Posted on 12/24/2001 8:05:12 AM PST by xzins
The Bible says, "The Word Became Flesh".....God became flesh, human. The incarnation.
Why is this important to the average joe? Any opinions, reflections, stories are welcome.
God had to become like one of us...tempted by everything we are and yet He couldn't sin...not even once. That's why Satan tried to tempt Jesus with everything that he could.
Jesus is our Passover Lamb. If you're aware of the Passover story. He had to die as a spotless Lamb without a flaw or blemish. In order that we might be saved.
Without Jesus's shed blood there couldn't be forgiveness for our sins. When God looks at a saved sinner all He see's is Jesus's blood covering us.
One of the lessons I take from Him is that all else passes, love alone endures.
While I believe that Christ was the sacrifice for our sins, I cannot completely follow the logic of it. Why did He have to die, for example, just because I sinned? Why is it logical for God to forgive me because Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross. It seems like God would've been really pleased with Jesus, but that I'm still standing there looking pretty dirty.
It's like if my brother came to the Judge to offer to take the penalty for my reckless driving conviction. The judge might be impressed with my brother's love, but he'd still have to consider that I was THE ONE WHO had broken the reckless driving law. Not to mention that I would need retraining in driving.
Firstly thank you for the thread, as someone who sometimes struggles with such things and has arrived at my search rather late in life I find the questions and answers helpful.
But it raises a point that I've not been able to resolve nor have I found anyone who can.
If indeed Jesus died for our sins so that if we believe in him we will go to heaven when do we go to heaven? When we die?
I find this at odds with things like the various creeds that proclaim that Jesus will return to judge the living/quick and the dead/raise the dead (depending on the creed). If we're in heaven (or hell) who is going to be /judgedraised?
Any references, clarifications, discussions etc. would be greatly appreciated.
The conclusion that St. Thomas reached was that the Incarnation had a secondary purpose, and that purpose was to provide an example for mankind of supreme humility and compassion. From a human perspective, nothing could be more "humiliating" than for an all-powerful, immortal God to assume a mortal body and become a part of His own creation.
Interestingly, I find that the story of Satan's temptation of Christ is the most compelling evidence in Scripture of this view. Satan offers three distinct temptations, and in every instance Christ refuses them in a manner that does not require him to "use" any supernatural powers.
That is why Christ was required to be born, die, and live again.
It's figurative. The Kingdom of Heaven is the issue. The 8 Beatitudes explain this to some degree.
Well, we know from the Bible that "the wages of sin is death." So apart from Christ, all men are sinners deserving of death and eternal punishment. The reason Jesus had to come as God incarnate is so that he could be our substitute. On the cross, Jesus willingly took on every single individual sin that his people have ever committed...he took on every sin nature....and in those moments, he took upon himself God's judgment of US. This is the miracle of the incarnation and the cross. It was both a supernatural and a human act that broke the power of sin and satisfied God's justice. This is part of Jesus' cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" At that moment, God turned his back on his own son because of the sin he took upon his own sinless person...in this, Jesus endured God's wrath and God turning away from him, so that God could turn his face toward us.
By the life that he lived, we are clothed in His righteousness (because he fulfilled the law we were unable to) and in His sacrifice, our sins are washed away.
This is a gift that could only come through someone who was perfectly human and perfectly God, both at the same time.
The reason that Christ HAD to be both God and man was so that his humanity could "stand in" for us and could satisfy God's justice. God cannot go against his own nature and righteousness, so Jesus satisfies God's justice on our behalf, but he also mediates God's mercy and grace to us. Mercy, grace and justice all meet at the cross of Christ.
Amazing Grace indeed!!
-penny
By re-alligning man's relationship with the all powerful "god in the sky", we radically alter all our notions of the individual's relationship to earthly authority--and vice versa, of course.
Which is why Christianity will, inevitably become the targetted enemy of the New World Order. It has to be. This is also why you find that global capitalists, left-wing radicals and bureacratic/mangerial functionaries have an affection for Islam. When you see all those men with their foreheads on the ground you should meditate upon the underlying assumptions about authority and the individual human's place in the hierarchy of the universe that such a physical posture betrays.
And all because Christians were able to fashion a brilliant melding of Jewish, classical Greek/Roman, and European pagan practices around the person of Jesus and his followers.
We also see, as the visigoth Ruling Elite tears us further and further away from our cultural heritage, certain loathsome Christian heresies have taken root. A sort of de-naturing of the faith is taking place--the anti-intellectual demands of a commercialized, democratic society--and the person of Jesus is subtly downplayed in favor of the Old Testament psycopath who is so beloved to so many "law and order" types.
Consequently the American people are much more bovine and complacent in the face of the grotesqely huge Imperial interventionist police/welfare state that now "protects" them from "evil" at home and abroad.
As Montiverdi so brilliantly puts it in "Christe, Redemptor Omnium":
"Christe, Redemptor omnium,
Quem lucis ante originem,
Parem paternae gloriae,
Pater supremus editit,
Memento, rerum Conditor,
Nostri quod olim corporis,
Sacrate ab alvo Virginis,
Nascendo, formam sumpseris...."
When a human being can stand upright under the sun and adress his "god" in this fashion it has revolutionary implications....
Merry Christmas. On to the barricades...
During the Great Tribulation, you will come back with Jesus as his army to fight against the un-Godly...And of course, you and Jesus will prevail, mightily...
When you get to heaven, you will be judged by Jesus on "what you did for Him as a Christian"...The Bible says that what you did on earth that didn't produce good for God, will be burned...What you did that was good, you will be rewarded for...
At the White Throne Judgement, everyone WILL confess that Jesus is Lord, before they are cast into outer darkness to the lake of fire....The two are not the same...
Many will disagree with what I just said...My only advice to you or anyone is, Don't let someone "educate" you out of the Bible...
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