hell's population

[Felgar]

what I meant was a 2 path system, one repent through christ, and the second would be being a 'very good' person in general. That way people who are very good such as gandhi himself wouldnt go to hell. Sort of like a fail safe. The criteria of 'very good' of course being set up by god as defined by his moral system.

Actually, God does have that system. This is what Kurieuo was also saying. Adam and Eve had that chance, but rejected it. The angels remain in the 2nd path to this day. The only human to ever be 'very good' according to God's moral system was Jesus, which is why His sacrifice can redeem us from our sins.

God's moral system of course, is that the wages of sin is death; and that's simply because of the nature of God (who is life) which cannot coexist with sin. I hope you read that second link, because that explains these same concepts more clearly IMO.

[Anonymous]

k sure... will do
thx

mastermind

k, no argument against that, I guess every entity has its own way of showing its love.

[Anonymous]

hey felgar,

though a christian god cant coexist with the sin of human, he can wash them of it..
so in my case, the person who has completed a certain degree of 'goodness' will be allowed the washing of sin as those granted to the ppl who believed in christ. If the christian god can hear this, please implement this system .

[Felgar]

hey felgar,

though a christian god cant coexist with the sin of human, he can wash them of it..
so in my case, the person who has completed a certain degree of 'goodness' will be allowed the washing of sin as those granted to the ppl who believed in christ. If the christian god can hear this, please implement this system .

This is the very same issue that I hope to respond to today. Very busy day though. Mmgh.

[Anonymous]

indeed, i'll wait for your reply there...

[Kurieuo]

hmm... why does god need to send jesus down to pay the membership

Well we can try to attain moral perfection on our own and in this way be compatible with God who is all-righteous (and we gain "membership"), or we can be separated from God because of our imperfections (denied "membership"), or God can choose a way where our imperfections are dealt with so that we can still attain "membership" and He can have a relationship with us.

couldnt he equally grant membership to people who believe in him without jesus having to die etc... is this one of the inexplicable nature of god again?

One need not simply believe in one God for as pointed out in James 2:19, "Even the demons believe that-and shudder." Yet, if one loves Christ and thereby follows after Him, then Christ has promised to give us "membership."

How can Christ make payment on our behalf, or be the Way to God? The reasoning behind it is perhaps best illustrated by looking at one of Israel's social/legal procedures in the Bible. If someone ever got into debt and could not repay what they owed, then they would be put into slavery to work and pay off their debt. However, if someone else chose to come and pay the debt, then the person in debt could be redeemed. The person who would pay to redeem another from slavery was called the "kinsman redeemer." And it would only be by the kinsman redeemer's gracious act that he would pay to redeem another.

Now, the first qualification of being a kinsman-redeemer is that the redeemer must be related to the person in debt. The second qualification for the redeemer is that they must be free themselves.

Applying this to ourselves, we are all sinners before God having committed wrongful acts. God on the other hand is all-righteous and as such He cannot just glimpse past wrongful acts we commit against Him. If God did just glimpse past our sin, it would make God semi-righteous and accepting of evil, which means God wouldn't really be righteous at all. So if we are ever to be with an all-righteous God, we have to be made right before God.

Thus, if we who are slaves to sin are to be with a holy and righteous God, we need to be somehow freed from being a slave to sin. And Jesus was the only person who qualified for the task of redeeming us. Jesus qualified firstly because he met the redeemer requirement of being associated with us by being born into our world as a human. Jesus also met the second requirement, that is, being free from sin. So if we were ever to be redeemed from sin, and so be justified before a righteous God, Jesus was qualified to redeem us.

However redemption doesn't come without a payment. In order to set us free from sin so that we could be accepted by God, a payment was required. We are told that the price of sin is death. This especially makes sense when we understand how sin kills our relationship between us and a Holy God, causing a spiritual death. Jesus therefore chose to sacrifice Himself, making payment on our behalf for our sin.

So now those who choose to allow Christ into their lives and follow Him, belong to Him and are saved from an eternal death they would otherwise have from God.

Kurieuo.

[voicingmaster]

The penalty for sin is death. If you sin once, you're dead. There is only one way to be absolved and through Jesus's sacrifice. Granted we se Ghandi, Buddha, and Mohammed as pretty nice guys, but that means nothing in the long run if they haven't accepted Christ(well, since Buddha was born in BC, he'd be saved most likely, he followed his conscience). The only way to become absolved is to accept God and Christ, and thus become righteous in God's eyes.

Basically, here's a way of thinking about it. God doesn't send you to hell for not believing. He accepts you in heaven for beieving, but if you don't believe there's only one other place to go.

[Anonymous]

Jesus's sacrifice wasn't necessary for one to be forgiven of their sin, in fact not even animal sacrifice is now necessary:

Hosea 14:2-3 Return, Israel, unto the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the Lord; say unto Him, 'May You forgive all iniquity and accept good intentions, and let our lips substitute for bulls.

Artscroll Stone Edition Tanach offers a commentary for Hosea 14:3 An essential part of repentence is that one feel remorse for his past failings and sincerely resolve to improve. Thus the penitent begins by begging God to look favorably upon his good intentions and to accept the prayers, confession, and pledges of his lips in place of, and as more worthy than, fatted bulls as offerings, which may look superficially impressive but are lacking inner content.

Again no need for human sacrifice, in fact Jews know God has a pretty brilliant system in that most people will be saved in time and that only the very wicked will have problems coming to God. God would not create someone to later throw them in some kind of eternal torture chamber.

[Mastermind]

Jesus's sacrifice wasn't necessary for one to be forgiven of their sin, in fact not even animal sacrifice is now necessary:

Hosea 14:2-3 Return, Israel, unto the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the Lord; say unto Him, 'May You forgive all iniquity and accept good intentions, and let our lips substitute for bulls.

Artscroll Stone Edition Tanach offers a commentary for Hosea 14:3 An essential part of repentence is that one feel remorse for his past failings and sincerely resolve to improve. Thus the penitent begins by begging God to look favorably upon his good intentions and to accept the prayers, confession, and pledges of his lips in place of, and as more worthy than, fatted bulls as offerings, which may look superficially impressive but are lacking inner content.

Again no need for human sacrifice, in fact Jews know God has a pretty brilliant system in that most people will be saved in time and that only the very wicked will have problems coming to God. God would not create someone to later throw them in some kind of eternal torture chamber.

I agree that God didn't HAVE to send Jesus. But He did to show His love, and it is the fact that it was voluntary rather than an obligation that makes it even more impressive.

[bizzt]

The penalty for sin is death. If you sin once, you're dead. There is only one way to be absolved and through Jesus's sacrifice. Granted we se Ghandi, Buddha, and Mohammed as pretty nice guys, but that means nothing in the long run if they haven't accepted Christ(well, since Buddha was born in BC, he'd be saved most likely, he followed his conscience). The only way to become absolved is to accept God and Christ, and thus become righteous in God's eyes.

Basically, here's a way of thinking about it. God doesn't send you to hell for not believing. He accepts you in heaven for beieving, but if you don't believe there's only one other place to go.

I would not say Mohammed was a very nice guy. When he gained his Army's he called for Utter Destruction

[The edge]

Even in our human system of law....no matter how great a person is, once he committed an offense against the law of the land, a fair system would demand that he still be punish.
Say in the case of a man who had in the past donated millions but had come to a later point in time where he committed fraud & run away with $50K. When caught, the judge would not be able to relief him of his crime simply base on the balances of account on what he had given vs what he had stolen.
In our human system, perhaps he would receive the lower limit of the punishment (e.g. 3 yrs for fraud that carry a sentence of 3 - 6 yrs)...basing on the judge mercy & his track record.
However in the case of God, the sentence for all crimes (so call big or small in our eyes) is only 1 & that's spiritual death.
There's no accounting balance to speak of, as nothing can outweigh our crime, basing on God Holy standard (it must be since He is God). The bible says that all our righteousness is like a filthy rag to God.

Thus the only redemption / payment is another death before the man can be set free.

Another way to look at the analogy of club membership is this:
The Heaven club rules for membership is repentance, salvation thru Christ (barring the interpretation of Hosea), & willingness to call God our Father. This give us the "license" to be adopted regardless of our talents, character traits, past records.

When a couple adopt a kid, all they need the kid to do is to sincerely call them daddy & mommy & try not to do whatever serious bad things they might have done before. This kid may in time later fall back to doing bad things, but once adopted, the loving parents will do their utmost to teach, encourage & discipline him, but never will they disown the child as long as the kid still see them as his parents.

Another kid who is given the chance of adoption may instead feel the need to earn it. He cannot accept the couple's simple rule of repantance & calling them his parents. He chose instead to gain access to the family thru an effort to balance his past "sins" budget.
Firstly, this is not the condition set up by the couple, 2ndly, no real loving relation between parent & child can be develop out of this approach, 3rdly, even if the kid manage to balance his sin account...what then after adoption when the balance again tilt negatively?

Thus the 2nd way to heaven tho seems compasionate in our human eyes is just not the approach God wants for a loving relationship with us & one that must meet his holy standard of zero sin tolerance in heaven (all must be fully paid by death).

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

though a christian god cant coexist with the sin of human, he can wash them of it.. so in my case, the person who has completed a certain degree of 'goodness' will be allowed the washing of sin as those granted to the ppl who believed in christ. If the christian god can hear this, please implement this system .

God is unchanging for one thing. Jesus said He is the only way to the Father, nobody gets to Him except through Him. And, the person who breaks the law has no room to make the rules.

[voicingmaster]

though a christian god cant coexist with the sin of human, he can wash them of it.. so in my case, the person who has completed a certain degree of 'goodness' will be allowed the washing of sin as those granted to the ppl who believed in christ. If the christian god can hear this, please implement this system .

Oh yeah, you, who has lived less than a century, has thought of something that God, who has lived for hundreds of thousands of years, hasn't

[Anonymous]

Everyone on their own is condemned before God for all have sinned no matter how much good they have done. God would be quite just in casting every one of us out from His presence.

Kurieuo.

If God is this great being who loves all then he wouldn't do such a things to people who have done good things even if there not christian.

[Kurieuo]

He doesn't do anything to such people that couldn't be otherwise. You believe if God is soo great and soo loving that He should be able to go against His very nature to accept someone inconsistent to His own. Such is illogical. God can not tolerate sin without it being dealt with because to do so goes against "holiness" which is apart of His nature.

Kurieuo.