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 33:13–15?
“[W]hen I say to the righteous he will surely live, and he so trusts in his righteousness that he commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered…he will die. But when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and he turns from his sin and practices justice and righteousness, if a wicked man restores a pledge, pays back what he has taken by robbery, walks by the statues which ensure life without committing iniquity, he will surely live; he shall not die.”
How are we to understand the Lord telling a righteous person “you shall surely live” or telling a wicked person “you shall surely die” if we also believe that at that very moment the Lord was perfectly certain that the righteous person he’s speaking to would not live (for he eternally foreknew they’d fall) and that the wicked person he’s speaking to would not die (for he eternally foreknew they’d repent)? Declarations are truthful only if they reflect sincere beliefs. But if God’s knowledge about a person’s fate is eternally settled, then any declaration he gives which goes against this knowledge is insincere.
If we grant that when the Bible depicts God as changing his mind it depicts him as he truly is and not simply as he appears to us, these problems disappear. In good faith, the Lord tells the righteous they shall live and the wicked they shall die, for this is what the Lord truly believes about them at the time of the declaration. If they change, however, his belief about them truly changes, and so his sincere declaration about them changes.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Ezekiel 33
Related Reading
Podcast: If Open Theism is True, Does it Make Sense to Pray For Intercession?
Greg talks about prayer and freedom. Specifically, if free will is so important, why would God override it in answer to prayer? http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0123.mp3
Why did God create me to be a pedophile?
Question: Since the first time I experienced a sex drive it’s been directed towards little children. I’ve never acted on this, for I know it’s wrong. But it torments me. Why would God created me with pedophile cravings? Answer: I’m so sorry for your condition and greatly respect the fact that you have committed yourself…
Is the Bible against body piercing and tattoos?
Some Christians argue against body piercing and tattoos on the basis of a couple of Old Testament verses that prohibit them (Lev. 19:28). Several years back an aggravated lady tried to get me to preach against these things in my church (she’d observed that a number of people in the congregation had body piercings and…
Q&A: If God is So Great, Why Would He Care About Us?
Question: I’ve read that scientists estimate that the number of stars in the universe is 10 to the 24th power (10 with 24 zeros after it). I’m told that finding the earth amidst all these stars would be like finding one particular grain of sand in a sand pile the size of the United States piled…
How Does God Hear All Our Prayers?
Q: At any given moment there are millions of people praying to God. How is it possible for God to pay attention to my little, silent prayer amidst all the chatter? The reason you or I can only effectively listen to one person at a time is because we only have a limited amount of…
Lighten Up: Oh my… I am so very very scared…
Well, my dear friend Frankie V. once again has a bad case of verbal diarrhea (explains his breath lately), running off about how he’s going to smack me down in our “all-out, no holds barred, ring-side seat, verbal wrestling match” on the open view of the future. I’m supposed to shutter in my boots at…