shlaifu wrote:
Mountain Goat wrote:
There is no difference between the God of the New and the Old Testament. It is the same God.
What is different is the covernant God has with mankind. We have a new covernant as God provided a way. He became the perfect sacrifice for our sins. In the Old Testament an animal had to take our place.
Sorry I can't see your video in the UK as it is not allowed to be viewed here for some reason. Not sure why. Our country restricts and sensors things I guess?
Btw., I never got that: what does it even mean that Jesus died for our sins? It gets even weirder if you rephrase it into "some Roman soldiers killed jesus for our sins"... I mean... Thanks, Roman soldiers, I guess.
But don't sacrifices work by people sacrificing something they value, as a gift to the gods? - you'd assume jesus was someone god valued most, being his son (and also grandson, if I remember correctly) and all.
Or was jesus valuable to humans because he would gave ushered in paradise? And by killing him humans... Get absolved of their sins and get entry to paradise?
How is this making any sense?
You have asked some good questions which will take a lot of explaining to answer.
Sin entered into the human race when Eve was decieved by satan to take the fruit of the tree that God had said not to take, and then give it to Adam to eat with her.
Now let us look at how God punishes here for this sin. It is incidently not the first sin recorded. The first sin was done by lucifer (satan) and it was the sin we know as pride.
Now satan entered into a snake, so God cursed the snake first so it lost its legs and had to crawl on its belly. Also, there is more which I will get to in a bit...
Now we see that God puts the husband in charge of his wife in a family so when the wife sinned, the husband was punished because he did not stop her. So he was cast from the Garden of Eden and when he now worked the ground it was hard work where in the past it was easy. God cursed the land with plants that had thorns from there on.
Now God cursed women even more then man. Why? Because it was Eve who took the fruit of the tree knowing it was the fruit of the very tree in the whole of the garden that God said not to touch. (I can't blame Eve because knowing my nature, I would have ended up biting into it myself!) How did God curse Eve and all women after Eve? Painful childbirth and... snakes that will strike their heels. (Likewize, the Bible says that Eve (Women) will step on snakes and they will strike their heels. I do not know why women and not men? I think I need more study time to find out!).
But sin entered into mankind from that point onwards.
Another consequence of sin is death. Prior to sin entering the human race, we as humans were made to live forever. It was our flesh that sinned so it is our flesh that experiences death. (We are made in the image of God so as God is in three parts but is also one God, so are we. God is the Father, the Son and thr Holy Spirit. We are the flesh, the soul and the spirit. Only our flesh dies as a consequence of sin).
Now what does sin do? It seperates us from God.
So how did God make a way to deal with our sins? Blood sacrifice at first.
Before I explain the significence I want you to see something. When Cain killed his brother Able it was because Cain was jelous that Able brought the right sacrifice to God, and Cain did not. Both worked hard to bring their sacrifice but God had already told them what He desired. Cain ignored that and brought crops instead which God did not accept.
Now why an animal and why blood? There is something very significent about blood which I only partly understand so I can only explain what I know.
First let us look at what a sacrifice was. An alter dedicated to God was built to conduct the sacrifice. Now according to the type of sin, two animals of a certain type without blemish were carefully selected. As I understand it, the type of animal chosen was to cover the sin that had been done.
Animal sacrifice was always a temporary plan God had because later God became the perfect sacrifice, but lets go back and look at a typical sacrifice done in those days. Let me pick the sacrifice of a goat.
Two perfect goats were selected. Why perfect? They were to be the best goats for two reasons. One is so that we are respecting God and the second is so that we will realize the consequences and seriousness of the situation, as if we took an old lame goat that we would not miss too much then it is hardly going to mean much to us, but the best goat? Yes, this will be noticed!
The first goat was to be slaughtered. The sight would give us a shock and also we would be remorseful and sad. This is how we should be when we have sinned.
Now the blood has significence here, as the sin is carried in the blood.
The blood of the first goat would be poured and sprinkled on to the back of the second goat. One would then take the second goat out into the wilderness and leave it there so it will continue on into the wilderness. Therefore ones sins were removed from you as ones sins were placed on this goat, which is where the term "Scape goat" came from, as ones sins were escaping from us.
Naturally, one had to take the goat far because one did not want ones sins to come back!
Now God said that this was not a perfect system. God said it was temporary.
God became the perfect sacrifice.
First, let us look at Christs birth. What was significent to this birth and why was it such a big thing?
God chose an ordinary "Nobody" of a girl from the line of David. It was significent because this tribe had been considered as the lowest in society in the past. Why would God not choose the greatest? Because God did not want mankind to have pride. God does the same today. When God performs miracles, most of the time he will do it through the ones that are the "Nobodies" of this world. I have often seen this in churches. The leaders have to admit that God did not use them to demonstrate His power! It is not that God does not love them. It is that He does not want people to be proud of their own abilities, so when God does a miracle, we know it is God who does it and not people.
Lets get back on track. There was nothing special about Mary. She was an ordinary young girl who was betrothed to Joseph. (I use the word betrothed. Think of the word "Comitted". Think of when two lovers are committed to each other but are in the courting period when they want to make sure that they are right for each other (I am not talking about sex).
A betrothal comes before an engagement. In Jewish culture back then one first became betrothed before one was engaged, and sex did not come into it until marriage had taken place. The girl would be stoned to death if she had had sex without being married.
So let us look at what happened here. Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. We know that this is true by Josephs reaction. Joseph was going to quietly break the betrothal which in Jewish culture back then it was a divorce from the betrothal as they took the whole proceedure seriously.
Joseph was obviously a kind man who thought a lot of Mary and respected her. He had wrongfully assumed that she had had sex with some other man outside of marriage, and he wanted to quietly leave his commitments to her and hoped that she could slip away so she would not be stoned!
Now God had to send an angel to appear to Joseph to tell him that it was Gods doing. The angel told Joseph to call the baby "Jesus".
Now this was BIG. Why? Think of the risks Joseph took. If people found out they were not married, it was death! Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus.
Now during the time that Mary was going to give birth to Jesus there was a census going on so Joseph had to travel (With Mary) back to the place where he was born so he could be counted, hence why there was no room in the Inn, because so many people had travelled back there to also be counted in the census.
Another significent thing happened. King Herod had heard that there was to be a saviour who was to be a king as the "Wize Men" had visited him and told him about the star they had followed...
In his mind (And he did not know who it was going to be) this king that he knew had been born could take over his throne, and he also knew the scriptures talked about a king to save mankind... But Herod took this to be a direct threat to his throne, so he worked out (Both through the prophetic scriptures and the visit from the Wize Men (The Bible does not say how many wize men there were. It only says they brought with them three very expensive gifts) that this child would be a first born and was also about a year or less old).
So Herod had all the firstborn children in the entire kingdom he was in charge of put to death which also fulfilled a prophecy. Joseph was instructed to leave where he was and hide out in Nazareth to protect Jesus from the slaughter. Hence it fulfilled another prophecy that Jesus shall become a Nazarene.
Now a little thing to clarify a point. Mary did later go on to have children with Joseph after she had Jesus. The scriptures do briefly mention this. Mary was faithful but was no different to anyone else other then God used her to carry out His plan. Mary is not God. She is not the mother of God. She did give birth to Jesus who is God in a fleshly form, but we are not to pray to Mary. We are to be thankful that she was faithful and the role she played, but Mary is not God. Worshipping Mary is idolotry. I need to clarify this as some have got caught in the trap of idolotry and I am not condemning. I am clarifying and I will leave it up to the individual to think about what I have said.
Lets carry on and skip through Jesus' time on earth. Jesus was put to death by the Jews who were the very ones who should have recognized Him. But was He put to death by the Jews? Do not blame Pontius Pilate. He was powerless to stop them and he did try to reason with them as he rightfully pointed out that "This man has done no wrong". Pontius Pilate, though he was in athority, had to bow down to the will of the people under the Roman laws (The Roman empire had taken over Israel which is why people assumed that Jesus being called king, would free their people from the Romans, but that is not why Jesus came) of their time, as if a governor was responsible for an uprizing, the governor was seen as the one to blame, so all Pontius could do was symbolically wash his hands and say "His blood is in your hands". (In other words, Pontius did not personally approve but had to carry out the will of the people). The blood is significent and so was Pilates statement.
Now before you start blaming the Jews, why did Jesus really die? We killed him. Every one of us. He died for us! It is our sin that put Jesus to death.
Now here is the miriacle. You all know how Jesus died on the cross. He took our place.
What happened next. Remember where I said that back with Adam and Eve, how as a punishment for sin that our flesh dies? ("The wages of sin is death". (Wages means "Result" or "Conclusive outcome")). Well. Jesus had no sin, so death could not hold him. Jesus was the first ever to overcome death. Before Jesus, all who had died were being held in a place of waiting. Jesus showed himself to them and He took the keys of life ad death.
Now this new covernant between man and God was set up which we basically know as the New Testament. The Old Testament battles were physical. The new are spiritual. (Hence why to some the Bible makes no sense as the meanings are both physical and spiritual so one has to read accordingly and one will not do this is one only thinks in pysical ways).
Now we are here, and sin seperates us from God. How can we have a one to one communication with God. How can we know Gods guiding hand with sin being in the way?
With the Old Covernant one had to physically do something. Physically sacrifice an animal.
Under the New Covernant with God, we do not use physical means but spiritual means so we use faith and simply believe.
So if we believe that Jesus died for our sins, our sins have been forgiven. We can now have the opportunity to communicate with God.
When Jesus died the vail of the temple was torn in two. Only a priest had access behind the vail to God. When the vail was torn, we no longer need a priest (Or church leader) to communicate with God. We can access God direcly.
Want to know how? Jesus rose again. He is alive. We can ask Him into our hearts and lives. It is just a simple prayer. Just pray and aknowledge that He died for us, so we believe in Him and we are saved. What are we saved from? Why do we need to be saved? Why is it important to have a remedy for sin. A spiritual vaccine if you aant to call it that!
Remember me saying that we are made in three parts and only the flesh part dies? The rest of us lives forever. If we die with our sin not being dealt with we will recievethe full punishment for the sin forever. So we need our slate wiped clean. We want to know God. We want to be with Him. This is why we need Jesus. The miracle that God did. He LOVES us soo much that He came down to earth and dwelt among us, so He knows what it is like. God has experienced it. He knows what a horrible death is like. He knows what pain is like.
Now God can do the impossible. He can heal and do the same miracles today as He did when He was on the earth. Just ask!
Now it is between YOU and GOD. What will YOU do with Jesus? Accept Him or reject Him? That is between YOU and GOD and I will not interfere as now having read the Gospel message in a simplific form, it is all between you (The reader) and God.
[And as it is 0648HRS and I have not had any sleep yet as my mind is active so I write and write, it is time I get to bed. Also my battery is at 14% on this device so time for me and this device to hae a re-charge! Good day!]
27 Feb 2021, 8:25 am
