I watched a film tonight called "ten commandments" as there was nothing on. It was quite good actually. I know the story anyway. If God did all this to help the Jews then, why does it not happen to people today? Why wasn't God there to stop Jesus being crucified yet he was there to help the Jews?
First of all Allah does what he wishes without questions and its not up to anyone to worry about the commands of Allah and by the way Jesus wasnt crucified he was raised when the jews wanted to kill him.
Jesus being crucifed was obviously part of God's plan, as was aiding the Jewish people in their time of need. Far be it from me to question the actions of God Almighty. Interesting questions, but not really questions that can be easily answered.
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."
Er, Christians believe Jesus is God, so that question doesn't really seem to make sense.
Not all Christians believe Jesus is God. Unitarian Christians don't believe in the Trinity. They believe as I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and not God Himself.
Not all Christians believe Jesus is God. Unitarian Christians don't believe in the Trinity. They believe as I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and not God Himself.
Perhaps you and the Unitarians don't believe Christ and God are One, but that is Christianity. Do some people believe otherwise? Yes, but that isn't the accepted belief of the Catholic Church or the predominant Protestant denominations.
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."
Jesus being crucifed was obviously part of God's plan, as was aiding the Jewish people in their time of need. Far be it from me to question the actions of God Almighty. Interesting questions, but not really questions that can be easily answered.
you arent right brother.while people wanted to kill Jesus,God raised him.This is writing in quran...
I watched a film tonight called "ten commandments" as there was nothing on. It was quite good actually. I know the story anyway. If God did all this to help the Jews then, why does it not happen to people today? Why wasn't God there to stop Jesus being crucified yet he was there to help the Jews?
How do you know what G-d is doing and who he is aiding? Do you think all the common folk were hearing G-d and speaking to G-d directly back a long time ago? That was very uncommon.
I watched a film tonight called "ten commandments" as there was nothing on. It was quite good actually. I know the story anyway. If God did all this to help the Jews then, why does it not happen to people today? Why wasn't God there to stop Jesus being crucified yet he was there to help the Jews?
I don't know. Nobody can tell me :sunny: I believe Jesus is the Son of God, not God Himself. I don't believe that it is imperative that we worship but to live the life we are given. God is our Father and he looks at us as his children and once we pass our spirit will hatch out of this egg shell we are in (physical body) and then our spirit is separated between the good and the bad. If you were good you are let into the "spirit world" which is a much better place than this. If you were bad you do not enter. I don't believe religion is a factor but you should be thankful to God.
Most of my beliefs derive from spiritualism. I have been to spiritualist churches in the past as members of my family have passed.
England, do you place yourself as Unitarian Christian or just plain spiritual but not religious?
Unitarians don't believe Jesus is God so I agree with them with that part. I don't know too much about Unitarian Christians. I would probably put myself as spiritual. But at the same time I believe in Jesus and God.
Not all Christians believe Jesus is God. Unitarian Christians don't believe in the Trinity. They believe as I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and not God Himself.
Yes, some Unitarian Universalists are Christian. Personal encounter with the spirit of Jesus as the christ richly informs their religious lives.
No, Unitarian Universalists are not Christian, if by Christian you mean those who think that acceptance of any creedal belief whatsoever is necessary for salvation. Unitarian Universalist Christians are considered heretics by those orthodox Christians who claim none but Christians are "saved." (Fortunately, not all the orthodox make that claim.)
Yes, Unitarian Universalists are Christian in the sense that both Unitarian and Universalist history are part of Christian history. Our core principles and practices were first articulated and established by liberal Christians.
Some Unitarian Universalists are not Christian. For though they may acknowledge the Christian history of our faith, Christian stories and symbols are no longer primary for them. They draw their personal faith from many sources: nature, intuition, other cultures, science, civil liberation movements, and so on.
As a member of a mainline protestant denomination, The United Methodist Church, I would agree that the Unitarians have some historic Christian roots, but nothing in their faith is actually Christian.
As to your original questions:
1) Who says that God does not still do this today? I think he does. In reading nearly 2000 years of history in the Bible and viewing it all at once, it is easy to get the impression that God was constantly doing miracles left and right. I don't think this was the case. Along with the Rabbi, I think they were uncommon. But I do think that God still works miracles today, is not the peace accord between Israel and Egypt and example of one? I know it sure seemed like it to me at the time. I don't think anything less than God/Allah could have ended that conflict.
2) Jesus' whole purpose for coming was to face the cross. Check out the story of the transfiguration to see hints of that: "Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem." (Luke 9:30-31) and "As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." (Luke 9:51)
The only one wanting to intercede with Jesus on the cross would have been the devil, not the Father nor the Son. At least this view of it being the devil who would seek to stop the cross was what Jesus expressed to Peter:
He [Jesus] then began to teach them [the disciples] that the Son of Man [a title for the Messiah] must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
(Mark 8:31-33)
Last edited by Grace Seeker; 02-26-2007 at 01:19 AM.
Jesus' whole purpose for coming was to face the cross.
----Do all Christians believe in it ? Is it a must ?
How do u explain the verse that says Jesus (p) avoided Jews in a place because there was a danger ( i forgot the exact words.....hope u do understand )
If it was his purpose to die on the cross , why he tried to escape it or asked God to save him ?
when Unitarian Christians die , do people bury them in Christians graveyard ?
Christ will never be proud to reject to be a slave to God .....holy Quran, chapter Women , 4: 172
----Do all Christians believe in it ? Is it a must ?
How do u explain the verse that says Jesus (p) avoided Jews in a place because there was a danger ( i forgot the exact words.....hope u do understand )
If it was his purpose to die on the cross , why he tried to escape it or asked God to save him ?
when Unitarian Christians die , do people bury them in Christians graveyard ?
Most Christians believe in it, but of course you will have the occasional group such as the Unitarians who don't, although they aren't exactly Christians by their own admission.
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."
Probably not. With some 2 billion Christians in the world, I doubt if there is anything that all believe.
I think that any Christian who is a thinking person and has read the scriptures will believe this. But not all Christians are thinking persons, and sadly not all have read the scriptures.
Is it a must ?
No. To be a Christian is simply to be a follower of Christ and believing in the work of Christ as a means of salvation.
How do u explain the verse that says Jesus (p) avoided Jews in a place because there was a danger ( i forgot the exact words.....hope u do understand )
I understand. Yes, there were times that Jesus avoided Jerusalem, and times when he told the people to keep silent about who he was. I understand that this was because the time had not yet come for him to face the cross. I think the key factor in determining that time was when his disciples, in conversation with Jesus just before the event we call the transfiguration (portions of which I quoted above), finally understood that Jesus was indeed the Christ. Scripture tells us that while he told his disciples not to tell anyone about this revelation they had come to, that from that time on Jesus took his disciples and began to explain to them that he had to face death. Then he went to the mountain where the transfiguration occurred and he discussed his departure with Moses and Elijah, and then coming down from the mountain he head toward Jerusalem where he would complete his mission.
Does that adaquately address your question?
If it was his purpose to die on the cross , why he tried to escape it or asked God to save him ?
I don't think that he did try to escape it. I think that the burden of the event that was about to take place was significant. I know this concept is hard for non-Christians, but remember we understand that Jesus was both God and human. As he walked the face of the earth, Jesus was every bit as human as you or I. He was hungry, he was cold, he was tired, and he had to deal with very human emotions. Whereas for some here to hear that said of one that we also say is God makes you think of weakness or to demean God; it does not makes us think of that at all. So, even though Jesus had resolved to follow this path in his life in order to accomplish the salvation of humankind, in his humanness, it was still a great step to take. Thus, the night he was arrested he prayed to the Father, that if it was possible (if there was another way) let the cup (i.e. the burder before him) be taken from him.
On the cross, it is a different story. First, while others have said that Jesus only spoke once from the cross, that must be the opinion of those who reject the Biblical record and use some other source to tell the story. The biblical record has Jesus speaking 7 times. On one of those occassions he says: "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" You'll note, this is one of the few phrases where we get Jesus exact words in the language he spoken them in. They are in Hebrew (not Aramaic) so what Jesus is doing is not speaking his own words, but quoting scripture. He is quoting the opening line of Psalm 22.
I find it significant for three reasons.
1) The Psalm is a Psalm of David. Now David is known as a man loved by God. Yet despite this attribution which is given to him, Psalm 22 shows that David suffered. The Messiah was to be a Son of David. If David who was so highly favored should also suffer and feel forsaken, why should we expect it to be different with the Messiah.
2) The Psalm shows Davids steadfastness even in the midst of this suffering and feelings of abandonment. In turning to this Psalm I believe we see Jesus identifying with these feelings. He understands that while a part of him feels abandoned that God is still God and he is still committed to submit his entire life, including these last moments to accomplish the Father's will.
3) At the close of the Psalm are written these words:
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim his righteousness
to a people yet unborn—
for he has done it.
Notice how prophetic they are of Jesus. Furture generations are told of him as Lord. We proclaim his righteousness to people who are born centuries after him. We make this proclamation because of what he did on the cross. For on the cross, Jesus did for humankind what none of us could ever accomplish for ourselves. He bridged the gap between a sinful humanity and a holy God.
Now beyond the text itself, I think the words and emotions of the Psalm are uniquely appropriate for Jesus in this context of his death on the Cross. (Please, no comments from Muslims that it wasn't Jesus, but Judas. I know this is your belief, but the question was posed as to what Christians understand is happening here.) For me, I see one more level to this suffering, beyond human suffering. I believe there is a type of divine suffering involved too. Now, I'll leave for others to debate whether an almighty and all powerful God can suffer. For myself, I do think that God in his interactions with us humans can change (Jeremiah 18 speaks of God relenting, reconsidering, and even repenting of his plans for people when their behaviors change) and that doing so does not in anyway cheapen who God is. In going to the cross, Jesus was going as a sin offering, a propitiation. In so doing, the sins of the people would be placed on him. I don't know the mechanics of how this works, I only know that the Bible declares that this is indeed what happened. And so he who was entirely without sin, suddenly had the sins of mankind suddenly thrust upon him. Now, sin is what separated Adam from God in the beginning. Jesus likewise would experience this sin in much the same way. His whole life, Jesus had never known sin. He had been able to live in communion in fellowship with the Father in the same way that Adam had when Adam was first created, before he sinned. But just as sin had broken that relationship between Adam and God, so now it would, for the first time ever, severe the connection between Father and Son, and Jesus would die.
Jesus words declaring this forsakenness are recorded in two of the four Gospel records (again let us deal with what Christians believe and not attempt to muddie the waters with other so-called gospels that really aren't): Matthew and Mark and in them they are his very last recorded words. But both also say that after saying this line, Jesus was offered some wine-vinegar, cried out, and then died. John, the only one of the gospel writers who would have been eye-witness to the crucifixion, fills that cry in by saying that after he received the drink, "Jesus said, 'It is finished.' With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit."
What is finished? His life? Perhaps. But I tend to think that what is finished is the great drama of salvation that he accomplished on the cross. John also provides one other interesting bit, perhaps it is trivia, or perhaps it is significant. You decide. In the other gospels we find that Jesus is also offered something to drink earlier by the Roman soldiers, this he refuses. But now he is offered by one of his own countrymen, and accepts it. What he is offered is poured into a sponge and lifted up to him on a hyssop reed. And it was to be the hyssop reed with which the ancient Israelites were to have taken the blood of the lamb of the atonement and spread it on their doorposts and sills on the night of Passover. As a Christian, I see Jesus as THE Lamb of the atonement, his blood is shed for my sins that God might not look on me as deserving of death, and would passover my sins which Jesus now takes to himself on the Cross. In doing this, Jesus finished his work, gave up his spirit (which Luke tells us he committed to the Father) and then died, everything having been accomplished. There being no actual attempt to escape, some human trepidation as he approached it, and some a sense of the loss from his close communion with the Father when he took those sins upon himself, Yes. But, nonetheless a solid resolve to complete the task of providing for the atonement of human kind and staying on the task till it was completed, at which point the curtain in the temple which symbolized the separation between God and humanity was torn in two symbolic of the union which Christ restored for people to once again have access to God, and then Christ died, his work on earth done.
when Unitarian Christians die , do people bury them in Christians graveyard ?
Well, in 25 years of Christian ministry, I've never buried anyone in an exclusively Christian graveyard. They have all been public cemetaries. People of all faiths are buried in them, typically side by side -- though in some cases there is a Catholic "section" in the cemetary. I do know of some private church graveyards, and of some private family graveyards. In these cases each of them would be within their rights to make their own rules determining who could and could not be buried there. Some might allow and some might exclude a Unitarian.
Last edited by Grace Seeker; 02-26-2007 at 09:59 PM.
Most Christians believe in it, but of course you will have the occasional group such as the Unitarians who don't, although they aren't exactly Christians by their own admission.
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