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How God has "Limited" Himself

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 9:50 am
by dwight92070
In my post with Steve7150, I hit on a topic that I find fascinating, so I decided to do a new topic here.

Have you noticed that God, Who is without limits, has "limited" Himself? He is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Immutable, Holy, Omniscient, and I don't even remember all the others. But He chooses to "limit" Himself, so to speak. Possibly, if He did not "limit" Himself, He would be "lying" about Himself and His own character.

For example, He chooses to be identified as a male. He "limits" Himself and never identifies Himself as a female, or an animal, or a tree, etc.

His Messiah was (is) a male. He has "limited" His Messiah to being a male, not a female.

He could have given us 2 or 3 or 4 ways to be saved, but He limited it to 1 way.

He created 1 definition of marriage, 1 man and 1 woman.

He limited angels to being identified as males, not females. Gabriel, Michael, Lucifer are all male names.

Paul says there is one hope, one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one God, one Father, one Spirit.

Happy Easter, gotta run.

Re: How God has "Limited" Himself

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 8:49 pm
by steve7150
He limited angels to being identified as males, not females. Gabriel, Michael, Lucifer are all male names.









The difference is with the other categories there are specific limitations which are clearly identifiable whereas with your belief that Angels can only appear as men is something you are reading into the text when there is no specific mention of this limitation.
You can have that opinion , its' not an unreasonable one but I think you are going to far based on the lack of any specific restrictions.

Re: How God has "Limited" Himself

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 9:16 pm
by dizerner
steve7150 wrote:He limited angels to being identified as males, not females. Gabriel, Michael, Lucifer are all male names.









The difference is with the other categories there are specific limitations which are clearly identifiable whereas with your belief that Angels can only appear as men is something you are reading into the text when there is no specific mention of this limitation.
You can have that opinion , its' not an unreasonable one but I think you are going to far based on the lack of any specific restrictions.
Agree, Hebrews says "strangers" can be angels, which could be any person type.

Re: How God has "Limited" Himself

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 10:50 pm
by Paidion
Dwight wrote:For example, He [God] chooses to be identified as a male. He "limits" Himself and never identifies Himself as a female
How do you know that God chooses to be identified as a male? Where do you find that in the Bible?

Jesus said that God is spirit (John 4:24). That means God is immaterial. An immaterial, spiritual being is neither male nor female. Yet God who created mankind, both male and female, has some aspects of character associated with males, and other aspects associated with females.

Re: How God has "Limited" Himself

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 10:04 am
by Homer
Romans 9:22-23 (NKJV)

22. What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23. and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,


God limited himself in regard to Israel in that he wanted to destroy Israel but was self constrained by His greater desire that the Messiah should come and fulfill the purpose for the nation of Israel/Law of Moses.

From Strong's Expanded dictionary:

Romans 9:22, where "fitted" (prepared) (katartizo) is in the middle voice, indicating that the "vessels of wrath" fitted themselves for "destruction" (apoleia). And in 70 AD He did what He desired.

Re: How God has "Limited" Himself

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 1:16 pm
by dwight92070
When I said that God has limited angels to being identified as males, I was simply making a factual statement. Show me one place in the Bible where angels are identified as females or children. You can't, because it's not there. But there are many places where angels are referred to using masculine pronouns and they are even called "men" and "man". Also, as I already said, at least 3 angels are named, all with masculine names. So for anyone to assume that a woman or child who appeared and then was gone rather suddenly was an angel from God is, itself, reading into the text of the Bible something that is not there.

Re: How God has "Limited" Himself

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 1:20 pm
by dwight92070
Paidon,

I can't believe you actually asked that question.

Re: How God has "Limited" Himself

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 1:22 pm
by dwight92070
Homer,

Thank God that He is slow to anger and doesn't want any to perish.

Re: How God has "Limited" Himself

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 6:35 pm
by morbo3000
dwight92070 wrote:Paidon,

I can't believe you actually asked that question.
Why on earth? Spirit is sometimes grammatically female. Wisdom is personified as a female in Proverbs. There are other feminine references to God. It's very biblical.

You may not agree with them, but they aren't beyond the pale.