ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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Why create a species that is flawed, then punish us for being flawed as if it is our fault? He condemns us for acting in the way that he created us. the bible speaks as if we don't deserve forgiveness, but we really do. We didn't ask to be created and did not ask for the opportunity of hell. I much rather have no free will and live in peace, then to have hell. It's especially a joke since most of His creation ends up in Hell anyways.
Why make it so difficult to follow God? What is the purpose of us choosing him? Is it a nice ego boost?
Thank you so much for creating me just so that I can turn to you and make a choice of following you. So glad my life is so purposeful.
I do not mean be so harsh with these statements, but it really does sound a bit ridiculous
A few points:
1) The capacity of choice in Adam and Eve wasn't a flaw.
2) We aren't condemned because we have a flawed design. We're condemned because we actively choose to be outside of the redemptive, creative purposes of God. And don't think of condemnation as a bit of divine spite, that's not what it is; it's a truthful statement about who and what we are in our sin.
3) Hell isn't punishment for being a bad person. Hell is the reality of sin and death bearing fruit. Death begets death, the only way to be saved from death is someone saving you from it.
4) Christianity isn't about following the Law. The Law is important, it tells us what God expects of us as creatures made in His image--to love and serve our neighbor and to honor God our maker, but that isn't what Christianity is about. Christianity is about the Gospel, the God who condescends to rescue us from sin and death, to deliver us to Himself and take us safely to the other side of death: resurrection.
Nobody is saved by "choosing God", nobody is saved by following the commandments, nobody is justified by doing the right things, thinking the right things, or saying the right things. Salvation is the gracious work of God accomplished in and through the Lord Jesus Christ by His death and resurrection, to take us and justify us freely by grace, to turn us toward Him through faith, and to have faith that even though in the present we remain in the present reality of sin and death, that reality is already overcome in and by Jesus and in Jesus you and I--and all creation--is being redeemed and brought out from it, to be safe, saved, on the last day when God makes all things new.
As much as the Law tells us what we must do, it condemns us for not doing it. The Law reveals us to be sinners, simply by being what it is--righteous and holy. In the face of God's naked righteousness we are revealed to be unrighteous sinners dead in our sins and dying. Which is why nobody is saved, nobody is justified, by the Law. The Law does not--it cannot--justify. It's the Gospel that saves, the Gospel that justifies sinners. By taking you, sinner that you are, and clothing you with Jesus Christ and His righteousness, and giving you the promise and guarantee that you are part of God's future world, that when He makes all things new He is going to raise you up to new, eternal, imperishable, and immortal life to stand with Him and in His glory in that coming world, the World to Come.
The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness, not as though God is emotively peeved off or spiteful; but because God in His justice and His righteousness stands as an all-consuming fire. And thus to see God naked in His pure righteousness is to tremble and be terrified. But that isn't how God wishes you to know Him, He wishes you to know Him through faith, He wishes you to know Him in Jesus Christ, God with us. For in Christ and by Christ God is for us, not against us. And through faith we see the friendly, fatherly heart of God. To know Him as Father, to know Him clothed in the grace and mercy of Jesus, because that's who God really is. The Son came to make the Father known, the Son came to show us the Father, and "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father" because in Jesus we see God as God is. Who as the Good Creator God has made this world good and sees to it to make it good again.
Wrath is unrighteous man looking upon God in His righteousness, naked and bare--and yes that is a terrifying thing. But, again, this isn't how God wishes you or I to know Him, and He has seen to it that He will be a Father to us, He has willed that us sinners be redeemed, justified, and reconciled to Himself, for He is unwilling that any should perish, but that all be saved.
-CryptoLutheran
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