If the price for sin is Hell, how was Jesus' death a just payment?

[DrBubbaLove]

No matter how hard you try, you CAN NOT explain why mankind was created, why G-d placed man in a position where what was likely to occurred, did occur, why everyone is BORN d@mn, why man has a natural state in which he/she is OPEN REBELLION against G-d. Verse 7-11 EXPLAINS this. In addition Theomatic verifies it with a staggering amount of evidence that supports exactly what 7-11 tells us.

Always thought it a given God made us to share in His Eternal Happiness, and that we have the fallen nature we do because He gave some of His created creatures freewill to rebel and some did, and finally we inherit that corrupted nature from our human parents (not from God giving us a soul).

That NOT ALL of those free will creatures would rebel even though they have the same free will as those who do rebel is clear from the story of the angels. The Bible also appears to depict exceptions to the idea of damnation of even men born with a fallen nature, even to the extent of being able to avoid part of the temporal human punishment for that rebellion - the experience of death.

Anyway, part of the reason I much prefer the teaching that His Death is INFINITELY more pleasing to God in that single act of Love by One Man and so easily overcomes the combined displeasure towards mankind created by the FINITE total of all our sins. So from mankind view, as a race of beings, are actually a [net] plus, infinitely pleasing to Him because of what He alone did for us all on the Cross. None the less, Justice and His righteous Wrath still demand individual responsibility for our actions. So we have both temporal punishments (even if forgiven) and potentially eternal punishment for/from our individual rebellions.

 

[vinsight4u]

/nvm

 

[BobRyan]

infinite punishment for finite crime is not what God teaches in Matthew 10:28

But if one sinner owes infinite punishment for one sin - then Christ suffering infinite torment on the cross - could "at most" pay for one sin... of one person.

 

[BobRyan]

When Jesus Christ returns, He will be first be seen - as sitting on the right hand of power. The wicked will hide in the rocks and the dead will rise that are just - not just then dying.

First, the man of sin will show up, the great tribulation will end, then the sun will be darkened - and soon the stars will fall from heaven. The
heaven has departed as scroll - rolled together.

Rev 20 says there are two resurrections separated by a 1000 year period of time. The first resurrection is at the Rev 19-20 second coming event. The 2nd resurrection is that of the wicked at the end of the 1000 years according to Revelation 20.

The first the wicked will experience after they die ... is being instantly raised at the 2nd resurrection - at the end of the 1000 years. It is at that time - that the great white throne judgment event will take place - as all the wicked surround the city -- the New Jerusalem.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

infinite punishment for finite crime is not what God teaches in Matthew 10:28

But if one sinner owes infinite punishment for one sin - then Christ suffering infinite torment on the cross - could "at most" pay for one sin... of one person.

Am unaware of any possible way to conclude that insult to a Infinite Being can be repaid/corrected/made right in some finite manner. Rather thought that was the whole reason we cannot make our insults to God right ourselves. Perhaps a smaller view of God, less than Infinite is imagined.

 

[BobRyan]

Am unaware of any possible way to conclude that insult to a Infinite Being can be repaid/corrected/made right in some finite manner.

Torturing an infinite being on the cross - with infinite torture - "does not pay him back for anything you owe"

As I think we all know.

A not so subtle detail

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Torturing an infinite being on the cross - with infinite torture - "does not pay him back for anything you owe"

As I think we all know.

A not so subtle detail

The human tortured on the Cross is a finite being, a Man. That He is also God is true, but God cannot be tortured, feel pain or suffer.

So am personally at a loss now of how to see that event creating some concept of "torturing an infinite being" to then say it creates some pot from which to pay a debt we cannot pay. We cannot torture God - in fact no one can. But as a former Baptist, I have heard that infinite pot of gold from the Cross story told many times. For many years believed that construct and simply accepted it. So I do get it and it sounds good except for the part about torturing an Infinite Being or His Being Infinite (God) making what He did an infinite source of payment. These days (of course being Catholic now) I would rather see any debt payment concept be expressed more like the idea of representing an act of Pure Love from which God could individually apply an Infinite amount of Grace for all the sins of mankind. Not saying a common/typical evangelical view is wrong, just preferring a different way of looking it now. And BTW this payment idea and the inheritance one are not the only views of how our atonement was made possible.

Hoped I rather clearly expressed the idea of our inability to "pay back" with that being in terms of making right for our rebellion (sins). Which is why I suggested rather than a "payment" I prefer the teaching/expression that the act of Pure Love in sacrificing Himself created an infinite Inheritance for that single Man, Maybe infinite in that context better understood as an inheritence that single Man could offer to everyone. Still His Inheritance and it is freely available to all, but not all will respond to the call to that table.

So having that Inheritance offered to us is not seen as a "payback" for or a settlement for or creating a "cover" of or "blinding" God from for all our sins. In this view we are good (restored/aligned...etc.) with the Father because we are married to His Son. We only get be His "Bride" by His Grace starting with the Grace of faith. And only if a person ends this life truly a Bride of the Son can they then claim His Inheritance when presented to His Father. So it is not a view where the Son has to pay the dad to accept His Bride(s).

In that view our full inheritance (in the next life) comes from having a real relationship with Him. The call to His Wedding feast is to all of us. But as mentioned even the response to that call is only possible if given the Grace of faith to respond to the call of the Bride Groom. No man can go to the Father except through the Son (as His bride/in a true relationship with Him). Our Life, which in context means a perfection of human life, is then through Him, Jesus.

Anyway hopefully I have correctly summarized a traditional view that does not focus on a need for God to be paid.

 

[vinsight4u]

/nvm

 

[vinsight4u]

/nvm

 

[BobRyan]

To destroy something does not mean it has to disappear. .

Sodom and Gomorrah were "destroyed" by the punishment of eternal fire. "Destroy" as in "reducing them to ashes"

Luke 17:29
but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. (destroy - Apollumi )

Jude
7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal (everlasting) fire.


2 Peter 2:6
and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;

 

[BobRyan]

but God cannot be tortured, feel pain or suffer.

He told you that? or ... "creative writing"??

"God made him" the "sin offering" of Isaiah 53... "God made him to be sin in our behalf" 2 Cor 5 - we are talking about what "God can do to Christ" ... you claim God does not have the power to cause Christ to suffer, feel pain, be tortured.

But you may have misunderstood that point.

So am personally at a loss now of how to see that event creating some concept of "torturing an infinite being"

Jesus was fully God - and fully man... see Phil 2 and John 14 "if you have seen me - you have seen the Father"

to then say it creates some pot from which to pay a debt we cannot pay. We cannot torture God - in fact no one can

1. God can. "He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us". 2 Cor 5. Hence Christ prays to the Father "let this cup pass from me... nevertheless not My will but Thy will be done".

. But as a former Baptist, I have heard that infinite pot of gold from the Cross story told many times. For many years believed that construct and simply accepted it. So I do get it and it sounds good except for the part about torturing an Infinite Being or His Being Infinite (God) making what He did an infinite source of payment.

The problem there is that one sin with payment of 'infinite torture' could only be fully paid by an infinite sacrifice of torture. And so at-most in that model Christ could have paid the debt for "one sin" -- in full.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

He told you that? or ... "creative writing"??

"God made him" the "sin offering" of Isaiah 53... "God made him to be sin in our behalf" 2 Cor 5 - we are talking about what "God can do to Christ" ... you claim God does not have the power to cause Christ to suffer, feel pain, be tortured.

Am sure Christians confused about what the Trinity Doctrine teaches and/or what it means to be both God and a Man would have trouble with my expression. Others would not. I did not say Jesus did not feel pain, suffer and was not tortured. I did not say God is unaware of our pains, suffering and torture. I said God, as the Spirit, cannot feel anything, there is no physical body there to sense pain.
God is Eternally Happy which rather precludes the idea of suffering, much less the thought of having an ability to suffer. We could I guess imagine mental suffering and "pain", but that also obliterates the idea of Eternal Happiness, as well as being a rather small view of God as is the idea there could exist a torturer of God.
So no. In a proper Trinity Doctrine view there would be no way to suggest God can be tortured, feel pain or suffer.

But you may have misunderstood that point.

No, if there was a misunderstanding here, it was of what I said in that post OR someone has a very low opinion and view of God, His Nature and Who He is. OR perhaps a non-Trinity Doctrine view.

Jesus was fully God - and fully man... see Phil 2 and John 14 "if you have seen me - you have seen the Father"

Absolutely correct. Incorrect would be to imagine that creates a situation where God feels pain, suffers and can be tortured. He became a Man, and that Man can feel pain, suffer and be tortured. God would not only Know that, but He knows Perfectly all our pains, suffering and torture - including Adam and Eve's - Knew it before He created anything. Knowing it and actually being said to "experience" it are not the same things. God cannot be tortured, feel pain or suffer.

1. God can. "He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us". 2 Cor 5. Hence Christ prays to the Father "let this cup pass from me... nevertheless not My will but Thy will be done".

In context you are quoting a human properly paying respect to our human Father and aligning His human will with our Father, even though the Human will is expressing in those statements an acknowledgment that what He (the human nature) is being asked to do is very difficult for Him (the Man). What could we possibly imagine could be said "difficult" for God if that was [One Person] expressing those thoughts to another [Person of God]?

Again a proper understanding of the Trinity Doctrine and the Incarnation does not allow us to mix the concept of His being human with His Being God. God is not there blended with a human body like the thought of a Greek god temporarily making himself human or simply taking a human form. In Jesus we still have two distinct and separate natures, rather than supernatural blending into one Superman. So there is a human nature, which is just like ours - a body, soul, mind and human will. And there is [simultaneously] a Divine Nature combined [supernaturally] with the man we call Jesus. So He has two natures, two minds, two wills that are joined somehow but remain distinct and separate (where as we have only one [nature]). He is God and He is human does not erase either idea. So the man Jesus can experience everything we can, God by His Nature cannot but certainly has always had Perfect Knowledge of our experience.

The problem there is that one sin with payment of 'infinite torture' could only be fully paid by an infinite sacrifice of torture. And so at-most in that model Christ could have paid the debt for "one sin" -- in full.

Rather part of my point in not liking that model, even when I was Baptist and shorter periods of other forms of protesting. And I have actually heard sermons talk about the idea of infinitely causing Christ more pain. To me it is sufficient to say our sins are abhorrent to God and we cannot stand in His Presence in our current state as it would be very painful for us to stand in the Light of/on ourselves. Not painful for Him.

" I have been aiming at an intellectual, not an emotional, effect: I have been trying to make the reader believe that we actually are, at present, creatures whose character must be, in some respects, a horror to God, as it is, when we really see it, a horror to ourselves. This I believe to be a fact: and I notice that the holier a man is, the more fully he is aware of that fact. Perhaps you have imagined that this humility in the saints is a pious illusion at which God smiles. That is a most dangerous error. It is theoretically dangerous, because it makes you identify a virtue (i.e., a perfection) with an illusion (i.e., an imperfection), which must be nonsense. It is practically dangerous because it encourages a man to mistake his first insights into his own corruption for the first beginnings of a halo round his own silly head. No; depend upon it, when the saints say that they - even they - are vile, they are recording truth with scientific accuracy."
http://www.fellowshipoffaith.org/images/files/upload/Problem_of_Pain.pdf

 

[BobRyan]

I did not say God is unaware of our pains, suffering and torture. I said God, as the Spirit, cannot feel anything, there is no physical body there to sense pain.

And yet the Bible describes his eyes, feet, hair, ...

Maybe you are engaging in a bit of "creative writing" after all. He is spirit - and he also has physical feature that Bible writers describe.

God is Eternally Happy

More "creative writing"??

Isaiah 6:4 "What more could I do that I have not done"

Isaiah 63:So He became their Savior.
9 In all their affliction He was afflicted,
And the angel of His presence saved them;
In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them,
And He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.
10 But they rebelled
And grieved His Holy Spirit;
Therefore He turned Himself to become their enemy,
He fought against them.


Hosea 11:7 So My people are bent on turning from Me.
Though they call them to the One on high,
None at all exalts Him.
8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I surrender you, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart is turned over within Me,
All My compassions are kindled.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

And yet the Bible describes his eyes, feet, hair, ...

Maybe you are engaging in a bit of "creative writing" after all. He is spirit - and he also has physical feature that Bible writers describe.

Or maybe someone is being literal when it suits, like imagining something immaterial has parts, or that because God became human He is not longer Spirit or some other non-Trinity Doctrine about His Nature or the Incarnation.

Spirit is immaterial without parts. Generally expressions of His traits are discussed as not having limits, infinite. The idea of a Mighty Arm cannot be understood as part of body that spans fills the entire universe leaving no room for the imagined other parts or anything else for that matter.

Where is there room for anything in the universe if it is filled with God's "eyes, feet, hair,......" or does this imagined view of God also limit His Body to some other planet like a Mormon might imagine?

Rather a small thought of God to limit Him to having parts. Sort of restricts Him to the our physical realm too rather than not being limited to it. So this God exists only inside the place He created or maybe like the Mormons this idea of God does not have Him making everything, maybe only this world - not all the others. Sounding more Mormon now.

In poetic writings of thoughts on Him we cannot mistake someone suggesting He looks like Big Bird on Sesame Street, but yeah there it is. Am not sure the idea of a God of yellow feathers fits with Mormon theology, but probably worked well with a lot of pagan thoughts of God.

But I agree people can imagine all sorts of things about God - a ceiling painting of the old bearded man in the clouds reaching down to touch Adam's hand - yeah we could take writings and artistic expressions like that in lots of different directions. People have tried and many such ideas shot down using combinations of or singularly Biblical, historical, applied human knowledge, rational, logical, and philosophical, and scientific reasons. Should we forget the Mormons like to play cut and paste with the Bible too?

More "creative writing"??

Not at all. Am plagiarizing almost 2000 years of traditional orthodox defense of Christian theology against all sorts of yahoos thinking they had come up with something clever and new that no one had thought of before and often by cutting and pasting verses to attempt to make their point. Makes it rather easy to respond after doing it for a while.

Should we really understand as your last post suggest that:
The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).

means our strength is gone or could come and go depending on how God feels at the moment?
Do we really want to create a comic book caricature of God and His Nature because some people think a cut and paste verse suggesting God is said to be "grieving" actually means an actual old bearded gray man on planet Kolob somewhere is a blubbering mess at the moment so we better not rely on Him right now for our strength!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God forbid such a view.

How could we rely on Him for our strength if we have to consider He may not be Happy at the moment?

Here I thought we had Mighty God, who created everything from nothing, meaning He exists external to all Creation, with a Knowledge of Self so Perfect an Image in His Mind we can know both those Persons, a Father and His Image the Son, as well knowing the Eternal Expression of Love for each other, the Holy Spirit. Existing in total Joy and Eternal Happiness, which we are created because He wanted to share that existence. God is Incarnated in the Man Jesus, who is now still the Son of God and a man - two natures. Yes God "became" a man but He remains also still God and still Three Persons. So yes, man, Jesus Christ who feels right now just as we do, with "eyes, hair, feet..: that are still right now human but those belong to human nature, joined in some unknowable way but not conflating or diminishing God in any aspect, including Jesus ability to grieve as all humans grieve though I doubt very much He is grieving at all right now. and there is also a God at same time that Knows us better than we know ourselves but not through any physical or emotional experience (like human grieving), just simple Omniscience.

Now am suppose to pick up a comic book someone created depicting a God alternately sad, grieving, angry, jealous, and happy like the ladies on I don't what kind of housewives show. Such a god fits on the screen with those ladies. And he should as the comic book made him to be like us. By the way comic book writers, we are suppose to be like Jesus, the man - not make God more like us or because Jesus is also God imagine things the Mormons might about what we can "become".

Stay tuned for more adventures of cut and paste create your own comic book theology!

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I have much knowledge about Christianity. I only fear that it's false knowledge = no knowledge.....

Most knowedge, even of or about Christianity, is , as you put it, false knowledge - unsaving knowledge, even about the BIBLE, even if the BIBLE is memorized .... like the scribes and other religious leaders who opposed JESUS.
...........
I got your post in the thread, to the post quoted, so you might have gotten good answers already... and you got some answers with error also... "false knowledge",
so it may be a challenge, eh!?

 

[vinsight4u]

/nvm

 

[vinsight4u]

/nvm

 

[devin553344]

Both believers and unbelievers die and are resurrected later. After that, believers go to the New Earth and the rest of the people go to Hell, where they will be permanently separated from God (also called spiritual death). Is that the penalty for their sins or will they be in Hell because they can't pay for their sins? And if spiritual death is the price for sin, how was Jesus' physical death (body and soul separated) a just payment?

I believe the answer is simple and easy to understand and was proclaimed to me by God:

Jesus died short of the other crucified people on the cross. That said there are them that suffer until death more or less than others. And Jesus went to full dead, into hell and then back again to living and upward to heaven.

But it says that he went into the heart of the earth for three days and nights (Matthew 12:40), like the sign of Jonah. Clearly his suffering for us was in the lake of fire hell area, that those that are fearful and liars and such could be delivered from the second death (Revelation 21:7). In other words only Jesus the Christ would overcome the lake of fire, and the rest of us will be baptized with fire (Luke 3:16-17).

In other words we are hoping to be saved: To be saved is to be delivered from the lake of fire and to be resurrected and raised to heaven. And God performs that work all the time, resurrecting people and we baptize them in water, and God baptizes with the Holy Ghost and with Fire.

 

[BobRyan]

You need to actually look at the words in Revelation 20.

verse 4 - has "they sat"

Okay, where did this group of "they" come from?
How can they be already in the state of ready to sit and judge with Jesus Christ and the beheaded people?

They are resurrected at the Rev 19-20 2nd coming and rapture where the "First Resurrection" takes place - and they sit with Christ in judgment.

You are giving a summary of your view of verses, not the actually words found in the verses.

Rev. 20:1 begins with what words?
"And I saw an angel come down from heaven..."
So, a new vision did not begin at this "And" point.

You have interpreted it to say "a new vision and new point in time" but this "And I saw" does not always (or possibly ever) mean a "new vision" in the book of Revelation.

The vision in chapter 20 is just the continuation of the one that started to unfold in Revelation 19:1.
"And after..."
This phrase is a key to realize that a new vision, with its own story has started to be shown to John.

"And AFTER this" can easily refer to another point in time -- but simply saying "And I saw" does not.

No other chapter mentions the phrase "First resurrection" and John had no chapters in his letter

 

[vinsight4u]

/nvm