"unbeliever" seeking clarity on the plan

[Guest Searchy]

I am attempting to accurately understand Christianity or at least the general theme of the basics of Christianity. Is this description bascially correct?

Thanks,

Searchy

PS please excuse my approach to this sacred subject

Some general assumptions about the God of the Bible

All knowing, all powerful and just.

The basis of the future need for humans to receive complete salvation in the Old Testament

God creates humans a gives them a law and explains the consequence of breaking that law.

Humans break the law and are cursed along with their offspring who are also cursed once they are born.

God in turn gives humans more laws to follow to at least temporarily alleviate some consequences of their cursed status.

This partial remission plan is not enough to provide humans with a way to enjoy the full benefits of salvation, forgiveness and wholeness from God.

The basic premise behind the New Testament

[apothanein kerdos]

Some general assumptions about the God of the Bible

All knowing, all powerful and just.

This is true, but we must not also forget the loving characteriistic, as it will play an important part in explaining much of the post.

The basis of the future need for humans to receive complete salvation in the Old Testament

God creates humans a gives them a law and explains the consequence of breaking that law.

Here's one that will oonfuse you even more

God created humans, gave them the rule not to eat of the tree, with full knowledge that they would. In essense, God gave them a rule knowing they would break it, He created them knowing they would run away from Him.

Some Christians would propose that God made man for us to worship Him, however this doesn't work. He already had the angels that worshiped Him, so why man? The simple fact is He wanted to demonstrate His love, and in return, be loved by His creation. To truly do this He had to allow a chioce. This means He had to make a commnd and then allow Adam and Eve to break it, which brought a choice into the world. Prior to the choice there was absolute good and no alternative, after the choice there was absolute good and absolute evil. This carried into today. God wants us to choose to love Him and obey Him, and subsequently demonstrate our love. For God, sacrifice is the way of showing love. Or it is better to say having faith and believing, and hten showing sacrifice is the way God accepts love. By choosing to do good we sometimes must sacrifice

God in turn gives humans more laws to follow to at least temporarily alleviate some consequences of their cursed status.

This partial remission plan is not enough to provide humans with a way to enjoy the full benefits of salvation, forgiveness and wholeness from God.

The laws were to make them holy and seperate. God knew it was impossible to follow all 600+ of the commandments. Salvation during this time, however, was relatively similar. One had faith that God would send the Messiah and from this faith developed works that pleased God (God used the faith to produce good works within them). The commandments were to be following to show that one was seperate from the rest of the world. It is my belief that they did not play a part of the salvation in one who held faith, however one that held faith would do his best to obtain all of these laws. Many of these laws were rendered no more when Christ came back, however the concepts of most of the law remained and still does remain the same.

For God to be able to completely forgive humans and allow them to return to a state of divine grace an innocent human must first be beaten then crucified. In turn the murder of this human and the followers

[Guest NewPilgrim]

While Jew gave a very good, eloquent answer, I'll attempt to give a simplified, but equally sufficient answer.

Under Mosaic Law (Old Testament) Because sin (rebelling against God) is such a serious offence and worthy of death, God demands the shedding of blood as an atonement, payment for sins. Break the law, sacrifice an animal. This sacrifice was not for God's benefit, but to demonstrate to the sinner that sin is a terrible terrible and very serious matter and that making a sacrifice from your own belongings, more specifically the best of your own livestock, is an earnest show of an apology. It is a messy, bloody and woeful business and hopefully an effective deterrent from sin, it is catered not for HIS needs, but for OUR understanding. God doesnt need blood, but he needs us to realise what a terrible thing sin is.

Ultimately it is Faith in God which justifies us, people such as Abraham and Moses showed their earnest by making blood sacrifices but more importantly believed in what they were doing and believed in God and they had a living working relationship with him, through prayer and action.

New Testament sacrifice replaces Old testament sacrifice because the Jews had failed the Law of Moses terribly, they had twisted their laws and their athority and sacrifice had lost its meaning and its faithfulness. So in order to reconcile the situation God ordained that one single sacrifice would be enough. But an animal sacrifice wouldnt do because, as I have stated, animal sacrifice had lost its meaning in Jewish tradtion and there is no longer any great toil in taking a lamb from the flock and killing it. By being born of a woman and walking the earth as a Man - Jesus - our God demonstrated that it IS possible to live according to the law and not break it, to lead a sinless life, without any special powers or any special advantage, only living completely in faith and obedience to God. (The miracles that Jesus performed he did entirely through faith in God the Father and through the authority of God the Father; Moses did the same, Elijah did the same, Elisha did the same and Jesus says we can do the same.) But only HE has ever achieved a sinless life and only he ever will. Jesus willing death on the cross was an offering to God the Father as a life that was completely sin free and therefore righteous. Jesus presented himself as a sacrifice in our place, just as we offered lambs and cattle in our place. For that sacrifice to be effective and acceptable to God, we have to have faith in it, to believe in God and to believe that Jesus sacrifice is the sufficient payment for our sins. Just as sacrifice without faith had no meaning in the Old Testament so it is with the sacrifice of Jesus, which is why you must believe in Him to be saved.

[Leonard]

How about very briefly, a two sentence summary to go on:

1. Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

2. That resurrection somehow means my salvation.

You will see the first statement is referent to historicity, whereas only the second statement is a 'faith statement.' You will also appreciate that for there to be any possibility of the second statement being true, the first (historical) statement MUST be true.

[ayin jade]

For God to be able to completely forgive humans and allow them to return to a state of divine grace an innocent human must first be beaten then crucified.  In turn the murder of this human and the followers

[Atalyah]

God creates humans a gives them a law and explains the consequence of breaking that law.

yes

Humans break the law and are cursed along with their offspring who are also cursed once they are born.

yes

God in turn gives humans more laws to follow to at least temporarily alleviate some consequences of their cursed status.

No. It wasn't to alleviate the consequence of their cursed status. Among other things, the Mosaic laws showed man how degraded they were, and how much in need they were of God's mercy to save them.

This partial remission plan is not enough to provide humans with a way to enjoy the full benefits of salvation, forgiveness and wholeness from God.

Incorrect. It was not a partial remission plan. This is an entirely wrong view of the Law.

The basic premise behind the New Testament

[eric]

The story of creation is a very complex one, because it's meanto to be I think.

Super jew said,

God created humans, gave them the rule not to eat of the tree, with full knowledge that they would. In essense, God gave them a rule knowing they would break it, He created them knowing they would run away from Him.

Some Christians would propose that God made man for us to worship Him, however this doesn't work. He already had the angels that worshiped Him, so why man? The simple fact is He wanted to demonstrate His love, and in return, be loved by His creation

Well, yes that's fair enough, but I find it hard to imagine that God would create angels in the first place, if He knew that a third of them would rebel. They were created to be messengers, according the word, so why would they need a free will. So if they were created to be messengers, God must have had man in mind or who would these messengers convey His message to.

And I find it hard to believe that God knew that Adam would rebel or He wouldn't have told Noah he wished He had never started and was going to wipe the slate and drown everybody and start over again, in a manner of speaking.

I will concede though, that God suspected that man might fall, seeing that the angels did, but He was foresighted enough to Have trump card to play, in that if man did fall he could be reconciled back to Him, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, as the book of John tells us that Jesus was there at the beginning. What better way was there of God demonstrating His love for us fallen beings. I have to go now, but would pleased to start a new thread about it so as not to hijack the OP.

eric.

[apothanein kerdos]

He didn't regret making man, the Hebrew word play said that creating man grieved Him...however it is meant to be understood as man's sin grieved God. He knew man would sin (for Him to not would mean that He doesn't know the future), but this didn't make it any easier with His foreknowledge.

[Ovedya]

Jesus isn't a victim.

[eric]

Jesus isn't a victim. 

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Did someone say He was?