Hi NASA
First of all, nowhere in the Bible did Jesus say :" I came for Adam's sin." It's only Paul who said this with no evidence.
Of course our works are something important, I don't say that our works are those which make God accept us, because they are very small and weak as you said, but we must work so that God see us really serious so He accepts our works and forgives our sins.
If God can see our heart, and know what we are thinking, then He will know if we are serious or not. He doesn't need to see works to know we are serious. Works will be the natural result of a heart after God.
God doesn't forgive because of our works. He forgives us because He loves us and knows our heart. There is nothing I can do to prove my love for God. The moment I start doing that, I focus more on myself and my actions than on God. I begin to worship my own actions, rather than worship God.
In the same manner that a child cannot win his parents love with works, we cannot earn or win God's love and forgiviness. He loves us, and it is up to us to love him with all our heart.
The works are the evidence that we are following God, if someone says I don't work but I have a clean heart, it is not enough, because there must be an evidence that you are really faithful, don't make sins as you like and then come and say that you have a good heart and that God will forgive you, this is like trying to deceive God and in this case God won't forgive you.
17. Verily, ALLAH accepts the repentance of only those who do evil in ignorance and then repent soon after. These are they to whom ALLAH turns with mercy; and ALLAH is All-Knowing, Wise.
18. There is no acceptance of repentance for those who continue to do evil until, when death faces one of them, he says, I do indeed repent now; nor for those who die disbelievers. It is these for whom WE have prepared a painful punishment. (Holy Quran 4:16-17)
What are you trying to say?
I've already stated David repented for his sins. God forgave him. His repentence wasn't faked; God knew David's heart. God knew Moses heart, and Soloman's heart.
All these guys were human and sinned, each one in different ways. They all repented multiple times, and God forgave them multiple times. God commands us to forgive others 70x7, even for teh same offense, because God forgives us in such a manner, for the same thing.
Of course if man thought that his works are the reason of being righteous without faith, his work will not be accepted, you must have both work and faith, only one is not enough.
Agreed, faith without works is dead.
Jesus (Peace be upon him) is a prophet not God, I will forget about this TEMPORARILY and suppose that he is the Son of God as you say.
Tell me, if this was the case that you knew how to live from God himself when He became a man (I totally disagree with this, but I will go along with it for a while), tell me why did God delay all that time (more than 4000 yrs) to be a man and show you how to live? Is this fair? That He leaves people with no way of living for 4000 yrs and then come for people who live in 2000 yrs?!
Because before Christ, God TOLD us how to live through His prophets. His prophets gave his people the Law and prophesies to live by. He didn't say "follow after my prophets", He said "follow after me and the law I have given to my prophets".
You are putting words into my mouth, and it's really irritating. I never said God left His people no way of living. God gave His people a way - it's called The Law!
Before Christ God TOLD his people how to live, with Christ God SHOWED us how to live.
He keeps on sending prophets who keep on sinning and some of them didn't repent as Solomon who died as a pagan, and people don't have the example to follow, then God comes and teaches people how to live ignoring all people before. This is not fair at all.
As I told you before, if the prophets didn't apply what they said, people won't take it seriously, the law would be only some writings with no value at all to people because they find the people chosen by God don't obey it, would they obey it???
As I told you before, God was fair. He told people how to live with His Law. It was written out for them, and he provided preists that taught from the Law and told people how to live.
I agree, if prophets didn't apply what they taught, people would get the wrong impression. That is why God holds teachers of the Law to a much higher standard, both yesterday and preachers of today (Paul states this in his writings). That doesn't mean God's teachs are perfect, because they are HUMAN!
God provided His people with His Law. They knew how to live, and the punishment for not living that way. Just because a leader isn't following that Law isn't an excuse to not follow the Law.
If the President breaks a law, I'm not going to think it's okay to break that law. I'm going to think "eventually, that guys going to prison".
So if the man who is supposed to restore people back from corruption is a corrupt himself, how would he restore people back to God's way?
The man is just a messenger. He delivers God's word, and the people are supposed to follow it.
This is what your priests tell you, but this is not the truth, for example they find some of the book of Isaiah matches with your book while the rest don't match they tell you:'We found that the book of Isaiah is genuine', tell me if the Dead Sea Scrolls really match up with the Bible, why didn't they show them in the museums once they were found? Till now they didn't show most of them, they show what only matches with the Bible. Tell me, why didn't they add the other books they found there to the Bible as the book of Jubilees or other books? There were other books and other scripts which they found? Aren't these also God's word?[/quote]
Probably because the spent the first few years translating them, preseving them, and making sure they didn't get destroyed when they started showing them around the world.
I believe all books of the OT except for Ester have been found in teh Dead Sea Scrolls. I'm not a DSS expert, so someone else will have to chime in on matters related to this subject.
