Israel was not supposed to want a king, but they still asked for it, so God gave them what they wanted: an impressive human king, like the other nations, his name was Saul and did not last long, he disobeyed. divine order, infessing the prophet-judge Samuel and afflicting the Lord God.
The word of the LORD was addressed to Samuel, saying, “I am sorry I made Saul king, for he stopped following me and did not execute my words” (1 Samuel 15:10-11).
In 1 Samuel 15:35, we see a similar statement
Samuel never saw Saul again until the day of his death, but felt sorry for Saul. Did the Lord repent of having made Saul king of Israel?
What does God mean, do I think of myself?Can God change his mind?God is like us, he makes honest mistakes and sometimes he looks at his past decisions and says, “Wow, I wish I could go back and do it differently. “It seems that our God is making mistakes and is forced to change course.
However, we know that this is not the right way to understand God’s repentance because of what we read some verses earlier in 1 Samuel 15:
Then Samuel said to him, “The Lord has taken away the kingdom of Israel from you today, and he has given it to your neighbor, who is better than you. “Neither the glory of Israel lies, nor repents, for he is not a man, who repents?(28-29).
We must keep in mind one of the great principles of biblical interpretation: the author was not completely stupid; we have no reason (apart from our own inclinations) to think that verse 29 was inserted by a later scribe, nor any reason to believe that Verse 29 does not match verses 11 and 35 Clearly, if we want to be wise and consistent students of the scriptures, we must admit that, in a sense, God can repent, while in another sense God would not be God if he repented.
The author of 1 Samuel, not to mention the author behind 1 Samuel, tries to teach us something about God, on the one hand, our God is not static, monotonous and lifeless, such as being personal and relational, God’s activity in the world. is subject to change, giving way to all the dynamism we have in our personal relationships. There has always been a conflict in the history of the covenant between God and human beings, but that does not mean that there is conflict within God’s inner being (see Horton, The Christian Faith, 240-241). As God’s ways are presented to us, there will be change and variation, but just as God is, in his character and essence, there can be no variation or shadow of change (James 1. 17; see Malachi 3. 6; Hebrews 13. 8; 2 Timothy 2. 13).
When God thinks of Saul’s disobedience, He uses a term that makes sense to us:the term “repent. “But this does not mean that God ignored Saul’s sin or that he was taken by surprise by his rebellion. As John Piper points out, God is quite able to repent of a situation that he himself knew beforehand and that made it happen; In other words, God’s repentance is not analogous in all respects to our repentance; this seems to be the point that verse 29 explicitly holds. God can look at Saul and say, “It saddens me that I have sinned; Is it time to find another king?Now always: “I never change my mind. “
It is the nature of our covenant relationship with God to know Him as someone who responds and reacts, which must seem much more incredible to us, because it is the nature of our faithful God that we never lie, repent or change our minds (Numbers 23, 19).
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By: Kevin DeYoung. © 2014 The Gospel Coalition Original: Does God Regret?
Translation: Alan Cristie Review: Vin-cius Musselman Pimentel © 2014 Faithful Ministério All rights reserved. Website: MinistryFiel. com. br. Original: Does God repent ?.
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