Shivarage said:
Why did jesus have to die? I'm not kidding you, it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me. He died for our sins, but couldn't God have just chosen to forgive us without, you know, having his son suffer an agonising death? I'm not even bible bashing. Please explain this because I've obviously missed something HUGE
EDIT: I probably didn't need to put the second one in spoiler tags, but whatever.
Well I can explain the bible part, You see when we lived in the old testament days, God was very strict and we all had to sacrifice an animal once a week for our sins at the alter in repentence for our sins, however this process was quite troublesome, however God brought mercy on us all with HIS OWN sacrifices. Just like how we had to bring a lamb up for slaughter that must have nothing wrong with it, God brought his own son (Jesus, aka the Lamb of God) to sacrifice as he was the perfect human who had no flaws. So in other words, God drastically reduced the requirements to get into heaven.
By doing this we would no longer have to constantly go about sacrificing animals at the alter and instead all we would have to do is follow the new Testament's teachings and repent.
I hope I explained this the best I could and if you have any other questions, feel free to message me.
"when we lived in the old testament days, God was very strict..."
How do you know?
Where did God go since then?
Why did he decide not to make any more contact with us if he is still around?
Why would God appreciate murder in his name?
Last thing I would want to do is purposely have my own son murdered for me...
It even said so that God was strict. Getting into Heaven was a hell of alot harder than it is now.
In Romans Chapter 1 it said that God took a big step back from humanity seeing as how we wanted him out of our lives and wanted to do whatever we wanted to do, seeing as how God wouldn't want to force us to love him. (Harder to explain, but let me know If I should emphasize a bit more.)
Sadly Sacrificing was the only method back then to atone for the sins of Humanity. And secondly they ate the meat I believe after out of Necessity. (Don't get all Animal Activist on me about the BC TIME DAMMIT) Had Adam and Eve listened we wouldn't be here discussing such contreversial BS.
And finally put it this way. You don't want to go thru with sacrificing your son (ALSO it is yourself in Human form due to Omnipresence), but you realize that a good 90% of humanity will fall into Hell by their own had if you don't do so.
So Instead of having us all Constantly sacrificing animals in such a fashion every week and running little to no chance of getting into Heaven, He sacrifices his son (IE himself in human form) to open the gates of Heaven to us. To forgive us of our sin, but still having to do what we can to live by him.
This all can be found in the Bible dude, whether you believe it or not is your decision, I just prefer not to have my beliefs belittled by a skeptic. So my advice is that if you want to analyze God like that, then try reading the bible and make your own Opinion from there rather than confronting someone who was trying to explain why an event happened the way it did.
Sacrifice NEVER needed to happen
Just sounds like someone justifying murdering animals to stay alive...
And religion is just someone making up stories to ease peoples fear of death
Why does hell exist?
Why does a supposed ever-loving "God" allow it to exist?
First of all, I apologize for the horribly quoted text, I tried to make it a little better, but it still sucks.
Now, onto the actual question:
1. WHY did Jesus have to die?
I sometimes struggle with this, and sometimes, it makes perfect sense. On one hand, it makes NO SENSE AT ALL! I mean, God... the maker of everything... needed to send His own Son to die so that we might live? That's a little far-fetched.
But if you look at it as I believe God looks at it, it makes perfect sense.
You see, He's perfect. (I feel many of you guys have problems with this whole situation simply because you don't believe God exists... I'm not here to tell you what to believe, but I'm telling you what I believe, and I'll try to back it up with the Bible.)
"You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil;
with you the wicked cannot dwell." -- Psalms 5:4
This pretty much sets the stage for the entire Bible. God has no fellowship with evil, or darkness as it is sometimes called (1 John 1:5.) When He created humans, He created them perfect beings because He desired to do so. He wanted to love us (because "God is love" -- 1 John 4:8)
HOWEVER He gave us silly humans free will.
(I've heard many discussions about God giving us free will and how that was a stupid idea, but the basic idea is "If we can't choose to love Him and obey Him, then we're really not having a relationship with Him." It makes sense. In a real-life example, we open ourselves up to disappointment every time we choose to love. The man chooses to love the woman, but if he has a shred of sense he knows that by opening himself up to this woman and loving her, there's a possibility that this woman might break his heart. God did the same with us.)
Anyways, He gives us free will because otherwise we'd be stupid robots, so instead we're stupid humans who, instead of chilling in the most perfect place ever created (literally!) we decide to do the only thing God tells us not to do, disobeying God and bringing sin to our world.
God, being perfect, and living in a perfect Heaven/Garden of Eden, can't have these imperfect people in there with Him! So He kicks them out, BUT gives them a way to return to His presence. Sacrifice.
The reason for sacrifice in the OT isn't salvation! It's a reminder of the consecuences of sin.
"The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." -- Hebrews 10:1-4
There is nothing that we can do in order to EARN salvation, or a one-way ticket out of hell. In the following verse, it shows that the "wages" (what one has earned) of sin is DEATH. God knew that we had earned death, but He, because of His love for us, decided to send His Son in order to pay for our sins, to receive the wages that we had earned. The sacrifices were simply a reminder; however, Jesus' sacrifice was different.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." -- Romans 6:23
Jesus' sacrifice was not unnecessary; in order for God to be just (and He's unchanging, so if He's just some of the time, He'll be just all of the time) He couldn't give us humans a free ticket from our consequences, but He DID have compassion on us (since we were eternally screwed) and gave us a way out... His Son's sacrifice.
I don't know if I answered everything (or if any of my answer is acceptable to you) but I enjoy talking about what I believe (and not simply arguing.) Message me, or comment here, if you have any more questions (hopefully I'll be able to help at least a bit!)
