Claims of God Being Omnipotent in the Bible

I think you have an excellent grasp of Deut. 13.Which part of Genesis 3 are you referring to? The "you won't die" or "you will become like God."

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god said, "don't eat it, or you'll day that same day"

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the snake said, "god's lying. you won't die, you'll become like god, with your eyes open knowing good and evil."

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what happens at the end of genesis 3? what god said, or what the snake said?

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It is commonly believed that God was referring to spiritual death, which did occur that very day. God is concerned more about your spiritual condition than your physical condition. Perhaps He had considered physical death as a penalty and relented and gave them a reprieve. What would be considered a great kindness if it came from a human judge is now deemed a fault in God? If you were sentenced to death and the presiding judge called you back in court and said "I've changed my mind, I'm going to let you live", would you call him a liar?Adam and Eve's eyes were opened to evil. They had already known good through God. They certainly did not become like God in any desirable way, although satan sure made it sound good, didn't he? And they did die physically eventually.
Fixed quote.PBThis message has been edited by AdminPhat, 02-18-2005 01:23 AM

What part or parts of the Bible are you referring to? I'm interested as in the previous posts our spider friendly expert argued very convincingly that God did not lie in the prophet example, and I think I've presented a good case for the Genesis 2:17 verse. Pending rebuttal of course.

[quote]: it emphasizes things by repetition.the verse is clearly talking about physical death. this spiritual death thing was invented to explain god's lie, because according to the text he doesn't fulfill his word.[quote] God didn't include every thought and action of His in the Bible, just because something is not specifically written does not mean that is not plausible.It may be the same word in both places but it doesn't have the same emphasis,[which is denoted in more ways than repetition] indicating a different meaning. In Genesis 5:5 it says "and he died." not "and he surely died!"I didn't dodge the question, I presented plausible arguments, and what does it matter whether God said it was a punishment or not? My answer didn't state that was a fact, it was a possibility I raised.The original question "who lied, God or satan?" was answered : satan. They did die spiritually, and they did not become like God.

These are easy ones, but it's late and I have dogs to walk and work tomorrow.

First, the 2 examples you give are seperate accounts of the same story, almost identical in wording.Second, a great deal of communication is not verbal, and in 1 Kings 22:16 it is obvious that Ahab knew the first statement by Micaiah was not true. Whether Micaiah rolled his eyes or leered and laughed we don't know, but Ahab knew that Micaiah's pronouncement was ironic. Ahab had had a graphic demonstration that his prophets were fallabile in 1 Kings Ch.18.Third, through Micaiah, God tells Ahab that Ahab's prophets are lying . The statement that God put a lying spirit in their mouths is a warning from God not to believe them, and that God is in control. Then God reveals exactly what will happen, Ahab will die.Where is it that God lies? It seems to me the opposite, that God tells the truth.

What specifically is deficient about my assertion above?I suppose everyone sees things a little differently. Yes, God says that he "became like us to know good and evil", but was expelled from the garden before he could eat of the "tree of life."I think Adam and Eve received a tiny bit of knowledge of evil for giving up eternal life in the warm embrace of a loving God.Elsewhere in the Bible satan is known as the deceiver and the adversary. Is that because he was so truthful?Romans, chapters, 5 and 6 specifically address spiritual death. The exact term, "spiritual death" may not be used, but the concept is there.This message has been edited by xevolutionist, 02-18-2005 11:39 AMThis message has been edited by xevolutionist, 02-18-2005 11:42 AM

I felt that showed God wanted to give us a much richer existence than the one we ended up with. I read a review about an author who proposed in a recent book that this entire creation's purpose was to eliminate evil. I haven't had a chance to read that one yet but it sounds interesting."I think Adam and Eve received a tiny bit of knowledge of evil for giving up eternal life in the warm embrace of a loving God." What I said that didn't get transferred to the post was that good liars include a little truth to get you to accept the big lie. If someone told me I could become like God I think I'd expect more than the knowledge that I was naked, untrustworthy, and evicted. Yes, in my opinion, the death of Christ was a spiritual death. When Christ took our sins on the cross He was separated from God for a time spiritually. " My God, My God, why hast though forsaken me?"Death to sin is what we strive for, not the death through sin we and Adam received. The serpent, not satan, was used as an example of wisdom. The bronze serpent was a reminder of sin's penalty. Which Jesus paid when He was lifted up on the cross.As to those who had not sinned;
I think you meant Romans 5:14 and the complete sentence continues, "even those who had not sinned in the same way as Adam." There were no sinless people. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."I am not trying to rewrite scripture, I am trying to interpret it as one complete, consistent message from God, which is what I believe it is. I think my interpretation is reasonable and consistent with what God reveals about His character.This message has been edited by xevolutionist, 02-19-2005 01:14 AM

The serpent was satan.

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good and evil. as in awareness, and the ability to judge between the two. the story is about the origin of moral choice, and conciousness (and human emotion). it explains the tradeoffs for conciousness: a lifetime of work, pain and heartache in raising children, and marital strife.

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if you missed that aspect to the store -- well, you missed the point. the point is that there is something of god in us, and we are like god in some way that makes us special, and that it is worth the pain and sacrifice and separation from god's paradise.

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whoever told you it's about guilt and death is trying to sell you a religion.

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Are you arguing from a deist point of view? I would agree on the first part of that point only. We have the ability to know good from evil, and that is the source of humanity's agonizing self examination. Why am I here? What's the meaning of it all? Why are men so cruel? Why did my bunny die? What happens after death? All the while rejecting God's message of purpose and plan.Do we understand everything about God? If we did He really wouldn't be much of a God, yet He did give us all we need to know for now. That's just another excuse to reject Him and choose your own morality. You're free to do it.I don't think anything would be worth permanent separation from God.
Those who have been forgiven don't need guilt. I personally think that's something a lot of Christians don't get.Death is a reality, at least the physical death. The spiritual life I was speaking of in the previous posts was friendship with God. You're right,The indwelling of the Spirit in the new testament is different, but similar in that it confers many of the same benefits that one might imagine having with GOD as your best buddy. One of them is not fearing death.

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That idea was presented to me at seminary, thiry five years ago. But, once again: Shouldn't a Real God get what he wants? Shouldn't he be able to see the end from the beginning? Would he purposely choose to fail?

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Of course He knew the outcome from the beginning, and I'm sure that He will get what He wants. The real question is what will we get.He may appear to fail to some, if you see generousity as a failure. He gave us the ability to choose between good and evil, and even gave the angels self determination. Perhaps this is the equivilant of tempering steel.

How many snakes converse with humans? Satan either spoke through the serpent or took on the appearance of the serpent. Perhaps God cursed the serpent for allowing satan to speak through him, or perhaps "crawl on your belly and eat dust" is symbolic of an angel being cast down to earth from heaven.

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When God says that He does not change, He is speaking about His nature and character. But this does not mean that He cannot change how He works with people throughout history.
When we see God changing His mind, we are seeing it from a human perspective. Since God knows all things from all eternity, He as always known the ultimate plan that He would carry out; even the plan to "change His mind." As we have seen in Jonah's account of Nineveh. They repented and God relented from the destruction that was to come upon the inhabitants. Of course, God knew this would happen and instituted the warning to them in order to bring about their repentance. There is no mystery here.

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[from Christian Apologetics Research Ministry website] I was struggling with the wording of my thoughts when I found this.I don't want to change any scripture, even the parts that I don't understand yet. 99.9% of God's word is completely understandable and the few portions that are difficult for me to understand don't present any unsurmountable difficulties.

The early Hebrews didn't understand a lot of things but they didn't try to change them. For instance the "seed of the woman" was not understood. Only men have "seed", but they didn't change that portion of scripture just because they didn't know what God meant. Christians know now that He was referring to the virgin birth.As I said previously, I would look upon loss of friendship with God as a spiritual death. Many people agree with you that it is physical death. If it is, what's a thousand years compared with eternity? That would seem pretty much immediate to someone comparing the two time periods. Isn't everything relative? On that day, Adam's death became a certainty, even if He didn't drop dead on the spot.

In mythology yes, but not in real life. I didn't know you were following this. Bored?