God had to?

Hey Pastor John,

I was re-reading the chpt. 6. In the section on ‘No One Knew There Was a Temptation’.

As I read, a thought popped into my mind.
Halfway down the second paragraph, you have written, “God could have chosen any of His heavenly servants to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, of course, but as always, He chose the one with the qualifications….etc.

The thought I had was: He couldn’t have chosen “…any of His heavenly servants…” because Satan was the only one that was qualified to offer Jesus the kingdoms of this world. He was the only one ruling it at that time.

Would this be a correct thought?

Kay
===============

Hi Kay.

Thanks for writing.
I would rather say that God could have done anything, whatever He wanted to do, rather than say He was forced to do something a certain way. I understand your logic. I cannot see anything wrong with it, but God is as far beyond our logic as He is beyond our kind of righteousness, and knowing that, I have a hard time using the phrase “God had to do”.

Pastor John

===============

John,

I have been reading over the new ch 6 and just got through p 15. I had to stop and just try to take in just how impossible it was for anyone at that time to take in anything God was doing, even His own people!

He was putting his own son to death, going so far beyond the law, and what anyone could think. It was altogether impossible for them, because God had strictly forbidden his people from such thing in the law. What a good kind of feeling, hope, faith it makes me feel inside about the love of God for his Son and us. It feels good!

And as for ch. 5 I have been chewing on it like a cow chewing it’s cud. I read a page, chew the cud, read another page, chew the cud some more. I love it.

Thank you John for being there for Jesus to talk to.

Jimmy