Jesus didn't become agape. Jesus became a man, who chose to live according to the principles of agape. We, as men, do not become agape. However Jesus, as God, was agape. We, as humans, do not become God; nor did Jesus, as a man, become God. (so He didn't become agape).

Since Jesus denied Himself, and revealed the Father, He revealed the agape that God always has been.

Tom,

Are you saying that the words "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" are a description of Christ's character as God or as a man?


Then, with all due respect, I would be as omniscient as God, because I would give the same answer.

There is a time when time will be no more for those that are saved. Can we live in this realm now?

To what degree are we limiting Infinite and Almighty God into our time frame? Or pressing Him into our limited concepts?

Time? Do we realize that this earth might well be the only place in the Universe where time is what we think it is? How would you keep the Sabbath on any of the other planets in our solar system? Not one of them has a 24-hour day system that is like ours? And they seem to have been that way right from the beginning, since Creation.

Rev 10:6 And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
Rev 10:7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

This is not speaking about "time" in the sense of the existence of time, but in the sense of 'opportunity' or 'delay'.

Time is a sequence of events. Only in death there is no time; where no time is, there is no sequence of events. For time to cease to exist is for life to cease to be; for time is as life is in God.

Tom,

Are you saying that the words "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" are a description of Christ's character as God or as a man?

As God.



Rosangela:Then, with all due respect, I would be as omniscient as God, because I would give the same answer.

With all due respect, this is about as fine an example of faulty logic that one is apt to find.

Let's say someone asked the question, "How much is two plus two?" and you said "Four". Does that make you as omniscient as God, since it's the same answer He would give?

The fact that the future is open and not fixed does not make God any less omniscient. In addition, His knowledge of the future is different than yours because anything that happens is something He has foreseen. That's not true for you.

All that we know about God is what He communicates to us. If He tells us things like He repented that He made man, that He sent His Son at great risk, that all heaven was imperiled for our redemption, are we limiting Him if we believe what He tells us?

If we disbelieve the bible when it says God changed His mind on something (such as creating humans as Toms example points out). What else are we then free to disbelieve the bible about?

The problem is not disbelieving the Bible, Thomas, but having in view everything that the Bible says about a subject.

Repentance involves a change of mind. But the Bible is clear that God does not change (Mal. 3:6; James 1:17). It’s also clear that God is not a man that He should repent (1 Sam. 15:29). So, the explanation is that God does not change, but as man changes, God has to alter His procedure towards him.

Tom, despite the fact that God is love, refusing to drink the cup was a possibility, so without His foreknowledge the Lord could not be sure, from the foundation of the world, that Christ would die for the human race. The text does not say that the Lamb offered Himself to be slain from the foundation of the world, but that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.

This is what I've been saying on the Ecclesiastes thread. It takes discernment to understand what is being communicated.

Repentance involves a change of mind. But the Bible is clear that God does not change (Mal. 3:6; James 1:17).

His character! His *character* doesn't change. That's what these texts are talking about.

It’s also clear that God is not a man that He should repent (1 Sam. 15:29).

Regarding His purposes. That's what this text is concerning.

So, the explanation is that God does not change, but as man changes, God has to alter His procedure towards him.

Your procedure here is reminding me of how Calvinists interpret Romans 9 to show that God predestined the individuals Jacob and Esau, when the text isn't dealing with individuals at all. In order to rightly interpret Scripture, we need to consider the context.

Regarding Genesis, it's simply saying that God was disappointed with what man did, and He expresses regret in having created man.






There are many places where God expresses Himself in ways such as expressing regret, disappointment, surprise, a number of emotions, which would be impossible if the future were determined.