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 Ezekiel 22:29–31?

The Lord says he “sought for” someone to stand in the breech for Israel “but I found none.” Hence Israel experienced the wrath of God.

If everything that shall ever come to pass is eternally fixed in the divine mind, God would have foreknown that no one would respond to his call for a Moses-like person to stand in the breech before him. He thus could not have genuinely sought for someone and then could not have genuinely decried with disappointment, “I found none.” This episode provides a stark contrast to the many other episodes in Scripture in which God’s plan to bring judgment is reversed through the power of prayer (e.g. Exod. 32:14; Num. 11:1–2; 14:12–20; 16:20–35, 41–48; Deut. 9:13–14, 18–20, 25; Judg. 10:13–15; 2 Sam. 24:17–25; 1 Kings 21:27–29; 2 Kings 13:3–5; 20:1–7; 2 Chron. 12:5–8). This verse once again demonstrates how the urgency of prayer is intensified if the future is considered partly open.

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics:
Verse:

Related Reading

Response to Bruce Ware’s “Defining Evangelicalism’s Boundaries: Is Open Theism Evangelical?”

The following essay was written in response to Bruce Ware’s article, “Defining Evangelicalism’s Boundaries: Is Open Theism Evangelical?” Published in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, June 2002. Introduction I want to begin by expressing my utmost respect for the high value placed on academic fairness and integrity by the editorial board of JETS.…

The Future is Not Like the Past For God (or Us)

Image by seier+seier via Flickr Everyone agrees that we are not free to change the past. No sane person would claim, for example, that I can now make any free choices about whether John F. Kennedy will be assassinated or not on November 22, 1963. This deed, like all past deeds, has already been accomplished. Now consider,…

Lighten Up: I’m Not Worried Frank

http://youtu.be/kQFKtI6gn9Y?t=1m19s Well, my dear friend Frank Viola has been spouting off again about how my “logic will be shredded, excoriated, and turned into confetti before a watching world” when we host our debate on Open Theism this fall. I’m not too worried though, since Frank studied the art of debate in the clinic featured in…

How do you respond to 2 Thessalonians 2:11–12?

Of those who disobey the truth Paul says, “…God sends them powerful delusions, leading them to believe what is false so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned.” This passage is sometimes cited as evidence that the delusions that unbelievers embrace are as much a part…

Is homosexuality a sin?

There are three passages in the Old Testament (Gen. 19: 1-13; Lev 18:22; 20:13) and three in the New Testament (Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; I Tim. 1:10) that have traditionally been read as prohibiting homosexuality. On top of this, the entire biblical narrative presupposes that sex is supposed to take place between a man…

How do you respond to Numbers 23:19?

The Lord tells Balak through Balaam “God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind.” This verse (as well as 1 Sam. 15:29, which quotes it) is often cited in refutation of the claim that God genuinely changes his mind. However, since Scripture explicitly states…