Regarding
the Creator:
God is eternal and therefore his omniscience,
his decrees, his foreknowledge are eternal... but we are not. We are of time and space and to understand
such eternal things we must place them in order.
Omniscience:
By its very nature omniscience is a Divine
attribute for it is ALL knowledge. As
such it contains not only the history of creation but every possible variant to
that history.
From God's omniscience the Divine purpose was decreed. The decrees of God constitute the history of
creation including the part sentient beings play in it.
Foreknowledge is knowledge of what has been
decreed. Omniscience knew everything
that was foreknown but before it was decreed could only be a variant, a
possibility. The decrees made it a
fact. Isaiah 46:10 "Declaring the
end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet
done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure"
Election, predestination etc are all within
God's foreknowledge exactly as Peter says "Elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, my means of the sanctification of the Spirit,
unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1Peter 1:2)
Regarding
the Creation:
God who is all knowing, all wise, all loving,
just and righteous would surely have made things perfect. According to Genesis 1:31 that is exactly
what he did... so what went wrong?
Before God made the Heavens and the Earth and
before the foundations were laid it is evident that Satan had already brought
about a rebellion in heaven... for the angelic realm sang for joy over the
creation (Job 38:7) and yet very early Satan was in the Garden to subvert
humanity. Had God in his omniscience foreseen
this? Of course he had, so why didn't he
choose another plan.
The doctrine of the Angelic Conflict gives the
answer:
Man was created to resolve this conflict, a
conflict between Satan and his angels and God who condemned and judged them to
everlasting damnation for their rebellion.
In Ezekiel 28 we have in the first ten verses a
prophecy against the Prince of Tyre, the earthly ruler. In verses 11-18 it becomes a lament over the
King of Tyre a supernatural being that from the contents of those verses can
only be a description of Lucifer.
In this lament we see he was an anointed
cherub, a special being of great beauty and authority yet in pride he rose
against his allotted position in Heaven and was cast out of Heaven as defiled.
In Isaiah 14:12-20 we see a similar heavenly
condemnation referring directly to Lucifer the morning star. We see his pride, his condemnation, and
judgement. Yet today we still see him
free and active in the role his other names describe. Satan is the Hebrew saw-tawn', Devil is the
Greek diabolos both of which mean adversary.
Lucifer became an adversary to all that God has purposed... The fact
that he is still free and active implies a successful appeal against God's condemnation
and judgement.
Such an appeal would be an affront to Gods'
perfect nature yet God who is eternally just has given him the right of appeal
and has set up the Creation as a venue in which this appeal could be played
out. Man as an inferior creature to the Angels was to be used as evidence
against Satan in this appeal.
The original session was held in heaven but the
appeal was to be held on earth. The human experience in the Old and the New
Testaments reveal Satan's defence is primarily in his accusations against God's
witnesses. Job is an excellent example
of this.
With God's permission Satan tested Job to the
extreme, which testing marvellously worked together for Job's good, but at the
same time his unwavering faith in the unseen God was a single indictment to
Satan's rebellion against the God whom he had seen. This aspect of the case goes on throughout
history.
The promise of a redeemer, the coming of that
Redeemer, his death for sin and his resurrection from the dead is the strategic
victory for people of faith and is the promise of a future eternal resurrection. Jesus Christ is that Redeemer and his death
and resurrection is the strategic victory and substance of our faith. Our faith in God's redemption is refutation
of Satan's accusations, not our efforts at goodness. In ancient times men knew God as the redeemer:
"For I know that my redeemer liveth, and
that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my
skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see
for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be
consumed within me" (Job 19:25-27).
If only one human being believes in Christ, being
redeemed through faith, it is proof Satan’s appeal is not valid. If the lesser
creature (man) through faith accepts and worships God, the greater creature
(Satan) has no excuse for his intentional rejection of God .
Operation footstool terminates this Satanic
defence (Psalm 110:1; Ephesians 1:20-22). It is the time when Christ’s enemies
are placed under his feet in total subjection and is the beginning of Satan’s
incarceration of one thousand years.
The closing arguments of this trial are then
entered into, with the millennial reign of Christ being the final argument for
the prosecution. At the end of a thousand years of peace the Satanically
inspired rebellion is the final proof that Lucifer can only induce rebellion
and destruction. God is the only source
of happiness contentment and continued life, the very source that Lucifer
rejected.
Conclusions:
God's omniscience is the starting point to all
these things. From the position of
omniscience God is able to see all the possibilities and their ramifications,
and decree what will be. Those decrees
allow the volition of his creatures to coexist within the sovereignty of God.
In his omniscience God saw the rebellion and
fall of Satan and all that that rebellion brought upon the world, but in concern
for justice and truth decreed it would be so.
Human freedom of volition plays a vital part in
this conflict. No, man is not sovereign,
we cannot dictate that we will never die, nor where we will exist when we die,
that is God's sovereign will, but in spite of our fallen nature God is able to use
our faith in him to prove to Satan his indefensible guilt.
Could Almighty God have stopped it from
happening as it did? Of course, but
freedom of volition is an integral part of his Justice, and the Angelic
Conflict is all about justice. Can a being without volition serve perfect
justice? No, for how could a robotic
being prove God's goodness, it is doing what it is programmed to do; and can a
robot express love? Man however is not robotic but has been made in God's image
which includes the divine characteristics and the volition to express them.
Yes God could have stopped Satan and could have
interfered with Eve and Adam's volition but that would have destroyed the basis
of God's defence... the freedom to choose
God's foreknowledge is not the same as
omniscience, it falls within the decrees and covers both the fall and the
reconciliation of humanity.
His foreknowledge includes our positive
acceptance of the Holy Spirit's reproof. All those who believe in Jesus Christ
were decreed (elected) by God in eternity past before the foundation of the
world to a position of eternal life and godliness, of glory and virtue (1Peter
1:2), and as I have said on a number of occasions those who reject the Holy
Spirit's reproof are left where they are, under just condemnation.
In regards to those whom God elected, it is
exactly as Peter tells it... "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God
the Father..."
