Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: vm0t+@andrew.cmu.edu (Vincent Paul Mulhern) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Let's end the silliness of "relative" sinfulness, shall we? Message-ID: Date: 18 Jul 90 09:06:15 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 34 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu The 'friend' analogy from the previous "Re: Let's end..." post breaks down when considering that God is not limited to humanity. Jesus isn't human anymore; He's resurrected and glorified. Yes, our sin sepatates us from Him like an offense separates us from a friend. But our friend has a hard time figuring out when we've "become sorry" for the offense. They have to figure out when we've realized the "error of our ways" and want to restore the relationship. So our human friend may be slow to trust us again, for fear that we haven't "been truly sorry" for the offense. God doesn't have a problem in figuring this out. He knows. And regardless of whether we told a little lie or stole a car, once a person reaches the point of repentance (which is individual and cannot be generalized into two, or any number of, categories), God sees this and restores the person to His fellowship. We need to stop thinking of God as a human. Yes, He was human, and He lived a perfect life as one. But He is also divine, and we must realize this. The concept of total and instantaneous forgiveness for something like rape or murder is very hard for us to conceive. But that's because our trust, forgiveness, and love are imperfect. God's trust, forgiveness, and love aren't. It may very well be harder for us to ACCEPT forgiveness for murder than for a lie, but that's an individual, human issue. It isn't one from God's perspective. Jesus forgave the adulteress, the criminal He was crucified with, and many others, on the spot, without lengthy process or lectures. He knew when a person "was sorry" and that was all it took. Respectfully, Vince Mulhern [I think you should consider very carefully your comment that Christ isn't human any more. This is certainly contradicts all the Christian doctrinal standards. Being glorified certainly changes your bodily form, but I don't think I'd want to say it makes you something other than human. --clh]