Is it logical to assume Jesus died on the cross for your sins?
This is a common belief amongst Christians, but a few questions arise...
what about the individuals that lived before Jesus' arrival on Earth?
if Jesus died for your sins, then whats the motivation to do good deeds in life?
why would God be unjust & punish (be it symbolic) ONE individual? ...a chosen individual?
did Jesus himself ever say this with his own mouth?
Perhaps the most pressing question is this. If the purpose of Jesus' mission was to die for the sins of mankind, then why did Jesus say:
'..I glorified you on earth, having completed the work that you gave me to do..' {John 17:4)
..before any crucifixion?Well if he did die for our sins (which isn't the case in history) then why are we all still sinning? Has anyone SEEN God? No, and do you believe in the way in which Jesus was born?
We can not save our selves. We are not perfect but we try to do the right thing. The Divine Grace of "God-given" is made possible only by Jesus Christ and none other. It is God's gift of salvation granted to sinners so that we wont have to suffer his wrath. If you are looking for physical evidence and not through the bible then. Yes you are at a cross road.
Has anyone seen god? I feel this statement is a bit ambiguous. Has anyone seen gravity? Have you see a Quark? Explain to me where Matter came from? Difficult questions to answer, but we know of them. Through repentance and reconciliation brings us you back.Spiritually I believe that we share a connection, communion, with god.
The bible clear states in the manner in which Jesus was born, I can't pick and choose what I like and don't like out of the book.
I think you are forgetting that Jesus is god. Hence he sacrificed himself to himself to pay for the sins that he created beings to commit since he is all knowing he knew his creations would sin and since he is all powerful he must've done it on purpose.
your answer needs to be worded differently.
God gave mankind the ability to make choices and that is fine and dandy because what would we be and what would our value be and what would His purpose be if we were not able to make choices. This ability God gave us is a double edged sword, if you will and its kinda like this example that God gave us flesh to live in but if we cut ourselves too deeply we will bleed to death - in short, some things come with the package. I believe God knew people would sin - that does not seem incredible - but he always provided a way around sin in the OT and a way to forget sin in the NT, so he did both, he created the potential for sin and the means to take sin away and this was all done on purpose - but now you must ask "what purpose?"For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
~~1 Corinthians 1:21
Your statement must be very pleasing to God.If I am to assume that by accepting god is the way to lose your sins (I am assuming here since you didnt specify), then why did god make me an atheist?
God makes no person an atheist. We may even go further into that statement and say that, You did not exist until you became aware of you.
As babies we do not know ourselves, we exist like animals in a sense, we go on instinct, babies do what babies do without external input. Even if they pee in a flower pot the response is usually, oh isn't that cute. Training occurs along the way to, oh say puberty and the growing child begins to understand who and what they are and creates an awareness of "me" and thus with this awareness - you, I and everyone else experience themselves, what they like and don't like.
Psychologists say that people are the sum of their environment and experiences and that people are molded by what they are exposed to. People pick and choose their beliefs according to what they prefer and exactly how some people prefer God and others do not will be discussed at a later time. But when it comes down to it, You are what you are because you are not because God made you atheist and i am the way i am not because God predestined me to be christian. We are all on the same level ground only our information is different.
And people lose their past sins because, really, they sinned in ignorance of the truth doing what was natural to them and being seduced by the flesh and ways of the world until they come into a different knowledge which includes God and God, rightly so, forgives their sins and includes them into his family.Finally... "You did not exist until you became aware of you". The concept of "I", as understood by a theist. You are a theist, correct?
"I" is most definitely only a concept and while we think "My eyes" and "My teeth", they are all but one thing and even it is a concept. The parts are words and there are attachments to every part labeled. So then, the concept of self is personaly important to the individual.I is a valid concept formed later in life by ones circumspection of themselves.
I do not believe the hebrew nation had this concept of I as i believe they gathered their worth through team work more than individuality. The concept of I came through the greek and roman thinkers. Abstract thought became apparent to them; which i do not believe the hebrews had and i suspect the jewish people today do not understand abstract thought very well either.
You did exist, as clearly, you walked around and interacted with family but you yourself did not understand you until you realized yourself. "Why did this happen to me" is a statement people make when in reality it did not happen to "you" but to the life form that is you and you noticed it.
Not logical to me. As I am not responsible for any but myself, I would not expect anybody to be responsible for me, especially dead two thousand years. If you are going to start with original sin
or the material world is of no consequence, then to get consequence, one might find this kind of faith-logic plausible.From "knolyyourself" point of view Jesus is no more than a regular person which signify that that Jesus could not die for anyone sins other then his own. Yes, it is logical for a Christian to believe that Jesus was sent here to die for our sins.
There are some key understands about, Time of, old and new testament. The people that where before Jesus where under the old testament law. (10 commandments)
what motivates us to do good deeds? Just because he died for our sins doesn't mean we get a "get out jail free card" every time we sin. You still have to lead a christian life.
Matthew 5:42-45 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
The context of the last question is Jesus Praying for Himself, Jesus knows what is about to happen, like any person would be is scared. I think hes asking for some comfort. hopefully that helps- Emile Rposted 12 years ago
0It does seem logical, in context. I assume the point is he came as much for the people before as the people that came after. His appearance, crucifixion, death and subsequent arising was supposed to signify a pivotal point in human history.
Before, and up until his crucifixion, sacrificing to the gods was a way of life. The religious can argue any point of it, but the truth is that is what most everyone did. Then it's like God said 'Stop killing sh*t. It's pointless. Since you think it's what I want, I'll make a huge point. I'll sacrifice something to you. Here's my son, and since you think sacrificing matters, we'll sacrifice him. Because I love you guys, but you are so incredibly dense it has come to this. Something I have to love, given to you. Now, you killed him. We're even. It's finished. Let's stop.' Two thousand years later we finally get the point that sacrificing is incredibly stupid. But it wasn't stupid back then.
Did it happen the way the gospels say? Who knows. But, we can rest easy that we, at the least, don't have to kill a goat and bleed it on an altar because we think it will appease a god. - brotheryochananposted 12 years ago0
what about the individuals that lived before Jesus' arrival on Earth?
You raise a huge point here, there is both meat and milk. The milk is that the OT people were under the OT dispensation. They were versed in God from the beginning of their lives. This is huge because there is sufficient evidence to know that those people back then could not keep the law, so we ask, "how many were saved?" and we leave this up to God to figure out.
Jesus is the New Testament, covenant or dispensation, whichever you prefer and all must come to God through Him. That's easier to figure out, for us at least.
As for the meat, Ezekiel 37 speaks of dry bones being resurrected - food for thought and a pretty audacious thing for a book 'completely wrong' [sarcasm] to say.
if Jesus died for your sins, then whats the motivation to do good deeds in life?
As Ibexground said, "we still have to lead a christian life." The motivation to do good deeds comes from the spirit of God, which, as any saved person knows full well, is that spark of familiarity within all Gods people that say to us and to Him that He knows us. Gods spirit is just naturally inclined toward good deeds and so are His people also inclined.
why would God be unjust & punish (be it symbolic) ONE individual? ...a chosen individual?
Gods ways are different than ours. We live in flesh, we are limited in what we see, know and can experience, therefore, we get emotional about things, we get anxiety about stuff and we 'need' or 'crave' over certain aspects of our lives to be one way or the other - But God, is so very much larger than our perceptions and He knows completely what will suit us so very well that we find ourselves looking at His answer and saying, "that was better than my solution" or "that is not what I expected."
There are some instances, for example, God told Jeremiah he would never marry and Jeremiah had a girl that he loved and wanted to marry at that same time. Does this seem like punishment? To us yes, indeed it does, but further examination of the book shows that God knew best. We see Gods people living in deserts, eating strange food, lying on their sides for 40 days (symbolic), leaving their homeland not knowing where they are going and multiple examples of likewise situations.
Gods people, given important jobs to do never have an easy time of it but it is not unjust or as punishment, training to do the job right has always meant putting of the desires of the flesh and mind and single purposely doing the christian thing.
did Jesus himself ever say this with his own mouth?
Jesus did foretell of his death and how it would be. It would be hard to say that He was going to die for all their sins before he died. It was hard enough for them to believe him as messiah, and then, as an atoning sacrifice for sin.
John the baptist mentioned Jesus role quite plainly. Jesus said, the sign of the prophet jonah - meaning his resurrection. Jesus blood was spilt, in unlike manner before, most prophets died unglorious deaths by common means, and this event would not be lost on the Jewish people - they had to marvel. Jesus said He would send a comforter after he died in johns book and Jesus spoke of mysteries concerning the kingdom. Jesus had to be careful exactly what he said due to the nature of the times. The apostles seem to have a thumb on his atonement factor, probably from the resurrection experience. Peter in acts 2 says this:
Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Perhaps the most pressing question is this. If the purpose of Jesus' mission was to die for the sins of mankind, then why did Jesus say:
'..I glorified you on earth, having completed the work that you gave me to do..'
John 17:4 I have glorified thee {God} on the earth: I have finished the work which thou {God} gave me to do.
There are probably many aspects to this but the work that Jesus had finished by this time - before gethsemane - was to preach the gospel, define israels position with God, and to usher in a new way. I do not believe at this time the work upon the cross is being included here as it has not yet been accomplished.
hope this helps@brother OT is pretty young book and it is proven fact that humans existed much before they began to write...So what happened before OT....all must have gone to heaven ?
We have only speculation as much pointed evidence is not available.
Abel offered a sacrifice to God that was accepted by God, so there was a right way to sacrifice even back then. Since Moses law was not introduced yet, those people cannot be held accountable to that law system, but we see that there was a way to be saved (accepted) by God and that God was operable even back then.
IF we move onto Joseph, who was sold of his brothers to egypt and his coat of many colors offered as proof of his death, etc. we see that Joseph knew God or rather God was with Joseph, exactly how their relationship worked out we have little detail, but by faith, joseph when in the jail under false charges, still kept to his standards and was rewarded.
Paul goes on to say that by faith (belief) in God people throughout the ages have been saved by God. We think it difficult to understand that any being no matter how powerful can read hearts and minds and know a persons make up, but how powerful is our God? Look around.
We can never assume that all must go to heaven. We must never assume that anyone, thing or human is in heaven - which is another issue. We can assume that God has his standards and those standards must be met. We know the criteria for what God wants, as have others even way back then, so we must leave the judging of those people to God. I would love to think that God is a universalist but textual evidence does not allow for this doctrine to be true.
In the flood story, God wiped out the known world and saved Noahs family. We cannot think that any of those will be saved and because of direct and certain textual evidence we just need to shrug our shoulders and think the best of those and not be hung up on the past but look toward the future.
As far as writing goes. We know that there were ways of documentation from Egyptian records and other textual evidence from long long ago. We know that Moses came down the mount (twice) with tablets inscribed by the finger of God and with laws and statutes. So documentation began, really, at that point with the Hebrew nation and we can surmise that documentation occurred after that point.
I thought Jesus was executed because he claimed to be the king of the Jews, which was considered treason punishable by death. Only the Roman Emperor appointed the King of the Jews and that was Herod. Which puts a damper on the Slaughter of the Innocents story. Jesus would have been no threat to Herod. The only way that Herod would of lost his king job is if he pissed off the Emperor. This died for our sins thing came much later along with his miracles and stuff.
Herod was not the solid leader that people think him to be.
Matthew 2:3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
Matthew 2:4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
So right off the bat we see Herod is afraid and inquisitive about this Jesus character. Herod knew that he, himself, was not the divinely appointed king of the Jews or King of Judah, even though he claimed that role. Herod ruled with brute force and political manipulation and had little support from the Jewish people. IF you do the actual research about this Herod's rule you will find it very tenuous and he feared uprisings.
Herod ordered the murder of his two oldest brothers because he thought they were plotting treason against him and all the other acts of herod are recorded and do witness of his brutality so i don't see how the slaughter of innocents is dampened as you claim because textual evidence rather points toward the possibility instead of away from it.
Matthew 2:12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way
Even God warned against Herod's attitude.A ruler murdering family members happened all the time through the ages so that nothing new. The Bible is not exactly a credible source on Herod or world history at that matter.
Matthew 26:53 Think you that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?
Yes jesus failed to protect his own life and now you must go to the next step and answer the begging question of 'WHY did he fail to protect his own life?'
otherwise your journey into understanding becomes stunted by your period.
@ts jesus died because he believed in his conviction ...many people die for their convictions...be it be solider or fire man or worst case example muhammad atta....dying depicts sincerity but it doesnot mean dying person's belief was right....
sorta true
soldier - dies for his beliefs - peaceful nation, end to war, winning the war - what exactly are the beliefs of this soldier? An easy paycheck gone wrong? Was the soldier enlisted? This soldier thing looks good on paper but take it off the paper we find that the soldier may be dying for obvoiously wrong reasons or just dying when his intention was otherwise, far from dying.
fireman - an accident on the job, civil service attitude, greenhouse concerns, another paycheck - again what are the beliefs of this fireman and how can we attribute his dying on the job to his belief system?
mohammad atta - one of the ringleaders in 911. First we have to assume that 911 was not a government plan, which in my estimation is hard to do... that aside, we can say that this fellow died for political reasons, overthrowing the state and religious reasons, jihad. Again we see a duality of reasons but a situation that is easily close to some religious conviction and to this is will say, yes, its a shame when people die for the wrong reasons. This is why christians say, God is a relationship and this is why christians get upset when people say God is unknowable. God doesn't let people die for wrong reasons and without good reasons. Common sense tells me that Jihad is wrong.
It's not logical, since sins are man made concepts. So if Jesus died for any divine purpose, it probably had nothing to with sin. I would bet that if he did die for anyone's sins, they would be that of his followers. He told them to keep it under wraps, loose ships sink ships... but we all know that, don't we. I guess it's as the old adage goes "secrets are dangerous"...
I disagree that sin is a man made concept.
There were no other religions at that time which concerned itself with the sin aspect. No other religion explained the nature of man toward sin. No other religion went to the extreme to avoid sinning.
Sin is what this whole christian thing is about, you won't find that with Buddha or any modern day thinker, or spiritualist relgion, the amalekites and the egyptians were not concerned about sin. Every religion was tied to nature and the elements and were worshipped to promote a good life or a good afterlife - in the case of the egyptians - but certainly they were not concerned with sin being as most religions of that time period and after were in some way strongly connected to fertility rites.
Sin is explicitly Gods domain of interest.
Sin is entirely connected with the sacrificial system so how can we separate the sin element from Jesus on the cross? To think otherwise is flawed thinking, unsupported by biblical doctrine.
Assumption is apart of logic? Not so. Assumption is apart of reasoning. Assuming is simply [gu]estimating the measure of reason [meaning pro/con; cause/effect; right/wrong; acceptable/deniable -- Duality.]
There is no reason to assume he did or did not. That places a person back in duality where both theist and atheist exist to do battle...
James
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