One little flame when all is night
Proves there is such a thing as Light
Remember now the place and price
Where Jesus promised paradise
John Piper
The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God.
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John Piper is a Calvinist and in this book He says - ‘God governs all things for His good purposes’
The Scripture says, ‘And we know that all things work together for good to THEM that love God, to THEM who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
These two statements by Piper and Paul are not the same.
The kernel of truth in Pipers statement is that God does accomplish His good purposes for Creation as a whole.
The falsehood is the ‘all things’ which leads to Calvinist conclusions like John Calvin makes in his huge book Institutes of Christian religion; Namely that ‘The first man fell because the Lord deemed it meet that he should !’
As Don Richardson a Christian missionary in His book Eternity in their Hearts says rightly (me added in the brackets),
“Could not the Son of Man who is also the Omnipotent Son of God do anything ?
The answer is yes.
(He will not sin however and that is why He is Holy).
Human free will however implies God’s prior decision not to tamper with it. It also implies man’s ability to reject God’s persuasion to influence that free will.
Persuasion not compulsion is what God in His wisdom has decided to rely on and persuasion by it’s very definition must be resistible.
Yet God, who so renders Himself resistible, is Sovereign enough that He can overrule every consequence of this self imposed self limitation with ease !
Working around and even through human resistance as easily as through response, He achieves His eternal goals which are altogether good and Holy.”
This is the Glory of God’s Sovereignty.
Catechism
Q. Why has God decided to give men and angels free will ?
A. Because God is Love (1John 4:8) and Love can only flourish where there is freedom not where there is coercion, compulsion, hypnotism or irresistibility.
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