Monthly Archives: June 2014

WAS JESUS OMNISCIENT?

Jack Cottrell Posted on by

QUESTION: Did Jesus’ divine nature include omniscience? Was Jesus all-knowing? If so, how do we explain Matthew 24:36? ANSWER: Many crucial Christian beliefs are involved in the answer to such questions, e.g., the immutability (unchangeableness) of God, the nature of the incarnation, and especially the divine nature of Jesus, which is the presupposition for the substitutionary atonement. Unless Jesus was fully divine and thus infinite in nature, He could not have been the propitiation for our sins, suffering the equivalent of eternity in hell for the entire human race in the finite event of the cross. (See my book, What … Continue reading →

THE ATONEMENT AND PHYSICAL HEALING

Jack Cottrell Posted on by

QUESTION: I have friends who believe that the healing of physical diseases is one of the results of the atonement. They believe that Jesus died to bring us healing of our bodies. Thus if we are Christians, we should receive physical healing and should not be sick. What does the Bible say? ANSWER: This view is found in a variation of the modern Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. It is sometimes called the Word of Faith (or Word Faith) Movement, or the Health and Wealth Movement (or Prosperity Gospel). Worldwide, it is one of the largest and fastest-growing forms of Christendom. … Continue reading →

Does God’s Foreknowledge Negate Man’s Free Will?

Jack Cottrell Posted on by

QUESTION. It seems to me that divine foreknowledge does not eliminate human free will, but several people that I know believe that it does. They say that if God knows what will happen tomorrow, that means it is an established fact, removing any free will choices one might make tomorrow. What do you say about this? ANSWER. This objection to divine foreknowledge today comes especially from the recent theological movement known as “open (or openness) theology,” or “open theism.” It has been picking up steam since the 1980s; some of its major representatives are Richard Rice, Clark Pinnock, John Sanders, … Continue reading →

God’s Foreknowledge in the Bible

Jack Cottrell Posted on by

QUESTION: Does the Bible teach that God knows the future? ANSWER: This is the question of divine foreknowledge. One of the main attributes of God is called “omniscience,” which literally means the knowledge of everything. As usually applied, to say that God is omniscient means that he knows everything. This means he knows all possibilities as well as all actualities. In the category of actualities, this means he has complete knowledge of the actual past, the actual present, and the actual future. His knowledge of the future is his foreknowledge. Divine foreknowledge has always been accepted by most Bible-believers. There … Continue reading →

Is the Human Soul Inherently Eternal?

Jack Cottrell Posted on by

QUESTION. I heard an elder of a local church make the comment that he believed that our spirits are eternal, that they were in heaven before we were born and were given to us at conception. Does the Bible have anything to say about this? ANSWER. The first text that comes to mind is 1 Tim. 6:16, which says that God alone “has immortality.” To be eternal is to be inherently immortal, and only God possesses this quality. Thus to be eternal is to be God, or equal with God. This elder’s view is absolutely false. That the human spirit … Continue reading →