Replies

"Cool. I gotta ask since you seem to be an intelligent and reasonable christian how can god be loving and send everyone who doesn't accept Christ to eternal hell( Im only interested in BR's answers). Or is this another misunderstanding? Not all non christians are bad people after all."

Excellent question. It is not so much a misunderstanding, but more of not seeing the entire picture. God isn't the one who makes the choice for the person to go to hell or not, that's up to them. This will be a bit complex, but bear with me:

- The Spiritual Realm is governed by laws. Some science almost approches this, like the Superstring theory, and other metaphysics type analysis.

- One of these laws is that sin brings death. Spiritual death, including physical death. When Adam sinned, his sin brought the curse of physical death upon all of his offspring. This curse transfers from father to child, not from mother to child. Scientifically, this could be explained that the DNA for the blood for the child comes from the sperm, not the egg. It also explains how and why the Messiah had to be born of a virgin. The fact that we are born with a curse of death does not doom us, yet, to hell, although with this curse comes a propensity to sin. God gave Adam "dominion" over the earth. Adam was King of the Earth. God told him not to eat of a certain Tree, and yet satan, tricked Eve into it, and Adam went along. So, when Adam obeyed Satan, he put himself under Satan, and transferred his authority over the earth to him. This is why the New Testament calls Satan "the god of this world." It is also why liberalism is so powerful, and evil reigns in the world. It is why people hate the United States and Israel, because they stand for truth in the world.

Back to spiritual laws:
- God cannot abide near sin - or, let me re-phrase that, sin cannot abide near God. It will be destroyed by the radiance of His Light. This is because He is totally Holy, and Just. He is obligated to punish sin just as much as a judge is obligated to punish a convicted murderer in his court. If we were to appear before God with but a smidge of a crimson stain of sin on our souls, we will be destroyed - sooner or later.
- Unfortunately, we are in a dilemma now, since you and I, Weikel, are sinners! Everyone here is a sinner. All have fallen short of God's Perfection, and He cannot abide with us. At this point, we are doomed to hell-fire.

- Yet, with all this in mind, there is a solution. If someone, who were innocent, and sinless - like Adam before he sinned, and tempted in all ways to truely represent mankind, were to be punished for sin, in our stead, then the sin-debt could indeed be paid. It is spiritually legal. Unfortunately, no man on earth could have done so, since I mentioned that the curse of sin passes from father to son. No man with a human father can pay the sin-debt, and yet the person who is to pay it, has to be totally human!

- When Man was created, He was a Reflection of the Image of God. The Image of God is the first emanation from God's Infinite Being. This Emanation is the bridge between God and Man. Since God is infinite, and we are finite, there is an infinite chasm between us. God sent forth an Emanation, His Word, which bridges this Gap. This Word is in essence identical with God, yet streams from Him to interact with Man. This Word became incarnate in flesh, born of a virgin, so that He could pay the sin debt, because He loved His creation so much, and did not want them to perish. This Word became God's "Son", as the Holy Spirit through a supernatural act, fertilized one of her eggs, into which the Word became embodied. Even before this incarnation, God's Word was referred to as "Son", even by non-Christian Jews, in ancient times. I can prove this. I have the texts.

- The Word Incarnate, Yeshua of Nazareth, who was not half-man, half-God, but 100% Man, and 100% God (the sperm that fertilized the egg was uniquely created, yet totally human, which by default had no sin-curse) was tempted in all ways and did not sin. He was slain on the cross in OUR STEAD, and yet Hell could NOT hold Him, because it had no authority over the one who had no sin - yet He paid the debt of death. Then He rose from the dead and defeated sin, and took back the Creation He gave Adam, from satan, and will return soon to claim His property.

- So, with all that said, the question should not be "how can God be loving and send non-Christians to hell", but "how can God be so loving and die for all upon the cross, all that would accept His offer of eternal life?" - The issue is not "my religion is better than yours", but rather, "Will you not accept this free gift of Life from the God of heaven?" And if the potential recipient says, "no", then how can one be saved? If they reject the One who died in their stead, they have no hope - and God has no choice, because He gave it to them to choose, because He wanted His creatures to love Him for Him, and not because they are simply robots.

Sorry for the long response, but there is so much to understand to see the whole picture, and this is but a grain of sand to it all.