| FaRmLaNd said: Might I ask a question? If I sin (as I'm told everyone does either through physical action or thought crime). If I do not accept Jesus into my life and ask unconditionally for forgiveness etc, Am I condemned to eternal hellfire? Because the concept that someone will have eternal punishment for finite limited sin is morally bankrupt. Any God that supports such eccessive eternal punishment is worthy of contempt in my mind. I hope thats not it, because as I said, such a concept seems extremely immoral. |
I can probably simplify this and this is how I would understand it. Basically no one is worthy to enter an eternal presence with the Christian idea of God unless they have no blemish, no matter how small. What is a blemish or a shortfall, from the Christian POV, what is deemed by God to be wrong. To God, it is black and white. To us it is really quite grey.
In fact a Christian should be the first to realise that they are not good enough to be right in the eyes of God. We think bad things everyday. I know Athiests that are incredibly "moral" people. So what is the difference? It is grace, or unmerrited favour. It's simple, if God knows you and you know God then all your faults are covered. There's no cheating either - it's the integrity of your relationship with God that counts.
I said before - Is it like this:
I do what's right in the eyes of God and then God may accept me?
OR
God accepts me (I get to know him), and then I "try" to do what's right?
If I ever think I am "good" enough to say, hey, you got to accept me because I am really good or even trying to be really good, then really I am simply being self righteous. It's if we "know" God and if God "knows" us, that matters.
No matter how good a marriage a couple may have, there will be faults, but it is the Love in that marriage that covers the multitude of faults. Except, in the case of God, it's all a one way street on which partner is making all the mistakes :) but the same principal applies. Love covers a multitude of "sins".
To me, the biggest sin is self righteousness - you know, when you see the prancing Christian going around about how sinful everyone else is when they should realise that they are just as hopelessly imperfect as anyone else.
Hell is just another way of saying that you are not in God's presence and we only do that by making a choice rather than how good we are. We are all broken but things can be fixed.
