pulverizeportable posted in message #1 of this thread:
I never quite understood why Jesus needed to be incarnated and
then spill his blood in trade for our sins..
Greetings.
Under the Old Covenant, animal sacrifices were given to men to
temporarily cover their sins: the shedding of the blood of a
sacrificed animal represented the ending of the life of the sinner.
The sinner was saying, in effect "Take the blood of this animal
instead of my life". God said: "the life of the flesh is in the blood:
and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for
your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the
soul" (Leviticus 17:11). Under the New Covenant, all animal
sacrifices for sin have been replaced by the sacrifice of Christ for
our sins (Hebrews 10): "For this is my blood of the new testament
[new covenant], which is shed for many for the remission of sins"
(Matthew 26:28).
pulverizeportable posted in message #1 of this thread:
Couldn't there be another way?
No, because God is perfectly holy; his justice requires that "the
wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). So either every sinner dies the
second death (Revelation 21:8), or a substitutionary death must
occur on behalf of sinners. Without a shedding of blood in death
there can be no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22b).
pulverizeportable posted in message #1 of this thread:
If he was born in the flesh, why should one mortal man's death save
all of humanity?
The reason that Christ's death is sufficient to cover the second
deaths of everyone is because he is not just a man, but at the same
time God himself (John 1:1,14), and so his death has infinite value.
And as God himself, his consciousness is infinite, and so his suffering
during his Passion was infinite (in amount, though not in duration).
And so his suffering is able to substitute for the infinite suffering due
to every sinner (over an eternity) in the second death of the lake of
fire (Revelation 21:8, 14:10-11).
pulverizeportable posted in message #1 of this thread:
Wasn't he originally just here to teach?
Actually, no. While he did come to teach, Jesus knew the most
important reason he came: "The Son of man must be delivered into
the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise
again" (Luke 24:7). "For this is my blood of the new testament,
which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28).
pulverizeportable posted in message #1 of this thread:
If not, why are the turn of events that got him crucified spoken of
as humanity's wrongdoing?
Even though Jesus' crucifixion was planned by him as a sacrifice for
our sins, those leaders who actually got Jesus crucified were still
murderers (Acts 7:52) because their only motivation was to get rid
of Jesus out of envy of him (Mark 15:10).
pulverizeportable posted in message #1 of this thread:
If him dying for us was God's will, why should we feel guilty for
crucifying him?
We should feel guilty for the suffering and death of Jesus, for it was
because of our sins that he suffered and died.
pulverizeportable posted in message #1 of this thread:
I also don't understand the timing of it. Why wait so long?
God wanted to teach man through the Old Covenant how holy he is
and how serious sin is, so man would be able to understand why
"when the fulness of the time was come" (Galatians 4:4), God had to
come himself to suffer and die for our sins, in order that he then
might be able to inaugurate the New Covenant (Hebrews 9:16) with
its forgiveness of sins: "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that
I will make a new covenant ... I will forgive their iniquity" (Jeremiah
31:31,34b). "For this is my blood of the new testament [new
covenant], which is shed for many for the remission of sins"
(Matthew 26:28).
