Jesus and his sacrifice is Satan’s test of man’s morality.

You disparage the most beautiful gift to mankind ever given. He chose to take my punishment on Himself, which never even entered my mind. He said He chose it Himself, that He had the power to lay down His life and take it up again, and He did this so that those who would otherwise go to Hell wouldn't have to. I do feel very sorry for all my ugly sins that piled on Him on my behalf, but I'm also very grateful for His sacrifice because I certainly couldn't have saved myself. ALL Christians believe this, you aren't a Christian if you don't. "Good to accept" is a funny way of putting it. If I don't accept it I go to Hell. But it is in this case, a very great good. And again, He chose to do this for us without any of us ever imagining such a thing. He also said you can be forgiven for your horrendous abuse of His great generosity if you also would like to be saved from Hell. The antigospel according to GIA I guess. We're all ready for Hell since birth. We're born into the sin nature and we don't waste any time adding our own miserable sins to the mix. You aren't any different from the rest of us, and in fact with your outrageous self-righteousness that even presumes to judge God you may be worse than some of us. Probably not worse than me though. Anyway we start out our lives headed for Hell and it only gets worse as we continue to live. We also get some punishment for our sins in this life, believe me I know personally about that. But what a great gift I've been given that I don't have to spend eternity being punished for them because Jesus chose to take my punishment for me. I'm eternally grateful. And in fact I'm sure I will spend eternity thanking Him for it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith Father Son and Holy Spirit all agreed of course. But also any part of the Bible has to be read in the light of every other part: HE laid it down. He chose to lay it down. Obedient to the Father, yes, but He nevertheless chose to do it. Presumably He could have refused. He said that in the context of His obedience during His life, because He was being the Perfect Man for our sake, giving the example of obedience and human righteousness, but of course He was obeying the Father in dying for us too. "I lay down my life for the sheep." That doesn't mean He didn't choose to do it. We violated God's law. Condemnation is the just response. The gift is to save us from our deserved just condemnation.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

O come on; analogies and metaphors aren't meant to be stretched to fit reality exactly. This particular dead "shepherd" is of immense use to the "sheep" since He was perfectly sinless and therefore could not die Himself no matter how many people's sins He bore on the cross. He died in our place for our sins, us poor miserable sinful sheep who are destined to Hell, and then rose again to a new form of life which we will inherit through believing on Him.

Jhn 10:18No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

Of course He died. For us though, since on His own He couldn't die, being sinless. He chose to die for the sins of others.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Ringo, I don't know what convoluted irrelevant point you are trying to make, since you don't provide quotes to show me what you mean by the context, but "lay down my life" means DIE, not "risk" dying.

OK. It does show that He claims to be God, which is a good point to try to make. But I don't see anything ambiguous about "laying down" one's life. It can only mean to die it seems to me.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Seems like a lot of merely distracting ado about nothing to me. He identified Himself with God as the Shepherd of His people and expanded the metaphor to include His own dying as the Good Shepherd. Ringo is just insisting on an irrelevant logical point of his own, or at best holding to the original OT context for no useful reason. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hone my argument? Against GIA who thinks Jesus was made a sacrifice against His will? The point that He chose to lay down His life ought to be sufficient to answer that without whatever point you are trying to make, which simply eludes me and makes me sleepy.

Excuse me? You aren't making any sense.

Sorry I didn't see this until now. The idea is that we are all ALREADY condemned to Hell because of our sins, but salvation is possible through Christ if we accept it. If we don't, we are still condemned to Hell.These are the most direct quotes I could locate: However, if you know the gospel and refuse it you are in a worse position than someone who never heard it; at least if you accepted it and lived it before giving it up: Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's not right of you to misrepresent me, GDR. You know very well that I strenuously disagree with the slanderous statement that I worship the Bible. You, however, since you discard parts of the Bible you don't happen to like, discarding parts of God's own revelation to us -- all of it, every part of it His revelation to us, our only source of knowledge of the things of God-- that means you can only be following a Jesus of your own invention rather than the true Jesus revealed in God's word. Jesus was and is God incarnate and He knew He would die and He knew why, because it was determined at the foundation of the world, and He was there, and He did die, bearing the sins of those who believe on Him so that we do not have to bear the eternal punishment they deserve.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Um, it's human fallibility, not the book, that is at fault in this regard. GDR simply doesn't like parts of the Bible, that's GDR's, not the Bible's fault. But in general, the very idea of any writing that couldn't be disagreed about in this world is pretty funny really. That same Bible tells us we're fallen, sin-prone, not hard to see how such a creature would be willing to change things around to suit himself, even God's own word. Once you've decided to ignore parts of the Bible you can't very well claim to be committed to it as God's word. Well, GDR's reading comes from a very liberal recent line of thought, in fact one particular theologian he happens to like, Somebody Wright. I can of course say I stick to the traditionalists who go back first to the Reformation and then by a more circuitous route (due to the corruptions of Roman Catholicism) to the Apostles, which to my mind has more validity than the thought of a recent revisionist, but nothing I say is going to convince anyone who has a mind not to be convinced. A truly disinterested observer would have to study the situation in great depth to have any chance of getting it right, but outsiders are usually content with superficial impressions.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I skimmed it, will try to get back to it later. It looks good, very true.

First, it is not right to characterize my beliefs according to your opinion without noting that I see it completely differently. This is completely wrong. You misread the Bible. The OT also wants us to be kind to our fellow man. You simply refuse to accept that God Himself has the right to JUDGE SIN. He uses nations for that purpose sometimes, and He used His own nation for that purpose sometimes, but He also used foreign nations to punish His own nation. People who understand the Bible also believe that the Civil War was God's judgment on America for slavery, and many other examples could be suggested. What you call "genocide" is God's judgment of a whole nation for their collective sins, which had accumulated over hundreds of years. We are supposed to understand this as a revelation of judgment to come, and of Hell. Without these realities there would have been no reason for Jesus to die for us.If you had any respect to God's word you wouldn't trivialize anything in it as you do. Picking up firewood on the Sabbath was a terrible violation of God's command that no work is to be done on the Sabbath. Picking up firewood on the Sabbath is an act of faithlessness toward God who promised to take care of the people through the Sabbath without their resorting to fleshly means. He also promised to preserve the manna through the Sabbath. Such an act of disbelief corrupts the entire meaning of the Sabbath, which is a picture of the rest believers look forward to through Christ. Not to punish this act of faithlessness would corrupt all the people's trust in God's commands. That happens to be a lie. You understand nothing. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.