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Sat 19 Jun, 2004 09:23 pm
Since this question is for Christians we're assuming all principles of the Bible are relevant. Since death is the result of sin and Jesus had no sin, would it be correct to say that if Jesus were not killed he would still be here? Please don't think of this question as disrespectful but rather reflective and hypothetical. What are your thoughts?
Im not christian .. but in that context yes I would agree with you. And I cant think of anything in the bible that would counteract that statement.
he would be one old a** hippy...... haha
Re: A Hypothetical Question for Christians about Jesus
gpfl1974 wrote:Since this question is for Christians we're assuming all principles of the Bible are relevant. Since death is the result of sin and Jesus had no sin, would it be correct to say that if Jesus were not killed he would still be here? Please don't think of this question as disrespectful but rather reflective and hypothetical. What are your thoughts?
Being born into our world and our life, he'd have died of old age as we all do.
gpfl1974, welcome to A2K.
I know that the Bible says "the wages of sin is death" but why would you give that statement any more credence than other contradictory passages?
If you define sin as breaking one or more of the Commandments given to Moses and accept the canonical New Testament as inerrant, then Jesus was not sinless and would have died anyway.
Another thing I would like to hear the Christian answer to is: why do tiny babies die before having any chance to sin? Their deaths cannot be the result of their parents' sins since God stated that no one would be punished for someone else's sins.
Terry wrote:gpfl1974, welcome to A2K.
If you define sin as breaking one or more of the Commandments given to Moses and accept the canonical New Testament as inerrant, then Jesus was not sinless and would have died anyway.
Your comments are really out of the scope of what I'm seeking to discover with this thread. Your comments about Jesus not being sinless and about babies dying young could be threads of their own. If you would like to generate those threads then we can discuss those issues there.
I am a Christian and am posing a merely hypothetical question for fellow Christians that already accept the fundamental beliefs not those that are questioning the foundation itself.
I'm pretty sure the death you refer to is the death of spirit not body.
Everything born of man dies physical death with the exception of those who will be taken in the rapture and If I'm not mistaken Ezekiel, who was born up alive to heaven. There is always an exception to the prove the rule as you know.
The second death, death of spirit is the final death and this is a death that Christ, being sinless and of God will never be subject to.
I believe then that in this respect Jesus not only would be but is still alive today.
Of course I'm just a heathen bear, so what do I know?
Re: A Hypothetical Question for Christians about Jesus
swolf wrote:gpfl1974 wrote:
Being born into our world and our life, he'd have died of old age as we all do.
Do you really think so? Let's see...
Original Statement:
If you sin then you die.
Converse:
If you die then you sin.
Inverse:
If you don't sin then you don't die.
Contrapositive:
If you don't die then you don't sin.
It looks like you could be right. I was considering the inverse and the inverse of any statement isn't true - The Fallacy of the Inverse. Thanks, you helped me figure my own question out. If anyone else has anything to add please do.
The question of evil in the world and how that is possible in the presence of an all-powerful, loving God is the biggest hangup most people have regarding religion.
The idea of anything being absolutely all-powerful leads to logical conundrums which are insoluble.
The reality seems to be that the spirit world is orthoganal to the physical realm which we inhabit. God is likely all-powerful within the spirit realm which he inhabits, but neither God nor anything or anybody else in the spirit realm has any real power in our own realm. The two realms are strongly separated, at least within our age. In past ages, oracles and prophets provided direct communications with the spirit realm, but that ceased to work in the centuries before Christ and, in our present life, we know the spirit world only through faith.
"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin"
I don't remember the reference--I think it's in the book of Romans somewhere.
I agree with Bi-polar Bear re: the distinction between physical and spiritual death. If you believe that Jesus was 100% human, then when he took on the human body he also took on its shortcomings--among them, aging and physical death.
But, the other "Sunday School" interpretation of death is eternal separation from God--this is the natural consequence of (unforgiven) sin and is therefore something that Jesus was/is not subject to. Based on the Christian faith, the only time He "died" in this sense was when our sins were placed on Him at the cross; His holiness and grace then defeated that death (-> resurrection), thereby giving believers victory over death/separation from God as well.
I think it is also important to remember that the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek text of the Bible can only be imperfectly translated into English. All three languages had many nuances and many different meanings for many of the same words.
I concur with several comments here that 'to die' can have several different connotations. Sometimes it means simply 'is no more'.
Practically speaking, Jesus was born the normal way, grew up and matured into an adult male the normal way, and it is reasonable to assume that had his life not been ended prematurely, his body would have continued to age in the normal way until it could no longer sustain earthly life
According to some (not all) Christian doctrine, those who are 'saved' are deemed blameless in the eyes of God; their sins are forgiven and blotted out of the record. If that was the case, then if the one verse is taken literally, nobody who believed would ever die. Nevertheless everybody continued to do so.
I go with PBB's understanding of body vs spirit. The spirit continues on. Whether spirits can die I don't think anybody knows. It's on my list of things to ask later.
Keep in mind that Jesus’ life and death where all prophesied in the Old Testament, Jesus had to die the way He did in the timing He did in order to fulfill prophecy. If He did not, then He would have been a mere man, and lived to be about 80 or so because he lived a good and healthy life.
The flesh will always parish, but the death you speak of that God told Adam was not death of the flesh, but of the spirit. And if you live a sinless life, though you die, your spirit will live everlasting.
Yoda wrote:Keep in mind that Jesus’ life and death where all prophesied in the Old Testament, Jesus had to die the way He did in the timing He did in order to fulfill prophecy. If He did not, then He would have been a mere man, and lived to be about 80 or so because he lived a good and healthy life.
The flesh will always parish, but the death you speak of that God told Adam was not death of the flesh, but of the spirit. And if you live a sinless life, though you die, your spirit will live everlasting.
Where in the Old Testament does it say this?
Solmeci--
Check Isaiah 53. This passage is often quoted when describing Jesus as the "Suffering Servant"; Yoda may have had another passage in mind, though (?)
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