Conflicting opinions
What we regard as unimportant God regards as decisive. We tend to think that doing wrong is something we can’t avoid and we consider our own wrongdoing to be a very small thing. God, on the other hand, tolerates no wrong doing, he does not excuse it, or overlook it, he plans to eradicate it. Between our tolerance of wrong doing and God’s hatred of anything that harms his creation is a gap so wide that people cannot comprehend it and prefer to deny it.
God can be resisted but he cannot be defeated, his oft-declared intention to restore creation to its first state of perfection may be delayed but it cannot be prevented. Will his eradication of all wrong require the extinction of all who do wrong? If so who could live?
Very few people deliberately choose to offend the ‘Only Divine’ by doing wrong, Instead they are overcome by wrong. The sin in the world is stronger than the people who practice it. Nations make many laws to control wrong-doing but they never completely succeed. Great leaders envision the perfect society, and their vision is hampered by the universal tendency to sin. Always evil lies coiled and concealed in some secret corner tempting people to believe in lies. Sin is an evil master who releases not one of its captives.
We plan to plead before the judge of all living that we did much good and tried hard and will he please disregard our wrong doing and remember only our good deeds. If God does not eradicate the wrong doers, how can his restored creation be perfect? Many of you have answered the question already: only by transforming the wrong-doers and bestowing on them a new nature. Would you choose it if it were offered to you? Would you choose a nature which rejects all little kinds of seemingly necessary and harmless wrong doing?
Jesus the messenger of God lived among us without sin. Temptations did not deceive him and he proved himself stronger than the cosmic force of evil. Evil conspired to be rid of him.
The people who tried and condemned Jesus to death did not think of themselves as evil, only as doing something that seemed both necessary and unavoidable. Execution was carried out with no miraculous escape and no intervention by God. Jesus had previously told his disciples that no one could take his life from him, but that he would choose to lay it down for his friends, because this was the greatest act of kindness a person could perform for the people he loved. .
Darkness covered the land, an earthquake broke open the graves of the dead. The contorted figure hanging from the wooden cross made it evident to all who could understand, that God loved humanity so much that he would sacrifice himself instead of demanding sacrifice from us.
The Gospel of John: chapter, 19, verses 16 – 37
John chapter 8, verse 46
John chapter 10 verse 18
God can be resisted but he cannot be defeated, his oft-declared intention to restore creation to its first state of perfection may be delayed but it cannot be prevented. Will his eradication of all wrong require the extinction of all who do wrong? If so who could live?
Very few people deliberately choose to offend the ‘Only Divine’ by doing wrong, Instead they are overcome by wrong. The sin in the world is stronger than the people who practice it. Nations make many laws to control wrong-doing but they never completely succeed. Great leaders envision the perfect society, and their vision is hampered by the universal tendency to sin. Always evil lies coiled and concealed in some secret corner tempting people to believe in lies. Sin is an evil master who releases not one of its captives.
We plan to plead before the judge of all living that we did much good and tried hard and will he please disregard our wrong doing and remember only our good deeds. If God does not eradicate the wrong doers, how can his restored creation be perfect? Many of you have answered the question already: only by transforming the wrong-doers and bestowing on them a new nature. Would you choose it if it were offered to you? Would you choose a nature which rejects all little kinds of seemingly necessary and harmless wrong doing?
Jesus the messenger of God lived among us without sin. Temptations did not deceive him and he proved himself stronger than the cosmic force of evil. Evil conspired to be rid of him.
The people who tried and condemned Jesus to death did not think of themselves as evil, only as doing something that seemed both necessary and unavoidable. Execution was carried out with no miraculous escape and no intervention by God. Jesus had previously told his disciples that no one could take his life from him, but that he would choose to lay it down for his friends, because this was the greatest act of kindness a person could perform for the people he loved. .
Darkness covered the land, an earthquake broke open the graves of the dead. The contorted figure hanging from the wooden cross made it evident to all who could understand, that God loved humanity so much that he would sacrifice himself instead of demanding sacrifice from us.
The Gospel of John: chapter, 19, verses 16 – 37
John chapter 8, verse 46
John chapter 10 verse 18
posted by Jessie Coates at 10:27 PM
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