Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- All Categories 13.8K
- General Category 10.9K
- General Announcements 184
- Faith Issues 3.4K
- Coptic Orthodox Church 2.5K
- Personal Issues 1.4K
- Prayer Requests 423
- Random Issues 1.8K
- Introductions 294
- Non-Orthodox Inquiries 232
- Youth Corner 606
- Hymns 2.5K
- Hymns Discussion 2.5K
- Technicial Difficulties 368
- Technical Topics 368
a question i cant answer...
people ask ....god who doesnt have any other option to forgive sins but to sacrifice himself...
God is the one who says '' be ! ...and it is !'' why cant he just forgive in another way? how would i answer that question.
God is the one who says '' be ! ...and it is !'' why cant he just forgive in another way? how would i answer that question.
Comments
You can relate to sin as death and when we are baptised the action of which is to go down in the water; being death and brought back up and given a new life in God's name. It is the same with the cruxifition where Christ died but was resurrected. Do we continue in sin if we have being brought to life. We try our very best not too and we get a fresh start when we take communion as this is a baptism also.
people ask ....god who doesnt have any other option to forgive sins but to sacrifice himself...
God is the one who says '' be ! ...and it is !'' why cant he just forgive in another way? how would i answer that question.
The punishment of sin is death. <----That is God's punishment.
God took that punishment upon himself. God never goes back on His word.
Also, remember that when He imputed that punishment, He also knew that He would die for it. How great is His love!
[quote author=markmarcos link=topic=13315.msg155637#msg155637 date=1337212225]
people ask ....god who doesnt have any other option to forgive sins but to sacrifice himself...
God is the one who says '' be ! ...and it is !'' why cant he just forgive in another way? how would i answer that question.
The punishment of sin is death. <----That is God's punishment.
God took that punishment upon himself. God never goes back on His word.
Also, remember that when He imputed that punishment, He also knew that He would die for it. How great is His love!
Be careful with this, I don't think death is portrayed scripturally as a punishment. When the warning was given to Adam God told him he would die but he didn't say 'I will kill you' or 'I will be forced to punish you with death'. God simply told Adam that if he sinned he would be dead. St Paul when speaking about the relationship between sin and death said that 'the wages of sin is death'. This means that there is an ipso facto relationship between the two. If we sin, we die and we all sin so we all die.
The problem of death is because of separation from God. God doesn't create death, God creates life. God's absence creates death.
Here is an answer I gave in a different thread:
[quote author=LookingInDesire link=topic=10910.msg152817#msg152817 date=1331037259]
[quote author=Meena_Ameen link=topic=10910.msg132135#msg132135 date=1299366105]
This has been confusing me for sometime, the entire idea of the sacrifice of christ was that there was NO forgiveness of sins before he died on the cross, yet in many examples in the gospels, BEFORE Jesus died on the cross we hear him say "your sins are FORGIVEN, go and sin no more".
This is one of the tough questions to answer, not because people don't understand but because we don't know where emphasis should be applied.
In this case the premise is not strictly true, sins could be forgiven before the cross, the issue was that this action was for naught because there was no washing, sanctification and reconciliation with God to go with it:
[quote=St Athanasius]Yet, true though this is, it is not the whole matter. As we have already noted, it was unthinkable that God, the Father of Truth, should go back upon His word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence. He could not falsify Himself; what, then, was God to do? Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that that was worthy of God, and argue further that, as through the Transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the Divine consistency, for, if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case. What—or rather Who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father.
http://tasbeha.org/content/community/index.php?action=post;quote=152817;topic=10910.0;last_msg=152878