Was Jesus' crucifixion all part of God's plan?

Its also a threat to warn someone that if they don't do well they will fail. I prefer the current dispensation of grace. Yes, we should try and do our best. But we will fail. And God does not count failure against us any more.

are you assuming that God talks the same way today as He did with Cain? Progressive Dispensationalists would beg to differ. Gods principles never change, but the way that He deals with humans has...if you will pardon the term, evolved.

And how do we resist it? The Bible tells us... Are you suggesting that if we believed that the lamb was fictional and symbolic and all we did was hand out spare change and help old ladies empty their trash we would have a shining testimony? I might agree with you if I were convinced that God didnt care whether He was mentioned in our testimony or not....but I feel that He wants to be mentioned because by glorifying Him we are better people than simply glorifying our Cub Scout list of good deeds.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Its too funny around here, Raphael. One day we will attempt to quote biblical text (usually from John) and the critics will say that redactors actually wrote the book and that the text reflects that bias...another day we will attempt to explain the meaning of what God meant to say and our critics will use the very same Bible that they rejected and show us "what the text says." The christianity that is pushed here is mainly a works based humanist based ideology that does not lean on God for anything other than to tell us that we are responsible for helping humanity and will be judged accordingly.(Matthew 25 again) jar preaches:

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I just don't see where it is necessary to accept Christ in the first place. I imagine that there will be far more Atheists, Agnostics, Jews. Muslims, Buddhists, Satanist, Animists, Wiccans, Hindus and Taoists in heaven than Christians.

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which I wouldnt be so concerned about except that he insists that most Christians will be goats. He has little investment in the idea of Christ atoning for us. Having been raised around many Jews, he embraces the idea that atonement is our responsibility. Ringo is his "robin" (he is batman) and wholeheartedly agrees with him.I love the people who are here, but the theology frustrates me...they simply won't embrace the power of the resurrection.

Some say that he was sent to teach us how to live.Others believe that He was sent to die...becoming a once and forever atonement of humanities shortcomings. Thus Jesus would be an example for us not only in how he lived, but in how He died. They did not take His life. He gave it.

Jesus was this message. Remember the parable of the owner of the vineyard? They killed his son, too.God never demanded that Jesus be sacrificed. God foreknew that humans would be stupid enough to kill him, though. Before Jesus came, GOD was unable to communicate to humans...not due to His inability but due to our inability. We were just ants. GOD had to send an ant to tell the ants some things. If Hell exists, we would have lacked the intelligence and trust to get out of hell ourselves. So yes, salvation was a free gift.I don't see why you think this causes us to be slackers in regards to daily personal responsibility. Its almost like you are like a kid learning to ride his two wheeler. He doesn't want Daddy to help hold him up...he wants to show daddy that He can do it.

Why?And why must we pay our own debt? What if a guy were in debt so much that he could never pay it back? Would you have him suffer and sacrifice his entire life just for the sake of some vague concept of honor? Thats a farce to me, jar. God would never make a man work so hard for their entire lives...knowing they likely would never finish paying. Thats the real farce.It is not cheap to offer to pay a mans debt. It is honorable, if you have the resources, to do so.And to not be too proud to accept the gift.

All I see is me stating my beliefs and you saying nuh uh didnt happen.Was there something I missed?

And I suppose you think that if you work hard enough...help enough old ladies across the street...volunteer at enough food banks, talk to enough children at their eye level....even if you gently instruct enough of us wayward CCoI
with challenging thinking...you wont need anything from GOD nor will you expect anything.I suppose it is honorable to earn your way through life. It really isnt fair to give anyone anything.

OK, fair enough. Here is another question. As people...as humans...should we expect anything from each other? What is the least we should expect?

As you may know, I work at Safeway, a grocery chain recently bought out by Albertsons LLC (Cerebrus Capital Management).At work, we all punch in and out on a timeclock. There are rules. For instance, if you are over 5 minutes late you incur 1/4 of a point penalty.If you dont call and don't show up you lose 2 points. We all have 8 points per rolling year and if the system were rigidly enforced, some would lose their jobs over absence and tardiness. Often, however, management wipes the slate clean and lets everyone start over. What I have observed is that the responsible ones keep being responsible while the slackers continue to incur points against their record. The responsible ones never expect timeclock amnesty...yet they benefit from it as do the slackers. Nobody refuses to accept it.So tell me why if Jesus paid the bill...the debt...for everyone that it would be a farce. Does not GOD have the right to give humanity amnesty from failure? Does this action cheapen GOD or does it cheapen the entire concept of fairness and justice?Even if you never expected GOD to cancel your debt, would you accept the offer? Would it in any way make you less responsible?

If I lived in slovenija and we went out on the town, would you object if i paid the tab? Would it matter if I earned as much as you or if I were a billionaire? Would you insist on paying your tab or would you let me treat you?

You claim to be a Creedal Cradle Christian. Does your creed provide any answers to this question?You ask (in another current thread) why we can't be better than Jesus was---and I suppose this is a valid question. Note what you say here, however: All students should aspire to be more than the teacher was--I can't fault you for trying to do your best, jar.

Assuming that there are two states of being--namely saved and lost---the babies would get a free pass. The unbelievers have a choice whether or not to access the resources made available to all. The problem that the critics have is that God wont allow them a free pass based on their own terms rather than Gods. It is because you are attempting to view the event from Gods perspective. Sure a day in the life of an eternal Being is probably insignificant. An eternal Being made man, however, feels every emotion, pain, and mental anguish that a human would feel. If a human survived a wartime torture/death camp, for example...the time spent would not be the criteria of the trauma. The events themselves would be imprinted on that mind forever. How would you measure the impact of an event on a given Being? The sacrifice was for an eternal Being of such magnitude and power to even stoop to becoming human,for one thing. The pain felt as a human was very real...whether it lasted ten minutes or ten thousand years. We can speculate, but as we are not eternal spiritual beings we cannot know. In a sense, your argument is basically accusing God of having made no adequate sacrifice to justify the power given to such an event. My question to you, then, is what would God need to do to satisfy your requirement for a sacrifice to be effective?