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Before Abraham was I AM
Jesus said before Abraham was I AM... Did He mean by this that He had seen Abraham?
why then would He be tempted by satan.... "If you are the Son of God..." this temptation would not be a temptation it seems to me if He knew He had seen Abraham before..
do you think before He was tempted for 40 days He chose not to remember certain things or something?
Also can the devil read peoples mind and does the devil know peoples heart?
1 Kings 8:39 (King James Version)
39Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)
From this verse ... maybe not...
but if he could then wouldn't it be better not to pray out aloud?
or do you think maybe he can? how else would he know if his temptations to sin by thought failed or not?
why then would He be tempted by satan.... "If you are the Son of God..." this temptation would not be a temptation it seems to me if He knew He had seen Abraham before..
do you think before He was tempted for 40 days He chose not to remember certain things or something?
Also can the devil read peoples mind and does the devil know peoples heart?
1 Kings 8:39 (King James Version)
39Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)
From this verse ... maybe not...
but if he could then wouldn't it be better not to pray out aloud?
or do you think maybe he can? how else would he know if his temptations to sin by thought failed or not?
Comments
Jesus said before Abraham was I AM... Did He mean by this that He had seen Abraham?
[quote author=mikeforjesus link=board=1;threadid=4828;start=0#msg65623 date=1167474636]
Jesus said before Abraham was I AM... Did He mean by this that He had seen Abraham?
Hold on hold on, i really don't think the devil knows our thoughts. True he has thousands of years of experience which might as well be "knowing our thoughts" but he is not in our minds. Anyway the verse above sounds like its talking about God not satan... God knows the heart, satan just tries to turn it away from Him.
Also, why wouldn't you pray aloud? Satan cannot bear the sound of fervent prayer from God's children... i don't understand why you wouldn't pray aloud...
God never appeared to anyone... but in the image of Christ... Like when Abraham welcomed God and the two angels, it was Jesus and two angels... and every time somebody saw God... it was the Christ... we also see that in the story of the three youth... the son of man was walking among them... yet he was not born yet!
am confused... but Satan did not know if he was the son of God.... he was confused... that’s why he kept going back and forth... he sees this man that makes miracles... he thinks he's the son of God... but yet this man is also hungry... and thirsty... so the devil did not know if he was the son of God or not!
God is always God... memory didn’t make him God... he didn’t chose to remember or forget anything!
no he cannot... the devil is not God.... the only one that knows what’s in the depths is God!
maybe it didn't bother Him..
If the devil can't read peoples mind then how would he know if his temptation failed or not?
don't say he would observe the outward behaviour.. because a person can sin through thought as well..
When he knows a temptation failed then he will try something else..
Now, what exactly is the question here? i'm still a bit confused.
Did Jesus ever question whether He was God or not?
Because the temptation "if you are Gods Son turn this stone into bread" it seems to me would not bother Jesus if He always Knew He was God..
maybe it didn't bother Him..
What do you think?
Another Question is
Can the devil read peoples mind?
which you answered..
but I asked something like how would the devil know if a person sinned through an evil thought if he could not read someones mind?
Did Jesus ever question whether He was God or not?
I believe Christ never doubted he was God. Even as a young child, Christ knew who His Father was and His "mission" on Earth. Remember the narrative in the Gospel of Luke when St Mary and St Joseph took Jesus to the Temple of Jerusalem when he was a young boy, but then lost Jesus for three days...
Luke 2:46-49 (NJKV)
Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.” And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Emphasis mine)
Of course, it must be said that as Christians, we believe that the Triune God (The Father, Son and Holy Spirit) has existed for all eternity. Our Creed states that God the Son was begotten, not created. St John writes in his Gospel "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." and "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." We identify the Word of God in the first chapter of St John's Gospel as the Son of God.
So you can see that in our human concept of time, God the Son existed even before He became man, therefore we can assume that Christ never doubted who he was when he dwelled amongst us.
My 2c.
I think you might be right..
But then I think the devil did not give a hard temptation when he said "if you are God's Son..." because Jesus could never doubt He was God's Son.
But then I think the devil did not give a hard temptation when he said "if you are God's Son..." because Jesus could never doubt He was God's Son.
He never doubted He was God's Son but He never let the devil get to Him. same as our life today. we should never the devil get to us even if it was in the smallest matter ever.
Here is what Matthew 4:1-4 tells us:
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’
in general terms, Satan typically uses our weakness to tempt us... if he sees me weak and can't stop myself from cursing constantly, he will put me in a situation that will force me to curse and wait to see my response. He looks for weakness as the gate to start his "magic".
Jesus "appeared" to be weak to satan since he saw Him hungry. and since Satan just saw Jesus being baptized in the Jordan and the holy spirit came down on Him and the Father glorified Him saying You are My Son. He told him "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread".
As someone already mentioned, Satan was confused, he sees Jesus glorified by the Father, and then hungry. He wanted to be sure that He is the Son of God by making him turn the stones into bread.
Also, why "stones become bread"? why not make Jesus ask from a meal to be brought down from heaven? or why not even tempt him with any other temptation that doesn't involve food? two reasons that i can imgine:
1. Jesus was hungry, so Satan used it as an entrance gate to start talking to Jesus
2. Stones becoming bread involves creation from dust, just like God created us from dust. So if Jesus did do this miracle infront of Satan, he would prove to Him that he is the Son of God, then Satan would attempt to stop the salvation. Satan can not read our minds, but he can see our guardian angel... one way for him to know if he won or not is by looking at our guardian angel, if Satan sees that he is happy then we overcome the temptation, if the guardian angel is feeling sorry for us and sad, then we failed the test...
**** ok, i made this up, but it makes sense to me :), but I do know that he can't read our minds... so many stories in "bostan el rohban" - paradise of the monks, that prove this.
That makes sense... I hope its right..