Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

[The Pixie]

Scripture says: Heb. 12: 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

It takes time to appreciate loving discipline and especially those that would not accept such discipline correctly, it will look foolish.

So we can see why it looks foolish to me. Now you have to do is explain why it is not.

It was not the first...

Jesus said it was the first:

Mat 22:7 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.

It was not the first, but the greatest command and one that cannot be done by man’s ability.

That is a pretty damning admission. God set up the system such that his creations are not even capable of following his first command.

If it is beyond our capability, then that is a failing on God's part. He made us like this. He wrote the command. He knew when he did so that it "cannot be done by man’s ability".

If a child asked his/her perfectly wonderful parent: “What do you want from me as your child?” and the parent said: “Nothing but to have you Love me?” Would you think that parent was being egotistical?

No. But if the parent said “Nothing but to have you Love me more than anything else, and if you fail to do that I will make you suffer so much?” then yes.

You have to understand Godly type Love. No one can Love God with Godly type Love, without first accept God’s Love as pure charity. This “Love” we have for God is only out of an unbelievable huge gratitude for what God has already done for us (and God has done it all there is no more for Him to do).

This is the point. Why should I feel that gratitude? The whole thing is a set up. God made a law that he knew we could not keep, God decided Jesus would die to make up for us not keeping it. Now he expects me to feel this "unbelievable huge gratitude" for that?

God Loves us (will do and does do more sacrificial stuff for us) than we could ever Love Him, so who is the winner and loser in that relationship?

The billions who end up in hell despite leading good lives are the losers.

If you cannot “Love” someone that has sacrificially done everything possible to help you, what kind of person are you? Is this “command” of God something you have to work at, because if it is; you are not doing it right?

Everything possible?

How about creating us capable of complying with his first commandment?

How about setting commandments that we can achive?

How about not tirturing for eternity those who fail?

Are these things beyond God?

The Garden shows us that God really want us to be in a wonderful place, but obtaining Godly type Love requires a much better place for humbly accepting pure charity (where we are today).

The question is why? Who decided that "obtaining Godly type Love requires a much better place"? Who decided that "humbly accepting pure charity" is so great? God did.

Whichever way you tell it, the system was designed and created by God (if we accept Christian doctrine). He chose for it to be the way it is.

There are lots of ways to become like God with knowledge, but to become like God with love requires the accepting of God’s Love as charity, which did not and really could not happen in the garden situation.

Because God chose that it could not.

Or God is himself obligated to follow someone else's rules.

On leaving the Garden there were lots of curses given to man, but those curses actually help humans to fulfill their objective of accepting God’s Love.

Sin is not the problem and actually helps the unbeliever fulfill his objective.

That is interesting, because most Christians say that sin is the problem.

I think the Bible supports the idea of annihilation and not eternal suffering in hell. The “threat” of hell is only for those that actually believe the Christian God exists, but are still refusing God’s help.

Is that instant annihilation or annihilation after God has tortured you for a while?

Matthew 13:42: "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Again: I think the Bible supports the idea of annihilation and not eternal suffering in hell. The “threat” of hell is only for those that actually believe the Christian God exists, but are still refusing God’s help. I am not under any threat.

Cool, neither am I.

If you think about you will come to the realization there is no better way.

How about making his message clear to his followers? Why is that not better than the fragmented messages we see from hundreds of different sects?

There are people that have or do lack the opportunity to accept or reject God’s Love, so from my understand of God they will go to heaven without ever fulfilling their earthly object, so will have only a child for parent type of love and never have Godly type Love (Which I am to blame for).

So it turns out a better way would be for God to keep his existence secret. If no one knows he exists, we all lack the opportunity to choose God's love and so all get a free pass to heaven.

The Great Commission was a work of evil, spreading the news that there is a God, and so greatly reducing the chances of people getting to heaven.

These people really do not want to have unselfish Love or be truly Loved, so they would be unhappy in heaven where there is only a huge Love feast of Godly type Love.

As long as God will not make them suffer at all then that is fine.

Not sure who you mean by “leaders”? Every true Christian has the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Priests, vicars, preachers, etc. The guy at the front in church.

If you truly have not been given the opportunity to accept or reject God’s Love, you will not be held accountable a choice not made. But living the life like those that refuse God’s charity, and saying “I did not make a choice” was your choice of refusing.

I do not believe God exists. That is not a choice I have made, that is the inevitable outcome of the evidence presented to me.

Yes, God did know at least some humans would need to have Christ go to the cross to accept His Love as charity and for the discipline it would provide.

God is not going to “force” Christ to go to the cross or hold Christ on the cross, but God will allow (at great pain and suffering on God’s part) Christ to go, if Christ Loves man enough to do such a thing.

Christ is God, so you are saying God did not force God to go to the cross, but God did allow God to.

God hugely Loves me no matter what, but I will not humble myself to accept that Love as charity without a huge need to do so, I have too much pride.

That is the way God made you. Perhaps he should have created peole with less pride. Or was that beyond him?

Not sure what “message” you are talking about, since I am talking about humbly accepting His Love.

His message is what he wants for us. What he wants us to do, why we should do it.

God came to Earth as Jesus and said a bunch of stuff. Did that have any meaning? If so, that was God's message.

Unfortunately God has been powerless to stop his message getting corrupted into hundred of different sects, all convinced they knew his message. Virtually all must be wrong, because they all disagree.

Actually, I did make a free will choice to sin, if I had not sinned Christ would not have gone to the cross (this has to do with God being outside of time [time being relative]). It is not that I physically nailed Christ to the cross, but it was my personal sins that forced a willing Christ to go to the cross.

Was he willing or was he forced? Please decide.

God has contrived a situation where he set up Jesus' death, and then he tells you you are to blame, and then he says he forgives you for it. And that proves he loves you. That is like your friend burning down his house while you are away, then telling you it was your fault, but actually she forgives you. What an immense love your friend must have for you that she is prepared to forgive you for that, right?

It is nothing like that.

How bad are the sins I have done? With or without Christ going to the cross; they are hugely bad, but I do not consider them that bad without the cross. If God just says: “You are forgiven” without any discipline (to help set the value of those sins), I might feel that sins are even less significant since they were nothing for God to just forgive.

This is the thing about Christian, it is founded on guilt. Jesus on the cross makes your sins much worse.

People do bad stuff all the time, but most people do the right thing most of the time. The humanist philosophy is that people are great. The Christian way is that people are scum. Christianity focuses on the bad, and then blows it out of proportion. And here we see it in action. You accept you sin, you even accept that your sins do not amount to much, at least, not until we throw Christianity at them. Suddenly your sins are "unbelievable huge beyond any concept of being reconciled".

Sure we do bad things, but it takes the Christian God to turn our insignificant sins into something "unbelievable huge beyond any concept of being reconciled"

How do you get the message across to man that his sins are unbelievable huge beyond any concept of being reconciled? Remember you are trying to get him to accept Godly type Love as pure charity, so “..he that is forgiven much will Love much…”?

How do you convince a man that his little sins are "unbelievable huge beyond any concept of being reconciled"? Years of indoctrination by Christianity I guess.

Please look at the Prodigal Son Story (Luke 15: 11-32): It was the young sons choice to either stay in the pigsty alone to starve to death (which is what he fully deserved) or he could turn to his father for help. If the young son had been a real macho man he would have willingly starved to death in the pigsty [just payment for what he did] and not pestered his father further with his presence.

That is the choice being made and why the starving pigsty scenario (hell) is there. But was the father putting that gun to his head or was it the son that put it there?

Is that really equivalent? The father did not engineer the starving in a pigsty situation. The father did not engineer his son's failure.

A better analogy would be that the father sent spies after his son, and those spies deliberately sabotaged all the son's business ventures, ensuring that he failed, and that he would have to come back grovelling to the father, who then gets to look good by forgiving the son.

You may say that God does not deliberately sabotage us, but if no one every succeeds, no one out of several billion people, then God created us so we could not succeed ("one that cannot be done by man’s ability").

Punishment and discipline are the same word in Greek.

Punishment in scripture can be translated discipline.

So why were you drawing a distinction between them when you said: "The Judge make sure the criminal will be or has been “disciplined” (not really punished) for the offence."

No it was not, wicked men crucified Christ and God and Christ allowed them to do it.

Were the men any more wicked than the rest of us?

[bling]

So we can see why it looks foolish to me. Now you have to do is explain why it is not.

You might have to put for your best effort, also.

Why do you want to know why Christ died?

How would your life change for the good if you did experience the crucifixion?

Jesus said it was the first:

Mat 22:7 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.

“First” in that contexts means foremost and not the chronological “first” command. The first command chronologically would be “do not eat of the tree of knowledge”.

That is a pretty damning admission. God set up the system such that his creations are not even capable of following his first command.

If it is beyond our capability, then that is a failing on God's part. He made us like this. He wrote the command. He knew when he did so that it "cannot be done by man’s ability".

If your father said to you when you were 10: “I want you to guide the family ship to the fishing grounds” and you asked for the ship’s wheel and went off course right away, would it not also teach you there is a lot to learn before doing such a task?

The command is to “Love beyond our own ability”, but trying and failing does teach us we need help. God is very much wanting to help, but only if we will allow Him to help us and he is not going to help us against our will. The allowing is our part and the allowing makes it us and not just Him doing it.

No. But if the parent said “Nothing but to have you Love me more than anything else, and if you fail to do that I will make you suffer so much?” then yes.

The last part is not what God is communicating: “Love” cannot be coerced out of a person especially with a threat. The “threat” associated with the suffering and/or annihilation of hell would only apply to those that believed in the Christian God and prior to their accepting God’s Love. The threat is not trying to get the person to Love, but to help some people with the acceptance of God’s Love. It takes a lot for some people to be willing to humbly accept pure charity, so the possibility of hell will help them.

Hell is not a threat to those that humbly accept God’s Love.

This is the point. Why should I feel that gratitude? The whole thing is a set up. God made a law that he knew we could not keep, God decided Jesus would die to make up for us not keeping it. Now he expects me to feel this "unbelievable huge gratitude" for that?

I fully agree: “You should not feel any gratitude toward God”.

The only time you could possible “Love God out of gratitude”, is after He has given you everything possible you could ever want with the exception of only the guarantee of heaven, since that does come later.

Christ’s torture, humiliation and murder on the cross does not “make up for us not keeping the commandments”. That was done to help us Lovingly experiencing disciplining.

The billions who end up in hell despite leading good lives are the losers.

Those that “go to hell” did not and would never accept God’s Love (charity) and do not want Godly type Love for themselves (they prefer to be “loved” for the way they want people to perceive them to be and not in spite of the way they really are). The problem is: “heaven is like one huge Love feast, but only Godly type Love is at the feast, so people not liking Godly type Love would not be happy in heaven.

Everything possible?

Sorry, but the impossible is not possible.

How about creating us capable of complying with his first commandment?

If God instinctively gave us a “love” (this would be like a robotic type love) it would not be a Godly type Love. We can “comply” with the command by allowing God to help us.

How about setting commandments that we can achive?

We can obtain Godly type Love, by humbly accepting His Love.

How about not tirturing for eternity those who fail?

The Bible does teach annihilation, but there could be some “punishment” prior to the annihilation.

Are these things beyond God?

Godly type Love cannot be made instinctive.

The question is why? Who decided that "obtaining Godly type Love requires a much better place"? Who decided that "humbly accepting pure charity" is so great? God did.

Whichever way you tell it, the system was designed and created by God (if we accept Christian doctrine). He chose for it to be the way it is.

Yes, which is the very best way possible, to help us fulfill our objective.

Because God chose that it could not.

No, because man must humbly accept God’s Love and the only easy way to do that is by accepting it in the form of forgiveness.

Or God is himself obligated to follow someone else's rules.

The only “rule” God has to follow is the fact even He cannot do that which cannot be done.

That is interesting, because most Christians say that sin is the problem.

I am not like “most” Christians.

Is that instant annihilation or annihilation after God has tortured you for a while?

There appears to be degrees of punishment throughout scripture, so some could be annihilated immediately while others could suffer for a while.

How about making his message clear to his followers? Why is that not better than the fragmented messages we see from hundreds of different sects?

There are people that have or do lack the opportunity to accept or reject God’s Love, so from my understand of God they will go to heaven without ever fulfilling their earthly object, so will have only a child for parent type of love and never have Godly type Love (Which I am to blame for). So it turns out a better way would be for God to keep his existence secret. If no one knows he exists, we all lack the opportunity to choose God's love and so all get a free pass to heaven.

So it turns out a better way would be for God to keep his existence secret. If no one knows he exists, we all lack the opportunity to choose God's love and so all get a free pass to heaven.

The Great Commission was a work of evil, spreading the news that there is a God, and so greatly reducing the chances of people getting to heaven.

The “objective” is not to just get to heaven, but it is to become like God Himself in that you have Godly type Love. We are to be spreading the “good news” which to those that are truly seeking relief from the burden in their conscience from hurting others in the past is good news.

Some people do become mature adults without ever hearing the Christian gospel (good news) and they can still refuse to accept the Creator’s help by not seeking the Creator’s help, according to scripture it takes a fool to not believe there is a God.

Priests, vicars, preachers, etc. The guy at the front in church

.
Sorry, I see only servants as true “leaders” and not people ruling over others.

I do not believe God exists. That is not a choice I have made, that is the inevitable outcome of the evidence presented to me.

So you place your faith in weak evidence for God not existing?

Can you proof God does not exist?

Christ is God, so you are saying God did not force God to go to the cross, but God did allow God to.

The trinity is a huge different topic, they are one but still have individual personalities.

That is the way God made you. Perhaps he should have created peole with less pride. Or was that beyond him?

If there was nothing to “overcome” would the prize have value, would my love for God just be the “default” reaction?

Humans have a survival instinct for good reasons, without a survival instinct eternal life would not be desired/ have real value. With a survival instinct come self-awareness, self-preservation, and self-concern. Unselfishness works against all this self-stuff, but both are needed to be like God. To remove self is really removing the person that can decide to make the choice.

His message is what he wants for us. What he wants us to do, why we should do it.

For the most part everything Christ said, had been said before by prophets. The messenger is what’s important.
God came to Earth as Jesus and said a bunch of stuff. Did that have any meaning? If so, that was God's message.

Unfortunately God has been powerless to stop his message getting corrupted into hundred of different sects, all convinced they knew his message. Virtually all must be wrong, because they all disagree.

They cannot all be right, but they all could be wrong as you point out.

As long as it does not go against God’s plan, God does not prevent people from sinning, sin has purpose for nonbelievers.

God works at the individual level, so we are not limited by some earthly organization.

This is not a “problem” where there is severe persecution , like in Communist china with the underground church.

Was he willing or was he forced? Please decide.

Christ’s Love compelled Christ to go to and stay on the cross. Who forces a person to go on a suicide mission? The mission must be done and the soldier is willing to do it.

This is the thing about Christian, it is founded on guilt. Jesus on the cross makes your sins much worse.

The bottom line is: “you are guilty” and the cross is just pointing this out. Prior to humbly accepting God’s Love, you are inconsiderate, disrespecting, being selfish, and have walked away from God. You are like the prodigal son that left really stealing the father’s money.

If you are not guilty, then you do not need to be forgiven.

If you do not need forgiveness, you do not need to humbly accept God’s charity (Love) in the form of forgiveness.

People do bad stuff all the time, but most people do the right thing most of the time. The humanist philosophy is that people are great. The Christian way is that people are scum. Christianity focuses on the bad, and then blows it out of proportion. And here we see it in action. You accept you sin, you even accept that your sins do not amount to much, at least, not until we throw Christianity at them. Suddenly your sins are "unbelievable huge beyond any concept of being reconciled".

Every person on earth has the potential to be like God (Christ) himself. Christians are willing to sacrifice themselves for their enemies.

There are lots of methods used to try and relief the burden of past mistakes that have hurt others (sin) and minimizing them does seem to help for a while, but they keep coming back. If you are not burdened by your past mistakes, I really have a hard time helping you. It is not that I elevate the person’s burden, but work to relief the burden they already have.

Sure we do bad things, but it takes the Christian God to turn our insignificant sins into something "unbelievable huge beyond any concept of being reconciled"

No, people already have huge burdens in their conscience they: drink, take drugs, use sex, use work, or try lots of other things that do not work. Humanist can try to minimize sin, but does it work?

How do you convince a man that his little sins are "unbelievable huge beyond any concept of being reconciled"? Years of indoctrination by Christianity I guess.

It is not my convincing him, but him feeling bad about what he did. To say something that hurt others is “insignificant”, is a lie?

If a person feels their sins are actually “little”, might be due to a lack of knowledge about the impact a sin could have on a person. Lots of young men justify sinful sexual activity with girls younger than 17 as being their problem.

Is that really equivalent? The father did not engineer the starving in a pigsty situation. The father did not engineer his son's failure.

The pigsty is in this life, while hell is after you have repeatedly refused to accept God’s help.

A better analogy would be that the father sent spies after his son, and those spies deliberately sabotaged all the son's business ventures, ensuring that he failed, and that he would have to come back grovelling to the father, who then gets to look good by forgiving the son.

Jesus is giving us this scenario, so you cannot rewrite a better scenario. The father does not have to “sabotage’ the son, since the son will fail on his own. It is the son’s choice to return.

You may say that God does not deliberately sabotage us, but if no one every succeeds, no one out of several billion people, then God created us so we could not succeed ("one that cannot be done by man’s ability").

“Success” for the world, maybe becoming rich and powerful and taking advantage of others and living a very selfish life.

So why were you drawing a distinction between them when you said: "[i]The Judge make sure the criminal

I am not writing in Greek. Most people make a distinction between discipline and punishment

Were the men any more wicked than the rest of us?

No they were not.

[The Pixie]

bling

Somehow I got the impression that you believe that it is not possible for a man to love God to the standard that God demands. Looking back, I am not sure that that is right, and your last post seems to say otherwise. I am worried I have misunderstood what you are saying and if you could clarify this one point, I will respond to your last post. It seems pointless to respond when I may be getting it all wrong.

[bling]

bling

Somehow I got the impression that you believe that it is not possible for a man to love God to the standard that God demands. Looking back, I am not sure that that is right, and your last post seems to say otherwise. I am worried I have misunderstood what you are saying and if you could clarify this one point, I will respond to your last post. It seems pointless to respond when I may be getting it all wrong.

Man instinctively (naturally) cannot Love God and/or others, unconditionally, unselfishly, and with everything they are (heart, soul, mind and energy).

Man can humble accept God’s Love as pure charity and thus be gifted with Godly type Love. At that point they can take the initial portion of Godly type Love and grow that Love through use.

Natural loves can be extremely strong such as the love a child has for a wonderful parent or the love a woman can have for her husband, but those are not Godly type love (there are logical reasons for those types of love). Godly type love is not logical.