Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

God (who is Himself sinless by nature) created humans in His own image to have a unique, eternal fellowship with Him. However, that fellowship was possible only so long as humans retained their own sinlessness, which had to be by their own free will, rather than through compulsion.

When humans committed sin by voluntarily disobeying God, that fellowship was broken in a manner that humans (who had thereby become universally, inherently sinful) could not restore, resulting in the consequences of both temporal death and eternal separation from God for all humanity.

The only way such restoration could be accomplished was through God taking the initative by incarnating Himself (through a unique manner of conception) as a being who was both truly, fully God, and also truly, fully human (but in the original, uncorrupted human state). Because of His divinity, He could then live the sinless life of which humans had become incapable. And because of His humanity, He (and only He) could then voluntarily and undeservedly die a sacrificial death to pay the full, cumulative penalty that God required for the sins of all humanity from eternity past to eternity future. But it was only the fact of His own sinlessness that made (or was capable of making) that sacrificial death to be acceptable in God's sight. (Otherwise, He would have been just as much in need of redemption Himself as those whom He was dying to save.) And God testified to the sufficiency of that sacrifice by resurrecting Him from the dead to live eternally.

As a result, those humans who place their faith in Christ's death and resurrection (rather than in their own imperfect righteousness) to make them acceptable in God's sight can also obtain eternal life through God's forgiveness of their sins -- forgiveness that could be achieved in no other manner.

January 19 2022 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report