Is it 'boring' being God?

I guess there is no arguing with a view such as yours, but it seems to me that one ought to consider that there's more to the story than can be so easily trivialized like that.

You're right, Brian, I've never been really clear to what extent He lived as God, but scripture is clear that the miracles were to demonstrate just that fact, that He IS God. Major fulfillment of Old Testament promise that the Messiah would be "Immanuel, God with us; Wonderful, Counsellor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace; God our Righteousness." Some have claimed that because "He humbled Himself to be a man" He lived His life completely as the sinless Adam, and that His miracles are what a perfect man would be able to do, but that would miss the point of demonstrating that He is in fact God incarnate. But although He was able to resist temptation, scripture also says He WAS tempted as we are, showing that He was also completely man. I thought that His agony in Gethsemane showed that He hadn't known exactly what would happen until that moment, so that to some extent His powers as God were not completely available at all times. But all this is very mysterious stuff. ???

I think you and I have talked about this before, but on the off chance we haven't and the risk of boring you, let me run through my beliefs about Jesus, his life and his death. Reading the Bible I don't find any instances where Jesus did any of those things on his own. For example, consider the walking on water. Jesus was not the only one to do so, Peter also walked on water, and did so successfully until he began to doubt the reality of his own senses and beliefs, at which point he began to sink.The miracles Jesus performed were not done by him, but by GOD through him. I don't think that is totally true.IMHO, the real sacrifice was not Jesus death, but GOD becoming man with all the limitations that implies. Jesus really was man,human. Jesus could not know the future, could not know he would be resurected, experienced everything any other man experiences, pain, hunger, lust, desires, sorrow, joy, getting drunk with friends, a great party and karioke.While Jesus walked among us, he was MAN.That was the sacrifice.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Yes. If not, the story doesn't make much sense.When Jesus asked somebody a question, he did so to find out the answer. Otherwise, he would be merely toying with everyone.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-14-2006 10:17 AM

Hi Faith, That doesn't quite fit with scripture though, especially the Gospel of Mark where it says at 8:31:He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. and at 3:30-32They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise."Jesus knew He was the Son of God, he was always telling people that. Angles heralded His birth, Gabriel chatted to Mary and to Joseph, He is curing people right lef and centre, He must know that He was special. He even states that He is the Son of Man, and He knows the Son of Man will ise three days after His death.That's why I wrote Hardly a big deal was it? , because what is being dead for three days to an eternal being? Even when He was 'dead' He was running around in Hell preaching to any soul that would listent to Him, so He was hardly inactive.It just seems an underwhelming 'sacrifice', I don't see what all the excitement is about.Brian.

Not necessarily so. Questions can be rhetorical or they can be asked to lead the person being asked on to the right track.I ask students questions every day of the week, I know the answer to the questions, but I want to know if they do. Sometimes I will ask many other questions whose answers will lead the student (hopefully) to the answer I originally wanted. So, why is it impossible for Him to have been toying with everyone?But, seriously, look at Socrates, his teaching was mainly done through asking questions, questions he knew the answer to but pretended not to so as the person with the enquiry would be guided to the answer. Socratic Irony is a great way to help someone to get 'the penny to drop'.Brian.

There has to be a reason He "sweat blood" in Gethsemane. Being separated from (forsaken by) God the Father, even for such a brief time, since He'd been united with the Father for eternity -- leaving him in his raw humanness for that period? -- and then facing Hell with the responsibility for all the sins of all the sinners to be saved.Yes, thanks for the reminder of His knowing He was to die, but He may not have known all the details about it. Something has to explain His sweating blood in Gethsemane.I don't think I appreciate the sacrifice as I should either, but I think I'll pray for enlightenment about that. Meanwhile, the term at least means simply enough His being the sacrifice in the Old Testament sense that the animals were killed to atone for the sins laid upon them.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-14-2006 11:55 AM

I would agree that this would be a great sacrifice IF God became a man, and did not merely use an innocent virgin as a host for His seed. If God ceased to be God and gave up His eternal life to becoame a man, then yes, amazing. But, that isnt what the Bible says happened. Wasn't He able to read, aparently the Messiah was to suffer, be taunted, be crucified and rise from the dead three days later. Jesus told His mates that before he was even arrested.Even if Jesus didn't know, but I am sure He must have, the sacrifice was meant to be made by God, and God the Father was still sitting on His cloud watching it all, in the knnowledge that His Son would rise again. Feeding 5000, having a chat with God now and then, not having sex, turning kids into old men, the normal things us guys do when we get together.I agree that God working through Jesus is plausible and that Jesus didn't necessarily have to do the miracles off His own back so to speak, and I believe it is written somewhere that it was the power of the Holy Ghost that enabled Jesus to do these deeds.Brian.

Hi, Yes, I shouldn't really trivialise this as it means a lot to so many people, but please be aware that I am bewildered as to why this was a great sacrifice. Maybe I will do a bit more reading myself, it has been a long time since I took an interest in the New testament. Yes, but people continued to sin even after the sacrifices in the Old Testament, what makes Jesus sacrifice any more special? What I mean is, people sacrifice to God in the OT, then sin again, so just how meaningful was it to them?Thanks for your thoughts.Brian.

Actually, IIRC, Jesus himself says it's not him but GOD working through him. Really? If Jesus is not human, if he really is still GOD, then he could not be killed. Belief, Brian. He did have complete and unwavering beleif and faith in GOD. But that does not negate him being completely human. Becoming a human is IMHO an amazing sacrifice for GOD.

The sacrifice pays the PRICE for our sins, protects us from their eternal consequences. It won't stop us from sinning completely until we leave this life.

Organisms, die, at least the ones that don't reproduce by fission.I'd like to contrast your western view with that of Ramana Maharshi. Ramana was, if not the most realized, one of the most realized of modern sages. He was dying of cancer and his devotees were grief stricken and begged him not to go. He asked them with sincere puzzlement, "Where could I go?"The body died. That is in the natural order of things. But Ramana did not identify himself with a body, or anything else concrete, specific, or limited.What is death? Transformation, change. Change regarded as a beginning is birth, as an ending death. If you have a coin you have two sides. A stick has two ends. If you select a process in time in the manifest universe that process has a beginning and an end, a birth and death. Death is just the name of one of many many types of transformations that occur in the universe. Everything that is born dies. Thus in Buddhism one looks to that which was never born.lfen

Actually, not only God, but a perfectly sinless man could not be killed. Adam would not have died except for his sin. Jesus was a sinless man and therefore couldn't die. He had to choose to die, bearing the sins of others he took upon himself.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-14-2006 01:46 PM

This is definitely a contrast with the "western" view but the "western" view is not "western" really, but what we learned from the Middle Eastern Messiah, the Anointed of God. What we learn from His word to us is that death is the consequence of our disobedience of God and His Moral Law. Death is not natural at all, escept in the sense that all Nature is fallen and the consequences in disease and death have become "natural" as a result. This is an unfortunate rationalization/whitewash of the unnatural status quo. Well, Christianity has that in common with Buddhism, as we look to God, the Creator, who is the Uncreated and Unborn immutable eternal beginningless and endless Mind/Soul/Heart/Will/Consciousness who has always existed and always will exist.But it was the Uncreated Creator's mercy on His creation that led Him to become born in order to die for our sake. This could not be known by human means of any kind, even the deepest meditations of the Buddha, so He gave us His revelation that some might believe and be saved.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-14-2006 01:44 PM

Well, if Adam was a human being like you and I living in the same universe we live in then his body was a physical body like all others, microscopic, stellar, or galactic.Does perfectly sinless mean it's not carbon based organic life form? Then this is dream time, myth space. A universe of ideal mental forms. The universe that this internet and our bodies exist in is a universe made of up forces and fundamental particles organizing themselves into atoms, molecules and complex structures. These structures are subject to what we observe as physical laws. I suppose we could say these laws mean this universe is sin. But that is just how it's observed to function.I hold with Buddhism that you can't find the deathless in that which was born. Only that which was never born never dies. To seek the deathless in the manifest universe is to cling to samsara hoping to find eternal satisfaction in that which is coming into being.lfen