Jesus

[cardslinger61]

Jesus was ostensibly sacrificed for the forgiveness of sins.
Why could not God just forgive sins without having Jesus
go through torture and death to somehow enable God to
forgive sins?[/b]

[marco]

This is the sin Adam committed in the garden.

I was told that Matthew was speaking figuratively when talking about walking corpses. There is far more reason to suppose Adam is figurative, as is his garden and his sin. So Jesus died for some figure of speech.... maybe personification of just a simple simile.

This is what Paul points out when he says, "not me, but Christ in me". He has lost his identity in Christ. He has undergone what psychiatrists refer to as a dissociative disorder.

Paul is probably most obnoxious when he's wearing piety. But I agree that he probably did suffer from some psychological ailment.

[myth-one.com]

Jesus was ostensibly sacrificed for the forgiveness of sins.
Why could not God just forgive sins without having Jesus
go through torture and death to somehow enable God to
forgive sins?

God cannot lie:

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

God told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the tree of knowledge, they would die.

So if they did not die after disobeying that first commandment of God, then God would have lied.

Thus, God could not simply let it go.

Jesus provided mankind a path to everlasting life even though we sin.

So sin is no longer a consideration in one gaining everlasting life.

Everlasting life is now a gift of God through Jesus Christ.

We do not have to be forgiven. All we have to do is accept the free gift.

[brianbbs67]

Christ's sacrifice was nesscessary to nullify the "wedding" contract with Israel. God divorced them in the OT. They were OOC, out of Covenant because of adultery, seeking after other gods. The only way marriage ends is one of the 2 partners dies. Jesus represented God and he died. This left the Goyim, Israel, able to be married again. If they chose so.

[onewithhim]

Well, He could have, but do do that, He would have had to compromise His own justice.

Exactly.

God had within himself for eternity his code of justice. He let us know his principles when he gave Moses the Law (over 600 of them). One such principle was "an eye for an eye...[etc.]" For mankind to get back into a good relationship with Jehovah, the scales of justice would have to be balanced out. The Apostle Paul explains it:

"Through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world and [thus] death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned....So, then, as through one trespass [Adam's rebellion} the result to men of all sorts was condemnation, so too through one act of justification [Jesus sacrificing his human life] the result to men of all sorts is their being declared righteous for life. For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were made sinners, so also through the OBEDIENCE of the one person many will be made righteous." (Romans 5:12,18-19)

The scales of justice were balanced.

[onewithhim]

What is meant by God's own justice?

Please see post # 14.

[marco]

God cannot lie:

I bet he could if he tried. In any case, God pronounced his creation "good" only to discover it was bad when it disobeyed. Tsk tsk.

Jesus provided mankind a path to everlasting life even though we sin.

Did Jesus go into the Amazon rainforest and tell mankind there that he'd made a path close to Jerusalem?

So sin is no longer a consideration in one gaining everlasting life.

I'm sure in some dimension this makes sense. Sin is the life-blood of religion.

We do not have to be forgiven. All we have to do is accept the free gift.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, they say. A carpenter offering free passes to paradise might also be dubious.

[marco]

"Through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world and [thus] death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned....

This confounds every idea of justice that we have. Because John killed somebody, we are not entitled to blame his unborn grandson. If in some divine doman this is the case, then we can stop defining justice in the normal way. We might as well call justice cheating, theft or oppression.

Adam is a poetic name (it means man in Turkish) attached to one of many Neanderthals. The poetic scenario involving this grunting caveman is fiction. It is a tale that explains how we started to tell lies or shave our beards or gather mushrooms.

It is light years away from the preacher who conceived a desire to preach when he was 30.

For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were made sinners, so also through the OBEDIENCE of the one person many will be made righteous." (Romans 5:12,18-19)

The scales of justice were balanced.

Paul is playing with chiasmus. (Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven). Silver expressions dignify the author, but it is wrong to deduce their attractiveness is truth.
Paul is being inventive, and he sounds smart.... as well he knows.

[shnarkle]

I was told that Matthew was speaking figuratively when talking about walking corpses. There is far more reason to suppose Adam is figurative, as is his garden and his sin. So Jesus died for some figure of speech.... maybe personification of just a simple simile.

Figurative speech refers to some literal fact, a fact that can't usually be emphasized literally. Adam may just be a figure standing in for all of humanity. He represents the human condition. His story is the story of people who began to see themselves differently, and consequently took responsibility for their actions rather than running around like a bunch of naked shameless idiots. So no, Jesus isn't dying for a figure of speech.

[onewithhim]

"Through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world and [thus] death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned....

This confounds every idea of justice that we have. Because John killed somebody, we are not entitled to blame his unborn grandson. If in some divine doman this is the case, then we can stop defining justice in the normal way. We might as well call justice cheating, theft or oppression.

Adam is a poetic name (it means man in Turkish) attached to one of many Neanderthals. The poetic scenario involving this grunting caveman is fiction. It is a tale that explains how we started to tell lies or shave our beards or gather mushrooms.

It is light years away from the preacher who conceived a desire to preach when he was 30.

For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were made sinners, so also through the OBEDIENCE of the one person many will be made righteous." (Romans 5:12,18-19)

The scales of justice were balanced.

Paul is playing with chiasmus. (Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven). Silver expressions dignify the author, but it is wrong to deduce their attractiveness is truth.
Paul is being inventive, and he sounds smart.... as well he knows.

OK, marco, what you're saying shows quite definitively that you regard the Bible as moronic, unreasonable, and asinine. How are we, who respect the Bible, to discuss much of anything with you? (I am really somewhat surprised that you referred to Adam as "a grunting cave man." There is no proof anywhere that early man was a grunting cave man.)

The Bible makes clear, from Genesis to Revelation that the whole issue that is focused on there is mankind's reconciliation to God after the first humans decided to make a life for themselves without God. Jehovah's own rules included scales of justice to be balanced. Who are we to question His rules? If one man selfishly does something bad, another man can counter-balance that deed by doing the opposite of what that man did. The first human turned away from God, lost his perfection, and brought trouble into his household, and eventually the world. This could not be avoided because Adam's imperfect dying body could not sire prefect, everlastingly viable children.

So mankind is dying. Who can guarantee that we can regain what was intended for us in the beginning, when humans were created, but that our first biological father ruined for us? (How could he father children that would live forever when he himself was dying?) Jehovah is the One who will bring dead people back to life, so why does anyone throw back in His face that His sense of justice is foolish? He can make whatever rules He wants. And if the results are, in the end, fine and beautiful, why kick at the goads?

Adam passed his imperfection and resulting death on to his children. He is like the owner of a factory that shuts it down and causes his workers to have no jobs, no income, and a miserable life. Jesus is like the good man who bought the company and gave the workers their jobs back.

[shnarkle]

Christ's sacrifice was nesscessary to nullify the "wedding" contract with Israel. God divorced them in the OT. They were OOC, out of Covenant because of adultery, seeking after other gods. The only way marriage ends is one of the 2 partners dies. Jesus represented God and he died. This left the Goyim, Israel, able to be married again. If they chose so.

I'm not following, and here's the reason why:

And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

Is there any reason to arbitrarily assume that those who are redeemed from transgressions under the first testament are not those who might receive the promise of eternal inheritance? Why wouldn't this be the case? What makes people think that within this sentence, the author is somehow implicitly speaking about someone else?

16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.
18 Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood.

Is the author equating the death of the testator with the dedication? If so, then what's the point of Christ's death? If not, then how could it have been valid all those years? More importantly, how is it that Christ's death validates the old testament, but not the new? There is no such thing as two last will and testaments that can be valid and binding at the same time. See the problem?

19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,
20 Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.
21 Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.
22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

So we could assume that the blood shed at the dedication validates the old testament, but it is Christ's sacrifice that covers the first testament.

It gets worse, perhaps I could say it gets better, depending on how one views it. Let's look again at what the author states:

he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament,

Look closely at the fact that it is only the transgressions that were under the first testament. Why doesn't he mention anything about forgiving sins under the second testament?

The old testament didn't prevent anyone from sinning, and the new testament authors point out that the new covenant doesn't have that problem. It isn't based upon Israel's ability to keep God's commandments, but instead it is based upon God's promise.