Why Jesus had to die

[kobodur]

So you expect God to give you salvation without your consent? Why doesn't God just make robots to do His will and to worship Him? Simply because it would not honour Him.

If we are innately sinful, wouldn't that makes us evil robots?

I don't see how God is being unjust... Did God cause Adam and Eve to fall? If He did, it would have been unjust for Him to condemn us. But it was out of Adam's free will to disobey God that caused the effect of sin to fall upon us. And we know the effect of sin has fallen upon us as the question still arises "why is it easier for us to do bad than to do good if we are all born good and have not inherited a sinful nature?" (I don't expect you to answer this btw, as it would be outside the scope of this thread, it's just something to think about)

Did God know that Adam would fall before he created him? How does Adam's free will justify creating us like he was when he sinned? The AIDS analogy is interesting. If inheriting AIDS from your parents is unfair, I think God should take the ability to have kids away from people with AIDS and other infectious illnesses, including sin nature.

- You make it sound like Christians don't have a choice in worshipping God and doing His will.
- Christians worship and obey God in gratitude of what He did for us.
- We go to church not because we are trying to be accepted by God, but because we are accepted, that is why we go to church (Romans 8:16 - The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God)
- We do good and worship our Father in Heaven not to please Him, but He is pleased with us, which is why we do good and worship Him (Luke 2:14 - "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased")
- We don't show love to God to receive His grace, love, and blessings, but He loved us first, that's why we love Him (1 John 4:19 - We love, because He first loved us)

You're headed to Hell because you're born with a attitude that Adam had when he first sinned, which lead to actions that God didn't like. In order to avoid Hell, you have to change your ways. I don't consider it very loving to create someone with traits that will make you hate them.

It sounds like you're leanings towards a free will and no free will discussion. Maybe think about it this way: In the Garden of Eden, God had the perfect relationship with man. Why would God break that relationship if "it is not the will of the Father who is in Heaven that one of these little ones perish" (Matthew 18:14, also refer 2 Peter 3:9)? Could it be that God never caused man to fall into sin? And that man made the decision to disobey God out of his own free will?

Is it the will of the father that Canaanites born one generation before the Israelite invasion persish? Why allow one generation to live and sin and another to die in infancy? You said we are innately sinful, have you changed your mind? If so, we can talk about the effects the first sin had on the natural world. Before Adam's fall no one died or got sick before they sinned? But, after that some do and some don't. That's unfair on two levels. Adam wasn't cursed before he sinned, but all his children get the curse before they sin, but it isn't distributed evenly, the sickness and death that is.

[tphreak]

Dang, this is a lengthy post sorry. But there were many things in your last post to clarify. Hopefully its not too bad to read.

"If we are innately sinful, wouldn't that makes us evil robots?"
- No

"Did God know that Adam would fall before he created him?"
- This question will ultimately lead to God's sovereignty vs free will. The discussion will never end and is outside the scope of this topic anyway.

"How does Adam's free will justify creating us like he was when he sinned?"
- As I said, sin works similar to AIDS. It's not God creating an imperfect human, as we're all created in God's image, but because we come from the lineage of Adam that causes us to be born with a sinful nature. Think about it this way... say for example that you and I were born from a poor family. You and I were basically born poor. But your parents did everything they could in supporting you and giving you every opportunity to become wealthy. They worked hard enough to put food on the table for your health, they made enough money for you to go to a decent school that would give you enough education to go to University. Then they worked enough money to pay for your degree. After all that, you still ended up poor. Is that the parents fault for bearing you in a poor social class? Or is that yours?
- Yes, we are born with a sinful nature and that doesn't seem fair. But God knowing this made a way out through Jesus Christ. He gave us every opportunity to accept Him to save us from our sinful state. We are made in His image, meaning that we have a mind to think, eyes to see, and ears to hear. No one has an excuse for not accepting Jesus as their Saviour.

"If inheriting AIDS from your parents is unfair, I think God should take the ability to have kids away from people with AIDS and other infectious illnesses, including sin nature."
- I think you may have the false understanding that when you accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour that Christian's are still sinners...
- Therefore, the question would arise, why would I accept Jesus, if before I accepted I had a sinful nature, and after I accept, I still have a sinful nature?
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come
- In other words, you are a new person with a new nature after you accept Jesus as your Saviour. Meaning, that you can now have a relationship with God like how it was before the fall of Adam and Eve.
- And yes, it means that your identity is no longer "sinner" but "saint".
- But this new nature could only be given by God through the blood of Jesus Christ
- Once again, every sin deserves death. Jesus had to die to make that death payment on our behalf. He also had to be sinless to be able to make the payment on our behalf.
- He not only had to die to make the payment, but He had to also be raised in order to conquer death to give us life

"In order to avoid Hell, you have to change your ways. I don't consider it very loving to create someone with traits that will make you hate them."
- God created me. God created you. I love God. You hate God... why can't you love God too? And if God created me with traits that hate Him, why have I changed and stopped hating Him?
- I think you still have the mindset that you need to do things for God to please Him. You need to understand that:
1. What Jesus did on the cross was perfect. You cannot do anything to trump that. (Romans 10:4 - For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes)
2. By accepting Jesus as your Saviour, you allow Him to work in you to change you
- It's not you who changes you, but it's God's Holy Spirit that changes you (John 14:16, 26 - "I will ask the Father, and He will send you another Helper, that He may be with you forever" 26"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name...")
3. Once again, Christian's do the things they do not out of fear ("Oh, if I don't do this, God will condemn me") but out of love ("I was suppose to die in Hell! But God made a way out for me! Amazing!)
4. Lastly, God doesn't need anyone to serve Him (Acts 17:25 - And he is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else)

"Is it the will of the father that Canaanites born one generation before the Israelite invasion persish? Why allow one generation to live and sin and another to die in infancy?"
- No, which is why He sent Jesus.
- Canaanites didn't die in infancy
- Also take into consideration that Israel was God's chosen people where the Saviour's lineage would come from. God made a covenant with Israel. His promises never fail.

"You said we are innately sinful, have you changed your mind?"
- No, how did you get that idea?

"Before Adam's fall no one died or got sick before they sinned? But, after that some do and some don't"
- No... all died after the fall of Adam. Ok, um... there are two types of death that we're talking about here:
1. Spiritual death - As soon as Adam's fall, Adam died spiritually, immediately. All of us start off dead to God spiritually.
2. Physical death - Physical death was not immediate for Adam and Eve, but they ultimately did die and is also a consequence of sin

Once again, Jesus had to die to not only make the payment for our sins, but also to conquer death so that we could become spiritually alive again. As soon as we accept Christ as our Saviour, we become spiritually alive and our spirit and God's spirit are in union. Only through Christ giving us life could that have been possible.

[NH Baritone]

Once again, Jesus had to die to not only make the payment for our sins, but also to conquer death so that we could become spiritually alive again. As soon as we accept Christ as our Saviour, we become spiritually alive and our spirit and God's spirit are in union. Only through Christ giving us life could that have been possible.

So in other words, something limits your god's power such that, to reach his goal, he must follow this course of action. No other action, no matter how much more reasonable or clear, is possible.

Interesting view, since your god seems so impotent and creatively stunted.

Can you not see that this is a Bronze-age Harry Potter story?

[JustJim]

I don't see how God is being unjust... Did God cause Adam and Eve to fall?

Absolutely. Beyond any reasonable doubt. (He put the irresistible tree in the garden, he put the crafty evil serpent in the garden, he allowed the serpent to tempt Eve first and then allowed Eve to persuade Adam, he gave them free will to choose among all alternatives instead of only from among 'good' or 'right' alternatives -- that is, until they fell for his temptations and disobeyed him, at which point he removed them from the garden to take away their free will to choose to eat from the tree of life, he designed them and the whole creation and process and knew how it would all come out -- and went through with it anyhow, and so on.)

Once again, Jesus had to die to not only make the payment for our sins, but also to conquer death so that we could become spiritually alive again. As soon as we accept Christ as our Saviour, we become spiritually alive and our spirit and God's spirit are in union. Only through Christ giving us life could that have been possible.

Once again, who decided what the payment for our sins would have to be? Do you not see that God is the one who "set the price", which means he could have set a different price? God did not have to murder his son in a bloody, torturous sacrifice as payment for the sins of humanity. That price was his own choosing. He could have made it $1.89 instead. Or, more justly, he could have made the price a genuinely repentant heart, and then used some of his all-loving nature to truly, immediately, completely forgive and restore. To wash the slate clean in the same way you believe Jesus' blood and suffering did. Same with "conquering death" in a spiritual sense. God's the one who made that death happen. It was his idea and his rules and his consequences. He could have set it up otherwise.

Your position arrogantly declares all people of all other beliefs for all of time and history and the future to be spiritually dead because they don't accept your view that "only through Christ giving us life" could they be spiritually alive. There's just too much evidence to the contrary out there to make that kind of assertion, phreak....

Jim

[kobodur]

- As I said, sin works similar to AIDS. It's not God creating an imperfect human, as we're all created in God's image, but because we come from the lineage of Adam that causes us to be born with a sinful nature. Think about it this way... say for example that you and I were born from a poor family. You and I were basically born poor. But your parents did everything they could in supporting you and giving you every opportunity to become wealthy. They worked hard enough to put food on the table for your health, they made enough money for you to go to a decent school that would give you enough education to go to University. Then they worked enough money to pay for your degree. After all that, you still ended up poor. Is that the parents fault for bearing you in a poor social class? Or is that yours?
- Yes, we are born with a sinful nature and that doesn't seem fair. But God knowing this made a way out through Jesus Christ. He gave us every opportunity to accept Him to save us from our sinful state. We are made in His image, meaning that we have a mind to think, eyes to see, and ears to hear. No one has an excuse for not accepting Jesus as their Saviour.

Currently there is no cure for AIDS. Anyone who gets it will have to deal with it until it kills them. God extenting the damaged line of Adam is like making a meal out of contaminated ingrediants. If a chef used contaminated ingrediants would you blame the meal for causing food poisoning? Being born into this world means you have to strain yourself mentally and physically in order to make ends meet, as well as try your hardest to stay alive and well until your body stops working and you die. God/your parents puts you in harm's way and Jesus/your parents try to protect from harm sometimes. I may not have the worse lot in life, but the situation you discribed is far from universal. Some people are born with AIDS, if God has any and I mean any hand in that, he doesn't deserve to be loved.

- God created me. God created you. I love God. You hate God... why can't you love God too? And if God created me with traits that hate Him, why have I changed and stopped hating Him?
- I think you still have the mindset that you need to do things for God to please Him. You need to understand that:
1. What Jesus did on the cross was perfect. You cannot do anything to trump that. (Romans 10:4 - For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes)
2. By accepting Jesus as your Saviour, you allow Him to work in you to change you
- It's not you who changes you, but it's God's Holy Spirit that changes you (John 14:16, 26 - "I will ask the Father, and He will send you another Helper, that He may be with you forever" 26"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name...")
3. Once again, Christian's do the things they do not out of fear ("Oh, if I don't do this, God will condemn me") but out of love ("I was suppose to die in Hell! But God made a way out for me! Amazing!)
4. Lastly, God doesn't need anyone to serve Him (Acts 17:25 - And he is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else)

You misunderstood me. I said God created us with traits that would lead to actions that would make God want to kill us. According to most christians I have to have faith to be saved. Faith that entails accepting and acting on principle contrary to my mind. That sounds like something I would have to do personally.

"Is it the will of the father that Canaanites born one generation before the Israelite invasion persish? Why allow one generation to live and sin and another to die in infancy?"
- No, which is why He sent Jesus.
- Canaanites didn't die in infancy
- Also take into consideration that Israel was God's chosen people where the Saviour's lineage would come from. God made a covenant with Israel. His promises never fail.

Are you telling me there weren't any infants in Canaan at the time? The same idea can be applied to the Amalekites 1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. The whole savior's lineage and chosen people promise was uneccessary.

types of death that we're talking about here:
1. Spiritual death - As soon as Adam's fall, Adam died spiritually, immediately. All of us start off dead to God spiritually.
2. Physical death - Physical death was not immediate for Adam and Eve, but they ultimately did die and is also a consequence of sin
Once again, Jesus had to die to not only make the payment for our sins, but also to conquer death so that we could become spiritually alive again. As soon as we accept Christ as our Saviour, we become spiritually alive and our spirit and God's spirit are in union. Only through Christ giving us life could that have been possible.

What does spiritual death mean? Whatever it means, God spiritually killed us by creating us as an extention of the spiritually dead Adam. If everyone is spiritually dead as an extention of Adam, why must we be brought to spiritual life individually?

[kobodur]

- In other words, you are a new person with a new nature after you accept Jesus as your Saviour. Meaning, that you can now have a relationship with God like how it was before the fall of Adam and Eve.
- And yes, it means that your identity is no longer "sinner" but "saint".

But, christians still sin. Paul speaks of his struggle sin in Romans 7. He didn't want to sin, but his body was built to sin and he hated himself for it even though he said it was his body not him. He's sinning and he still has a will. He blames his body, but he hates himself. This is not like before the fall, God's hiding in Heaven and the Earth is still effected by original sin. If God wanted the same thing from us that he wanted from Adam, all the effects of original sin pose a problem. questions like "Why are you doing this to me. I haven't don't anything to you, yet" arise. Do you really think Christianity is hereditary? Do both parents have to be christians or just one? Which one? Anyway you slice it, someone is dealing with a curse they didn't earn.

[tphreak]

This looks long, but because its in points, it's not that long.

"So in other words, something limits your god's power such that, to reach his goal, he must follow this course of action. No other action, no matter how much more reasonable or clear, is possible."
- I wouldn't say His power is limited. Because you cannot see any other way for God to save us from sin outside of crucifying Jesus, you think He needs to use His power to contradict the laws of phyics or whatever to forgive us. God at any time could click His fingers and the sin payment would be made. But there are so many repurcussions to that logic:
1. How do we learn to live a good life if we don't have anyone to look up to? God came down as Jesus to live like us but remained sinless so that we too could follow in His footsteps
2. God's character could never be revealed unless it was through Jesus Christ. Clicking your finger reveals what about God? Not much... Jesus dieing on the cross shows His love, His mercy, His grace for us.
3. Free will. Nothing honours God more than for us to freely express our love for Him. If He clicked His fingers to make that happen, how would that honour Him?
4. Among others
- And there was no other rational and clearer way.

Let me try clarify from the beginning to try get this death payment that Jesus made across:
1. Adam and Eve were made perfect in the image of God and both were spiritually alive and physically alive in the Garden of Eden. They had the perfect relationship with their Heavenly Father
2. Free will was given by putting the Tree of Knowledge in the garden. They could only make one bad choice and an abundance of good choices.
3. The devil tempted Adam and Eve who eventually fell.
4. Disobedience to God meant a broken relationship. They both died spiritually to God and God could no longer accept them.
5. You need to understand how much God hates sin. God is holy. He cannot accept anything unholy.
- The analogy I can think of is this: You one day find an atrocious smell in your room. You spray deoderant around your room and it works for a while, but then the smell comes back. Each day, the smell gets worse and worse. You pinpoint the cause of the smell, and find that its a dead rat underneath the wooden floor. You take out the wood and you throw the rat outside of the house as far as you can, never ever wanting to see it again. (We are the rat, the smell is the sin. God can forgive us time and time again (the deoderant), but the smell will just keep on coming back. He needs to throw us out completely. The point I'm trying to make with this analogy is that God cannot accept sin)
5. He needed to cover their sin. Adam and Eve experienced physical death for the first time as God had to slaughter a lamb to make clothes for them. The lamb was also a sin payment for their sin (ie, the sheep substituted their death as the sin covering)
6. God is perfect meaning perfect justice, perfect love, perfect mercy, perfect goodness, etc
7. For Him to be perfectly just, He had to condemn us for our sins. To be perfectly merciful and relieve us of our payment, He had to make the payment Himself. You cannot take away what is infinite (as God is infinite) so He had to come down as Jesus to make the sin payment. Jesus is also known as the perfect "lamb".
8. Once the payment was made, God had to raise Jesus to conquer death and to give us life
- How do raise a dead man? Give him life? But he would only die again... You have to cure the disease which is death. Jesus had to die and conquer death to give us life.
9. By giving us life, we rise spiritually, and therefore, are back in relation with God as our spirit and His Spirit are in union again.
10. By being spiritually alive, we are now led by the spirit, rather than by the flesh of the body which is consumed by sin.

"Some people are born with AIDS, if God has any and I mean any hand in that, he doesn't deserve to be loved"
- God can turn what is bad into good. There is purpose in everything He does and allows. John 9:2-3 tells the story of a person born blind. 2His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" and Jesus answered, "3Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." And Jesus healed him
- Look up Nick Vujic - a perfect example of what you would consider "God's creation gone wrong with no hope of revealing God's glory". Here's a vid... http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=TtweZxNGk1Y
- You gotta also understand that the reason we have AIDS, diseases, wars, poverty and children born with amputated legs and the like is because of sin. We live in a world full of sin. God's judgement upon us is evident.

"You misunderstood me. I said God created us with traits that would lead to actions that would make God want to kill us."
- No I haven't. I'm trying to get you to see that even though I was made with traits that would lead to actions that would make God want to kill me, yet, I am acting in opposition of my traits (most of the time haha). Meaning, you have no reason to not act in opposition of your traits. The reason I can act in opposition to my original traits is because I have allowed God to change me. I can't do anything (ie, works) to change me, but that change must be given to me.
- Also remember that God has given us the free will to allow Him to work in us. We have no excuse for our actions. We can choose to accept Him and have Him change us, or we can choose to continue living our sinful lives.

"But, christians still sin"
- True dat they do. Because we live in the flesh (Galatians 5:17 - For the flesh sets its desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh...)
- But because we are given a new nature through the blood of Jesus Christ, we 'are always being given over to death for Jesus's sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body' (2 Corinthians 4:11). In other words, we are crucifying the flesh daily and living more in the Spirit.

"Paul speaks of his struggle sin in Romans 7"
- Hehe. You need to read Romans 8 in order to get the whole context. Romans 7 is talking about your past and the effect of sin. Romans 8 talks about your hope for your future in the Spirit. The Spirit was only given after the payment was made (John 16:7 - "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you").
- Also, as an unbeliever, you are under the Law. Romans 8 talks about dieing to the Law. By dieing to the Law, can you be condemned by the Law? Romans 8:1 - There is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.

"The same idea can be applied to the Amalekites 1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek"
- God doesn't kill innocent people.
- You neglected to read the verse before v3 which says "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt."
- You need to see the severity of sin against God. God cannot stand sin. His standards are high. We don't like it because we can't reconcile death with a forgiving god. But once again, it comes back to justice. God cannot compromise justice for mercy and mercy for justice. Which is why He sent Jesus to die on the cross so that He could serve both justice and mercy.

[flawedprefect]

The Apple and the Snake is just myth to explain how we were burdened with Original Sin.

It is used to explain everything from human curiosity to why women menstruate (yep - that's in the bible too: the punishment for Eve being the first to succumb to the devil's temptation). If Jesus purged the world of original sin by sacrificing himself, why do women still bleed out once a month? And why are we still so goddamn curious about the world we live in? Why are we still yearning for answers?

Myth is primal storytelling to explain the world which we do not understand - it is not a substitute for truth.

It's just a myth - just like the Greek legend of Prometheus stealing fire from heaven. (Fire being the thing that separated Gods from Men - just like the burden of knowledge separated God from Adam and Eve, who were innocent until they tasted of the fruit from the tree of knowledge).

I had learned (back in Sunday School) that for Jesus to die, he conquered death, thus showing us not to be afraid of death. But again - it is merely Myth to explain the path of the archetypal Hero - religions before and after Christianity have similar ritual stories of purgery and triumph over evil/sin/death/darkness/The Other Which We All Fear.

[kobodur]

2. God's character could never be revealed unless it was through Jesus Christ. Clicking your finger reveals what about God? Not much... Jesus dieing on the cross shows His love, His mercy, His grace for us.

3. Free will. Nothing honours God more than for us to freely express our love for Him. If He clicked His fingers to make that happen, how would that honour Him?

Does God need to reveal all aspects of of his character? Did he need fallen men to save in order to get some sort of satisfaction?
When you say free will do you mean a will that is above all external influences? Could you potentially reverse your will in regards to christ? Can you flip the switch many times?

5. You need to understand how much God hates sin. God is holy. He cannot accept anything unholy.
- The analogy I can think of is this: You one day find an atrocious smell in your room. You spray deoderant around your room and it works for a while, but then the smell comes back. Each day, the smell gets worse and worse. You pinpoint the cause of the smell, and find that its a dead rat underneath the wooden floor. You take out the wood and you throw the rat outside of the house as far as you can, never ever wanting to see it again. (We are the rat, the smell is the sin. God can forgive us time and time again (the deoderant), but the smell will just keep on coming back. He needs to throw us out completely. The point I'm trying to make with this analogy is that God cannot accept sin)
5. He needed to cover their sin. Adam and Eve experienced physical death for the first time as God had to slaughter a lamb to make clothes for them. The lamb was also a sin payment for their sin (ie, the sheep substituted their death as the sin covering)
6. God is perfect meaning perfect justice, perfect love, perfect mercy, perfect goodness, etc
9. By giving us life, we rise spiritually, and therefore, are back in relation with God as our spirit and His Spirit are in union again.
10. By being spiritually alive, we are now led by the spirit, rather than by the flesh of the body which is consumed by sin.

God hates sin, but not enough to deal with it in a timely manner. It's like he's trying make this game last as long as he can. He should have stop the population growth after the resurrection and sustained the humans of that time, so they could preach and be preached to. This way no one else would have to be needlessly brought into this mess. God loves to make things more complicated than they need to be. God's justice cannot be perfect because he allow Adam's punishment to fall on and effect his descendants before they sinned. Spiritual life never had to be received willingly with Adam, why does this change with us? The things you've described are not substitutionary atonement. What you describe is Jesus dieing to give people a chance to relieve themselves of one of the ailments that they did not deserve.

"Some people are born with AIDS, if God has any and I mean any hand in that, he doesn't deserve to be loved"
- God can turn what is bad into good. There is purpose in everything He does and allows. John 9:2-3 tells the story of a person born blind. 2His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" and Jesus answered, "3Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." And Jesus healed him
- You gotta also understand that the reason we have AIDS, diseases, wars, poverty and children born with amputated legs and the like is because of sin. We live in a world full of sin. God's judgement upon us is evident.

There's is no cure for AIDS and many blind people remain blind. How does declaring germ warfare on any type of behavior make it evil? That is making the situation worse. now, not only one person is angry, but many people are being born with diseases they don't deserve. Besides, physical intimidation doesn't always work.

"You misunderstood me. I said God created us with traits that would lead to actions that would make God want to kill us."
- No I haven't. I'm trying to get you to see that even though I was made with traits that would lead to actions that would make God want to kill me, yet, I am acting in opposition of my traits (most of the time haha). Meaning, you have no reason to not act in opposition of your traits. The reason I can act in opposition to my original traits is because I have allowed God to change me. I can't do anything (ie, works) to change me, but that change must be given to me.
- Also remember that God has given us the free will to allow Him to work in us. We have no excuse for our actions. We can choose to accept Him and have Him change us, or we can choose to continue living our sinful lives.

The point is God caused beings to exist that would eventually make him want to kill them. He brought pain into his life willingly and blames others for it.

- But because we are given a new nature through the blood of Jesus Christ, we 'are always being given over to death for Jesus's sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body' (2 Corinthians 4:11). In other words, we are crucifying the flesh daily and living more in the Spirit.


- Hehe. You need to read Romans 8 in order to get the whole context. Romans 7 is talking about your past and the effect of sin. Romans 8 talks about your hope for your future in the Spirit. The Spirit was only given after the payment was made (John 16:7 - "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you").
- Also, as an unbeliever, you are under the Law. Romans 8 talks about dieing to the Law. By dieing to the Law, can you be condemned by the Law? Romans 8:1 - There is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.

I know christians can't be seperated from christ etc. But, they still have wills and they still sin, which means they are still willfully sinning. Why would you have crucifying the flesh daily, if Jesus death paid for your sins. Whay does it matter that you crucify the the flesh if your not responsible for it? Why do you still admit guilt when you sin if you didn't want to sin? If I follow the analogy in romans 7 wouldn't the law/husband be the one to die? When I look at history, I think the spirit could have been more effective if it had been more active instead of acting like a fly on the wall.

- God doesn't kill innocent people.
- You neglected to read the verse before v3 which says "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt."
- You need to see the severity of sin against God. God cannot stand sin. His standards are high. We don't like it because we can't reconcile death with a forgiving god. But once again, it comes back to justice. God cannot compromise justice for mercy and mercy for justice. Which is why He sent Jesus to die on the cross so that He could serve both justice and mercy.

God got himself killed. That's more or less suicide. He killed David and Bathsheba's unnamed son in 2 Samuel 12:14-18. The Amalekites of Moses' day would be long dead, why would God even bring that up when the Amalekites of Saul's day were causing trouble? Why wouldn't the infants and sucklings of those Amalekites be innocent? The question still stands , why would God kill one generation in their infancy and another in adulthood? God has already compromised justice for mercy by allowing the Adam's punishment to fall on and effect his descendants before they sin.

[tphreak]

"Does God need to reveal all aspects of of his character? Did he need fallen men to save in order to get some sort of satisfaction?"
- God is love (1 John 4:8 - The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love)
- Love is a verb. Therefore, He didn't save to get satisfaction, but because He is love, He saves.
- In other words, I don't go to church to be accepted by God. I am accepted by God, that's why I go to church. Me believing in the bible doesn't make it truth but the bible is truth, that's why I believe it.

"When you say free will do you mean a will that is above all external influences? Could you potentially reverse your will in regards to christ? Can you flip the switch many times?"
- This is a Calvinism vs Arminianism argument.
- To answer this question, it depends which side of the fence you sit. Do you think God is more concerned about His sovereignty? Or do you think He is more concerned about peoples free will?
- My stance is free will. Yet, at the same time, God is still always in control. So I guess I'm in between the two doctrines. With either doctrine you argue (Calvinism, Arminianism, in between) you'll hit a brick wall. There really is no point in trying to argue free will vs sovereignty. Plus, its outside the scope of this topic. My point was, the only way to clear people of their sins and redeem them back to their original position (which was in relationship with God) was to send Jesus Christ to be crucified, and be a substitution for us. Doing it any other way would either not be perfect, would compromise His nature, or not rectify the problem.
- The flipping the switch question is a hard one. I've thought about it before and initial stance is that you can flip the switch many times, as can be read from Romans 11:23 - And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted back in, for God is able to graft them in again. I know many Calvinists or reformists may disagree, but meh... this doesn't really discount Jesus's crucifiction. The condition to salvation is belief. Jesus died for those who would believe.

"Spiritual life never had to be received willingly with Adam, why does this change with us?"
- You forget that when God created man, He was made in His image (Genesis 1:26)
- God is spirit, man needed to be spiritually alive to be in union with Him.
- God desired a relationship with man as God is love.
- And I don't think man would complain being in the presence of his Creator 24/7.
- Man was created to be in fellowship with God

"The things you've described are not substitutionary atonement"
- I don't quite get this one sry. Jesus died in placement of us. That is "substitution". We deserved death for our sins. Jesus died for us. All other things I said (spiritual life, sin nature, God's perfect nature, justice and mercy, etc) are just explainations of why Jesus had to die for our sins and be a substitution for our death payment.

"God's justice cannot be perfect because he allow Adam's punishment to fall on and effect his descendants before they sinned"
- God did allow it, but it doesn't mean it compromised His justice
- I think your issue with this is that it doesn't seem fair.
- As I said from the beginning, I agree, its not fair, but it's got nothing to do with God's justice. You make it sound like when God created us, He put a little bit of sin in us before sending us to earth.
- If a father tells her daughter not to have sex, and she disobeys, has sex without protection, contracts AIDS, who's fault is that? She bears a child from her sexual activities, and that child has AIDS. Who's fault is that? The fathers? The child grows up and becomes an adult. He has a child, and that child has AIDS. Who's fault is that? It's just the way AIDS works. Similarly, sin works the same way.
- But once again, from Genesis 3:15, we read that God was already making plans to redeem His people. He didn't prolong this mess that man put upon himself.

"There's is no cure for AIDS and many blind people remain blind. How does declaring germ warfare on any type of behavior make it evil"
- God is not declaring germ warfare lol. God doesn't cause people to sin. That's the devil's job. Who tempted Adam and Eve?
- My point with listing all those diseases is that sin is evident in our society. Sorry, I shouldn't have used the word "judgement". Might have thrown you off.

"The point is God caused beings to exist that would eventually make him want to kill them. He brought pain into his life willingly and blames others for it."
- God caused beings to exist because He is love. Love is expressed in a community (or more than one person/entity)
- He did not bring the pain, man did
- The problem with this statement is that my life experience tells me that I have changed through God's love and God's guidance. Many people have profoundly changed after knowing Christ even though they possessed the same traits you do.

"Why would you have crucifying the flesh daily, if Jesus death paid for your sins"
- Unfortunately, there is no mental delete button, haha. But which is why Paul urges us to renew our minds (Romans 12:2)
- God's word is truth, in that He teaches us about ourselves through His Word (the Bible. BTW, Christianity is the only religion that teaches that man is in a fallen state. All other religions will teach you that man is born good. Unfortunately, that just does not reconcile with today's worldly experiences)
- We still live in the flesh and "the flesh sets its desires against the Spirit" (Galatians 5:17)
- But we crucify the flesh daily and rely more on the Spirit so that we can become more Christ-like.
- That crucifying of the flesh can only be done after our nature is changed.
- I guess you can think of it this way... take a raw fruit, say a mango. It only becomes ripe after watering it and giving it sunlight. In this analogy, the water and sunlight is the "new nature". If you were to look at the mango from its raw stage to its ripe stage, you'd see that it would go from green to yellow. At some stage, you may even see half green and half yellow. If you didn't water or give the mango sunlight, it would stay green. Only by giving the fruit this new nature can it start to change. Though, on the way to changing, you'll still see the raw aspect of the fruit.

"He killed David and Bathsheba's unnamed son in 2 Samuel 12:14-18"
- Why did God kill David's (whom He guided into kingship) unnamed son in 2 Samuel 12:14-18?
- Once again, God does not kill anyone without a just reason

"The question still stands , why would God kill one generation in their infancy and another in adulthood?"
- Other than patience, mercy, love, etc, its simply because He is God. He makes His own decisions (and yes, I know you're not going to like that answer haha).
- The problem with unbelievers and some Christians is that they don't see God as superior. They box God up in a small box and say "come out when I need you, and you make decisions based on what makes me happy". Unfortunately, if God abided by our wills, then He wouldn't be much of a God would He? We need to understand that God is our Creator and this is His story. In His humungous plan, we are tiny. We are basically insignificant. But even though we were insignificant, He sent His Son to die for us and invited us back into a relationship with Him. Louie Giglio (a pastor... if you get a chance, grab His DVD 'Indescribable' and 'How great is our God', it'll blow your mind) calls us significant insignificants.
- Another problem is that we see our lives as ours when in actual fact, its God's, because He is the one who created us. He can do as He wills with His creations. You're not going to like that, but that's just our sinful nature wanting to be our own gods (the serpent tempted Eve by saying "...you will be like God" and then she ate the fruit -Genesis 3:5).

The problem I find with Christians coming from a reformist background or Calvinistic background is that there is too much head knowledge. Head knowledge is good, but without application and heart, its useless. If you only have head knowledge, one day you get stuck with a question that you can't answer and you start to lose faith. You've forgotten that God's ways and thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9). I'm not saying that we shouldn't try find the answers to those difficult questions, but it shouldn't deter ones faith. Faith starts to diminish once you rely on yourself for the answers and forget to rely on God. I believe that as you get closer to God, the answers will come. But more importantly, it's your relationship and experience in your walk with Christ that convicts you, not the head knowledge.

You ask some really good questions, and I get the feeling you come from a reformist or Calvinistic background (though I could be wrong, maybe you're just a deep thinker? But you argue similar to how a Calvinist would argue). My prayer is that if you were once a Christian, that you give it one more go. 'Cept, to this time rely more on God rather than yourself.

[kobodur]

- God is love (1 John 4:8 - The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love)
- Love is a verb. Therefore, He didn't save to get satisfaction, but because He is love, He saves.
- In other words, I don't go to church to be accepted by God. I am accepted by God, that's why I go to church. Me believing in the bible doesn't make it truth but the bible is truth, that's why I believe it.

Don't you need to repent in order to be accepted by God. He tolerates sinners for a limited time, but he only accepts the repentant.

- The flipping the switch question is a hard one. I've thought about it before and initial stance is that you can flip the switch many times, as can be read from Romans 11:23 - And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted back in, for God is able to graft them in again. I know many Calvinists or reformists may disagree, but meh... this doesn't really discount Jesus's crucifiction. The condition to salvation is belief. Jesus died for those who would believe.

Sure it says that, but can you do it in your life?

- You forget that when God created man, He was made in His image (Genesis 1:26)
- God is spirit, man needed to be spiritually alive to be in union with Him.
- God desired a relationship with man as God is love.
- And I don't think man would complain being in the presence of his Creator 24/7.
- Man was created to be in fellowship with God

Adam was born spiritually alive. We have to accept spiritual life when we are spiritually dead. This is uneven.

- I don't quite get this one sry. Jesus died in placement of us. That is "substitution". We deserved death for our sins. Jesus died for us. All other things I said (spiritual life, sin nature, God's perfect nature, justice and mercy, etc) are just explainations of why Jesus had to die for our sins and be a substitution for our death payment.

Jesus' death doesn't prevent anyone from dieing or going to Hell. Isn't it a combination of Jesus' death and our repentance that keeps us out of Hell? One's not good enough, you need both.

- God did allow it, but it doesn't mean it compromised His justice
- I think your issue with this is that it doesn't seem fair.
- As I said from the beginning, I agree, its not fair, but it's got nothing to do with God's justice. You make it sound like when God created us, He put a little bit of sin in us before sending us to earth.
- If a father tells her daughter not to have sex, and she disobeys, has sex without protection, contracts AIDS, who's fault is that? She bears a child from her sexual activities, and that child has AIDS. Who's fault is that? The fathers? The child grows up and becomes an adult. He has a child, and that child has AIDS. Who's fault is that? It's just the way AIDS works. Similarly, sin works the same way.
- But once again, from Genesis 3:15, we read that God was already making plans to redeem His people. He didn't prolong this mess that man put upon himself.

You're willing to say God is unfair? What's the difference between justice and fairness? It's God's fault, he is in control, and he's been known to use diseases to attack people he is unhappy with. I'd say that is germ warfare. God is the final person to decide whether someone is born or not. It seems like he wants people to be born to people with AIDS and inherit AIDS. But not all people are born into this situation. But, all people are born with the effects of original sin in place. If God is waiting for mankind to repent and God keeps increasing their numbers, he'll be waiting forever. After the ressurection he should have kept the people of that time alive while stopping production on new people. That way the whole world would get evangelised and God could move on to the next phase in a timely manner.

- God is not declaring germ warfare lol. God doesn't cause people to sin. That's the devil's job. Who tempted Adam and Eve?
- My point with listing all those diseases is that sin is evident in our society. Sorry, I shouldn't have used the word "judgement". Might have thrown you off.

God attacking people with viruses doesn't make the people's behavior evil, does it?

- God caused beings to exist because He is love. Love is expressed in a community (or more than one person/entity)
- He did not bring the pain, man did
- The problem with this statement is that my life experience tells me that I have changed through God's love and God's guidance. Many people have profoundly changed after knowing Christ even though they possessed the same traits you do.

All men do enough to warrent God's wrath, right? Didn't he know they would, as he was creating them? Therefore he was creating people he knew he would be very angry with. Therefore he is the cause of his anger. He brought the men who bring the pain, knowing they would bring the pain.

- Why did God kill David's (whom He guided into kingship) unnamed son in 2 Samuel 12:14-18?
- Once again, God does not kill anyone without a just reason

Didn't you said that he doesn't kill the innocent? Was David's son innocent? Isn't killing the innocent always bad?

- Other than patience, mercy, love, etc, its simply because He is God. He makes His own decisions (and yes, I know you're not going to like that answer haha).

He was patient with the group he killed in adulthood. I assume killing the infants was merciful. Why wasn't he merciful with the adult group when they were children? Why wasn't he patient with the ones he was merciful with?

- The problem with unbelievers and some Christians is that they don't see God as superior. They box God up in a small box and say "come out when I need you, and you make decisions based on what makes me happy". Unfortunately, if God abided by our wills, then He wouldn't be much of a God would He? We need to understand that God is our Creator and this is His story. In His humungous plan, we are tiny. We are basically insignificant. But even though we were insignificant, He sent His Son to die for us and invited us back into a relationship with Him. Another problem is that we see our lives as ours when in actual fact, its God's, because He is the one who created us. He can do as He wills with His creations. You're not going to like that, but that's just our sinful nature wanting to be our own gods (the serpent tempted Eve by saying "...you will be like God" and then she ate the fruit -Genesis 3:5).

I find God's behavior to be inconsistant, and I'm simply pointing it out. He spends some much time and engery trying to bend us to his will, and we're insignificant? I'd like to be a god because God decreased the quality of life for mankind after Adam sinned and that effects my life negatively. If God treated me the way he treated Adam, I might not hate him. Through this exchange, I have said that God's treatment of Adam was better than his treatment of the rest of mankind. God shouldn't have extented the dead line of Adam, they would have to start with disadvantages that Adam didn't have to start with. He should have started over with a new universe and new people.

The problem I find with Christians coming from a reformist background or Calvinistic background is that there is too much head knowledge. Head knowledge is good, but without application and heart, its useless. If you only have head knowledge, one day you get stuck with a question that you can't answer and you start to lose faith. You've forgotten that God's ways and thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9). I'm not saying that we shouldn't try find the answers to those difficult questions, but it shouldn't deter ones faith. Faith starts to diminish once you rely on yourself for the answers and forget to rely on God. I believe that as you get closer to God, the answers will come. But more importantly, it's your relationship and experience in your walk with Christ that convicts you, not the head knowledge.

I've tried to trap Calvinists in their own web. But it doesn't work, they always go back to "The secret things belong to the Lord..." Deuteronomy 29:29. They have a cut off point, just like you.

You ask some really good questions, and I get the feeling you come from a reformist or Calvinistic background (though I could be wrong, maybe you're just a deep thinker? But you argue similar to how a Calvinist would argue). My prayer is that if you were once a Christian, that you give it one more go. 'Cept, to this time rely more on God rather than yourself.

Actually I just learned about Calvinism in the last 3 years. All from the internet. This all started with random web searchs. I've never committed myself to christianity, I only took a look from time to time. That's the thing, you have to rely on youself to find God worthy of the consideration you give him. Without the aproval of his creation. God's stuck agreeing with his selves for all eternity.

[tphreak]

Sry its taken me so long to reply. Haven't had much time lately to browse the net. Anyway....

I'm just curious... so what is your position with god? Do you believe that a god exists? Are you a god-seeker? Do you believe that a god exists but is not worthy of your worship?

[kobodur]

Sry its taken me so long to reply. Haven't had much time lately to browse the net. Anyway....

I'm just curious... so what is your position with god? Do you believe that a god exists? Are you a god-seeker? Do you believe that a god exists but is not worthy of your worship?

I believe there might not be a god. But, I've never heard of a god that is worthy of my worship.

[StillSearching]

Another thought: If Jesus was indeed required to die, why wait thousands of years between him and Adam/Eve? Why subject thousands of years of your creation to suffering and labor? Why try to convince millions or billions of people when you need only convince two? Why not just make Adam & Eve raise Jesus as their first born and sacrifice him?

Ah, but that begs another question. If the above scenario occurred and subsequent humans sinned, does God have to send his son again?

My thoughts on Jesus...

1) He was a man that most likely existed, though he was probably quite different from how most people portray/imagine him.
2) If we accept the biblical quotes as written/translated, he seems to possess an intelligence ahead of his time, though he is far from perfect, IMHO.
3) He preached a message to an oppressed and oppressive religious group, in terms that they would understand, given the worldview of the time.
4) If we accept the passion as written/translated, then he died a martyr, an act powerful enough to galvanize his immediate followers, and convert others, including, eventually, the leaders of his executors, the Romans who were oppressing the Jews.

I like the story of Jesus. It's etched in the child-like part of my brain, like the stories of Santa Claus and Superman. Also like those stories, the story of Jesus inevitably forces me back to reality. Which is not a bad thing. Even making Jesus "just a man" doesn't dismiss the poignancy of the story. There are lessons to be learned. To me, the act of adding divine will to this story and expecting everyone else to get it and believe, is dangerous and unnecessary. It's like saying that the sacrifice of MLK, for instance, was comparatively meaningless.