Conditional Immortality

[Guest]

I don't see alienation in that verse, but I do see what we might call the wrath of God (which I understand to be another aspect of His love).

A poor analogy: My son has at various times done things to incur my anger (as all kids do, especially when they're teenagers). The things that particularly might draw my wrath were behaviors that I thought might be hurtful to him in the long run. At those times, my anger (which I felt as a result of how much I love him) drew me closer to him, not farther away. In other words, I wanted to confront him with his wrongdoing and convince him to see his error and change (ie, repent). Of course, sometimes I also had to stand back and let him learn a lesson the hard way, but this was still motiivated by how much I love him.

I don't think God is freaked out by our sin. In fact, He took on flesh and put Himself right into the deepest, darkest midst of our sin. Not only that, for us, He became sin, that we might become the righteousness of God.

I love the story in Genesis 4 where God counsels Cain about his sin. What I see in that story is that God knows Cain's weakness and is pulling for him. When Cain murders Abel, God doesn't smite him (or tell him he's going to Hell), but puts a mark of protection on him (although Cain still pays the price for his sin in the form of exile).

The pattern I see over and over with the folks I minister to in the jail is that they walk under a cloud of condemnation. They see themselves as sinners and losers and of little value. The hopelessness is palpable. With that low view of oneself, why not use drugs or sell your body or drive drunk or get in a fight. The thing that I see break through all that is the same thing that broke through for me, which is a revelation of God's love.

Hey, someone should write a song about that. They could call it "Your Love Broke Through".

[Guest]

Danny,

I believe one error leads to another, and when we try to compare God to us and how we treat our children, we make many. For one example, we would do everything we could to keep our child from suffering and dying from cancer. God could, but He often does not.

Also to be considered: not all are God's children. He had one, and has adopted many more, but the rest are not His true children.

You wrote:

I don't think God is freaked out by our sin. In fact, He took on flesh and put Himself right into the deepest, darkest midst of our sin. Not only that, for us, He became sin, that we might become the righteousness of God.

I hear this often and believe it to be not only an erroneous undertstanding,
but an impossibility. Jesus was the Lamb of God, sacrificed for us. No sacrifice was acceptable if it had any spot or blemish. Therefore the statement IMO must be understood as a metonym. Rather than being sin (antecedent), He suffered death (sin's consequence).

And you wrote:

The pattern I see over and over with the folks I minister to in the jail

May God bless you for the work you are doing!!!

Sorry Rick; off topic again! We're outta control!

[Guest]

Good heavens Homer! I wasn't comparing God to myself! His ways are higher than our ways. I was making an admittedly poor analogy. Oftentimes we resort to analogies in an attempt to explain the things of God. They are not authoritative for establishing doctrine!

Jesus used analogies and parables continuously (and no, I'm not comparing myself to Jesus!) so that people could use familiar things to try to get a grasp on the things of God. For example:

"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" - Luke 11:11-13

Essentially, what I was trying to say with my analogy was, "Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more."

The second thing you took issue with was my paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 5:21. I agree with your assessment of what the text means. I wasn't trying to establish any position other than to convey how closely Jesus is acquainted with our sin. My point in doing so was to say that I don't buy the oft heard statement that God can't bear to look upon our sin, etc., etc. I probably should have just quoted the text: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (NIV). Then you could take up your concern directly with the NIV translators.