no religion is the only truth, but truth is found in them all

[Brian2]

Alright. While Romans 14 is talking to Christians about the correct attitudes they should have towards one another in their differences within the church body, do you believe that attitude should end at the door of the church and not apply to everyone in their own spiritual attitudes of their hearts to the world at large? Think about that for minute.

How is it spiritually wrong to judge your fellow Christian in your heart, but not spiritually wrong to judge others outside the church? Judging is judging. And like unforgiveness, it harms the one doing it primarily, regardless who the object of their unforgiveness, or attitudes of judgements are directed. Not doing those things, means it's unhealthy for yourself and for those you do it to, regardless of whether they are those you call your friends or not.

So, as I read Romans 14, I see it as a spiritual attitude everyone should take. Who are we to judge where someone is at in their relationship with God, or their spiritual path? For the same reasons we might not understand why someone thinks not eating pork is important to their faith, but we should recognize that they are sincere in their belief and are otherwise doing the will of God by "loving their neighbor as themselves", I think it more than wise to not pass judgments on others who themselves have different ideas about God, like that fellow Christian with his beliefs about certain holy days, or those who belong to other religions with their own different ideas about God just as well.

The bottom line is, it is not who has the right beliefs, but who has the true faith in their hearts. Who bears spiritual fruit? If they are bearing fruit, then who is it about to try to get them to change their ideas about God to match your own? Isn't that about the ego instead?


And then since they do have the fruits of the Spirit, then with your argument, you must acknowledge that they do in fact have the Spirit. Then we are in agreement. They cannot produce the fruits of the Spirit without the Spirit. And since they do produce the fruits, they have the Spirit within them.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
​

I'll repeat that again. Since they are in fact bearing fruit like this in other religions, this is evidence that they do in fact have the Spirit within them. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit," said Jesus. If they are bringing forth good fruit, then they are a good tree. "You shall know them by their fruits". That's the focus. You don't judge a book by its cover. You judge it by the value of the content within its pages.


I always say their is a difference between spirituality and faith, and beliefs. The deeper one goes in faith, the more we see how beliefs divide, yet Love unites. Faith is about the heart. It's about Love.


Again, what do you understand that to mean when I say that creation is an expression or a manifestation of the Divine? The Divine is manifest through creation. It is revealed and exposed through creation. "Through" is the word used in those verses I quoted, and it is how I understand that to be.

Let me give a simple analogy. You see letters on a page. The letters are lines and shapes that have certain unique forms that you learn to recognize and combine into patterns that convey meaning to you. Right? But those lines or forms only have existence or any reality at all, because they have the paper they are printed on, or the white space on your screen. Without that formless backdrop, form would not exist let alone have any meaning. You cannot see black letters on a black background, can you?

God, or the Source, or the Ground of Being, is formlessness itself. In Christian parlance, the Logos is that mediating principle, that Thought, that Word, that Idea, that takes that Formless Source, and manifests it into form. All creation arises from or out of that Formless Source, or Godhead, or "The Father", through that Logos, as the mediator between formlessness and form, into the material world of form. Or you could say letters on a page.

So when I say God is manifest through form, I mean just that. It's not that the letters, or the forms themselves are God as Godhead itself. But they are not separate from God, just as the letters on a page are not separate from the page they are written upon.

They are inextricably united. The letters have no existence without the emptiness or formlessness of the page. And if one hopes to understand the nature of God, we have to see that God is much more than just letters on a page, or words in a holy book. Reality is both form and formlessness.

I more than easily see this within those passages I quoted for you. God is revealed through everything in Creation itself. All form arises from the Formless, though that mediator between formlenesses and form, that "Son" or the Logos", which is the Divine itself manifesting, and mediating between "man and God", or formlessness and form.

Now interestingly enough, you find this same Christian understanding of the Divine, of creation within Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism as well. These are mystical realization about the nature of the Divine Reality, or God, upon which various teachings come from, such as the gospel of John.


Of course not all religious teachings lead into the Truth. Just look at the teachings of the Westboro Baptist church and the Phelps family as one glaring example of that! Clearly, no one religion has all the truth. Each has a piece of that Truth. As I say, God transcends religions.


And the Buddhists understand this as their Buddha nature, or Buddha mind. Christians call it Christ Consciousness. Hindus call it the Atman. It's different fingers all pointing to the same Realization.


I think it's an error to focus on someone's so-called "lifestyle". I can easily see that being what Paul was talking about in Romans 14, focusing on the superficial exterior differences as if that is what God actually cares about, which God really doesn't. I've known plenty of "perfect lifestyle" Christians who are as Jesus called others like that, as "whitewashed tombs, all clean and white on the outside but full of dead rotting bones inside."

I personally look to the heart of the person, not their dress, not their styles, not the language, not their religious symbols, not their religious identities. That I believe to be is how God see everyone, as "no respecter of persons". It's what's in the heart that is the Truth or not. "By their fruits you shall know them".

I think you have some good ideas that I can sympathise with but that you are going past what the Bible tells us and even making the gospel obsolete.
It's nice to want everyone to be saved but that is a question that we cannot answer at this time imo however answers more in that direction than the hard and fast "believe or perish" approach can be found in the Bible. As I said, you seem to have gone too far and interpret the Bible from the pov of other religions also being true and ending up with a bit of a mix, a synthesis.

 

[Windwalker]

I think you have some good ideas that I can sympathise with but that you are going past what the Bible tells us and even making the gospel obsolete.

Why is it you think it makes the Gospel obsolete? The way I see it at worst makes certain ideas people have about the Gospel to be challenged or become obsolete. But is that a bad thing? Changing our ideas about God?

Think of it in terms of those who had learned the earth is only 6000 years old, based upon Bishop Ussher's genealogical calculations back in the 17th century. Science comes along and shows that's really not the case at all from a scientific perspective. Does that make the book of Genesis obsolete, or simply some ideas some people have about the book of Genesis?

I say strongly it is in fact only the latter that is the case. Same thing when it comes to seeing the Gospel as universally inclusive, as opposed to religio-centrically exclusive.

Think of what you are suggesting with how the religious people of Jesus' day thought he was destroying the religion of his day with the radical things he was saying. This was his response to that same objection. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."

Now take what Jesus said about fulfilling the law, or being a true follower of God, and compare that to what Paul says in Romans:

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
​

Then of course, layer this with Jesus saying "For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother." This is universal, inclusive. Not religio-specific exclusive. This is the radical teaching of the Gospel itself. That is the "good news". You don't have to join the "right religion". You just have to fulfill the law through Love.

So is what I am saying really making the Gospel obsolete? Or is it fulfilling it?

It's nice to want everyone to be saved but that is a question that we cannot answer at this time imo however answers more in that direction than the hard and fast "believe or perish" approach can be found in the Bible.

I see Love as invitational. Never forceful. Never punitive. "Salvation" is liberation in Love. Those don't partake of that, who find it hard to accept that Love, don't experience that freedom. That is all it means to be separated from God. It is not God separated from them, as I've shown from the beginning how that is impossible. When you understand things in this way, it will shift how you think about the language of scripture. Try it, you'll see.

As I said, you seem to have gone too far and interpret the Bible from the pov of other religions also being true and ending up with a bit of a mix, a synthesis.

Actually, no. My shift came from Love itself. I didn't start with this idea about other religions and trying to make it fit. It was actually the other way around. I started from Love, and was told others don't fit, when in fact they do.

It was being told they are going to hell, than my Heart told me was not the Love of God. It was being told my loving parents were damned because they weren't baptized right, or some other religio-centric idea of themselves as the "saved ones", that taught me the difference between religion and God.

Jesus's teachings of love, as I've quoted is that Truth. And the rest that doesn't fit into that, is in fact making the Gospel of no-effect. I hope some of what I am saying rings true to you.

 

[muhammad_isa]

It was being told my loving parents were damned because they weren't baptized right, or some other religio-centric idea of themselves as the "saved ones", that taught me the difference between religion and God..

Indeed .. as I was becoming an adult, I also questioned this sort of dogma.
.. still do.

Almighty God does not condemn people due to creed .. we condemn ourselves, if we turn away from truth..

What is truth?
For starters, we need to be sincere, and not profess belief for some worldly reason .. only God knows why we profess a particular creed etc.

 

[lukethethird]

no religion is the only truth, but truth is found in them all

Do you agree og disagree?

OK, I'll bite. Point out to me a religious truth.

 

[Brian2]

Why is it you think it makes the Gospel obsolete? The way I see it at worst makes certain ideas people have about the Gospel to be challenged or become obsolete. But is that a bad thing? Changing our ideas about God?

Think of it in terms of those who had learned the earth is only 6000 years old, based upon Bishop Ussher's genealogical calculations back in the 17th century. Science comes along and shows that's really not the case at all from a scientific perspective. Does that make the book of Genesis obsolete, or simply some ideas some people have about the book of Genesis?

I say strongly it is in fact only the latter that is the case. Same thing when it comes to seeing the Gospel as universally inclusive, as opposed to religio-centrically exclusive.

Think of what you are suggesting with how the religious people of Jesus' day thought he was destroying the religion of his day with the radical things he was saying. This was his response to that same objection. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."

Now take what Jesus said about fulfilling the law, or being a true follower of God, and compare that to what Paul says in Romans:

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
​

Then of course, layer this with Jesus saying "For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother." This is universal, inclusive. Not religio-specific exclusive. This is the radical teaching of the Gospel itself. That is the "good news". You don't have to join the "right religion". You just have to fulfill the law through Love.

So is what I am saying really making the Gospel obsolete? Or is it fulfilling it?

"Obsolete" was the wrong word. "Redundant" is probably better.
You are saying that everyone can be born again without any need for the gospel of Jesus.
Jesus came and died for nothing in your ideas it seems.
The law of love and following the guidance of the Spirit takes the place of the law and prophets in the New Covenant which Jesus brought and which people can participate in but which people are not automatically in just by being alive.

I see Love as invitational. Never forceful. Never punitive. "Salvation" is liberation in Love. Those don't partake of that, who find it hard to accept that Love, don't experience that freedom. That is all it means to be separated from God. It is not God separated from them, as I've shown from the beginning how that is impossible. When you understand things in this way, it will shift how you think about the language of scripture. Try it, you'll see.

Yes I knew that you make the mistake of seeing God's presence everywhere as the same as having the Holy Spirit of the New Covenant and being born again.
Paul pointed out to the Greeks that God was everywhere but there was no hint there that they had already received the Holy Spirit as per the gospel promise.

Actually, no. My shift came from Love itself. I didn't start with this idea about other religions and trying to make it fit. It was actually the other way around. I started from Love, and was told others don't fit, when in fact they do.

It was being told they are going to hell, than my Heart told me was not the Love of God. It was being told my loving parents were damned because they weren't baptized right, or some other religio-centric idea of themselves as the "saved ones", that taught me the difference between religion and God.

Jesus's teachings of love, as I've quoted is that Truth. And the rest that doesn't fit into that, is in fact making the Gospel of no-effect. I hope some of what I am saying rings true to you.

Fair enough, you may not have been synthesising religions.
What rings true to me in what you say is the rejection of what some groups teach about only those who have accepted the gospel as being saved and the rest as going to an eternal torment. I also believe that is not the message of the gospel and of a loving God. The Bible can be understood without that but does not need to understood in such a way as to make the gospel message and the death of Jesus redundant.

 

[Windwalker]

"Obsolete" was the wrong word. "Redundant" is probably better.

I don't think I'd consider any voice lighting the way or showing the path to be redundant. After all, when Jesus tells his followers they are the light of the world, are they redundancies? Or does each light shine its own light unique to themselves?

You are saying that everyone can be born again without any need for the gospel of Jesus.

That's not what I said. But what is the Gospel, really? Isn't it being able to come directly to God? And isn't the result of anyone who actually does that, one who has a transformative encounter with the Divine, "born again"? You recall I understand born again to mean an actual spiritual awakening, not just some catchword that gets put on a sticker we slap on the shirts of those who say "yes" to Jesus in a rival meeting? Born again means actual transformation. Not signing up with a religion.

So, yes, I am saying anyone can be "born again", in whatever language or terms they use for that, such as Enlightenment, or Awakening, or Salvation. That's all the same thing. Those who have that, truly are new creatures, or born again, as it were. That's the requirement. Being born again. Not becoming a church goer in a Christian church.

Jesus came and died for nothing in your ideas it seems.

No, not at all. Not for nothing. His death for others shows the depths of Divine Love. It shows that as we lay down our lives, to not seek for self-gain an power, but to seek the kingdom of God, or "love for love's sake", as I put it, we find eternal life.

What I do not believe however is this doctrine of blood atonement to pay off God with Jesus blood to keep him from killing all of us eternally for being horrible creatures. I do not accept what is known as the Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory. I don't accept it because it does not match the Love of God. I don't accept it because it is a relatively modern doctrine in the history of the church.

I know that strikes a blow to many, if not most modern Christians beliefs they have been told about God, but that is because they don't know other ways of understanding it, and the history of that doctrine. I could recommend some references to learn more about it, but I'll just say this much about it here.

That doctrine is something I never really got as a Christian. It never made sense to me. I heard someone recently put it this way. "Does God really love me, or was he just paid off?" That really puts a fine point on it. Why would God require blood in order to love us and forgive us?? Blood makes God go?

Yes, Jesus died for us. He sacrificed his own life to teach and show the way of Agape Love that we are to follow. We too are to die and rise again as him. That's what dying for us means. Not paying off God with 1.5 gallons of human blood so he could forgive us. Does that honestly make any sense at all to you? It doesn't me. It never has. God's love is unconditional, and freely given for the asking.

The law of love and following the guidance of the Spirit takes the place of the law and prophets in the New Covenant which Jesus brought and which people can participate in but which people are not automatically in just by being alive.

The law of love, is the fulfillment of the law and prophets, or the entirely of God's will for man found in all scripture, both old and new testaments. And no, not everyone born is automatically following the law of love. Only those who choose to participate it in, and only those who are transformed, will see the kingdom of God in this world. I view "salvation" as synonymous with spiritual transformation. That's something available to everyone, but not everyone takes advantage of that, do they?

Yes I knew that you make the mistake of seeing God's presence everywhere as the same as having the Holy Spirit of the New Covenant and being born again.

I thought I had been pretty clear in consistently saying that while it is available to everyone, that everyone has God within, that does not mean that they realize that or are transformed by it. Not at all. Most don't. Few do. But having God within, and realizing that in your own being, are different things. We may have eyes to see, and ears to hear, yet be deaf and blind our whole lives if we don't ever learn how to see and hear what is right there in front of us the whole time.

Paul pointed out to the Greeks that God was everywhere but there was no hint there that they had already received the Holy Spirit as per the gospel promise.

Receiving the Holy Spirit, is really just another way of saying Realizing God within. God is already there, but Awakening to that in a moment of Realization, is what is "receiving" it. Another way to put that is embracing the gift you've always already had, but just didn't realize it. This is in fact experientially exactly what it is like. Everyone who Awakens to that, says the same thing. "It was there the whole time, and I just never saw it".

What rings true to me in what you say is the rejection of what some groups teach about only those who have accepted the gospel as being saved and the rest as going to an eternal torment. I also believe that is not the message of the gospel and of a loving God. The Bible can be understood without that but does not need to understood in such a way as to make the gospel message and the death of Jesus redundant.

Again, nothing I am saying making Jesus's teachings or his life and death and resurrection redundant. Each path offers something important, and when you do look at the teachings of these other teachers and paths, you see them saying the same things, leading to the same Realization of the Divine. "By their fruits you shall know them".

 

[Brian2]

What I do not believe however is this doctrine of blood atonement to pay off God with Jesus blood to keep him from killing all of us eternally for being horrible creatures. I do not accept what is known as the Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory. I don't accept it because it does not match the Love of God. I don't accept it because it is a relatively modern doctrine in the history of the church.

I know that strikes a blow to many, if not most modern Christians beliefs they have been told about God, but that is because they don't know other ways of understanding it, and the history of that doctrine. I could recommend some references to learn more about it, but I'll just say this much about it here.

That doctrine is something I never really got as a Christian. It never made sense to me. I heard someone recently put it this way. "Does God really love me, or was he just paid off?" That really puts a fine point on it. Why would God require blood in order to love us and forgive us?? Blood makes God go?

Yes, Jesus died for us. He sacrificed his own life to teach and show the way of Agape Love that we are to follow. We too are to die and rise again as him. That's what dying for us means. Not paying off God with 1.5 gallons of human blood so he could forgive us. Does that honestly make any sense at all to you? It doesn't me. It never has. God's love is unconditional, and freely given for the asking.

The atonement is taught in the New Testament however and we can see it in the Old Testament also (eg Isa 53)
God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to be the atonement.
Jesus loved us so much that He came to be the atonement.
Matt 26: 27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

 

[muhammad_isa]

God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to be the atonement.

How convenient .. the Romans first destroyed the temple where Jesus worshiped, and then effectively replaced the first commandment with their own .. canceling Jewish law, and making Roman authority uppermost.

The truth is, that by concentrating all attention on the crucifixion, they were able to quash any rebellion. It is no accident, that the Romans burnt early religious documents, and threatened non-conformists with death.

 

[Windwalker]

The atonement is taught in the New Testament however and we can see it in the Old Testament also (eg Isa 53)
God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to be the atonement.
Jesus loved us so much that He came to be the atonement.
Matt 26: 27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

I hesitated bringing that up because it is a whole huge discussion in and of itself. My point was really about the other aspects of our discussion. I was concerned you would instead focus solely on that. Regardless, I hope what I had said there makes sense to you know, how that it does not minimize, make obsolete, make redundant, or make unnecessary the Gospel of Jesus.

Just as you do, I find the idea of sending people who don't think or believe about God doctrinally, or theologically the same as Christians do, a matter of God sending them to hell. I find that to be a direct conflict and violation of the Spirit of Love itself. I do not believe God judges others in any religion by their doctrines and beliefs. I do not believe God considers calling him by a different name or face, to be an offense to his ego, but instead understands the intent of their hearts. Humans worry about such things, and project their egos upon God in how they in their own pettiness would feel. God is not like that.

Likewise, God's Love doesn't work via someone having the correct words spoken in order to invoke it, i.e., you must speak the name of Jesus in order for God to save you. You don't invoke God's Grace by having the right ideas about God theologically, i.e., understand God the way the Jews thought of God 3000 years ago. You don't get God's Love and embrace of you to work in your life by you joining the right religion, i.e, converting to a tongues talking Pentecostal restored-truth American missionary church at some revival meeting, or deconvert from Hinduism and become a Catholic. You don't get God's Love flowing to you via blood-magic either.

I believe the view of Jesus' death as a blood sacrifice to pay off God for our "sin-debt" is not only not what the early Christian or Jews would have understood about blood sacrifice, it makes access to God dependent not upon the openness of your heart, but upon some form of magical invocation, like saying the right words. "In Jesus name, I plead the blood", and then God comes in to you and gives you the Holy Spirit. It says, God needs blood spilled in order for God to open the gates of heaven and let the rain fall upon your crops.

That's magical thinking. That's a type of works-based salvation. You have to say the right words, you have to sprinkle the correct animal's blood, and then the god will do your bidding. You have to appease the deity. You have to pay him off. Etc.

For that reason alone, that should tell you there is something off about this theological idea about blood sacrifice in order to appease the deity in order for the crops to grow. It's very primitive, primal, and non-Grace realized. The Gospel is actually about Grace, not blood sacrifice.

The Gospel instead elevates God beyond the primitive works-based appeasement of God, opening the gates of heaven via Grace to all simply for the asking. That's what the symbol of Jesus death means. No more need for that. God's love is fully open to all. You don't have to sprinkle blood like you used to believe you did. You don't need to "plead the blood of Jesus" either, which is still just doing the same thing. It's still works-based.

Understanding more about the history of this interpretation of Jesus sacrifice as a legal arrangement with God, is something I would recommend looking into. When we have been told the meaning of the words on a page, which only took on that meaning over a thousand years of the early Christians used those words, our current reading is read through that later filter without any awareness of how it is colorizing how we think about what we read on the page. The meaning was colorized by that understanding through theological understandings.

There are many NT scholars today who recognize that no early Christian or Jew would understand those things in terms of a legal arrangement. Did you know that the Eastern church never has adapted the meaning of the sacrifice of Jesus in the way you have learned it? That alone should tell you that your view is an theological interpretation from Western history.

Here's a brief look at how it only first entered into Christian thought the way that you and I were taught about it today, beginning first in the 11th century AD. It was then with Calvin it took the full shape you think of when you read those passages in scripture through the colorized filter of Calvin's theology. Again, the Eastern church does not think of Jesus death this way, and never has. That alone should tell you somthing,

It was not until Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4–1109) wrote his famous work Cur Deus Homo (1098) that attention was focused on the theology of redemption with the aim of providing more exact definitions.[33][note 5] Anselm's view can best be understood from medieval feudalistic conceptions of authority, of sanctions and of reparation. Anselmian satisfaction contrasts with penal substitution in that Anselm sees the satisfaction (i.e. restitution) as an alternative to punishment.

According to Anselm, "The honour taken away must be repaid, or punishment must follow" (bk 1 ch 8), whereas penal substitution views the punishment as the means of satisfaction. Comparing what was due to God and what was due to the feudal Lord, he argued that what was due to God was honor. "'Honor' comprises the whole complex of service and worship which the whole creation, animate and inanimate, in heaven and earth, owes to the Creator. The honor of God is injured by the withdrawal of man's service which he is due to offer."[35] This failure constitutes a debt, weight or doom, for which man must make satisfaction, but which lies beyond his competence; only if a new man can be found who by perfect obedience can satisfy God's honour and by some work of supererogation can provide the means of paying the existing debt of his fellows, can God's original purpose be fulfilled. So Christ not only lives a sinless life, which is again his due, but also is willing to endure death for the sake of love.[note 6]

Penal substitution - Wikipedia
​

Examining how we think about these things doesn't get rid of the symbolic meaning of the events or the original teachings themselves. I just means you have to re-imagine them in such ways that are more compatible with reality as we understand it today. Sending people of other religions to hell, was easy to do when you didn't actually know any of them! When they were outsiders and foreigners to your tribe back in human history. But today, that is very hard to ignore others when we can actually get to know them as our friends and neighbors.

Changing ideas about God that makes God more accessible, is exactly what Christianity began as, breaking down those walls. Yet, man in his religion built those walls right back up again with his theologies about an exclusivist religion that you must convert to in order to become one of the chosen ones. Exactly what Jesus died for to do away with.

 

[Muffled]

Whether a religion is only truth or not is unknowable by mortal man. Humans have limited insight and cannot know absolute truth, which is necessary to know if a religion is the only truth. So your question is unanswerable.

I believe to have absolute truth the requirement is omniscience and only God has that. I have God but He doesn't tell me everything. I don't think my mind could handle it.

 

[Muffled]

What about me then?
Will I be "alright" ?

I believe that Jesus' words are the truth .. but I do not believe in creeds and dogma, that are voted in by Bishops, as necessarily being the truth.

I believe that a belief that His words are true is a bit general. The question is do you believe what the words say?

 

[Muffled]

By following the truth it was more of a following the morals of the gospel thing than believing in Jesus and whom the Bible tells us He is and why He came to earth.

I believe following the morals is just warmed over judaism with a Christian name tag. For me it is having Jesus as Lord and Savior.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I believe that a belief that His words are true is a bit general. The question is do you believe what the words say?

Of course I do .. but I probably interpret them differently to you.

 

[Fool]

no religion is the only truth, but truth is found in them all

Do you agree og disagree?

Love can be found in all. Even if it's only love for self. God/Brahman is a narcissist

 

[dybmh]

OK, I'll bite. Point out to me a religious truth.

Not directed to me, but I've got one.

You are a finite being, but your life still has meaning. Your memory can be a blessing to those who come after you.

 

[Brian2]

I believe following the morals is just warmed over judaism with a Christian name tag. For me it is having Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Yes true.
If you follow the thread back you will see I was speaking about the truth that non Christians should follow and will be judged by. That imo is the morals that Jesus taught.

 

[Brian2]

For that reason alone, that should tell you there is something off about this theological idea about blood sacrifice in order to appease the deity in order for the crops to grow. It's very primitive, primal, and non-Grace realized. The Gospel is actually about Grace, not blood sacrifice.

God graciously sent His Son to take on Himself the wages for our sin, death and we get the eternal life that was taken from Jesus when He died.
I can't help it. Atonement is there in the OT and NT and so it is true. The death of Jesus is certainly more than an example of love and obedience for us to follow.
Jesus told us to remember His death and the reasons for it, we never get past that need for Jesus death.
The OT animal sacrifices for Passover and Sin among other things were pointing to Jesus and His death for our sin and Him being the Passover Lamb without blemish so we could avoid the angel of death through faith and the blood of the Lamb.
I just read the Bible to get my understanding of the gospel and death of Jesus. I know there are different explanations of the atonement, but they are of the atonement.

It is true that we have been redeemed and that is associated with the Passover and the Passover Lamb. Israel was redeemed from slavery in Egypt and we are redeemed from slavery to sin and it's ultimate effects.

It is no doubt a good thing to view the atonement in all the ways that the scriptures give us and that does give us a more full understanding of God.
People have said that Jesus did not come to start a religion and that Christianity is not a religion. It is Jesus living in and through us.

​

 

[Windwalker]

God graciously sent His Son to take on Himself the wages for our sin, death and we get the eternal life that was taken from Jesus when He died.

Before addressing the meaning of atonement and redemption in the Bible, and subsequently the meaning of Christ's death in regards to sin, I noted something you said here to take a quick look at. You said that the eternal life that was taken from Jesus when He died. Do you mean it the way you wrote that? That Jesus lost eternal life in death?

How do you view eternal Life? The same way you view mortal life, which has a beginning and an end, in a linear sense, except only that linear line extending forever and ever into tomorrow after tomorrow without end infinitely?

I do not see the meaning of eternal life to mean immortality, meaning who and what you are today as never getting older and dying. Rather eternal life is Life itself, which has no beginning nor end, exists outside to time, and within time, and is not measured by time the way we look at the length of one's lifetime.

It is that Formlessness, present in all that is, and it is Spirit. It is that which animates all life and all form. Everyone already has all that, and it cannot ever be lost or gained. But it can be denied and not realized in us. Gaining eternal life, really means that you now recognize and live within that Life that is the free gift of God through creation to all of us. Having that, and recognizing that are entirely different matters. Not recognizing that is what causes our suffering, and loss of love in life.

The only thing taken from Jesus when he died was his mortal form. It is not possible to destroy the Eternal.

I can't help it. Atonement is there in the OT and NT and so it is true.

Of course it is there in both the OT and NT, and it is true in the sense that they meant it. But is your understanding of that actually true? I don't believe thinking that God required a suggerate whipping boy to be tortured and his blood shed in order for Him to forgive us our sins, is at all what the meaning of atonement and redemption in the Bible actually means.

That view of God violates the very meaning of the words Grace and forgiveness. How is my outstanding debt to the bank "forgiven", if they required someone else pay it off for me in my stead? That's not actually forgiveness. That's not actually Grace. That's still demanding payment, not cancelling it. Does God require blood in order to Love? I never could grasp that. Jesus's death couldn't have been about a child blood sacrifice to a god. God isn't that kind of God, is He?

That's always been a rather unsettling view of what God is to me. That's what humans may think of God seen through the eyes of their own guilt, projecting themselves onto God wanting vengeance upon themselves for their sins in the ways they treat others and wish to punish them for their wrongs. But the life, the teachings, and the death of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus, was to show us the exact opposite of that. It was not about satisfying God's thirst for vengeance at all.

The death of Jesus is certainly more than an example of love and obedience for us to follow.

Indeed. But does our laying down our lives for others pay off their sin-debt to God, so God doesn't hold it against them anymore does it? I don't see that the example of Jesus' death carries that meaning in it in the first place. If it did, then how could that be an example to us? I think the sacrifice of Jesus represents something quite different than paying of sin-debt to God on our behalf so we don't have to.

The OT animal sacrifices for Passover and Sin among other things were pointing to Jesus and His death for our sin and Him being the Passover Lamb without blemish so we could avoid the angel of death through faith and the blood of the Lamb.

I know the reading of Anselm of Canterbury's penal substitution atonement theory can colorize how one reads that story of redemption through the filter of his 11th century theology, since it's how most of us were taught it as young Christians, but I don't believe that is how it should be read or understood. Again, does God really require blood in order to forgive? And if so, isn't that actually a form of payment, and not really forgiveness?

Sacrifices were not about substitutions. Kill this animal instead of me to appease the wrath of the angry gods. That's not how Paul would have understood it when he speaks of Jesus as a sacrifice. Sacrifice as the root word suggests, means to make sacred. It means to make something sacred by offering it to God. So Jesus death, was made sacred, or was a sacrifice, because it was a full offering to God. He made his death sacred as in an act of offering it service to God as an act of Love to the world.

It takes a bit to remove the patina of that colorization of Anselm of Canterbury's substitution atonement theory, but when you start to see Jesus death as an offering of God's love to humanity, the reconciliation, the atonement, was from God to man. It was not for God to forgive man, but for man to find his way to God.

It's not about the ticket you need to get into heaven. It's a manifestation of God's love to man, as an invitation into God. It's not blood to appease God's wrath. It's an act that removes the need for man to think he needs to appease God.

So the blood on the doors so the angel of death passing by, is to say from the Christian perspective, God has provided the way to escape the fate of the world's ways of force and violence and oppression of others, but following the ways of God. It's about identification. It's not about God needs blood shed by someone innocent in order to forgive you.

I just read the Bible to get my understanding of the gospel and death of Jesus.

You may have read it and seen that it seems to affirm what you've been taught, as "it's right there on the pages", but I highly doubt anyone having never even heard anything at all about Christianity reading it cold for the first time would just happened to come up with Anselm of Canterbury's theology from the 11th Century AD. He was the first in history to lay it out like that. It wasn't there prior to him.

It's difficult for people to understand how that when they read something, especially from the Bible, they will be drawing from previous information that they've picked up somewhere along the line, such as in popular movies, like the 10 Commandments, or some Christmas special, or some TV preacher, or some aunt or uncle, or parent, or preacher, or some other Christian. The Bible does not interpret itself. People interpret it. And we all interpret wearing a certain colorized set of glasses we read with.

It is true that we have been redeemed and that is associated with the Passover and the Passover Lamb. Israel was redeemed from slavery in Egypt and we are redeemed from slavery to sin and it's ultimate effects.

What does the word redemption mean to you? Did the Jews become the chosen ones, because of the Exodus and the lamb's blood, or were they the children of God in the story before hand? Beforehand is the correct answer. Redemption in that story does not mean being adopted by God. It means liberation.

Redemption as a metaphor in the Bible, and in Paul's writings, is not about forgiveness of sins. It is about being set free from bondage. So for instance, when Paul writes, "The redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Ro. 3:24-25), he is saying "the liberation that is in Christ Jesus". That is what redemption means. We are liberated through him. That is consistent with the Exodus story.

It is no doubt a good thing to view the atonement in all the ways that the scriptures give us and that does give us a more full understanding of God.

I would agree, and not having to see God as requiring a child blood sacrifice in order to forgive and love us, does in fact give us a much more full, and liberating understanding of God and God's Love. Wouldn't you agree?

People have said that Jesus did not come to start a religion and that Christianity is not a religion. It is Jesus living in and through us.

With this I agree.

 

[Brian2]

Before addressing the meaning of atonement and redemption in the Bible, and subsequently the meaning of Christ's death in regards to sin, I noted something you said here to take a quick look at. You said that the eternal life that was taken from Jesus when He died. Do you mean it the way you wrote that? That Jesus lost eternal life in death?

How do you view eternal Life? The same way you view mortal life, which has a beginning and an end, in a linear sense, except only that linear line extending forever and ever into tomorrow after tomorrow without end infinitely?

I do not see the meaning of eternal life to mean immortality, meaning who and what you are today as never getting older and dying. Rather eternal life is Life itself, which has no beginning nor end, exists outside to time, and within time, and is not measured by time the way we look at the length of one's lifetime.

It is that Formlessness, present in all that is, and it is Spirit. It is that which animates all life and all form. Everyone already has all that, and it cannot ever be lost or gained. But it can be denied and not realized in us. Gaining eternal life, really means that you now recognize and live within that Life that is the free gift of God through creation to all of us. Having that, and recognizing that are entirely different matters. Not recognizing that is what causes our suffering, and loss of love in life.

The only thing taken from Jesus when he died was his mortal form. It is not possible to destroy the Eternal.

I suppose I ended up saying what I did because of my association with the JWs and with them trying to balance the books with Jesus being only a perfect man and Adam being a perfect man, and so the redemption price was the same as what was lost. Jesus died for the sin of Adam and Jesus was the second Adam whose value is the same as the first Adam, and so we are purchased because we were in the first Adam and he has been purchases. Interesting concept but the redemption cost in the OT law is not always equivalent to what is being redeemed. It is up to the one who is demanding the price, to determine the price.
The JWs were saying that if Jesus is God then that messes up the balance, so I ended up showing that there does not have to be a balance and it can be balanced anyway,,,,,,,,,,,, but that is by the by.
But eternal life I am told is not just about the length of the life but is also about the quality of the life. It is life as it was meant to be, life in communion with God.
However we have not existed from eternity past.

Of course it is there in both the OT and NT, and it is true in the sense that they meant it. But is your understanding of that actually true? I don't believe thinking that God required a suggerate whipping boy to be tortured and his blood shed in order for Him to forgive us our sins, is at all what the meaning of atonement and redemption in the Bible actually means.

That view of God violates the very meaning of the words Grace and forgiveness. How is my outstanding debt to the bank "forgiven", if they required someone else pay it off for me in my stead? That's not actually forgiveness. That's not actually Grace. That's still demanding payment, not cancelling it. Does God require blood in order to Love? I never could grasp that. Jesus's death couldn't have been about a child blood sacrifice to a god. God isn't that kind of God, is He?

That's always been a rather unsettling view of what God is to me. That's what humans may think of God seen through the eyes of their own guilt, projecting themselves onto God wanting vengeance upon themselves for their sins in the ways they treat others and wish to punish them for their wrongs. But the life, the teachings, and the death of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus, was to show us the exact opposite of that. It was not about satisfying God's thirst for vengeance at all.

God's love is there from forever and He did not just start to love when Jesus was sacrificed. Actually when we were sinners God loved us and sent Jesus. And when it says that He sent Jesus we also should see Jesus as being God. So God decided to come to earth to show love and die in our place and to show the seriousness of sin and that it is not just a matter of waving of God's hand as if sin did not matter to Him and as if evil is OK. Sin is a matter of life and death.
And really no matter how we look at it we can't eliminate the fact that Jesus suffered a cruel and painful death.

Indeed. But does our laying down our lives for others pay off their sin-debt to God, so God doesn't hold it against them anymore does it? I don't see that the example of Jesus' death carries that meaning in it in the first place. If it did, then how could that be an example to us? I think the sacrifice of Jesus represents something quite different than paying of sin-debt to God on our behalf so we don't have to.

We actually can't pay the wages of sin, which is death. We needed someone to pay that for us. That had to be a sinless person or all they would be doing is paying what they themselves owed. Jesus did not earn death because He was sinless and so died unjustly and was given back that life.
Jesus is our propitiation, He died in our place.
But of course Jesus death is more. It shows us what love is and what humility amongst equals means and what obedience is (Phil 2)
1 John 3:16 By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

I know the reading of Anselm of Canterbury's penal substitution atonement theory can colorize how one reads that story of redemption through the filter of his 11th century theology, since it's how most of us were taught it as young Christians, but I don't believe that is how it should be read or understood. Again, does God really require blood in order to forgive? And if so, isn't that actually a form of payment, and not really forgiveness?

Sacrifices were not about substitutions. Kill this animal instead of me to appease the wrath of the angry gods. That's not how Paul would have understood it when he speaks of Jesus as a sacrifice. Sacrifice as the root word suggests, means to make sacred. It means to make something sacred by offering it to God. So Jesus death, was made sacred, or was a sacrifice, because it was a full offering to God. He made his death sacred as in an act of offering it service to God as an act of Love to the world.

It takes a bit to remove the patina of that colorization of Anselm of Canterbury's substitution atonement theory, but when you start to see Jesus death as an offering of God's love to humanity, the reconciliation, the atonement, was from God to man. It was not for God to forgive man, but for man to find his way to God.

It's not about the ticket you need to get into heaven. It's a manifestation of God's love to man, as an invitation into God. It's not blood to appease God's wrath. It's an act that removes the need for man to think he needs to appease God.

So the blood on the doors so the angel of death passing by, is to say from the Christian perspective, God has provided the way to escape the fate of the world's ways of force and violence and oppression of others, but following the ways of God. It's about identification. It's not about God needs blood shed by someone innocent in order to forgive you.

I would say it is a form of payment, payment of what we owed, but not by us. God has done it all, He has paid it for us and He does not even force us to accept it.
Heb 9:22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
But yes it does show God's love for us and certainly would help people find that love and forgiveness in Jesus, esp when they are feeling like sinners who deserve punishment of some sort. It shows us that we don't need to appease God, God has done it all and offers forgiveness free of charge.
I don't think we can leave out one understanding and replace it with another. All of it is true even if we don't necessarily understand why or the need.

You may have read it and seen that it seems to affirm what you've been taught, as "it's right there on the pages", but I highly doubt anyone having never even heard anything at all about Christianity reading it cold for the first time would just happened to come up with Anselm of Canterbury's theology from the 11th Century AD. He was the first in history to lay it out like that. It wasn't there prior to him.

It's difficult for people to understand how that when they read something, especially from the Bible, they will be drawing from previous information that they've picked up somewhere along the line, such as in popular movies, like the 10 Commandments, or some Christmas special, or some TV preacher, or some aunt or uncle, or parent, or preacher, or some other Christian. The Bible does not interpret itself. People interpret it. And we all interpret wearing a certain colorized set of glasses we read with.

My understanding may be coloured but I certainly see it in the pages of the Bible.

What does the word redemption mean to you? Did the Jews become the chosen ones, because of the Exodus and the lamb's blood, or were they the children of God in the story before hand? Beforehand is the correct answer. Redemption in that story does not mean being adopted by God. It means liberation.

Redemption as a metaphor in the Bible, and in Paul's writings, is not about forgiveness of sins. It is about being set free from bondage. So for instance, when Paul writes, "The redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Ro. 3:24-25), he is saying "the liberation that is in Christ Jesus". That is what redemption means. We are liberated through him. That is consistent with the Exodus story.

True.

I would agree, and not having to see God as requiring a child blood sacrifice in order to forgive and love us, does in fact give us a much more full, and liberating understanding of God and God's Love. Wouldn't you agree?

I would say that God's willingness to do the whole thing for us, including the blood sacrifice, shows God's love for us and does not show Him to require a sacrifice for nothing, which you are suggesting.
Scripture does not say that God wants a child blood sacrifice, but scripture does point to spilling of blood being part of the official forgiving process.(Heb 9:22)

 

[muhammad_isa]

But eternal life I am told is not just about the length of the life but is also about the quality of the life. It is life as it was meant to be, life in communion with God.
However we have not existed from eternity past.

Well you were "told" incorrectly..
Jesus clearly speaks about people being eternally in heaven or hell.
..and how do you know where your soul originated?
Have you some scripture that says your soul was "created out of thin air"?

So God decided to come to earth to show love and die in our place and to show the seriousness of sin..

Why didn't God decide to pretend to be a man for the thousands of years before Jesus was sent, when he sent prophets in the OT, for example?

God has done it all, He has paid it for us..

..what about John the Baptist .. he had is head cut off .. why isn't he God, and "died for our sins" in the way you claim that Jesus did?

..it does show God's love for us..

What .. a son of God being killed by hypocrites shows that God loves us?
Weird..