If one professes to know things about the universe such as Jesus Christ being the son of God, I'm interested in one's $0.02 on my question. This is a forum, you know.

I would like to address (was also the title of a thread) The Peculiar Idea of Jesus Dying For Our Sins. What does it really mean that Jesus DIED FOR US? This topic has given me a bunch of trouble because when you get to the technicalities of it, it doesn’t make much sense, I don’t think. I was taught the traditional version that God came to earth to redeem man and by him dying for all of man it somehow brought me salvation, as long as I believed this.

But I read the story a different way. To me it doesn’t appear at all that Jesus was God.. I mean G_O_D Himself.

The more I find out about Jesus the more I realize that the Bible isn’t a story about God coming to earth to save man. The New Testament is a story about Jesus, a man no different then you or I, who discovered a calling within himself. Some parts of the Bible show that people who knew Jesus, even when growing up, had no inclination that he was who he was. Which leads me to believe also that Jesus wasn’t completely aware of it himself, as some of what was posted earlier also implies. An example of this is Matthew 13:54-57

These verses tell a lot. Jesus says, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.”

“…in his hometown and his own household.”

This is where people know him. This is where people knew that the Jesus they remember was not like he is now. So changes had to have taken place between these periods of time. Does this sound like anything other than a manifestation that grew inside of a human being who was once recognized as just one of the crowd?

Still focusing on The Peculiar Idea of Jesus Dying For Our Sins lets look at what it means to accept Jesus as your Savior. And how exactly by accepting him does this grant you Salvation?

For the life of me I can’t understand how Jesus physically dying can work out to where when I die, I’ll rise again too. It has to be seen in a different way, and up to this point it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. And this is it:

God created A&E perfect and they were Gods treasure. This treasure was itself the Creation of Man. But from the get-go A&E proved to not be worthy when provided with the gift of choice. This gift of choice would eventually lead man to act in ways that were against his best interest and ultimately self-destructive behavior. The treasure has now lost its value and in all actuality was worthless to God being in the state it was.

But still, the concept of Man obviously was something that God didn’t want to give up on. So God creates Jesus and he gives Jesus the same shot that Adam had. Adam was created a full-grown man and I assume that when Jesus reached a similar maturity level that this is when his choices started to matter. But for whatever reason, Jesus chose to obey his instincts, his gut, his revelations.

Jesus followed a path that was revealed to him in his imagination that ultimately led to him being crucified. And he did it all with the faith that it was Gods will for him. That's dedication. And that’s what God wanted to see from his treasure. God wanted to know that it’s POSSIBLE for a free-choice being to obey him. If Jesus, the Last Adam, had failed, we wouldn’t be here today.

To accept Jesus as your Savior is not accepting (my opinion) Jesus as God. You are accepting Jesus as proof, that God exists, and that God has the same intentions (to Reveal purpose) for you as he did for Jesus. So by accepting Jesus as your Savior you are really accepting the life dedicated to finding the will of God within yourself. And it’s THIS that saves you.

You’ve heard to pray for things, “In the name of Jesus”. You don’t pray TO Jesus, because he’s not God. But you pray to God and when you say, “In the name of Jesus” this shows God that you understand the Purpose, and the Process.

The Bible says that Jesus is the one who speaks to God on our behalf. When it’s said that no man alive is worthy it’s because we’ve already failed, we’ve already lost the race. But it doesn’t matter anymore because God already knows his Creation is one to treasure because the test has been passed; one of us has made it without disobeying. And the example that Jesus is is what God looks through when he sees us. It’s like beer goggles. God looks at us and only sees our potential that Jesus reinforced that we do have.

So I guess in short, it’s not the physical act of Jesus dying that brings us Salvation, it’s that by dying Jesus fulfilled the will of God perfectly. And it’s this that God needed to see in order to count Man as treasure worth keeping. Jesus took all of our sins with him when he died because his death erased all of the sin that would have originally counted us out.

“Christ experienced all the stages of life, thereby giving communion with God to all men.”

Haven't forgotten about this.

It's going to tie in but I can't promise when because it takes me forever to get one of these things up.

that's what she said

It doesn't matter if somone would or would not like what I said, truth is truth, and what I said is in the bible.

There is not room to squeeze out of becoming born again to have eternal life.

If a child/baby is going to in the future believe and get born-agian, God knows this, and He will assign them a ministering spirit, also known erroneously as a gaurdian angel.....to protect that child or person until they believe and get born-again.....

Hbr 1:13 But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?

Hbr 1:14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

They minister/serve those who are heirs of salvation, those who will recieve salavation, wholeness, eternal life. The way in which they serve is protecting them from dying before getting born again.

This is why many people have gone through a situation that by all logical evidenca and by the 5 senses, they should have died, but they by a miracle survive. They survive because they are future heirs of salvation or they are already born-again and were protected..........

The bible has the answers, IF you know where to look..............Yes I know the answers, HOW? because its written in the book.........simple as that.

Big Erf, this is a great realization for the most part...........God must have opened your eyes to this.

Jesus Christ was a man, the one thing you have wrong though is that he did know who he was, not from birth but grew in this knowledge quickly.

His mother was told before his birth who her son would be. The angel told her she was going to have a son, and he would be called "the son of the highest".

She then taught her son who he was, and he studied the old testament and grew in his knowledge about who he was and what he was supposed to be for mankind, he believed it and walked out on it, he lived the word of God that he read about himself......

He was not born with the innate knowledge that he was the son of God, he had to learn this from his parents. Who were responsible according to the old testament law, to teach their children diligently........

I am thankful that God revealed what he did to you........

Bless...........

P.S. This by the way is the same thing we as Christians are supposed to do, we are to know who we are, sons of God and we have power just like Christ does, we just have to learn about it, believe it and walk out on it, just like he did, then we will see the same types of miracles happen that he did, we will walk with God just like he did..........

Blood represents the life of the flesh.

Big Erf, see, you are tying yourself in knots trying to make sense of the story, trying to derive some meaning that compatible with what you believe the nature of God is. This stems, of course, from your belief in God and that God is all good, all-loving, etc.

So you take these barbaric rituals such as sacrifice and try to make sense of it. You twist and turn and you eventually come up with an interpretation you can live with. Fair enough.

Thing is, if we stop looking at the bible as the word of God, but rather the expression of a maturing civilizations' sense of themselves, the problems dissipate don't they? It makes much more sense when we think of primitive superstition, such as the desire to sacrifice. It makes sense that the author's of the gospel wished to do away with this practice as society evolved and came up with a great solution: Jesus' dying fulfills the law - no more need to sacrifice! It's still a ruthless type of society, so blood images make sense to them.

The bible being the work of men makes it much more understandable, IMO. We're dealing with flawed creatures, not perfect creatures. Thus we don't need to tie ourselves in knots trying to square a circle.

Just some food for thought.

Excellent post, though I would say the bloody sacrificial aspect was relevant also, as it had been anticipated throughout the Old Testament, not to mention man's inhumanity to man even today.

Jesus made of Himself an offering sacrificed to God on our behalf as one of us, so that, through His resurrection from the dead by God in acceptance of the sacrifice, we can also overcome death. Jesus paid the price of our admission to eternal life with God, if we accept it that is. No one is forced to do so. The alternative is to simply let nature take its course.

I'm not from Missouri, though show me anyway please.

I've always wondered about this too when reading the verses that say, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” To me it seems odd that the people who knew him didn't know who he was, if his parents did. I know Joseph also was visited by an angel in a dream and told about the virgin birth, but the Scriptures never imply that this was to be kept secret.. it was written in the stars for Gods sake!

So I wonder why Jesus makes the comment that he gets no honor from those in his hometown and in his family. How does the Savior of the world go unnoticed when his family is well aware of the situation? The KJV has this verse as: And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. And I think it's a bit more difficult to interpret. TBH I might not even get what I do from it if it weren't for the later translations. It's just that the later translations imply that this is all news to everyone, even those who knew him.

I don't doubt it represents flesh, but why does God exercise a system of leveraging blood and death for forgiveness of sins? Seems like forgiving those truly sorry for their sins can be done without some physical property of destruction and violence, especially if you're an all-powerful all-loving creator and father of existence

If we are to find the will of God within, as Christ did, then is this will also "written in the stars" so-to-speak, do you think? What I'm suggesting is that if God has a will for us to find, then this will is a path that has already played out and has purpose in the Mind of God.

So Christ may have discovered who he was, just as we can discover who we are, but in order for our paths to take the form that Christs did they must be shown along the path, not before the first step is taken.

I bring this up because as my faith has grown I have inclinations that I am on the right path, almost as if I have reconnected with a ghost that stayed straight somewhere long ago where I turned left. Here is an exchange I had with Arouet some time back: Well, I think the majority of my problems have stemmed from not knowing my purpose. Or in other words – I self-destruct as a result of not having a goal to focus on. The self destruction is a result of feeling the call but failing to see it. The further into this investigation that I go, what’s being revealed to me is appearing not as something that is new to me, but in a form that I had previously felt, just unable to give life to. Which tells me that if where I’m going has been trying to get my attention, it must previously had had a good reason for doing so.

Arouet I can appreciate this.

The problem is the Resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:14-20
(14) And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
(15) More than that, we are then found to be 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.
(16) For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.
(17) And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
(18) Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.
(19) If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
(20) But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

This takes away the "expression of a maturing civilizations' sense of themselves."

That doesn't leave the Jews and everyone who lived before Christ in a vary good position.

Ok so let's get into this shall we?

A while back there was an older gentleman who came on here and posted something about Universal Salvation. There was a lot of links and a lot of reading but in it I found something that is still not talked about on here, and I don’t understand why. I’m going to try and shorten it up quite a bit but here’s the gist of it:

.

In regards to Hell and the Lake of Fire:

Ok now watch this:

Divine purification and divine consecration are the plain meaning in ancient Greek. In the ordinary explanation, this fundamental meaning of the word is entirely left out, and nothing but eternal torment is associated with it" -end quote.

This all suggests that in the original language, the meaning of Hell and the Lake of Fire should be translated as Divine Purification.

Does this not make sense?

This needs to be proven wrong IMO.

And if it can't, do you accept?