God does not change - Age of law and age of grace

[WhiteWings]

If God declared a age of law and an age of grace doesn't that mean He changed?
Not personally but the way he governs His creation?

[IceDash]

You should know that God know everything, he know what going to happen even the next every second. He know all.

[WhiteWings]

Agreed.

But it doesn't really answer my question.

[IceDash]

I know, sorry we are not God. lol.

[sparrow]

I know, sorry we are not God. lol.

  that made me laugh...

Hey WhiteWings, I don't think it means that God changed the way he governs His creation. The reason I say this is because I see it as all being one thing, not 2 separate things. One leads to another, and you can't have one without the other. Well, I guess you COULD but it wouldn't work, you wouldn't have the same results. God is smart and he knows this, he knows that there must be an age of law to teach us. God doesn't change, the way he governs us doesn't change, but it's our own perspective that changes. And we NEED to have our perspective taken through an age of law so that we may see the truth, and so that we can see that God never changes.


oh man... that was really circular. I just read through what I wrote and my eyes started going crossed...
I know what I want to say but I can't quite word it properly. 
sorry... I tried. lol.

[sparrow]

ok, I felt the need to try again.

He doesn't change the way he governs us...
We THINK he changes the way he governs us.
But it's only our current perspective.
His ways don't change.
WE change... our perspective changes...
Slowly, as we learn truth.


maybe that makes more sense?
or maybe that's not what you're talking about at all..? 

[jabcat]

I think so, yes.  As you say, God doesn't change, but IMO, He may in fact do different things at different times;  But still all of the perfect plan He had from the beginning.  It was all mapped out, He's not figuring it out as He goes..."the Lamb slain before the foundation",  we're "chosen before the foundation"...He knew it...He knew His plan was a law of age, His Son changing that to the law of grace, and then to the next Age...The basis of all that, IS God's consistency, His heart set on something that He WILL accomplish...from the very beginning.  He has ALWAYS loved, ALWAYS intended good, ALWAYS planned to bring it to the perfect end...that hasn't, and won't change.  God doesn't change, He was just able to look down through the Ages and see how He would bring about His perfect plan...from our perspective it may seem disjointed sometimes...but we see an inch, and God has the whole view...one steady, perfect, flowing pattern that will yield the beautiful result He originally intended.

My  anyway.  God's blessing, James.

[legoman]

God doesn't change.

I believe when we say God doesn't change, we mean God doesn't change his mind, he doesn't change his intent, he doesn't change his purpose, and he doesn't change his plan.

So the simple answer to your question is that it was his plan to first have an age of law and then have an age of grace.  So his plan has not changed.



If we say something literally never changes, then that something would never move, and never even be alive.  If you never (literally) changed, you wouldn't be able to speak, move, type on this messageboard.  You would be effectively dead.

That is entirely different than saying you are steadfast in your purpose and it will never change. 

Same thing with God - He is longsuffering and has a plan that involves many phases and ages in which change will occur - that change will bring us into being with him.


If He never changed, he would not be able to bring anything about as he would be "stuck motionless in time" (as if that could even make sense if you were God).

Cheers,
Legoman

[WhiteWings]

I believe when we say God doesn't change, we mean God doesn't change his mind, he doesn't change his intent, he doesn't change his purpose, and he doesn't change his plan.

How can we know the Bible is the final edition of Gods masterplan?
With a fully unreveiled will God can add an extra testament.

But I have to say the NT gives us a better deal than the OT iMO
But not all will agree with that I think...

[jabcat]

WW, I believe scripture is complete to at least the end of this Age (and it appears, to the end of the next, but I'm no scholar).  But when it comes right down to it, I sure don't know exactly what God's going to do or reveal in the next Age, or the next, or the next.  I do believe that at least until the next Age, "thus saith the Lord" has occurred, and anything that's revealed to us, shedding new light on His Word, unveiling us, etc. up until that time, will be in accord with the scripture we already do have...

God's blessing, James. 

[martincisneros]

God never made separate dispensations in the dispensationalists way of looking at it.  The whole thing from cover to cover was ages of ages of grace.  Old Testament Israel was judged based upon the righteousness of their High Priest and so are we in the New Testament.  And we've been redeemed from sacrificing under the New Testament. 

Much of our ideas these days about the Law of Moses is what the Pharisees had turned it into, similar to where if all you knew of Christianity was old, double-election Calvinism, then you'd rather get drunk than go to Church and hear how God may have predestined your damnation anyway.  The Mosaic law was mostly meant to be a meditation on the seriousness of sin.  David even interpreted from it in the Psalms the need for the Redeemer. 

Job living in the book of Genesis was able to say in the book of Job, "I know my redeemer lives" and he anticipated that though his body were to become food for worms that yet in his body he'd stand before his Redeemer.  Job knew no consciousness of sin, although his friends -- his so-called friends -- tried to say that all of this must have happened to you because of some great evil you've committed. 

If Job hadn't interceded for his friends, God would have likely cremated them for misrepresenting Him.  Same idea as when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, asking how they'd escape the condemnation of Hell by trying to be justified by the Ten Commandments and the encyclopedic thing they'd turn it into of being fearful of breaking a single one of them, so they turned them into thousands of commandments. 

They were looking to attribute evil to both man and God if man didn't keep their denominational/church rules.  That's damned from cover to cover in the Bible.  As the Old Testament High Priest was appointed once to die, figuratively in his sacrifice, so also Christ was offered once to bare the sins of the many and He'll come again to bring salvation for all that are expecting Him.  Jakob Jocz, a Canadian theologian whose expertise was in Old Testament studies, in his book "The Covenant: A Theology of Human Destiny" makes the argument that Leviticus was a theological document rather than one that was ever practiced in real life in Judaism. 

The Mosaic Law was understood by much of Old Testament Israel to be allegory.  Many of the Old Testament Rabbis knew it was allegory about the Messiah.  The Old Testament even said His Name would be Jesus (Yeshua/Hosea/etc) in Zechariah in the coronation of the High Priest which was forbidden in the Old Testament.  No High Priest in ancient Israel was King as well.