"You say: “Christ DID HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT”, so it was a knee jerk reaction for Christ & not something He thought about & decided to do? So, Christ did not of His own free will decide to go to the cross? “Without it”, yes we are bad off, but do we deserve better & did Christ have a gun to His head?
It is evident to all reading our posts that you either ignore what I write in context or are not even reading it except to pull isolated quotes apart from my context & reason why it's there.
Of course Christ decided this--even before creation. I do not like to have to repeat myself; it is a waste of my time. This will be my last post concerning your convoluted & eisogetical meanderings.
I gave many reasons why He did have to go through it. You ignored them & then set up strawman arguments about some knee jerk reaction or a gun to someone's head. I have heard these repeated by UNBELIEVERS. It is amazing you use them.
"Did Christ owe us something, so He had to pay?"
I have explained in various posts in this thread & others, God's justice had to be satisfied (propitiated), His righteous demands had to be met under His Law. Man is spiritually dead in His trespasses that separate him from God. He cannot have a relationship with God in His fallen state--fallen SHORT. He is forever unrighteous & will be justly judged--UNLESS--Someone provides a righteous ransom.
To Whom Did Jesus Pay Our Ransom?
How and to whom did Jesus pay our ransom?
Christ Pays the Ransom, But To Whom?
Mankind cannot atone for himself or others or pay for His sins or propitiate them, let alone be righteous. He is forever separated from God--UNLESS-- Someone meets those righteous requirements, satisfying God's justice; Someone who can fulfill hundreds of prophecies, predicted prior to the incarnation. That Someone was the Lord Jesus Christ.
"First off: you might next time quote me, so it shows up as an alert to me."
HAD you actually read my post on page 4 of the thread, you would see that I DID quote you before saying not once, not twice but 3 times: Christ DID HAVE TO GO THROUGH WITH IT, explaining the reasons why. Here is your quote once again & my brief quotes.
"You said: Christ DID NOT HAVE TO nor did He really want to go through the torture humiliation & murder, but out of Love for us did it."
"Christ DID HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT! Without it there is no salvation, there is no redemption, there is no reconciliation between God & mankind..."
"Christ DID HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT because the whole of the OT prophesied He would & Christ must fulfill ALL of them." (>300 in both 1st & 2nd comings; God doesn't lie--Lk 24)
"Christ DID HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT (3rd time) to demonstrate that He is the only One who was perfect, who never sinned while being human on this earth, the Lamb of God without blemish or defect, holy & perfect in all His ways."
"Christ would have been “perfect” even if He had not gone to the cross???"
Christ, as God, is of course perfect. The point is: Christ had to be the perfect Lamb of God--AS A MAN--being our substitution as the LAST ADAM, THE LAMB OF GOD. He had to live like any human being, yet perfect on this earth to qualify for being the unblemished sacrifice-holy & innocent, which the 1st Adam failed.
I Pet 3:18 Christ died once for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, 2 bring us 2 God...
Psalm 69:9 ...The reproaches of those who reproach You HAVE FALLEN ON ME.
John 11:50 ...It is expedient for you that one man die FOR THE PEOPLE...
Gen 22:2,13,15,18 God said, 'Take your ONLY SON ISAAC...& offer him as a burnt offering. {He had more than one son!} On the 3RD DAY Abraham looked up & saw the place in the distance...Abraham told his servants. “...WE will return to you.” "Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham answered, “GOD HIMSELF WILL PROVIDE THE LAMB...”
Lev 1:4 'He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, SO THAT IT MAY BE ACCEPTED--for him--TO MAKE ATONEMENT ON HIS BEHALF.
Isa 53:4 Our infirmities HE HIMSELF BORE & our sorrows He carried (Matt 8:17)...He was wounded FOR our transgression, bruised FOR our iniquities; the punishment that brought our peace was ON HIM...YHWH laid ON HIM the iniquity of us all...4 My people's transgression HE WAS STRICKEN...You will make His soul an offering FOR SIN...He will bear THEIR iniquities...
I Pet 2:24 HE HIMSELF bore our sins IN HIS BODY ON THE TREE, so that we might die to sin & live to righteousness. “BY HIS STRIPES you are healed.”
2 Cor 5:14,15 For the love of Christ controls us, because we are certain that if One died FOR EVERYONE ELSE, then ALL OF US HAVE DIED. And He died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died & was raised.
I can go on & on on the multitude of verses on the subsitutionary life of animal sacrifices in mankind's place & the one sacrifice of Christ for us.
No one else could meet this legal & righteous requirement AS A MAN in order to ransom mankind & the whole universe, both corrupted. This is the FALL of Adam. It effected the whole universe! This is also the triumph of Christ, the Last Adam, as the Son of Man.
As I showed, this need to be incarnated & reconcile the whole universe by Christ was ALREADY pre-determined before the universe was even created & DECIDED by the Triune God! Isaiah 48 is just one of many passages talking about this.
Isaiah 48:3-5,12,13,16-18 “The former things I declared of old; they went out from My mouth & I announced them; then suddenly I did them & they came to pass. Because I know that you are obstinate...I declared them to you from of old, BEFORE they came to pass I announced them to you...
I am He; I am the first & I am the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth & My right hand spread out the heavens...I, even I, have spoken & called HIM; I have brought HIM & HE will prosper in HIS way.
Draw near to me, hear this: SINCE the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it TOOK PLACE, I have been there. And now the Lord God HAS SENT ME & HIS SPIRIT. (The Father & Christ speaking here 700 years before the incarnation)
Heb 10:7 Then I said, 'Here I am, it is written about Me in the scroll of the Book: I have come to do Your will, O God.' (Christ predicting this 1000 years BEFORE His incarnation)
Col 1:18-22 And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell & THROUGH HIM TO RECONCILE TO HIMSELF ALL THINGS WHETHER ON EARTH OR IN HEAVEN, MAKING PEACE BY THE BLOOD OF THE CROSS. (Eph 1:10)
21And U, who once were ALIENATED & HOSTILE IN MIND, DOING EVIL DEEDS, He has now reconciled IN HIS BODY OF FLESH BY HIS DEATH, in order to present U holy & blameless & above reproach before Him...
Eph 2:13,14-16 But now in Christ Jesus U who once were far away have been brought near THROUGH THE BLOOD OF CHRIST.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one...thus making peace & RECONCILING them both TO GOD IN 1 BODY THROUGH THE CROSS...
I can go on & on--on verses showing the essential & vital necessity of the blood of Christ to reconcile, to justify, to ransom, to propitiate, to sanctify, to save, to make peace, removing the enmity between God & man, to unite Jew & Gentile into one body, etc. No blood of Christ, no new covenant.
I will address just one more because it is so important to correct your eisogetical teaching.
"Ro. 5: 12 … and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. It did not say: “because Adam sinned”, but “because all sinned.”
Quoting only part of a verse & leaving the rest out, as well as the rest of the context of Romans 5, teaches something CONTRARY to what Paul is saying there. It needs to be addressed!
Rom 4:23-25 Now the words “it was credited to him” were written not only for Abraham, but also for us, to whom righteousness will be CREDITED—for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered OVER TO DEATH FOR OUR TRESPASSES & was RAISED TO LIFE FOR OUR JUSTIFICATION.
This is the prior context to Romans 5 but necessary to understand why I said Christ's atoning sacrifice & its effects continued past the cross. Yes, I already said at various times this happened only once, for all time CHRONOLOGICALLY.
But the one, same, gospel message not only includes the suffering, death, burial but also going to hell for us & His resurrection. Christ's atoning blood was shed once on the cross but continues to keep cleansing us when we confess our sins in our daily walk. It continues to give us victory over the devil when he accuses us before God (Rev 12:11)
At the end of Rom 4 it shows both the death atoning for our trespasses as well as our being JUSTIFIED because of His resurrection. If it stopped at the cross, then there is is humanity stuck in Hades & there is no justification before God for mankind. His rising from the dead accomplished our 'being declared right before God in His eyes' by faith in Christ's death AND resurrection. That is what Christians confess each Sunday around the world when they say the Apostles' Creed. Paul made the same argument in I Cor 15:13-21:
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is worthless & so is your faith. In that case, we are also exposed as false witnesses about God. For we have testified about God that He raised Christ from the dead, but He did not raise Him if in fact the dead are not raised.
16For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are STILL in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If our hope in Christ is for this life alone, we are to be pitied more than all men. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead...
It didn't stop when Christ as a man, physically died on the cross. His body was laid in a grave but His spirit as a man was committed to the Father (Luke 23:46; Eccl 12:7; Acts 7:56-60) & His soul, as a man, went to hell, like every other man before Him. He had to experience all that we, as human beings experienced & then conquer death by the resurrection.
(Hell is Sheol in the OT, Hades in the NT & Jesus went to the area there He called Paradise & Abraham's bosom & the Jews called Gan Eden like the prophets Ezekiel & Jeremiah mention. It was the place or abode of the dead in the spiritual or invisible realm, where souls go when they depart from the mortal body at physical death.)
Therefore, since we are justified by His resurrection (4:25), justified by our faith in Christ (5:1) & justified by His blood (5:9), we THEN have peace with God through Christ (5:1), we have access to God's grace in which we stand even today (5:2), we exult in the hope of the glory of God (5:2), we are saved from the wrath of God through Him (5:9), we were reconciled to God through Christ's death, we will be saved through His life. Wow. PTL!
Now we get to Rom 5:12 & following. Here is the complete verse, showing just the opposite of what you said: "Therefore, just as SIN ENTERED THE WORLD THROUGH ONE MAN & death through sin, so also death was PASSED ON--to all men BECAUSE--all sinned
You said: '...and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. It did not say: “because Adam sinned”, but “because all sinned.”
However you DELIBERATELY left out the first part: sin entered the world THRU ONE MAN & death entered through the sin of this one man. Then you left out another key part of the verse: so also death WAS PASSED ON (from this one man's sin) to all men BECAUSE all sinned.
But this all occurred because of one man's sin & passing this on to all mankind, since all living came from Adam as their earthly father & Eve was the mother of all living humans. (Gen 3:20) Paul says the same thing in Acts 17:26: 'From 1 man He made every nation of men.'
The prophet Malachi does also in 2:10 JPS Tanakh 1917 'Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?
Then the repeated verses showing that indeed this all came to all mankind through the First Adam & all in Christ were to be made righteous through the Last Adam. This is shown in vs 14, where the First Adam is called the {Gk 'tupo', 17X in NT} 'model/figure/pattern/type' prefiguring the One to come after him.
vs 15 starts the contrast given between THE GIFT & THE TRESPASS. The gift of salvation, eternal life, comes by the grace of the 1 man, Jesus Christ. The trespass comes through 1 man, Adam. It repeats vs 12: 'For if the many died by the trespass of 1 MAN--much more did the grace of God & the gift by the grace of the 1 MAN, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
vs 16 The result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that 1 MAN'S SIN. For the JUDGMENT (Gk 'krima'--we get crime from it) FOLLOWING 1 TRESPASS BROUGHT CONDEMNATION, but the free gift following many trespasses BROUGHT JUSTIFICATION.
vs 17 For if, BY THE TRESPASS OF 1 MAN, DEATH REIGNED THROUGH THAT 1 MAN--how much MORE will those who RECEIVE AN ABUNDANCE OF GRACE & THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS--REIGN IN LIFE THROUGH THE 1 MAN, Jesus Christ!
vs 18 Consequently, just as 1 TRESPASS resulted in CONDEMNATION FOR ALL PEOPLE, so also 1 RIGHTEOUS ACT resulted in JUSTIFICATION & LIFE FOR ALL PEOPLE.
vs 19 Just as thru THE DISOBEDIENCE OF THE 1 MAN the many were made SINNERS, so also thru THE OBEDIENCE OF THE 1 MAN the many will be made RIGHTEOUS.
Paul repeats this teaching in I Cor 15 as well!
I Cor 15:21,22 For since death CAME THROUGH A MAN, the resurrection of the dead COMES ALSO THROUGH A MAN. For as IN ADAM ALL DIE, so IN CHRIST ALL WILL BE MADE ALIVE.
I Cor 15:45-49 So it is written: 'The 1st man Adam became a living being; the last Adam a life-giving spirit.' The 1st man was of the dust of the earth, the 2nd man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so also are those who are of the earth & as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so also shall we bear the likeness of the heavenly man.