We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
What is the significance of 1 Chronicles 21:15?
“And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it; but when he was about to destroy it, the Lord took note and relented concerning the calamity; he said to the destroying angel, ‘Enough! Stay your hand.’”
This powerful passage tells us why God sent the angel and why he changed his mind. If God foreknew he was not going to destroy Jerusalem, he could not have genuinely intended to destroy it and the Scripture which explicitly tells us “he was about to destroy it” must be considered incorrect. Moreover, if God never really intended to destroy the city, his dispatching the angel for the expressed purpose of doing so becomes altogether unintelligible. Nor could he have authentically “relented” from a previous plan, for he never really planned this destruction in the first place.
The classical view of an exhaustively settled future introduces a certain artificiality into texts such as this one which depict God as changing his plans. For this reason, I believe we should reject this view of the future and accept that God can truly change his mind about temporal matters.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Chronicles 21
Related Reading
Non-Violence and Police Protection
Scott Davidson via Compfight Question: I am a President of a State University. As a frequent podcaster of your sermons and reader of your books, I’m seeking your advice on a matter. Because our campus is some distance from the police headquarters in our city, many within the State University are arguing that we should…
How do you respond to Isaiah 48:3–5?
The Lord proclaims to his idolatrous people, “The former things I declared long ago, they went out from my mouth and I made them known; then suddenly I did them and they came to pass. Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass, I declared…
Scientific Support for the Open View
If a position is true, every avenue of reflection ought to point in its direction. What follows are two more “pointers” to the view that the future is at least partly open (indefinite, composed of possibilities). I’ll first consider an argument from quantum physics, followed by a pragmatic argument regarding what we ordinarily assume to…
Podcast: What Does God Actually DO in the World?
Greg discusses what a God, who takes his hands off of us, who gives up control for us, who accommodates for us, actually does in the world. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0215.mp3
Why Did Jesus Curse The Poor Fig Tree?
Why Did Jesus Curse The Fig Tree? One of the strangest episodes recorded in the Gospels is Jesus cursing a fig tree because he was hungry and it didn’t have any figs (Mk 11:12-14; Mt 21:18-19). It’s the only destructive miracle found in the New Testament. What’s particularly puzzling is that Mark tells us the…
What about the Gospel of John and Calvinism?
Question: The Gospel of John seems to teach that people believe because God draws them, rather than that God draws people because they believe. If this is true, how can you deny the Calvinistic teaching that salvation is based on God’s choice, not ours? Answer: As you note, many people find support for the view…