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.
How do you respond to John 21:18–19?
Jesus says to Peter, “‘[W]hen you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’”
For providential reasons (undoubtedly connected with the encouragement of martyrs in the early church) God determined that Peter would suffer the same sort of death Christ suffered. Now that Peter had been humbled and had learned how to love and serve as Jesus loved and served (see How do you respond to Matt. 26:36) Jesus was going to teach him to die as Jesus died.
This prophecy suggests that by this time the Lord was going to providentially ensure that Peter would not die in any other fashion. This would obviously be a small feat for the Lord of the universe. But it does not suggest that everything else about Peter’s future was settled, still less that everything about the future of the world is settled. We only need to resort to the “crystal ball” understanding of omniscience when we lose our confidence in the Father’s providential wisdom in history and his ability to creatively achieve his objectives while allowing creatures to be free.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: John 21
Related Reading
How do you respond to Psalm 139:16?
“In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” Psalm 139 is a beautiful poetic expression of God’s personal moment-by-moment involvement in our lives. So intimate is his involvement that he knows our thoughts before we utter them (vs. 2–4). His loving presence surrounds…
The Open View and Radical Suffering
Jessica Kelley spoke at Open2013 this morning, sharing her journey with tenderness and authority. Jessica began wrestling with her view of God a couple of years ago and embraced Open Theism prior to the diagnosis and eventual death of her four-year-old son, Henry. Everyone here at the conference was profoundly affected by her story 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…
Open Theism: A Basic Introduction
On Monday and Tuesday, Greg explained Molinism and contrasted it against the open view of the future. (Click here for part 1). Because many see the open view as a limited view of God, it’s helpful to be clear that this has less to do with the nature of God and is about the nature…
Confronting Divine Determinism
Part of the fallen human condition inclines us to shirk our moral responsibility and accept that everything is predetermined, whether by God, the gods, fate, or blind chance. Various forms of determinism have been prevalent in most primitive religions, in much ancient philosophy, in most forms of Islam and even, most surprisingly, in much traditional…
If God anticipates each possibility perfectly, how does he differ from the “frozen God” of classical theism?
Question: If God anticipates each and every possibility as if each were only possibility, how does God ever experience novelty and adventure? It seems that a God who perfectly anticipated (from all eternity) every single possibility as if it were the only possibility would not differ from the timeless “frozen God” of classical theism Answer:…