Did Jesus really have to die for our sins?

[Thief]

No, God never intended on us living in ignorance. To be sinless and not know evil is not ignorance. Its a blessing.

Whether man fell or not, he, those of God, would grow in the knowledge of God. Unfallen they would not know the distinction between good and evil because they would not know evil.

Quantrill

And evil would be what?.....harm?
Webster's has a lengthy description.

Angels with swords....a Carpenter with a whip....
even Moses had three thousand of his own people killed.

Not knowing when you do harm...would be a blessing?
More of a curse I think.

Doing harm seems needful now and then.,,,(Sodom and Gomorrah)
And then again...flooding the earth.

And we should become as the angels?....sword in hand?

 

[URAVIP2ME]

When we are resurrected, 1 Cor. 15 says we are raised or incorruptible or sinless. God said sin brings forth death, so they died spiritually toward God and began to die physically. Sin, not God kept man from immortality and only when we are changed to sinless can we also be immortal, as sin brings death.

The 'we' of 1st Corinthians [15 vs1,50] are Jesus 'brothers'.
Jesus 'brothers' are the 'first fruits' meaning more to follow.
As first fruits they are part of the first or earlier resurrection to heaven.
[Rev 20v6; 14v4; 5vs9,10; Romans 8v17]

Jesus 'brothers' of Matthew [25v40] are Not the 'sheep' of verse 32.
That is because those 'sheep' do Not go to heaven but remain on earth.
Remain everlasting on earth after the wicked are gone forever.
They gain Not immortality, but gain 'everlasting life' as was originally offered to sinless Adam. Meaning life forever if obedient to God's will and purpose.

Proverbs 2vs21,22; 10v30; 21v18; Psalm 37vs29,38-40

All who died before Jesus died do Not go to heaven [John 3v13]
Even King David did Not ascend to heaven [Acts 2v34]
Like the prophet Daniel they will have an earthly resurrection.[Dan. 12vs2,13]
An earthly resurrection starting at the time of Jesus messianic 1000-year reign over a paradisaic earth, when Jesus, as king of God's kingdom, ushers in global Peace on Earth toward men of goodwill in fulfillment to God's promise to Abraham. Promise that all families and all nations of earth will be blessed. Blessed with the curing or healing of nations.
-Genesis 12v3; 22v18; Rev. 22v2

 

[waitasec]

No, God never intended on us living in ignorance.

yes he did...god created adam and eve without the knowledge of good and evil

To be sinless and not know evil is not ignorance. Its a blessing.

you forgot the good part....
to not know is ignorance.....look it up.

Whether man fell or not, he, those of God, would grow in the knowledge of God. Unfallen they would not know the distinction between good and evil because they would not know evil.

Quantrill

so if i steal your car not knowing it is wrong to then i'm sinless...
cool. :areyoucra

 

[lunamoth]

God is all powerful, why make a man just to die to save everyone when he could just do it by thinking it happening?

Yes, I know I will get a lot of comments saying "Jesus is no man! He is God!" Well, technically isn't he a demigod? Half man half God? And even if you don't consider him to be, it just made people suffer from sadness, especially Mary the mother of Jesus.

Death is part of human life, so Jesus was destined to die because he was human.

 

[Falvlun]

Death is part of human life, so Jesus was destined to die because he was human.

The OP's question wasn't just about why did Jesus have to die, but why'd he have to die to absolve our sins.

Although, I know some Christians don't believe his death was what was necessary, but some other aspect of what he did while on Earth (like giving us an example of a righteous life).

 

[Falvlun]

Jesus covered our sins in the same way I can cover the cost of damages done by my friend, even if I am paying towards my own coverage. If my friend gets drunk and picks up a bat and bust out the windows of my car, I can FREELY choose to pay for the damages myself. Can I not?? I dont know about you but that sounds like a good friend, a friend that you shouldnt take advantage of.

You are saying the same thing over and over again without taking into account what we are saying over and over again.

In your example above, you are paying your money to someone else to replace your windows. So in order to be a good friend and pay for your friend's actions, money would have to leave your possession and go to someone else.

In the circumstance with Jesus and our sins, the "money" is never leaving God. It's not going anywhere. It is being paid back to God. So, God took some money out of his wallet and gave it back to himself. Why waste the time taking the money out, when he can just say "We're cool" and be done with it?

Forgiveness only means that you wont walk around with a grey cloud over your head. Sometimes we still have to bear the consequences of our actions. When David sinned with Bathesheba, he was forgiven, but he still had to suffer the consequences of his actions, the death of his child. Once his disciplinary action was over, his sin was never remembered by God again.

I'm confused. Are you saying that Jesus' death only offered forgiveness, and didn't remove the consequences? Or are you saying that Jesus' death did both?

I don't think the former is the normal understanding of atonement. If the latter, that's not a problem for what I was saying above. God still took money out of his wallet to pay himself. It still is nonsensical.

Well, on judgement day, bring that to Gods attention. Say to him "your system of allowing sinful beings to go to hell is completely unnecessary".

Don't change the goalposts. You were claiming that God had no power over not wanting sin in his presence, because this is a logical necessity. I am saying that even if that is a logical necessity, none of the ways that God chose to deal with it are a logical necessity. Allowing one man to cause sin to enter the world for all men was not a logical necessity. Making the consequences the same for every single type of sin was not a logical necessity (we don't give the death penalty to people who steal a pack of gum. But God does.) Making death the consequence of sin was not a logical necessity. Making it impossible for humans to ultimately pay their debt was not a logical necessity. Choosing sacrifice as a way to temporally pay for our debt was not a logical necessity. Choosing to sacrifice Jesus in order to ultimately forgive our debt was not a logical necessity. All these things were choices by God.

And from the outside looking in, it looks like he made things a whole lot less just and a whole lot more complicated than they needed to be.

 

[filthy tugboat]

So what. The drunk driver has done me wrong (my property), and this wrong was made right by his friend offering to cover the damages.

He has also caused you a lot of inconvenience. How long will that car take to get fixed? How do you get to work, take care of family and go out with friends without your car? This person has damaged your life in a way that money cannot just cover. He is responsible for all of the damage caused, not just the cost of repair for the car.

We do God wrong (by sinning), and our wrong is made right by Jesus dying and covering the damages (offending a holy God and deserving death).

You have asserted this many times but if our actions have direct consequences which result in our death, how can someone remove the consequences for those actions? Or are we not responsible for our actions due to Jesus' sacrifice? Does Jesus remove our responsibility or just the consequence?

Right, the money is to cover the damages, and the death of Jesus was also to cover the damages for the sin of mankind.

So now sin cannot happen? The moment someone does what used to be called sinning, God is no longer offended and damage(as per the analogy) is non-existent?

Now of course, there are times when a person still has to suffer the consequences of their actions, but this is only a small debt compared to what they would receive if Jesus did not cover us with his death.

So Jesus did not cover all of the damages?

I dont see how. Show me a law where it states that the person held liable is the only person that can pay a debt. If a judge orders me to pay 5k in restitution, I can ask my friend to lend me 5k to cover the restitution. Thus, restitution is paid.

This was not the issue I took with your argument. If someone is still liable for punishment but merely has someone else pay the fines, it is clear that they are still responsible for their actions(as per the analogy). If they are responsible for their actions and the consequences for those actions do exist, then how can someone else take away that responsibility? For your argument to work, Jesus must have removed the consequences. So are the consequences still in place or not?

Depends on the punishment. You keep looking at it in terms of prison sentence.

As per your analogy, a prison sentence(or community service or whatever) is a second part of the consequences that exist for certain actions. You are presenting an analogy and asking me to ignore the part of that analogy that does not work with your argument. Sorry, that's not how it works.

But according to the bible, we should look at it in terms of a ransom (Mark 10:45, 1Tim 2:6, Heb 9:15)

That is not how we should look at the analogy though. The analogy has three consequences involved for the crime, the cost for damages, the fine for drink driving and last but not least, the loss of license and/or potential prison sentence. You brought the analogy up, you have to look at it honestly.

and in this context, a ransom is defined "as rescue or redeem somebody: to rescue or redeem somebody, especially by a self-sacrificing act, and especially from sin or its punishment (literary)"

Where did you get this definition?

Because he is a God of logical and reason and bound by the laws of logic and reason. This mean that he cant do things that are contrary to his nature. He cannot contradict logic, like creating squared circles and such.

Is punishing sin a part of his nature? If so, how does the human sacrifice of Jesus affect this? So basically God has to punish sin, he is obligated to, it is a part of his nature. The punishment for sin is death, so everybody that sins must die. Now explain how Jesus can change that? Either sinning is no longer punishable by death or sinning is no longer possible. The last possibility is that Jesus absolves the responsibility of the people that commit sin, he someone makes them nor responsible for the things that they did and therefore undeserving of the consequences. What other possibility is there?

Well, do you go about life assuming that people are liars until they can first prove to you their truthfulness? Or do you go about life assuming that people are truthful until they give you a reason to think otherwise.

I am very cautious of people that I have no grounds to trust.

When I read biblical scriptures, I dont see God as a liar, I see him as someone that is morally perfect and truthful,

I see quite the opposite, sorry.

and when I begin to see otherwise I will abandon the religion and believe in absurdities like evolution, and the universe creating itself from nothing, like some of you people on here believe.

A little immature don't you think? No point derailing the thread over a little hissy fit though.

I answered this question in another post that didn't get any responses. People just blew it off and continued to make misleading posts based on ignorance. But in a nutshell, this is pure Christian theology.

First of all, God is morally perfect. He is the ultimate source of what it means to be good. So with that being said, anything less than that is pure filth to him, an abomination to him. So he creates man, and man sins. Now, when you sin, you are sinning against someone that is morally perfect. You dont deserve to live.

Why don't you deserve to live? What makes someone "deserve to live" and what makes someone "deserve to die"? What standard determines who deserves life? Why should we trust that standard?

So since the fall of man, God created a system to where sinful man could live in his presence, and have atonement for their less than perfect lifestyles. This system consisted of offering animal sacrifices to God. Since the wages of sin is death, the animal (who is not a moral agent) was offered to take the place of the human that sinned. The animals were put to death instead of man. Get it so far??

I understand what you've said, I don't understand how the death of an animal can atone for the actions of the man though.

Under the new covenant (thus, Christianity), there is a different system in place. Under this system, we no longer have to slaughter animals for our sins. Jesus, choose to come on earth and shed his perfect blood for the sins of EVERYONE. That is why he is called "The lamb" (John 1:29, Acts 8:32, 1Peter 1:19).

OK.

Remember, animals are not moral agents,

"Remember"? What is their to remember, this is patently false.

they dont sin. Since Jesus was morally perfect, his death was sufficient to provide that "old school" atonement for sins. But his death was sufficient was not just one person, but for EVERYONE. All we have to do is believe it. So that is Christianity to the core. Do you understand?

Why do we have to believe? Wouldn't Jesus death apply with or without belief? I am well aware of Christian theology so this is nothing new to me, you still didn't explain the concept of vicarious redemption though, you just repeated the assertion. I am arguing that vicarious redemption is not logically consistent. You are arguing that it is, can you support your argument. How does vicarious redemption work?

 

[Quantrill]

yes he did...god created adam and eve without the knowledge of good and evil

you forgot the good part....
to not know is ignorance.....look it up.



so if i steal your car not knowing it is wrong to then i'm sinless...
cool. :areyoucra

God restricted what Adam and Eve should know. That is not living in ignorance. That is being ignorant of things that you shouldn't know. Adam and Eve had they not fallen would have continued to grow in the knowledge of God. As the believer does now and will througout all eternity.

Quantrill

 

[Heathen Hammer]

LOL ok so based on your view, if I truly love someone they should be able to walk all over me all they want to, because i should have to keep forgiving them for doing me wrong. Is that a deliberate childish nonview of your point??

Yes, it's another deliberate childish nonview

You just told me YOUR opinion on the right way love works. Guess what, I DONT AGREE WITH YOU. Thats all that needs to be said about that.

All that needs to be said for everyone to know not to love you, perhaps

No it isnt. If you love someone that doesnt mean not holding them responsible for wrongful acts. Apparently your view of love is greatly misplaced.

Actually, my view of love is spot-on, it's yours that is greatly misplaced. I suppose you'll beat your kids a lot?

 

[Thief]

God restricted what Adam and Eve should know. That is not living in ignorance. That is being ignorant of things that you shouldn't know. Adam and Eve had they not fallen would have continued to grow in the knowledge of God. As the believer does now and will througout all eternity.

Quantrill

Yes it is.

And withholding information as a mind control is not freewill.
The practice would be deceitful.

Without the garden event Man would have continued....as an animal.
No grace.

'Fallen' is a misconception.
Man needs to be such a creature as to seek after knowledge
in spite of pending consequence, even unto death.

I see no hope for Man, had the garden event never happened.
Spiritual life without the knowledge of good and evil?
Walk among the angels...'ignorant'?

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You are saying the same thing over and over again without taking into account what we are saying over and over again.

In your example above, you are paying your money to someone else to replace your windows. So in order to be a good friend and pay for your friend's actions, money would have to leave your possession and go to someone else.

If my friend bust out my windows, I have a few options. I can either report him to the authorities, in which he will have charges from public intoxication, vandelism, and he would also have to pay for the damages. He will now have a record, which is also a negative. Now if God put us to death immediately after any and every sin, this would be an negative impact, because spiritual death is the ultimate separation from God. So I just compared the wrongful acts (friend committing a wrongful act, and a person that sins, which is a wrongful act in Gods eyes). I also just compared the consequences of both the friend and the window, and the person with the sins. Now in both scenarios, there were wrongful acts committed, and there are pretty bad consequences for both. The question is, what can be done about this?? How can it be made right. Well, the friend of the one that broke the windows can say "Dont worry about it, i will pay for the damages, nor will i tell anyone what happened, I got you covered." So the friend pays for the damages out of his own pocket. Jesus said the same thing in essence, "Dont worry about it, i will pay for the damages, God will not hold you accountable so you wont experience spiritual death, I got you covered."

In the circumstance with Jesus and our sins, the "money" is never leaving God. It's not going anywhere. It is being paid back to God. So, God took some money out of his wallet and gave it back to himself. Why waste the time taking the money out, when he can just say "We're cool" and be done with it?

The money IS leaving God. Jesus spirit LEFT his body, and his body was dead. So Jesus' spirit left his body, and it went to not himself, but to the Father, who is the first person of the Trinity. So had to "take the money out", which is relative to his soul being "taken out" of his body when he died.

I'm confused. Are you saying that Jesus' death only offered forgiveness, and didn't remove the consequences? Or are you saying that Jesus' death did both?

It removed the consequences of spiritual death, which is separation from God (hell). This is the death that we all deserve. So his death remove that aspect, which is pretty big, especially if you believe in the literal hell. That is why John 3:16 says ".....whoever believes in him shall not perish...but have everlasting life." So in contrast to that, if you dont believe in him, you wont have everlasting life. Now, Jesus death did not cover God choosing to discipline us when we do wrong. Thats a different story.

I don't think the former is the normal understanding of atonement. If the latter, that's not a problem for what I was saying above. God still took money out of his wallet to pay himself. It still is nonsensical.

You keep comparing it to him paying himself, when this is not the case. It is not the same as me taking money out of my wallet, and the putting it back in to my wallet. The money that is paid is for the PURPOSE of fixing the damages to my car. Now yes, the money that I am paying is going to a third party. But so did the spirit of Jesus. His death was for the PURPOSE of fixing the damages (or repairing the relationship) between fallen man and God. The "money" that Jesus paid was his life, when his spirit left his body, and went to a third party (The Father). Damage repaired.

Don't change the goalposts. You were claiming that God had no power over not wanting sin in his presence, because this is a logical necessity. I am saying that even if that is a logical necessity, none of the ways that God chose to deal with it are a logical necessity.

That is your opinion. In my eyes, it makes perfect sense. Instead of having every single person die for their sins, God set up a system where only one person died and that death covered everyone. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Allowing one man to cause sin to enter the world for all men was not a logical necessity.

God didnt allow one man to let sin enter the world. God gave everyone free will, and you cant "make" someone "freely" choose to do something.

Making the consequences the same for every single type of sin was not a logical necessity (we don't give the death penalty to people who steal a pack of gum. But God does.)

Under the new covernant, Jesus death was sufficient enough to cover all types of sins, from murder to petty theft.

Making death the consequence of sin was not a logical necessity. Making it impossible for humans to ultimately pay their debt was not a logical necessity.

It is a logical necessity when it is a sin against a Holy God

Choosing sacrifice as a way to temporally pay for our debt was not a logical necessity.

If you sin against a Holy God, death awaits.

Choosing to sacrifice Jesus in order to ultimately forgive our debt was not a logical necessity. All these things were choices by God.

Far from "choices". God makes decisions based on his holy character.

And from the outside looking in, it looks like he made things a whole lot less just and a whole lot more complicated than they needed to be.

So far you have done a good job of claiming that a being that cant make a wrong decision, that he made a wrong decision.

 

[Koldo]

Jesus said the same thing in essence, "Dont worry about it, i will pay for the damages, God will not hold you accountable so you wont experience spiritual death, I got you covered."

If Jesus is God, he is essentially saying: "Dont worry about it, i will pay for the damages to myself, I will not hold you accountable so you wont experience spiritual death, I got you covered."

Keep in mind, God is also the one who fixes the windows.

The money IS leaving God. Jesus spirit LEFT his body, and his body was dead. So Jesus' spirit left his body, and it went to not himself, but to the Father, who is the first person of the Trinity. So had to "take the money out", which is relative to his soul being "taken out" of his body when he died.

If the money is leaving God, who is on the receiving end?
Who is getting paid to fix the windows?

You keep comparing it to him paying himself, when this is not the case. It is not the same as me taking money out of my wallet, and the putting it back in to my wallet. The money that is paid is for the PURPOSE of fixing the damages to my car. Now yes, the money that I am paying is going to a third party. But so did the spirit of Jesus. His death was for the PURPOSE of fixing the damages (or repairing the relationship) between fallen man and God. The "money" that Jesus paid was his life, when his spirit left his body, and went to a third party (The Father). Damage repaired.

Who is fixing the damage done to the car?
Isn't it God? Isn't Jesus paying to God for fixing the car?
Therefore, isn't Jesus paying to himself?
The purpose is unimportant. What matters is who is being paid.

That is your opinion. In my eyes, it makes perfect sense. Instead of having every single person die for their sins, God set up a system where only one person died and that death covered everyone. That makes a lot of sense to me.

God could have just said set up a system where no on died. He could have just forgiven the debt. And that is it. That is why it doesn't make sense.

 

[Hawkeye112200]

God is all powerful, why make a man just to die to save everyone when he could just do it by thinking it happening?

Yes, I know I will get a lot of comments saying "Jesus is no man! He is God!" Well, technically isn't he a demigod? Half man half God? And even if you don't consider him to be, it just made people suffer from sadness, especially Mary the mother of Jesus.

Does it really need to be any more complicated than "can the clay say to the potter, why have you made me this way?"

This topic makes certain generalizations/assumptions that renders the topic ill suited for discussion, despite the amount of responses so far.

As you say, God is all powerful, which by default entitles God to do it the way he wants. Some will love it and others (obviously) will hate it. This much is clear even in the bible, so it is no surprise this kind of topic is so prevalent.

 

[Koldo]

Does it really need to be any more complicated than "can the clay say to the potter, why have you made me this way?"

If the clay is able to speak, it can.

This topic makes certain generalizations/assumptions that renders the topic ill suited for discussion, despite the amount of responses so far.

As you say, God is all powerful, which by default entitles God to do it the way he wants. Some will love it and others (obviously) will hate it. This much is clear even in the bible, so it is no surprise this kind of topic is so prevalent.

What generalizations/assumptions render the topic ill suitied for discussion?

 

[waitasec]

Does it really need to be any more complicated than "can the clay say to the potter, why have you made me this way?"

This topic makes certain generalizations/assumptions that renders the topic ill suited for discussion, despite the amount of responses so far.

As you say, God is all powerful, which by default entitles God to do it the way he wants. Some will love it and others (obviously) will hate it. This much is clear even in the bible, so it is no surprise this kind of topic is so prevalent.

have you heard of the term, 'for the sake of argument'?

 

[Quantrill]

Yes it is.

And withholding information as a mind control is not freewill.
The practice would be deceitful.

Without the garden event Man would have continued....as an animal.
No grace.

'Fallen' is a misconception.
Man needs to be such a creature as to seek after knowledge
in spite of pending consequence, even unto death.

I see no hope for Man, had the garden event never happened.
Spiritual life without the knowledge of good and evil?
Walk among the angels...'ignorant'?

No, living in ignorance occurs when you should know something but don't. God forbade Adam and Eve to eat because it was best for them at present that they not know.

Well, thats what Satan through the Serpent said also.

Quantrill

 

[Satyamavejayanti]

God is all powerful, why make a man just to die to save everyone when he could just do it by thinking it happening?

Yes, I know I will get a lot of comments saying "Jesus is no man! He is God!" Well, technically isn't he a demigod? Half man half God? And even if you don't consider him to be, it just made people suffer from sadness, especially Mary the mother of Jesus.

I quote Thomas Paine, The age of reason, London 1796 PG 76

The bible and the testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonourable to the wisdom of the Almighty

 

[Thief]

No, living in ignorance occurs when you should know something but don't. God forbade Adam and Eve to eat because it was best for them at present that they not know.

Well, thats what Satan through the Serpent said also.

Quantrill

And you would then continue....

The result of not knowing would have Man in what condition.... now?
Still ignorant?
Not knowing good from evil?
Still unworthy the tree of life?

(you are aware the 'trees' are metaphorical terms?)

 

[fishy]

No, living in ignorance occurs when you should know something but don't. God forbade Adam and Eve to eat because it was best for them at present that they not know.

Well, thats what Satan through the Serpent said also.

Quantrill

I've been told by believers that Lucifer was the overseeing (guardian) angel of Eden, how then could Satan have done anything. If Lucifer was still an angel then Satan didn't exist.

 

[waitasec]

No, living in ignorance occurs when you should know something but don't. God forbade Adam and Eve to eat because it was best for them at present that they not know.

Well, thats what Satan through the Serpent said also.

Quantrill

interesting...they were kicked out of the garden for attaining knowledge
gen 3:22
so that means when you're in paradice you'll be just as ignorant...
does that mean that good and evil acts can happen while not being aware of it...cool :sarcastic