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Everyone chime in.

 

What do YOU think this means?

 

I'm not going to respond at all or "debate" anything.

 

I just want to know what YOU, my other brothers and sisters, think this passage means for you.

 

Thanks.

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"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.

 

 

 

 

 

Therefore, I think Doc was right all along about how that language in Genesis is seemingly analogous to that of God's regret of how Saul turned out. In the case of Saul, God regreted the choice of Saul, given how he turned out. But He did not regret, in an absolute sense, either allowing the people a king, or choosing a king, per se. Likewise, God didn't regret having "made man," in Genesis. Rather, the meaning seems to be something like this:

 

 

I think this captures the sense of "but" in "but Noah found grace." And Lamech had already prophecied that Noah was, in some sense, a fulfillment of the promised seed. Noah, then, was a type of the redemption that explains how God's purpose can never truly be frustrated to the point where God regrets absolutely. He is competent. And as long as we abide in Him, working unto God's ends, so are we. Which is why Paul can say, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

 

So the import of the passage seems to be that God will suffer in love as long as He can, consistently with the plan, before intervening in the ways He did in the days of Noah and Saul. But He will not fail to accomplish His purpose for creation. We can affect the means God must use (like the atonement, e.g.), but we can't frustrate that purpose, ultimately. As Paul said, "for who has resisted His purpose?" So, yes, we can oppose God in the sense that we cause Him more sentient dissatisfaction than is necessary (this all oppose means, anyway--nonsentient beings can't be opposed), but we can't prevent God's end.

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Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/18/2007 6:11:42 AM (GMT-6)