Why did God create Humans?

[Wordkeeper]

This thread is about covenant, sabbath and law, salvation theologies, so that's why I think it would fit here in the General section.

That's one thing. The other thing is, a lot of analogies will be used. Scripture used plenty of analogies, to enable easy understanding, and since it was an agrarian society, they talked about wheat, soil, rain and barns. We live in an industrial age, so we will prolly understand technical examples better. Feel free to use everyday terms to illustrate your counter theories.

Luke 6
1One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. 2Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
3Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”5Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

6On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. 7The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.

9Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”


10He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.

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Question
What is the Doctrine of Covenants?

Covenant doctrine states:

1. The Old Covenant is the Covenant of Law and applicable only to Israel.

2. The New Covenant is the Covenant of Grace and was originally applicable to Israel only but, because Israel would not agree to it, it is now applicable to Christians.

How can the Covenant system be explained ?

Let's use an analogy.

It's 2 a.m. in the morning. A young man and a traffic constable have been stopped by a red light for a minute . The young man is angry because he is feels an unnecessary delay has occurred because no one uses the roads at that time.

The traffic constable is calm because he knows that a speeding vehicle may not slow down at the intersection and could cause an accident if the lights were switched off.

He knows that the traffic system is designed to ensure maximum safety.

Now let's change the situation a little. The traffic constable hears an ambulance approaching from behind. He takes out a key from his pocket , approaches the traffic signal, opens the control box and operates the computer which is inside. He makes the traffic light green, allowing the ambulance to pass, and also makes all the other lights red thus blocking access to the intersection to the incoming traffic from all other directions.

Question
Why is the policeman allowed to break the traffic rule which forces all traffic to stop moving for a minute in turns?

Because the policeman is lord even of the rule to stop moving.

Question
Why is the young man forced to obey the rule?

Because he is not a government official, a part of the system, not an heir, but a private citizen.


Now use the analogy.

Israel>Private Citizen>Outsider>Hired Hand.

Christians>Government Official>Insider>Co-Inheritor.

The takeaway from the teaching of the New Covenant is that grace, the status of co-inheritor with Christ is conferred on believers who know, have access to a different view of the God's plan for humanity, are born again.

Does this theory hold water?

 

[Wordkeeper]

Covenant theology helps us see that humanity can have two positions, insider or outsider. Insider under the covenant of grace, enjoying family favour or outsider, under the covenant of works, and burdened with the need to work for wages. Privileged or unprivileged. Ruler or ruled. Hired hand or heir. Slaves or children.

However, the term children could be misleading. Scripture talks about how God digs up and burns the plants which do not bear fruit. Obviously, no father, especially the best of fathers, God, would ever harbor the thought of getting rid of unfruitful children.

If the plants mentioned are not children, the other options are:

1. The plants are potential children, seeds
2. The plants are in transition between seed and fruit bearers, between outsider and insider, between family member and servant.

How do we find out the truth?

We know God places ALL men in different situations and causes events in their lives to occur that causes them to look for answers. Men who are too busy looking for satisfaction of their immediate urges are disregarding the image of God in themselves. They have not separated themselves from behavior of the rest of creation, which does not have the image of God imprinted in their beings.

Men who have examined their lives see that it is does not follow the model of nature. Nature manifests fruit for effort. A tree is rewarded for fertility by bearing fruit. That which is material produces the material.

But man is both material and spiritual. What fruit does the spirit produce? It must produce spiritual fruit, spiritual treasure. And since the spirit is not affected by decay, it must be eternal. Else, sentience, awareness of death is pointless.

In a nutshell, since we know death results in loss of all our work, what is the point of work, especially spiritual work? It only makes sense if the fruit of the spirit is not nullified by death.

Or, to put out in another way:

1. Death results in zero balance in our account.
2. Humans are aware of this.
3. Humans can only conclude that living is a waste.
4. For life to be not a waste, there must be a
the reward for effort.

That reward must be impervious to the sting of death.

The second condition is with regard to the standard required to achieve that state of enjoying the fruit of your labor. If you work hard, but do not take care, you may end up with a field that produces bad or no grain. You must know what quality or standard of effort is required to get satisfactory results.

Most religions in the world teach a result, and the requirements to get those results. What they don't teach is how to confirm if the teaching is correct. So the element of assurance, confirmation, is absent. In fact most of the resources, religious effort, in other religions is spent in looking for confirmation. How is Christianity different from other religions?

God places people in different situations and causes them to look for Him. Christianity is the only faith which teaches where God filters out His Sheep. Does He recognise them by their religious activity? Paul seems to think do, when he approached the crowd in Athens. But wait, he identified something special in this activity. They had an altar devoted to an Unknown God. He said they had the object right, but the worship wrong. The difference was this God was their Father, and He wasn't served by making images of gold and silver in His honor, but by living holy lives.

1. Images of gold and silver=desire to fulfil creaturely goals.
2. Holy living=desire to fulfil moral goals.

Paul filled in the blanks for the people who acknowledged that there was more to life than success in money, relationships and power (each pagan god was a god of a particular domain). For example Neptune was worshipped by seamen. Something like the patron saint of sailors.

When you confess that fact, God hears your cry and sends you a deliverer to rescue you from your situation, where you have not bought in to plan of the voices of the world, the oppressive slavemasters of Egypt, and are struggling to find the truth. They recognise His voice in the deliverer, because the sheep recognise their shepherd. He is teaching the same things they have been believing. When the Father send them to his deliverer, he in turn will not drive them away. In fact, he will give words of life, bread from heaven, that bind the powers of the world which try to recapture them. Baptism not only carries them into the community of the people of God, it also bars the efforts of their former masters from pursuing them, drowning them, neutralizing them. It cleanses the obedient through the word spoken to them. They do not need a bath, only freshening up.

However, you can take Israel out of Egypt, but can you take Egypt out of Israel?

The sheep know that they must dependent on God not the world, but not how much. Can they leave dependence on the world for their food? It seems so. Can they depend on God for their lives? Joshua did. God required him to lay down his life so that the little ones could reach the promised land, and he did lay it down. God preserved his life, so that even though he went to war against giants, he won and came out alive. As did Jesus. The hired hand runs away when the wolves attack the flock. The shepherd risks even his own life to round up the flock and bring them to safety.

But Israel complained, and misused the resources God gave them, and refused to lay down their lives for their friends. They did not love God and they did not love their fellow human beings. They were unfaithful, disloyal. And they never completed their journey away from enslavement to that which blocked their reward, their serving of self interest. If they wanted to be perfect, fulfilled, they had to lay down their lives and follow God.

So now we can see that God's children are those who are insiders, who have decided to give up their old mindset and have participated in God's mindset, to gather and not scatter. 'Meta noia' means change of mind, misleadingly translated as 'repent' .

Before that they were just plants, which God watered ( with water from the Rock!) , but he expected them to grow and bear fruit. When they did not, they were cut down and placed on the bonfire.

Children are those who love God, are loyal to God, are willing to put up with the tough training without complaining. Children are those who love the other sheep, are willing to lay down their lives, go and battle those giants who are preventing the family from reaching safety. God feeds the faithful by sending angels to minister to them, He resurrects those who lay down their lives for others, who throw themselves from high places, not to test God, but for the right reason. As he did with Joshua and Jesus.

As we study Scriptures, we realise that a better model than slave and children is that of wheat and tares. God is the supreme Gardener. Every plant looks like wheat, has the potential to be wheat. He tends them, does not immediately cut them down, gives them many chances, is long suffering and forgiving. However, when the plant fails to bear grain several seasons running, He is forced to pull them up and throw them on the bonfire.

One could also say that all the seeds are the children of the adversary, naturally resistant to control, like unbroken horses, unproductive, of no use to the owner. When they adapt well to training from God, accept water from the Rock, these living waters transform them into adopted children. With them God is pleased and they enter His rest, a place in His family. They are rulers , not the ruled. They have discretion over how to apply the rules. They are lord over even the strictest of rules.

Just as the garden variety gardener loves to have a productive garden, God loves to have mature, responsible, family orientated children.