What do you object to regarding Christianity and Jesus?

[Copper Scroll]

My presupposition is that people DO NOT have the capacity to meet God's standard of righteousness. Wasn't that why God "had" to provide the sacrifice of Jesus? Because NO ONE can be perfectly righteous?

But all of that implies that God made us flawed and therefore made it so that we could not obey Him. That's a false impression. We can obey Him, but we fail to--consistently and habitually. So mercifully God made a way for us to be with Him anyway.

[emeraldgirl]

But all of that implies that God made us flawed and therefore made it so that we could not obey Him. That's a false impression. We can obey Him, but we fail to--consistently and habitually. So mercifully God made a way for us to be with Him anyway.

No...God made us with the capacity to choose. But there are two possibilities inherent in the capacity to choose: Good or Evil. Right or Wrong. God did not make us unable to choose wrong. As the rationale goes, Love must be freely chosen or it isn't really love. But, He also (supposedly) cannot tolerate ANY wrong choice on our part; he can't abide us without 100% righteousness. We're not talking about how we fail to obey consistently and habitually - all it takes is ONE failure. Adam and Eve (so the story goes) were rejected from ONE failure. Anything else after that was just gravy. And since I don't know anyone who has been righteous their whole lives in every instance, I'm assuming it is pretty much an impossibility.

And again, I ask, why does God "need" to make some other way for us to be with Him? Why is it merciful that he brought Jesus to suffer and die to "pay" for the sins of others? If my daughter lied to me and I caught her at it, would it be merciful for me to go beat my son, so he could pay for her sin (even if he was willing)? Why does anyone have to "pay" at all? What I want is to restore the relationship! That isn't dependant on someone needing to have it taken outta' their hide!

[EricH]

My presupposition is that people DO NOT have the capacity to meet God's standard of righteousness. Wasn't that why God "had" to provide the sacrifice of Jesus? Because NO ONE can be perfectly righteous?

But all of that implies that God made us flawed and therefore made it so that we could not obey Him. That's a false impression. We can obey Him, but we fail to--consistently and habitually. So mercifully God made a way for us to be with Him anyway.

This is probably 2 sides of the same coin. God in fact did not make us flawed. In that CS is correct. He did however create us with the ability to choose freely. When man made the choice to mistrust God and go his own way, man lost this freedom. Man lost the ability in his own strength to obey God. That is because they lost their connection to God and died spiritually. Man's good deeds are now accomplished in the context of spiritual death. It is only by reestablishing Spiritual life, that man's deeds take on the orginal meaning that God had for them.

In other words, without God it is certainly possible for people to do good things. But because people are Spiritually dead, the quality of those deeds is limited in terms of their significance. People sense this and think by improving the quality or quantity of those deeds that they will reconnect to the Spritual life they are lacking. But this approach is ultimately self-defeating. That is because we as humans are dead, so anything we do will be "flavored" by that death.

In order to fix the problem, we first have to receive Spiritual life. We do that through coming to Jesus who secured that life for us. Once we have received this life, we gain the ability to have the things we do have eternal significance.

[Floatingaxe]

It is so hard to explain just how holy God is! He is so far above, and so perfect. He is Love, He is Mercy, He is Righteousness! He cannot tolerate anything less than holy in His presence. Nor should He.

The only way to stand and live in His presence is to be as holy as He. How do we become holy? By accepting the way He made for us. The way for us is easy. Accept His Son, Jesus and His choice to give up His life for you. That is love right there.

By accepting God's way, I can be made whole, and deemed righteous, and now I can stand in His presence! Not only that, I am now His daughter! I am a King's Kid, amen. With that, I am now an heir, and I can receive all the benefits of the Kingdom. Eternal life is a biggie. Peace and Joy are also! Now also, I can love others like He does! Yay! And, when I fail, I can ask Him to forgive me--and He always does!

Just know that God is far above what we can ever imagine, but at the same time, he wants to have an intimate, Father-Child relationship with us, which brings Him out of that "far above" concept, into the here and now! That can only be done through His son, Jesus.

Blessings!

[emeraldgirl]

QUOTE(emeraldgirl @ Nov 8 2006, 08:03 PM)

QUOTE

We may not be able to agree with each other on whether or not you were ever really a Christian (although I think the parable of the sower explains you) but we agree and KNOW that the only way is through Jesus. We know that we have eternal life in Him. We know what happens because our Lord told us and it is confirmed through the Holy Spirit. Its ironic that those who don

[Copper Scroll]

No...God made us with the capacity to choose. But there are two possibilities inherent in the capacity to choose: Good or Evil. Right or Wrong.

That's not really true. There are infinite possibilities--some are right and some are wrong. We can choose the right ones and sometimes we do. Often we don't. Does that mean we can't? I don't believe so.

And again, I ask, why does God "need" to make some other way for us to be with Him? Why is it merciful that he brought Jesus to suffer and die to "pay" for the sins of others?

I answered this already--at least my understanding of it. In sharing the consequence of our sin (death), Jesus shares the reward of being without sin (life).

[EricH]

And again, I ask, why does God "need" to make some other way for us to be with Him? Why is it merciful that he brought Jesus to suffer and die to "pay" for the sins of others? If my daughter lied to me and I caught her at it, would it be merciful for me to go beat my son, so he could pay for her sin (even if he was willing)? Why does anyone have to "pay" at all? What I want is to restore the relationship! That isn't dependant on someone needing to have it taken outta' their hide!

It is merciful because God took the punishment on himself.

[emeraldgirl]

No...God made us with the capacity to choose. But there are two possibilities inherent in the capacity to choose: Good or Evil. Right or Wrong.

That's not really true. There are infinite possibilities--some are right and some are wrong. We can choose the right ones and sometimes we do. Often we don't. Does that mean we can't? I don't believe so.

Then you don't believe in Depravity. Although neither do I, but for Christians, it's part of doctrine. So, is that just a place where you part company with common Christian doctrine?

But, I would stand corrected...yes, there are many choices, not just two, but two essential categories - good and evil.

[Copper Scroll]

Then you don't believe in Depravity. Although neither do I, but for Christians, it's part of doctrine. So, is that just a place where you part company with common Christian doctrine?

Common Christian doctrine is the belief that Jesus died so that we could live.

I believe that we humans sin. Whatever you, I, or any Christian, or non-Christian, or atheist thinks is to blame for it--sinning is what we do and, in a sense, it is how we are. Whether you want to blame our biological nature or our difficult circumstances, the act of sinning is ours so the consequences for sinning too is ours--and that is death.

So that we could live, God took this consequence on for Himself. He shared our biological nature and our difficult circumstances--and remained without sin. So is our biological nature really to blame? Is our difficult circumstances really to blame for our sin? No, we are to blame for our sin--so we deserve the consequence for it. Thank God that He intervened.

[ayin jade]

I think it's the epitomy of arrogance to say you "know" for sure that God exists and that nothing will convince you otherwise because of a subjective emotional experience that you are certain is the holy spirit. You're totally closed-minded to the possibility that it's just that, an emotional response to the desire to believe.

Just saying "I know! I know!" isn't a good enough argument, you need to demonstrate how it's different from a child knowing his/her invisible friend is real or every follower of every other religion KNOWING their god or gods are real.

Yet you have the arrogance to claim that you know you know that there is no way that the Lord dwells within us. It is with arrogance that you claim He is nothing more than an emotional subjective experience when He has shown Himself to be much more than that.