John 3:61

[_CaliforniaKid]

I've been a pretty bad color enthusiast the past two years. I keep looking for black and white. Color makes all the difference in the world. How can we look at the Bible in black and white? I do it all the time so I guess I'm really asking myself this and digging an even deeper derailment hole.

I haven't seen a "colorful" way to approach it that's at all persuasive. I'm all for seeing color where there's color to be seen. But I'm not gonna break out the crayons and start applying colors of my own.

[_zeezrom]

CS,

I'm sorry to hear this about the crayons. I really am.

A religion without crayons is just a business.

Zee.

[_Molok]

What exactly is your damage, Molok? Apparently you told Ceeboo to leave and now you're ragging on him for complaining.

Look, buddy, day after day we see nothing but complaining, whining and bitching about the LDS church, God and Christianity on this board, and all of a suddenly no one is permitted to complain in your presence after you tell him to leave?

Get your s*** together and knock off the hypocrisy, Molok.

I don't owe you an explanation for anything I say, I don't need your advice, and I certainly won't take an order from you. Now piss off.

[_Nightlion]

The idea that sin is somehow stuff which can be transferred is what I found most difficult to accept in primary class.

I don't see how the atonement can have positive moral value any more than paying a debt, going to jail, or being tortured for another person's crimes can morally resolve them of those crimes.

Yep.

Wait a second here. This is not what's going on. Christ did suffer so we do not have to but that is ancillary to what the purpose of the atonement is all for. The purpose behind it is to enable God to change us to a higher state of existence. At this higher level we are capable of an existence in the kingdom of God. Not just joining a church. Yeah you get forgiven and have the remission of sins. But he could do that and does that for whom he will without applying the power of the redemption and working sanctification upon a soul to give them a NEW CREATION. That is the conception as the children of God. It is apples to oranges between sins and being made in a new image where God will take away our old heart and give us a new one capable of being filled with the Love of God.

Do you guys even acknowledge this fact? Understand it you do not.

[_huckelberry]

a piece of Californiakids comment,
"he loves them at least enough to allow them to exist. But on the the other hand, he seems only to associate with them through mediators (such as priests and Jesus) or after putting them through a rigorous purification process involving ritual washing and propitatory sacrifice."

I think all of your comments here are worth serious consideration. If my comments are insufficiently indepth I will probably have to return a few times to flesh them out. Briefly stated I completely disagree and think you have adopted a poisonious interpretation.

In the above quote I am shocked by your dispargement of and diminution of the Lord into a mere priest and mediator. He is God with us, second person of the Trinity.

[_CaliforniaKid]

In the above quote I am shocked by your dispargement of and diminution of the Lord into a mere priest and mediator. He is God with us, second person of the Trinity.

This is a very biblical notion. Consider the following.

"For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." (1Ti 2:5)
"Therefore in all things it behooved him (Jesus) to be made like His brothers, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of His people." (Heb 2:17)
"But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises." (Heb 8:6)
"And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." (Heb 9:15)
"And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." (Heb 12:24)

(I should add that Christ's mediatory role is actually closely related to his divinity. In the Middle Platonic theology of first century Hellenistic Judaism, the "Word" was an intermediary emanation, expression, or reflection of God that stands partway between God and the material world. God-in-Godself is passive and aloof, whereas the Word is an active, creative aspect by which he interacts with humanity. Some texts also call it Wisdom. In the New Testament, this active aspect of God has taken the unprecedented step of being incarnated as a human being to serve a sacrificial and priestly function that human priests are ultimately inadequate to perform.)

[_zeezrom]

Chris,

I guess I'm a little shocked by your posts. Maybe I pictured you as someone who never would say what you've been saying. Maybe that wasn't an accurate picture in the first place. My reaction was to play devil's advocate.

But really, there must be more to it than what you say about this priestly interception between man and perfect God. God comes down from Mount Olympus, disguises Himself in the body of a Jew so that we can see and feel God in that person standing next to us. I don't know.

[_RockSlider]

I'm not sure where the church stands on the whole spirit children thing anymore, but there is the old Adam-God view of things as well … An exalted man and one of his wives, are placed in a garden to bring forth the second estate of their spirit children. God the father, and his wife, step down from their exaltation, putting full trust in the first born son to restore them from the fall.

It's a family thing.

[_Stormy Waters]

I guess I'm a little shocked by your posts. Maybe I pictured you as someone who never would say what you've been saying. Maybe that wasn't an accurate picture in the first place. My reaction was to play devil's advocate.

I not sure why some seem to be offended by this post. It's a fair question. Does God require a human sacrifice to be able to forgive us of our sins? If so, why?

[_Drifting]

I guess I'm a little shocked by your posts. Maybe I pictured you as someone who never would say what you've been saying. Maybe that wasn't an accurate picture in the first place. My reaction was to play devil's advocate.

I not sure why some seem to be offended by this post. It's a fair question. Does God require a human sacrifice to be able to forgive us of our sins? If so, why?

Yes that's the point.
He also required Abraham to truly believe that a human sacrifice was required, that of his son.