Faith. The quality of trusting in God and what He has said. Faith is the currency of heaven, without which it is impossible to please God. If man wishes to do business with God, he must believe that God exists, and, as well, that God rewards those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6). Faith operates in the realm of the unseen, the unfelt, the unexperienced (Heb. 11:1). Though Abram was old and his wife was both barren and old, it was through his faith in God's promise of innumerable descendants that he was declared righteous (Gen. 15:1-6; Rom. 4:3, 20-22; Gal. 3:6; James 2:23). Indeed, the righteous shall live by faith (Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38). Hebrews 11 is the Faith Hall of Fame. It is by the grace of God, accessed by faith, that we are saved apart from any meritorious works (Eph. 2:8-9). Yet faith is validated by works (Eph. 2:10; James 2:14-26). In the New Testament, we are required to place our faith in Jesus, the Messiah. In so doing, we  are granted eternal life (John 3:16, 36; 6:40; 11:25). Faith, along with hope and love, is one of the three abiding virtues. Yet the greatest of these is love (1 Cor. 13:13).

Foreknowledge. According to Pauline usage, God's prior knowledge of His own from eternity past. Strictly speaking, the verb proginosko means "to know ahead of time." Paul used the verb twice - in Romans 8:29 and 11:2. In both instances he used in reference to the fact that God knew from eternity past in an intimate way certain people. He foreknew them and predestined them to be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29). The same group of people God foreknew, He predestined, He called, He justified, and He glorified (Rom. 8:29-30).

    Many try to dilute the word proginosko by saying it means only that God knew in advance which would respond to Him, and thus He chose them. This makes God's choices subject to man's actions, and it is not what the text ( Rom. 8:29) is saying. The text does not say that God foreknew facts about people – who would and who would not accept Him; it declares that He knew certain people as His own from eternity past without any merit on their part. This Scripture teaches that God foreknows people, not facts about people. Now it is true that God knows ahead of time which individuals will accept His Son and which will not, but that is not what this text is saying. The only reason we respond to God in faith is precisely because He foreknew us and "predestined us to become conformed to the image of His Son," and "called" us. It is then that we responded in faith, and He justified us. Because the future is so certain because of God's predestination, Paul could write confidently that God also "glorified" us, even though for us humans that event is yet future. In God's world it is certain and done. In the vernacular, we would say that from God's viewpoint, our glorification is "a done deal."

    If it be argued that this concept of foreknowlege violates man's free will, I will argue that man's free will is a myth in certain respects. Romans 3:10-18 proclaims from the Old Testament man's universal depravity. Because he is depraved, and, in the words of Ephesians 2:1, dead in his trespasses and sins, man is unable to choose God. It is only because of God's election (Rom. 8:33) of us in Christ "before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4) that any of us would ever choose God.

    If it be argued that God is unfair in choosing certain ones (but not others) as His own. I would agree. It is not fair – it is more than fair! It is utter grace and mercy that God chooses any of us at all! If it is mere fairness you want, then all of us will be consigned to the lake of fire (Rev. 20:11-15). If it is mercy you want, then humble yourself and accept God's grace (not His justice) and trust in Jesus – we beg you to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20)! God's just wrath was poured out on His sinless Son on the cross, who willingly absorbed God's intense antipathy toward sin in our place.

Forgiveness.  That act whereby an offended party absorbs the cost of a wrong suffered.  In any transaction of wrong perpetrated and offense received, one party or the other must bear the cost of the restoration if amity is to be restored.  In the case of man versus God, if man pays the cost of his transgressions it is literally a pyrrhic victory – he will spend the rest of eternity in the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:11-15).  God in Jesus has taken the initiative to pay the entire cost of mankind’s transgression (1 Pet. 3:18).  That is a tribute to God’s infinite love (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:9-10).  Tragically, man in his pride and arrogance refuses to concede his own inability to pay his debt of sin.  Most will end up attempting to pay their own debt, but it will take them an eternity, and they will never pay it.

Framework Hypothesis. A non-literal hermeneutical stratagem to avoid the clear meaning of "day" (yom) in Genesis 1:1-2:3 in a failed attempt to harmonize the Biblical teaching of Creation with the Old-Earth implications of the theory of Evolution, which is based entirely upon an unprovable presumption of uniformitarian geology and astrophysics. In the Framework Hypothesis, God was not meaning to convey literal or scientific truth. Rather He sought to convey a theology of creation through a literary or symbolic framework of six days. Framework Hypothesists see two sets of three in the six days of creation. In the first triad, first day, there is light; in the second triad, fourth day, there are lights. In the first triad, second day, an expanse separates water from water. In the second triad, 5th day, the waters are filled with fish, the air with birds. In the first triad, third day, dry land and vegetation appears; in the second triad, sixth day, land creatures and man are created, and plants providing food for man and beast are created. The two triads are further distinguished as follows: The first triad exhibits "Creation Kingdoms" and the second triad exhibits "Creature Kings over the Creation Kingdoms, namely luminaries (4th day), birds and fish (5th day), land animals and man (6th day)." The seventh day speaks of the Creator King, God Himself. As can be readiliy seen this whole arrangement is highly artificial. It does not arrive out of an exegesis of the text,  but simply reveals a grasping at straws - any way, however unfeasible, to avoid a literal meaning and establish a figurative, symbolic meaning? Why? To provide enough time to accommodate the apparently unquestionable, uniformitarian interpretations of the data by Bible-ignoring scientists. The motive for the Framework Hypothesis is self-indicting. It amounts to poor science and poorer exegesis. There follows a graphic illustration of the Framework Hypothesis, adapted from Todd S. Beall, "Contemporary Hermeneutical Approaches to Genesis 1-11", p. 156, Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth and Wikipedia's "Framework interpretation (Genesis)".

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