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To: kosta50

Kosta. You just don't get it. Your attempt to take a stab at what I was saying isn't even close to the mark.

On the first one, there is no higher power than God so stop being ridiculous. I said he was obligated to Himself. He's where it stops. God is a just God. He is holy. These are attributes of God which are basic.

God also has a will. With His will he exercises mercy where He wishes and doesn't where he doesn't want to. Yet, he can not violate His nature in doing so. That's the obligation to Himself. He can not violate who he is in accomplishing what He wants to accomplish. There is no higher power for him to answer to. He IS the authority - but He will be true to His nature.

God desired for a reconciliation between Himself and man. Yet, he could not allow man's sin to go unpunished without violating His justice. In order to meet the requirements of His justice, He made a way that the price for sin could be paid. That way was His very own Son. Christ took the penalty for our sin. God's justice was satisfied with the substituted offering, and His mercy poured upon us fulfilling His desire.

Such a picture of Christ's substitutionary death is shown throughout Scripture. From the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of the Israelis to the temple sacrifices, to the Ram in the thicket - God Himself provides the substitute offering to satisfy His justice. The wages of sin is death. Those wages must be paid if we are to have life. God paid them.

It is stupid to speculate about God being subject to injustice. Things don't happen "to" God. Things are permitted by God but all within His will. Nothing in this scenario makes God a passive participant in our salvation - so the idea of "injustice happening to God" even as a result of Himself is not even relevant. God would NEVER have violated his nature and so there is no discussion about God being unjust. God could have chosen to send us to Hell. His justice would have been intact. He wouldn't have poured out mercy, but mercy is a volitional aspect of God's will rather than a basic part of His nature.

God MUST BE just. He will not and can not violate His own just character. It is not possible for God to lie. It is not possible for God to be unjust. Mercy isn't in the same category. God exercises mercy where he will and whom He wishes to, He pardons. He's God. He can do that without violating His justice.


5,945 posted on 01/14/2007 10:39:35 PM PST by Blogger
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To: Blogger
No, I think you don't get it. God is not obligated to anything. He doesn't have to be!

With His will he exercises mercy where He wishes and doesn't where he doesn't want to

No he doesn't. God only gives blessings. He doesn't change. He lets His light shine on the just and the unjust. He is not consistent ebcause He is "obligated" to be consistent, but because He is consistent by nature; that how He is.

God desired for a reconciliation between Himself and man. Yet, he could not allow man's sin to go unpunished without violating His justice

Don't be silly, Blogger. Man's sin is man's punishment. It hurts us, not God. Man has already been punished. In fact, man is al;ready born punished (sentenced to death).

We are unjust to God every day, every hour, every second. That does not make God suffer. It makes us destined to hell unless we repent and change our ways. It is our continuous ingratitude to God's unchanging and generous love that puts us on the path of perdition, not God.

5,950 posted on 01/14/2007 10:53:51 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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