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Why Was Jesus Necessary?

Milton Platt

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
1robin said:
You have a few good questions here but you ought to be satisfied with the straightforward answers I can provide in response. Please read this carefully as few questions like yours come with solutions this comprehensive and elegant. No other faith even comes close. For example Allah simply hand waves some of our sins away based on his fickle preferences. Christianity has a much more just, sufficient, and comprehensive solution to sin.

1. God (being perfectly just) cannot let us into heaven with a whole list of sins (and the unimaginable costs they produced) accredited to our account. God could not let imperfect creatures into heaven because he would just be turning his heaven into the same train wreck we have made out of this life.
2. God can only let perfect people into his heaven but we are not perfect so how can God accomplish all this?
3. God must let sinners in to ruin heaven or somehow make us into perfect people.
4. God is both just and loving so whatever he does must satisfy both attributes.
5. His sense of justice means that sins must be punished, his loving nature means he needs to remedy this situation so that imperfect people may enter heaven. This is why Christ's roll was necessary.

CRIST'S NECESSITY AND SUBSTATUTIONARY ATONEMENT.

A. We have absolutely nothing which can make up for the sins we committed and the damage they caused. God is the only one who can make that right but sins must be punished or God is no longer just. So God needs to produce a substitute for our selves who will pay for our sins.
B. So God provided a sacrificial lamp (to which his earlier animal sacrifices hinted would occur in the future). Christ was that willing sacrifice.
C. While on the cross all of God's justice was poured out on Christ (keep in mind Christ volunteered to do this). Christ paid the entire price to satisfy God's justice and wrath so we would not have to. What was this wrath that Christ endured? The suffering on the cross and his complete separation from God (the father). IOW he endured the hell our sins deserved.
D. The beauty of God's provision was that God paid the price our sins deserve and for those that believe his perfect (sinless) record was transferred to us so that we can enter heaven with a sinless record deserving of an eternity in heaven.
E. So for believers our sin was accredited to Christ and his righteousness was accredited to Christ.
F. Now you might say Christ got screwed in this deal but because he had no record of any sins actually committed by him to once he paid the price he volunteered to undergo he could just march right back into God's presence due to the lack of any sin he actually committed.

Despite my poor efforts to explain this (and the fact I must be brief) surely you can still see the perfectly elegant provision God supplied to the most substantial problem in human history.

A few things to keep in mind as you review the above.

* Substitutionary atonement is where ones debt is placed on another and what one earned is transferred to another.
* What Christ endured in our place is not physical death it is (second death) spiritual death (being severed from God and everything his existence comes with).
* Christ chose this roll he was not required to do so.
* No greater form of love exists that self sacrifice. We build museums and give metal to humans who sacrificed a lot less for a much smaller gain.

I can't do this unique concept full justice even if I sat here typing for years so I will have to stop somewhere. Even if you have no spiritual faith surely you can see how harmonious, mystifying, and elegant God's solution to man's problem actually was. No other faith has anything so mystically beautiful and substitutionary atonement.
Click to expand...

Man only had said "problem" because god designed him to have the problem and then made sure he acted upon it.
 
King Phenomenon

King Phenomenon

Well-Known Member
Skwim said:
In the new testament we have a god who wanted to forgive all mankind of its sins. Fine, but then why didn't he just forgive them? Why was it necessary to have a human sacrifice? To have his son tortured and executed In order for the sins of all mankind to be absolved?

Some say god wanted each individual to prove themselves worthy of such forgiveness. Okay, then why didn't he make the playing field level, where each and every person on earth had an equal chance? Why were only some apprised of god's requirement?---many, many never having got or getting the message. And not everyone is mentally capable of grasping the truth of god's test, yet they, along with the ignorant, have been left out of god's forgiveness. Others, such as myself, god has simply failed to convince; and whose fault is that; a puny mortal mind besting the best efforts of god? AND, as an omniscient being, god would be well aware of all these imminent failures. He knew that persons X, Y, and Z would never be on the receiving end of his forgiveness, but instead end up in hell or wherever. So, why even allow such poor unfortunate souls be born? Truthfully, as the story is laid out, god comes off as quite the heartless monster

So, nope, the notion of proving oneself worthy just doesn't wash, at least not under the auspices of an all-loving and benevolent god, which puts us right back at square one. Why did god even bother with Jesus?


Ideas?


.
Click to expand...
HE is necessary to establish heaven and earth
 
King Phenomenon

King Phenomenon

Well-Known Member
Skwim said:
In the new testament we have a god who wanted to forgive all mankind of its sins. Fine, but then why didn't he just forgive them? Why was it necessary to have a human sacrifice? To have his son tortured and executed In order for the sins of all mankind to be absolved?

Some say god wanted each individual to prove themselves worthy of such forgiveness. Okay, then why didn't he make the playing field level, where each and every person on earth had an equal chance? Why were only some apprised of god's requirement?---many, many never having got or getting the message. And not everyone is mentally capable of grasping the truth of god's test, yet they, along with the ignorant, have been left out of god's forgiveness. Others, such as myself, god has simply failed to convince; and whose fault is that; a puny mortal mind besting the best efforts of god? AND, as an omniscient being, god would be well aware of all these imminent failures. He knew that persons X, Y, and Z would never be on the receiving end of his forgiveness, but instead end up in hell or wherever. So, why even allow such poor unfortunate souls be born? Truthfully, as the story is laid out, god comes off as quite the heartless monster

So, nope, the notion of proving oneself worthy just doesn't wash, at least not under the auspices of an all-loving and benevolent god, which puts us right back at square one. Why did god even bother with Jesus?


Ideas?


.
Click to expand...
I don't read it as a human sacrifice I read between the lines and take it as a normal healthy death
 
IndigoChild5559

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Skwim said:
Fine, but as I just pointed out to LuisDantas, it's hardly a fair-minded and just requirement:

God certainly didn't he make the playing field level where each and every person on earth had an equal chance. Why were only some apprised of god's requirement?---many, many never having gotten or are getting the message. And not everyone is mentally capable of grasping the truth and significance of god's test, yet they, along with the ignorant, have been left out of god's forgiveness. Others, such as myself, god has simply failed to convince. And whose fault is that; a puny mortal mind besting the best efforts of god? AND, as an omniscient being, god would be well aware of all these imminent failures. He knew that persons X, Y, and Z would never be on the receiving end of his forgiveness, but instead end up in hell or wherever. So, why even allow such poor unfortunate souls be born? Truthfully, as the story is laid out, god comes off as quite the heartless monster."
​
So no more putting the blame on we mortals when god has chosen to make sure some would never qualify, and even knows who these individuals are before they're ever born.

"Dear IndigoChild5559,

Sorry to inform you, but your soon to be born grandchild will eventually end up in Hell no matter what you wish or do.


(signed)
Your compassionate, but heartless monster of a diety,

God"​

.
Click to expand...
I don't think you have to be a member of any particular religion to know that you need to go to those you have harmed, and try to right the wrongs you have done. Every preschooler is taught to say "I'm sorry."
 
IndigoChild5559

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Bob the Unbeliever said:
Why? I can easily choose to forgive someone, whether they even realize it or not. That makes me far more powerful and capable than this god you imagine is.

And that ought to be impossible! Yet... here we are... I can forgive when this god of yours is incapable...



I expect superior workmanship from anything called "God"-- and yours?

Isn't even as capable as a mere human...
Click to expand...
You are not talking about the same level of forgiveness that I'm talking about.

1. There are slights -- offenses that do not rise to the level of major betrayals. It is fine to "forgive" these without the necessity of full reconciliation of the sort that I'm describing. You can "let it slide."

2. In the case of true betrayals, there is an alternative to full reconciliation. I call it "Letting it go." It is the letting go of the need for justice, letting go of the hurt and anger so that the offense no longer hurts you. I suspect this is what you are referring to. This is a good form of forgiveness. However, it falls short of the RECONCILIATION that I was referring to.

3. True Reconciliation, meaning that you end up with your relationship restored to where it was prior to the major betrayal, DOES require repentance, whether it is with God or with a person.
 
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