Did Jesus start out, all along doomed to die as a sacrafice, to carry all of our sins away and have a new beggening?

Or did he have some other misson, which he failed, or succeeded without our knowledge?

For instance, the mormon's beleive he was supposed to marry Mary Magdeline and start a perfect family. (sin-free)

If Jesus failed his primary mission, would you still think God is all powerful and transcend through time?

If jesus died 2 save us from our sins then how come hell and heaven exist

(i dont think they do)

natxx

I think the idea goes that before Heaven was shut off for all. But now Jesus died in great pain on a cross we can all go to Heaven and be happy...if we follow the 10 Comandments.

Jesus did Fail in his original Mission
he was an absolutely useless carpenter
as far as i know he never made so much as a tent peg

Yeah, they go on about his love, compassion and great miracles but they never mentioned the important things he did...what he made. Who the hell would be intereted in raising the dead or walking on water when you can make your own bed?

Interesting question. Well, as far as the Bible, He only had one mission. In the Old Testament, they sacrificed animals for atonment to God. But God did't think that was enough, so since He loved us so much, He sent His Son to die for our sins, so that we would't have to go to hell.

Hell and Heaven is all in your mind. Hell is a place of infinite loneliness which existed since the beginning of time, and Heaven = sky or space. They all existed before Jesus came to die on our behalf. So, that question does't make sense. BTW: Hell exists because there are people there right now. If the place did't exist, where would sinners go for eternaty?

Wrong. Jesus died for us because we can't keep the 10 commandments. We should, but our eternal destiny no longer depends on the law. Its all depends on mercy, not the law.

All the bed is good for is for you to die on. Jesus practiced miracles so that his furniture would't be misused. Thats why he raised the dead and cured the sick.
Hey, I would't want a bunch of lepers sitting on my coutch!

The Bible directly states the purpose of the universe in Eph. 1: To Glorify God. God created the universe to reflect his glory. Man was created for the same, "for the praise of his glory (Eph. 1:12)."

God did not create the universe because he was lonely and needed fellowship. God exists in the Trinity: God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He had all the company he needed. Although the Trinity is difficult to understand, we can know the results of having a triune God. One example would be God's love. God cannot love or be a God of love if there was nothing to love. It is like you cannot hear a noise unless something exists to make that noise. If God did not exist in the Trinity and only as one person, there would be nothing for God to love, and therefore God could not be a God of love without creation. But since God exists in the Trinity, God the Father can perfectly love God the Son, God the Son can love God the Holy Spirit and so forth. God can have this attribute of love without creation, by simply existing in the Trinity. The same goes for all of God's other attributes.

In fact the Trinity is something so fundamental to God's character that God reveals this in the first chapter of the Bible, "Let us make man in our own image." This image means that God makes a creation that reflects his characteristics, one that reflects his glory in a special way over all other creation.

What was God thinking? God Mission was to create a universe and mankind to glorify him.

LINK

I stand corrected. But if an all knowing God created us with free-will, did't he already know that eventually free-will will enable man to seperate from that love?

[but how can we have free will when it says that god has already mapped out every bit of our life for us

Where does it say that? Or better yet, where does it say that God knows everything? Because if He does, it would make a logical contradiction to why He wiped us out with the Flood.

Genesis 6:6
"And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart."

How could a future knowing God say He was "sorry" when He knew man was going to become corrupt? I dunno. Its just something to think about.

The mormons have a large number of silly ideas but given there text was written over 1500 years after the death of Christ by a "prophet" who made several proven mistakes(ie he gave two seperate locations of the promised land UTah was the second after the Govt threw him out of the first). I think that we can discount its ideas in relation to the bible.

Also just a thought but if Christ failed his mission what could it really have been? How do you top redeeming the entire human species for every sin its ever commited against God?

for the record, I don't doubt God's abilities. Im just not sure that He knows everything including the future. Unless.... what if time is like a movie to Him? He won't wanna fastfoward it because it would ruin the excitment. No?

Jesus was always meant to die on the cross for us.

oh and Norman, if God is in a place where time does not exist, our lifetime is like an instant to Him. Why wouldn't he know what we're going to do?

Also just a thought but if Christ failed his mission what could it really have been? How do you top redeeming the entire human species for every sin its ever commited against God?

well you could start by redeeming all those souls that died without hearing his message, Socrates, Plato, etc

Maybe then you could go on to explain why exactly we had committed sins against an omnipotent God who apparently knows everything we ever do.

Still I say his original mission was to be a damn fine carpenter
He failed at that
I'm hardly going to give him credit for dying for our sins when he's supposed to be reborn again
What is this a game of monopoly
Who gave Jesus the get out of jail free card exactly
Let me guess, I gotta have faith huh
Guess I'm going to hell then
I'm fine with that
Who'd want to live in a heaven with a pedantic, sarcastic God that practices
nepotism (yeah some of you xtians may need a dictionary at this point)
Let me save you the trouble
http://www.answers.com/nepotism&r=67

Chris Com 28, you get my vote at the next election if you decide to run
I'd back you all the way,

I have some questions I have been struggeling with. I would like to share them with you. I use to be a christian but I find it harder and harder to beleive in anything now.

To God
If you are out there and watching I think you should read this carefully and seriously consider writing back an answer.


1- Is God perfect?
God created everything from nothingness. The results!! One third of his angles rebelled against him, his most beloved creatures failed him and caused the whole universe to fall in sin hence the mess the suffering and Gods plan for salvation. Is this the work of a perfect being?

2- If God were to redo all from the beginning would he do it the same way all over again, thus history repeats its self?
Which lead us to the next question.

3- Does God learn by experience?
God appointed an angle with a sword of fire (if I remember right) to guard the tree of life after Adam & Eve ate from the apple tree. Now if God did learn by experience wouldn’t that make him more responsible than Adam and poor Eve?

4- Is God a dictator and do we as humans have a more merciful civilized system than God’s?
If I don’t love God and be a reborn I will suffer in hell which the bible describes as a torturous existing in a lake of burning sulfate.
Remember most civilized countries ban capital punishment and criminals are not left alone on an island to role themselves as one quote describes hell as mere isolation from God. Look how fine country Australia has become

5- Where is the holly spirit?
Jesus said that as he ascends to heaven the father sends the holly spirit to teach us. Now look how many fractions there are within Protestantism leave alone Christianity. Is this fruit of knowledge or ignorance? Didn’t Jesus say that you know a tree from it is fruit? What do you judge?

6- Who is the real God and why doesn’t he show himself once and for all? Why all the mysteries and the riddles?

7- Does Christianity breed a sense of low esteem for being who you are a human?
Christians are constantly hammered with the thought that without Christ you are unworthy filled with sin and in constant need of his grace. With all respect I don’t really like this idea. This is not how you would like the relationship between you and your children to be.


Not every man makes a good father.

Jesus did that while he was dead... he (his spirit) went to Hell, and brought all the righteous to Heaven, as the Gates were finally opened when he died. Then he rose from the dead.

Jesus "mission" was pretty cut and dry... He came to die for mankind... Sounds harsh, but thats what he came to the world for, to be the savior of all men...


LBD

No, He completed His mission, to bring redemption to ALL the souls who died prior and were in hell and Sheol, AND to give future souls the chance of entering Heaven, which prior to that, unless you were a prohpet, didn't happen. Ever. Period.

Gonna try to offer answers to these questions since they are excelent questions and I do have thoughts about each.

Yes God is perfect. On the other hand he deliberately made an imperfect creation. The reason why deals with your fourth question and the nature of free will.


See 4

Being all knowing he doesn't need to learn

God is an all loving all good being. Part of being a loving being is wanting to be loved back. Now to love humanity needs some thing absolutely fundamental. The capacity for hatred. If God had created us so we could only love him and we could only obey him then in truth how we felt towards him would have no meaning. Consider it in a broader context. What meaning would Martin Luther King Jr's life have in a world where discrimination never existed? He would probably still have been a leader but he wouldn't be remembered as a hero. Conflict in life(like in fiction) is what defines who we are.

The wicked get punished because God is all good. People tend to forget but part and parcel of being good is the concept of being just. Only one man in history has ever lived a life with out error in thought or deed so no man has reached the standard of Heaven. This is not in fact a form of cruelty. No human burdened with sin can bear to be in the presense of God. Think about it like this. When you were a kid how did you feel when your parents caught you doing some thing you knew you weren't supposed to. Now imagine a parent who knows every bad thing you've done or even thought of doing in the entire course of your life on earth. Could you bear to stand in front of him? I don't think I could.

Before Christ Judaic tradition sacraficed animals for the forgiveness of sins. The idea being the animal faced death in place of the person (an idea a later derivation of which gives us the modern term scape goat). Christ was a man with out any sin of his own who choose to take the punishment for the sin of every one else(to answer a previous statement that would be the punishment of every one in all of human history). Asking in return for love, and people to honestly repent of there crimes.


In terms of judging I try to avoid judging people in terms of going to Heaven or Hell. I'm not God I don't have that right. As for the holy spirit its in the hearts of beleivers. The trinity are three sides of God's personality(to give an example to explain it better how I act at work isn't the way I act when I'm with my closest freinds, and the way I act with my family is different then both but all three are still me). The Holy Spirit is the part of God that exists with in man. Its what gives a believer the power and authority promised in Scripture. You can find specific refferences in regard to the Pentecostal feast after which the apostles were able to speak and have all listeners understand what they said in there native tongue(in other words while they spoke aramaic the romans heard it in latin) because of the Holy Spirit entering them.


Goes back to the issue of love. IF God gave an interview on the seven o clock news tonight the entire world would probably convert to Christianity(or what ever religion he espoused) en masse by the eight. The problem is no one would do it out of love they'd do it out of fear that he'd get cheesed off. Its also a simple truth that in the long run it doesn't help. Adam and Eve both spoke with God but still managed to disobey him. Peter was the closest follower Christ had and saw all manner of wonder and preformed miricales in his name yet he still denied even knowing Christ three times in the same night. For that matter Lucifer is the ultamite example of this he knew God existed, knew God had power and dominion over the earth and was its maker yet he still choose to rebel.


See this is a popular myth among non Christians and ultamitely ubsurd. Christianity simply recognizes a fundamental truth about humanity. That we make mistakes and will always make mistakes. In other faiths(Hinduism for example) the only way to ever escape living on earth is by living a perfect life. In Christianity its believed you can't live a perfect life(off hand how many people can you name that honestly never violated one of the rules of the bible bearing in mind that thought is equally important as deed I can list a few that come close but I don't believe any managed it 100%). The point of it all is that God loves us in spite of our failings. That he loves us so much that he was willing to put some of himself(I don't believe Christ was the entirety of God because no human vessel can contain infinity and several times in the bible God speaks to Christ(ie at his baptism God says "this is my son in whom I am well pleased") and suffer every thing we do. Whats more he was willing to take the sum total of eternal torment for every human being in history onto himself(for the wages of sin are death) and to make a hat trick of it God loves us enough that he takes the pain of every slight ever commited against his followers(what so ever you do unto the least of my followers you have done unto me). For my own part I find nothing in those ideas self degrading quite the opposite. Theres a real peace in the idea that no matter how badly I mess things up God still loves me and is willing to forgive me if I ask for it. I'll admit thats an emotional response not a logical one but thats ok with me to.


I know this has been kinda long but they really aren't simple questions. I also realize that people are going to probably disagree with what I say(including probably a few christians) and thats ok to. This is on the other hand what I believe personally.

KevinM,
Very nice post...

I have said something along these lines many times before...

Its like,
If every day is a sunny day, whats a sunny day?

LBD

You have to love God of your own free will. That's why it was given. It's not a test of how bad you can be, God already knows your nature, it's to see what you, of your own free will, will do. As is said by God 'And I will see who among your race will love abhor Me'. God wants devotion from free will, not obligation.

Jesus's mission was to become a celebrity and get his name engraved on Holywood.

Well, if you haven't noticed, from the beginning of time, God has ALWAYS been a 'celebrity', even with those that chose not to believe in Him. He didn't need to become mortal to do that, He already had it.

i don't see the logic behind that. if no one around him knew what a movie was, then why would he come to earth 2000 years before movies were around? unless of course you were being sarcastic... even in that case, i don't see your point....

Damn.. Sacarsm malfunctioned again.

LOL ahh sarcasm, my speciality, and yours? lol

Well done!

BTW nice new pic...did you find god and that is why the 666 ain't no longer on your forehead????lol

Ohhh PLEASE Turtle, NOOOOOOOOOO not 666!!! Oh No I'm sooooooooo scared!!!

NOT. Again ignorance of the uninformed.

I'm not saying I beleive the mormon explanation.