Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Jimmie, let me answer by asking you this .... When you have displayed or do display hate, inwardly or outwardly, how does God deal with you? Does God wink and nod at your sin problem because you "believe in Jesus' blood sacrifice for your sin"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmiej
It's not about individual sins, here and there. It's about man's sinful nature. All who believe are redeemed through Christ's redemptive work.
What do you mean, it's not about individual sins? The "sin problem" is made up of all the individual sins and, more importantly, the reasons people miss the mark in the first place is it not? The point is, Jimmie ... it is your beliefs which indicate that God just winks and nods at sin. Your beliefs are all about God venting God's anger on Jesus and then Jesus' "blood" somehow covering up the sins of "believers" so that God can now ignore those sins and not be angry about them anymore.
If God truly cares about the "sin problem", then a mere cover up wouldn't be God's goal, wouldn't you agree?
What do you mean, it's not about individual sins? The "sin problem" is made up of all the individual sins and, more importantly, the reasons people miss the mark in the first place is it not? The point is, Jimmie ... it is your beliefs which indicate that God just winks and nods at sin. Your beliefs are all about God venting God's anger on Jesus and then Jesus' "blood" somehow covering up the sins of "believers" so that God can now ignore those sins and not be angry about them anymore.
If God truly cares about the "sin problem", then a mere cover up wouldn't be God's goal, wouldn't you agree?
Your turn. How does God deal with sin, in your opinion?
Your turn. How does God deal with sin, in your opinion?
Do you or do you not agree that God's goal wouldn't be a mere cover-up of sin? If you don't agree, then nothing I say is going to make sense to you ... much like Rainmusic's posts didn't make sense to you.
I've started to realize that I often side too much with one side when My beliefs are somewhere between so allow me both and somewhat agree and disagree with Jimmie and maybe give him a slightly better argument. God's justice cannot be seperated from his Love because he is love, therefore, whatever method of justice he chooses must be based upon love and Love without Justice may not be considered real Love because not providing consequences for wrong action is foolish as any good parent knows. How you define love? Well, the bible defines a few different ways. The first is the most well known and used well by most of the more liberal Christians on this forum:
[SIZE=2]4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.[/SIZE]
Another well known way is straight from Jesus himself:
"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."
So why would he say something like that and then eventually lay his life down on the cross? Sure seems like he knew that was going to happen considering all the other verses where he predicts it. The key concept here is "sacrifice." Now many here believe that there is nothing loving in blood sacrifice at all and yet we are told directly in the bible that "without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sin." So what could be so loving about sacrifice that God uses it as a remission for sin?
First of all, even though I hate making this argument because it seems lame and flawed: God's ways are still unknown to us and he is the ultimate decider of "love" and "not love"...is that enough to defeat the "sacrifice is not loving" crowd here? In my opinion, no because any religous fanatic can make that argument to justify any horrible action, but it should not be completely ignored as an element of this. In our current justice system, we create consequences for wrong doing but they often look very different from the Torah laws which sacrifices.
In the Old Testament times, livestock was often used as a form of currency and was considered apart of a persons property and livelyhood. Giving livestock in a sacrifice may have been a considered in a similar way of paying a fine. Doesn't seem very fair to the animals but God was also working within the framework of the culture as well as the "hardness of their hearts" and considering most of the sacrifices where also eaten, the opposition argument is realistically mostly just arguing for vegetarianism God may have chosen the "blood sacrifice" as a way to symbolize and justify what he would do in the future in demonstrating what "no greater love is."
Could God have chosen a different why of going about the remission of sins? Of course and I think there is evidence in the Old Testament that he even did that on occasion; but when you're working in the context of a culture, you have to choose something that culture will understand. I think when Paul (..er..most likely Paul that is since its Hebrews) says "without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sin" he was primarily referring to Jesus because he believed only he in his divinity could be the remission for all past and future sins and he would have known God didn't always accept blood sacrifices in certain parts of the Old Testment
Jesus' death on the cross is not necessarily "fixing evil with evil" if you take into account that Jesus' is sacrificing himself for others. Can sacrificing ones self be considered good or loving if it allows others to live or be forgiven? Yes. Now can this whole reasoning morally justify God allowing non-believers to be Tortured in hell for eternity...In my opinion, not a chance in hell! But luckily there are annihilationists and URs around with their own bible arguments to help take care of that problem and thats an argument for another thread...or many other existing threads ;p
I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that there are potentially "loving" reasons why God may have chosen to use this sacrifice model for redemption that do not contradict his nature so I still consider this aspect of traditionalism to be workable even if its not quite in the same way a typical traditionalist would think. There's also alot more to this argument I wanted to post but I'm running out of time today as usual so I'll just post this for now.
Hey JrH, always appreciate your posts. I do not take issue with calling Jesus' death (and life) a sacrifice. I take issue with those who insist that God was/is incapable of forgiving sins without the need to vent anger or "satisfy his holiness" by orchestrating the brutal death of Jesus. What you're saying is still coming across to me in that vein, but perhaps I've misunderstood.
Now, if someone wanted to make the case that Jesus chose to voluntarily give his life rather than seek vengeance, to demonstrate what he understood to be the true nature of God (LOVE, which is not self-seeking, and which holds no record of wrongs, and isn't full of anger and hatred) ... okay.
JrH, let me also draw your attention to that tidbit that Jimmie and others of his mindset have ignored ... the bible says Jesus was a ransom. You pay a ransom to the kidnapper. So, by insisting that GOD demanded Jesus' death as a ransom, they are essentially accusing God of holding people hostage. If there's any truth to the idea that Jesus was a ransom, it makes no sense to believe that the payment was being made to God, does it? To whom or to what was a ransom being paid, and how would Jesus' death be a ransom that effected our release? If you can answer those questions in a way that resonates, you'd have gone a long way towards convincing me that the Jesus narrative isn't only an allegory, or an embellished story.
Do you or do you not agree that God's goal wouldn't be a mere cover-up of sin? If you don't agree, then nothing I say is going to make sense to you ... much like Rainmusic's posts didn't make sense to you.
I agree. That's why Jesus came. His redemptive work was payment for our sin.
I agree. That's why Jesus came. His redemptive work was payment for our sin.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
God may have chosen the "blood sacrifice" as a way to symbolize and justify what he would do in the future in demonstrating what "no greater love is." 
