say
This is the point where your understanding stands on- Now- I have shown you that the holy spirit exists outside of this- Constraint-
This is why i say your a brick wall-
Because The scriptures prove your idea of the holy spirit to be faulse-
Luke 3:22
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
*****************************You say John- from "is the trinity biblical forum"
"The Holy Spirit came to be at the glorification of Jesus, prior to that there was no Holy Spirit."
**********************
I ringo111 say
The above scripture proves you wrong.
Here’s another
Mark 12:36
David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: " ‘The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."I hope this has been comprehensive to anyone truely seeking
(Edited by ringo111 at 8:31 pm on Feb. 12, 2004)
Quote Quote: from t8 on 7:59 pm on Feb. 12, 2004
Hi John,I am very open to understanding truth and I want to challenge what you have said in this discussion (your first post), not to prove you wrong or to prove I am right, but only to discover truth for all of us, even if it proves or disproves your words.
Your point about evil seems to me to be summed up in this quote of yours.
<font color=navy><i>In order to have this choice in life between life and death, blessing or cursing there has to be a positive and negative in life. There has to be an adversary or there is no choice. In other words, we need day in order to have night. We need height in order to have depth. We need evil in order to have good. In God’s creation, He created both good and evil. There has to be an adversarial system to make choices in life, it’s what makes life what it is.
Just because something is evil it doesn’t make it unrighteous. There is no unrighteousness in God, but He says He created evil. God created evil in order to be the adversary in life.
Isaiah 45:6-7 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. </i></font>
So I would like to start with the scripture that you quoted. Isaiah 45:6-7, but I will quote it in the NIV first
Isaiah 45
<font color=red>6 so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me.
I am the LORD , and there is no other.
7 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD , do all these things.</font>And also in the NASB.
Isaiah 45:6
<font color=red>That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun. That there is no one besides Me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other,
7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am the LORD who does all these.</font>So without looking up a concordance for the meaning of the word evil, I will at this stage say that the translators of the above 2 translations (not that it makes it right) do not use the word ‘evil’, rather ‘calamity’ or ‘disaster’.
However all 3 translations do say that God creates darkness and we can see that he has certainly done this when we look at Genesis 1:2-5
<font color=red>2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.</font>So how do we reconcile the fact that God created darkness but yet has no darkness in himself as the following scripture says:
1 John 1:5
<font color=red>This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.</font>Here we can see that God has no darkness in him, yet he created darkness, although he never says that the darkness was good, like he says "and it was good" when talking about the light.
My thoughts on this are in some ways similar to yours in the respect that God must give us a choice.
So if God is love, then how can we choose love if there is no other option. So of course God allows for the lack of love which is hate. Same with good. If God is good and we have a free will and we exercise that will to choose not God, then what other option do we have? The answer is evil.
But my question is this. Is darkness and evil an actual thing or the lack of a thing.
E.g light is a thing and the lack of that thing, leaves us darkness does it not? But it appears that darkness is not a thing itself (maybe a state) rather the lack of light.If I turn on a light in a dark room, then the light overcomes the darkness. But can I turn on a dark in a light room and does that light turn into darkness. No it doesn’t. It is not because light is more powerful than darkness, (which of course it is) but rather that light is something that God made and darkness is the lack of light only, which is given to fulfill free will. I am sure that God has no pleasure in the lack of the things that he is and that he has made.
So evil is the lack of good; darkness is the lack of light; foolishness is the lack of wisdom, ignorance is the lack of knowledge, hate is the lack of love.
If this is true, then how can you say that for light to exist there must exist darkness. I am not sure if I agree with your words here. That would be like saying that Satan must exist for God to exist would it not? Yet we know that God can exist without Satan, but Satan does needs God in order to exist.
My understanding so far is that darkness exists as a choice for rejecting light. So if I reject light and rejection is the same as no, then darkness is no light.
Your above quote in navy, included the following below:
<font color=navy><i>Just because something is evil it doesn’t make it unrighteous</i></font>I am not so sure about these words. To me they seem wrong if evil is the lack of good. Yes I know that Jesus himself said that "No one is good except God alone" and yet we know that Jesus is not evil. Rather I would say that he is good because his goodness comes from God. Jesus is not evil, nor a righteous evil if God is the only one who is good and Jesus isn’t God.
As far as I know, I do not know of one instance of righteous evil. To me that would be like saying a wise foolishness, although I do acknowledge that there is ‘luke warm’ (a hot cold), but even this is evil because sin is falling short of God’s perfection. If it falls short by 1 mile or 1 mm it still falls short.
Now to say that there is no light unless there is darkness or that there is no love unless there is hate must be error.
What about this: If there is no light then darkness would not be recognized. It would be nothing because it wouldn’t have been thought of. A bit like saying that there is no counterfeit ū.00 note because a real one doesn’t exist.
If so, then if there was no love, then hate wouldn’t exist either. It is only the fact that there is light that darkness can be and that there is good that evil can be. It is not that evil must exist in order for good to exist, rather evil exists because good exists as evil is the lack of good. If light didn’t exist, then how could we know what darkness is? It would be a non thought or thing.
In other words, the lack of something is only recognised because that something exists. E.g the lack of money only makes sense if you have money or need it. Otherwise no money is actually nothing and there is no reason to think about the lack of money if you do not need money or if money never existed.
If what I say is true, then light, good, love are not only dominant, but they exist in there own right and not because it’s opposite exists.
Maybe we do not differ to much on this subject in many ways, but I felt that you give evil and darkness to much credit as you seem to say that they must exist in order for the opposites to exist, where I think that they exist only to serve our free will. i.e light can exist without darkness, but darkness cannot exist without light, rather darkness is just the lack of light, not a thing or substance. This ‘lack of’ exists for free will only. Not in order for the thing itself to exist. If your assumption were correct, then Satan could quite proudly say that God exists because I (Satan) exist and if Satan is the Father of Lies, then he could say that he existed before tr
uth. Such a theology could lead to many undesirable conclusions and deception.I think that darkness without any knowledge of light is nothing. How could it be explained with no knowledge of light. It wouldn’t even be a thought.
Then we come to the scriptures that talk about the next world, the perfect world to come.
Revelation 21:1-
<font color=red>1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
5 He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."
6 He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars–their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."</font>Here we can see a reality where there is no more death or mourning. So in this reality, we do not need tears in order to have joy. Joy is not dependent on the lack of itself. Same with death. It doesn’t need to exist in order for life to be.
Rather the old things are thrown into the Lake of Fire for destruction.
Surely the next world will be a world of perfection with no sin and no hate. It will be a place of love and righteousness. Perhaps this was always God’s will in the beginning, but our reality changed when our father in the flesh exercised his free will and sinned. Once he sinned he passed that state onto his offspring (all humanity) and we were all born as sinners. So instead of a perfect world where we had a choice to opt out of, we are now in a sinful world in which we can opt out by choosing God’s world.
So God is redeeming us back to himself through Christ as you know. Free will still applies.
1 Corinthians 15:24-28 (English-NIV)
<font color=red>24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
27 For he has put everything under his feet. Now when it says that everything has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.
28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.</font>So the lack of good things is being reversed or redeemed, so that all enemies will come under Christ, so that God who is light and the only true source of good, will exist in all things. If this happens will not the lack of good be gone.
A perfect world with no evil, sin, pain, suffering or hate. An eternal world, not a temporal one.
Hi t8,
Very well written.
It seems to me that God created everything for His glory. When God created the heavens and the earth He also created this adversarial system. Good creates from the same lump of clay vessels for honor and vessel for dishonor. We can be used for honor if we choose. This is the free will, this is what God set before all His creation, life or death, cursing or blessings. Both these paths of life have been preordained so that we will know where we are heading by which path we choose.
I understand what you mean regarding not having knowledge of light if there was only darkness. This is why God brings them both to be so that we will have this knowledge. The tree of life as well and the tree of knowledge of good and evil was in the garden and God says it was good.
I’m always open for God’s truth, if I’m wrong then praise God for His light pointing it out in me. I will change my thoughts for God’s thoughts in a blink of an eye if I can see it in scripture and the Spirit confirms it to my heart.
Iron sharpens iron, so sharpen away my friend…
In Christ,
JohnTo John,
I truly appreciate your writings and your openess.
When we look at the Garden of Eden, we see that it was good. Even the Tree of Good and Evil was there and it wasn't there to tempt man, but to test him.
In order to be tempted, one must be enticed to do something, but God said that man should not eat from that tree. So God certainly never tempted man. It took a tempter for man to rebel against God as man was perfect and it was not in his nature to disobey God at that point. Imagine that.
So Paradise was perfect even with the existence of the Tree of Good and Evil, in fact it was essential that it was there, in order to provide an outlet for our free will. No free will and it would not be perfect. For perfect love can only exist where there is a choice.
I think that the Tree of Good and Evil is a good thing as it is expression of choice that God gives us.
I do not think that objects are evil in themselves, but that evil comes from the heart. So the Tree of Good and Evil is not an evil thing, rather evil comes from choosing it.
Similarly a knife can kill or a knife can be used to prepare food. True evil comes from the heart. It is not in anything that God created.
Even the Tree of Good and Evil isn't evil. It just gives us the knowledge of good and evil, like God.
Genesis 3:22
And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”And we know that God is not evil even though he has this knowledge. But we were cut off from God because we disobeyed him and doing so, we partook of a fruit that gave us knowledge like God and those whom he was speaking to (now man has become like one of us).
Such knowledge in the hands of immature man would lead us to all sorts of evil as we were/are too weak to resist such things.
Hi t8,
When I read God’s word I try to understand the spiritual application of His word, in other words, I try to learn how what God is saying applies to me inwardly.
I understand that the tree of good and evil was to test us. But I don’t look at the literal tree but rather what the tree represents.
In God’s word a tree or wood is a picture of a character. To eat means to take in something, to receive nourishment from it, it gives us life, it becomes who we are.
What God is saying is that if our character is one that lives by our own understanding of what is good or evil we will die. God will do this for through our conscience. When Adam and Eve fell their conscience became seared which produced guilt and shame. Guilt and shame will manifest fear of God.
Adam and Even became as God in the fact that they discerned good and evil for themselves when God told them not to.
This caused a chain reaction of guilt, shame and fear. Adam and Eve began the downward spiral into the bottomless pit. All their thoughts regarding the Character and love of God became twisted and perverted.
This is the sin nature, the fallen mind set of man. This is what God needs to correct in each one of us.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil was not only back then in the garden but it’s in each one of us. A garden is a mind in God’s word, it’s our mind. We too have the same two trees in our minds, the same character can be developed within us. We have been cut off from the tree of life because we don’t understand the love of God and neither do we want it because our hearts are hard.
The fact that God gave His Son as an expression of His love will soften our hearts and turn us the tree of life, the character of obeying God and not self.
Many blessings,
John(Edited by John at 7:23 pm on Feb. 16, 2004)
Hi, you go around in circles with a basic flaw, you give credence to the “Old testament” as being the word of “god”. Among all the reasons for that credence to be an absurdity one is from Jesus …”by their actions you will know them” and Israel…tragically purported by our nations leaders…as opposed to intellectually unpolluted people, to be the “right of the jews” has shown how rotten are the actions of those who follow that primitive religion.
So indoctrinated are so many over Israel they cannot see reality at all. The reason Jesus was rejected was his bringing of a world where peace corruption and hypocrisy would be less mainstream and he referred several times to the jews as “hypocrites”…his references to the contrivances of his own methodology did not highlight what we call “the old testament” as in any way critical to “salvation”…in fact he proclaimed the opposite.
The dispute over evil cannot be found through mantra chanting “old Testament” jewish power plays. There are many propositions; god may not be a creator but a result, the universe we have may be simply the current one, Jesus may simply be the greatest philosopher of all time, not the most prolific but the most effective.
Only when you are mentally chained to the old testament can you extrapolate such excuses for 'god' as this 'edited' column produces. The 'logical fact' to quote the column is that what is not known by the origin of all knowledge, cannot be produced….If evil never existed no knowledge of it could exist in 'god' or anyone else.
If 'god' was all goodness nothing of him or her could create evil without himself or herself having a component of evil. Certainly the mindless accepting of the bipolar god, the jewish creation of a 'god king' and purporting it was it which created us and not the other way around was political.
The three mainstream religions of Judaism Mohammedanism and Christianity have been at each other's throats for between 1400 and 2000 years, ripping and killing and justifying it all in the name of the same “god” . Unfortunately for truth, Jews didn't believe in one 'god” but three.. only post Akenhaten's “one god” which few seem to realise had nothing to do with any entity but “Ra”, the life giving sun…did Jews produce that “one God”…for a short while then went back to the “golden calf”. Nothing has changed since, both are still worshipped amid the bizarre rituals of Jewish religious theatre and its quest for “Israel”…. “the power to control and command the whole world” .
Moses or “Mos” as indicated in Egypt produced his latest configuration of 'god' having performed the usual religious “disappearing trick” when someone goes AWOL and then returns filled with “prophecies.. So respecting of the “tablets” and the ‘god’ he claimed to have received them, was he , that he shattered them (very convenient) in a burst of psychotic rage. The ‘tests’ you speak of with Job..Abraham…etc come under the same “guess what happened to me today” heading. Why believe these stories which come from ancient political spin doctors?
The concepts of loving and hating, heaven and hell' are well rationalised by the religiously infected people who seek personal empowerment through religion and purporting to be experts by quoting chapter and verse.
Chapter and verse mean nothing…The old testament IS nothing of religious value, there is NO such thing as “Judeo Christianity” even though expounded muffin heads like the mottley collection of American evangelists who plague our TV's and like Billy Graham, twisted the politico religious picture into a pro Israel bunch of Evangelists on a fourth crusade….purporting like the people they are destroying, to represent the will of ‘god’.
Better, in my view, you stopped worrying about the insoluble question of good and evil as related to 'creation” , to do that you need facts and they are not a component of the old testament's contents. If you believe it is the 'word of god' then any “word” which is incorrect makes the whole to be not correct…or do you just pick and choose what suits your power plays and make excuses for the rest? Such is the human mind I suppose that empowerment by prattling off old testament texts is something which joins people in a tribe, feeling special, superior, safer.
The fact is that you cannot be “saved” by giving credit to the old testament and in fact that is why all evil done by politicians leading the sheep to slaughter…is justified through “god”. Never is it justified through Jesus, for it cannot be. Such is the world of religious hypocrisy and abomination which is ripping this planet apart. Better you spend less time expounding chapter and verse and imagining you are part of “the chosen” but rather only allow secular government which has no religious allegiances to excuse its abominations, as we are imposing in the Middle East for just one area.
Cheers Tony
Quote
Isaiah 45:6-7 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.Evil translates to the Hebrew word “ra”, which doesn't mean literal evil. Modern verses usually translate it to “calamity” or “disaster”. God is definitely not the author of evil – as that would make God evil.
Evil is not a being, substance, or entity, evil is the lack of good. Good can exist without evil, but evil cannot exist without good. God created everything and as Genesis describes it, “and it was good.” Evil arose when man used their free will to rebel against God. Evil is a lack of the ultimate good, which is God, like darkness is the lack of light.
God is impeccable in His moral being, He is all good. A being that is all good cannot contain any evil within Him. Hence God is definitely not the author of evil. Theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas first realized that.
Quote (Augustine @ June 29 2008,10:46) Quote
Isaiah 45:6-7 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.Evil translates to the Hebrew word “ra”, which doesn't mean literal evil. Modern verses usually translate it to “calamity” or “disaster”. God is definitely not the author of evil – as that would make God evil.
Evil is not a being, substance, or entity, evil is the lack of good. Good can exist without evil, but evil cannot exist without good. God created everything and as Genesis describes it, “and it was good.” Evil arose when man used their free will to rebel against God. Evil is a lack of the ultimate good, which is God, like darkness is the lack of light.
God is impeccable in His moral being, He is all good. A being that is all good cannot contain any evil within Him. Hence God is definitely not the author of evil. Theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas first realized that.
Augustine It was Lucifer who rebelled first and evil came about His jealousy to become like God. He was thrown down to earth and 1/3 of the angels went with him.
Peace and Love Irene
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