Friday, March 18, 2011

Doctrine pages 245-278

This chapter was called "God Dies", and the picture at the beginning of this chapter is of Jesus hanging on the cross. A quote from the Bible from Romans chapter 5 verse 8 says, "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Even though every human sins God still sent his sinless son down to earth to die a brutal death for us. The fact that God did that on top of creating us and providing grace and forgiveness and countless other things to us completely blows me away.

When people hear of the Christian faith most people automatically think of Jesus and that he died for our sins, but a lot of people don't understand why a man dying is a good thing. This chapter provides good counterarguements and explainations to people who don't understand the goodness of Jesus's death.

This chapter had a very helpful chart to show the different beliefs of some Christians on unlimited and limited atonement. It showed that some people believe that we are born sinful, but guilty for our sins, and not Adams. Others believe that we are born sinless, but chose to follow Adam's poor example. Unlimited limited atonement and limited atonement both believe that we are born sinners guilty in Adam.

There are also debates about who Jesus died for. Some believe that Jesus took all the sin and pain of the world onto himself, but others believe Jesus lived only as an example for sinners. Some believe that Jesus died to provide payment for all, but only in a saving way for the elect. The elect are the people who will believe in him and who will eventually live in heaven with the father.

Another section of the chart was about heaven and hell. Some Christians believe that everyone will be saved and will go to heaven and that there is no eternal hell. Others believe taht those who live a Christlike life will be saved and go to heaven and those who reject goodness will go to hell. Most believe that God does not need to save anyone from hell, but chooses to save some.

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