Serious answers only!!! How does one physical death pay for all the spirtual deaths of the entire world?

Question

I am not trying to degrade Christianity. I'm only trying to understand. With that said...

How does one physical death of limited duration and pain pay for the spiritual death of unlimited duration and pain? I don't understand, and until I can jump over this hurtle, I cannot believe in the Bible. If your could help me, you would be saving my soul!!!

No one has answered my question yet. I could possibly see how one death could pay for one life (of course there is still the inequality: limited pain and duration vs. unlimited pain and duration). But millions of lives?????????? I just can't get past the point. It makes no sense at all!!!

Answer 1

Why Did Jesus Have To Suffer And Die?

Two primary qualities of God help us understand why Jesus Christ had to suffer and die in order to redeem mankind. First, God is righteous. Thus His justice demands that a penalty for sin be paid. As Kenyon writes:

God cannot ignore the fact of man’s hideous transgression. That transgression must be punished, and if man is restored to God, it must be upon grounds that will not pauperize man nor rob him of his self respect; but it must be upon legal grounds that will perfectly justify man in the sight of God...

Second, God is love. Thus, in His grace and mercy, He decreed that the penalty for sin could be paid by a substitute, providing that the substitute be sinless. God wanted, and mankind needed, a man who:

...met the demands, first, of the heart of Deity for a perfect human who would do His will; second, He met the demands of fallen man in that as a man He met the Devil and conquered him in honorable open combat. [2]

Because of the magnitude of Adam’s sin and its reverberating ramifications, only the death penalty would satisfy true justice. Hebrews 9:22 says that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness [of sin].” In the Old Testament, it was the death of unblemished “stand-in” lambs and other animals that God allowed to temporarily cover His people’s sins (Hebrews 10:1-14). These sacrifices were foreshadows, or types, of the coming Redeemer, Jesus Christ. He is the true “Lamb of God” whose blood was shed to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

Hebrews 9:14
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

As we have stated, Jesus Christ was the only man who was “without spot or blemish,” both genetically and behaviorally. As such, only He could qualify to offer His life as the payment for the sin and sins of mankind. The suffering and death of Jesus Christ was part of God’s plan to make available salvation to all mankind.

Hebrews 9:27-28
(27) Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,
(28) So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

What the blood of bulls and goats could do only temporarily for Israel in the Old Testament, the blood of Jesus has done once and for all for everyone who believes in Him. He bore our sins in his own body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24). By His freedom of will He gave up His life for us. He willingly endured the pain of the cross and death for all men. We must understand, however, that it was not God who was responsible for Jesus’ death. Note the following verses:

1 Corinthians 2:7-8
(7) No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
(8) None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

The “rulers of this age” are Satan and his evil-spirit sidekicks (the disobedient angels that were cast down to earth with him). God’s Word plainly says that it is the Devil who was responsible for killing Jesus Christ.

Once the dominion of the world was given to Satan, and mankind was ruined by sin, God has had to ask people to step into harm’s way so that His redemptive purposes could be accomplished. Jesus Christ is the chief example of this, and there are many others (see Hebrews 11). Jesus suffered so that those who believe on Him can one day have peace and joy forever, and a taste of it even in this life. In Jesus, we see the epitome of the redemptive value of suffering, a subject we will discuss later.

Hebrews 5:7-9 (Moffatt)
In the days of his flesh, with bitter cries and tears, he offered prayers and supplications to Him who was able to save him from death; and he was heard, because of his godly fear. Thus, Son though he was, he learned by all he suffered how to obey, and by being THUS PERFECTED he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, being designated by God high priest with the rank of Melchizedek.

We feel the Moffatt translation (e.g.,“thus perfected”) best represents the truth of the Greek text that Jesus attained moral perfection through suffering and death. It was God who totally “perfected” Jesus by raising Him from the dead with a glorious new body and exalting Him as Lord, as the following verses make clear:

Hebrews 2:9-11
(9) But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
(10) In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.
(11) Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

Jesus Christ is the Last Adam, the fulfillment of God’s prophecy in Genesis 3:15. As our Redeemer, Jesus purchased our salvation with his own blood. He provided, and is, the way back to God that Adam had lost. Those who confess him as Lord and believe in his resurrection are saved, fully equipped to live in this corrupted world and guaranteed ultimate and everlasting victory over sin and death, as we shall see.

EDIT: this is a deep subject, and requires STUDY of many things to fully understand. I encourage you, if you TRULY desire to understand this subject, to click the link below and do an honest evaluation of the information.
A simpler answer is: we pay fines, do community service, etc for crimes committed rather than going to jail. God has provided a sacrifice so that we do not have to die forever.

EDIT: I answered your Q.
you just dont like the answer.
good luck!

Answer 2

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni would be an interesting choice. ;) Love Hina FLCL Midori Days Lucky Star Code Geass xxx-Holic Rozen Maiden Burn Up W Pani Poni Dash! The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Eureka 7 Detective Conan Rurouni Kenshin My-HiME Blood+ Tsubasa Chronicle Zatch Bell! Full Metal Panic! Strawberry Marshmallow Gintama

Answer 3

This is a good one, I often have pondered that. It all boils down to the fact people had to sacrifice a certain amount of their product to God. However it was turning into idol worship and people were abusing the system, so to speak. In addition, the world had reached a degenerate state. And God was trying to find a way to solve the problem without getting rid of everyone like he did with Noah and the Arc. Then God said 'this isn't working so I will forgive your sins and on top of this I will send my son down to die in your place so you will develop divine faith in me'.And that is how it came to be. We got it easy as far as I'm concerned.
The irony of this is that you must believe that god is the divine but you are looking for proof and therefore there is not proof unless you have faith. God's son is of the Divine, therefore his life being sacraficed is enough to save millions of people. Especially if the people are degenerate lustmongers, theives, murderers and rapists. One Divine purely good soul is 'worth' much more when sacraficed then millions of evil souls. Do you understand now? Whether it was a vain attempt to convert evil souls to good by faith I don't know but I can't imagine what the world would be like if he didn't send his only begotten son and just let everything go to pot. Just the number of people trying to explain the concept to you here on yahoo even 2000 years later is an excellent indication that we are all pretty good people and maybe God did the right thing.

Answer 4

Read Romans 5:12. This verse is talking about Adam's perfection being ruined by sin and, since the sin was committed before he and Eve had children, sin was passed down to all generations after that. It's like a genetic defect.

Enter Jesus.

Since Jesus was immaculately conceived and only carried by an imperfect woman, he was able to present his holy, perfect body/life to atone for (or cover over) all of mankind's sin and imperfection. The reason we die is that we are sinful and imperfect (Romans 5:12; 6:23) so when Jesus covered over those sins with his sacrifice, he bought back our lives for us. This is why we can expect salvation if we exercise faith in that ransom sacrifice.

Answer 5

It's all about Importance. You sacrifice a lamb to get Redemption for yourself and possibly your family. But to Redeem the whole world (past present and future) you're going to need something a bit more impressive than a baby sheep. So you sacrifice the Lamb of God i.e. Jesus a.k.a. God-in-Man. The Big Daddy of all sacrifices. Meaning that, well, everybody's forgiven. Forever. No more sacrifices are necessary (good news for lambs).

Answer 6

It doesn't, but the Messiah was not supposed to die before fulfilling every prophecy written about him. It was necessary to create the idea of a "second coming" in order to make Jesus the Messiah (so he would have another chance at fulfilling the prophecies). And the idea that he died for everybody's sins was the way to make his death seem a noble and divine sacrifice for mankind.

Unfortunately, to Christians, his death has become much, much, MUCH more important than his life.

Answer 7

Simple. When Jesus died on the cross, there was more than physical death involved. The Bible teaches that when a person sins, the spirit within them dies. One of the things that will eventually follow spiritual death is physical death.

In the case of the first man, Adam, when he sinned his spirit died immediately. It took another 939 years for his body to die. But the process of dying began with this first sin. That process has passed to all his descendents.

Jesus was born without that death process. That is why he had to come through the virgin birth. He had no human father to pass the "death sentence" on to him. Had he wanted, he could have lived in the flesh forever. He would have never gotten sick and never grown old and frail. He had a living spirit that could live forever sin free.

At the cross, he made an exchange. He gave up his perfect, living spirit, and took on him the dead spirit that every other human have to suffer with. That is why he cried out, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". At the moment he was separated from God for the first time ever in his life. Read Isaiah chapter 53 and you will see it descriping how Jesus took the sin, suffering, sickness and diseases of all mankind into himself. He died first spiritually there on the cross, and then physically about three hours after that.

By taking all the sin into his own body, he was able to pay the penalty for them. Part of that was physical death. The larger part however was spiritual death and separation from God.

But because he did not deserve those things - because he took them in the place of others - they had no power over him. He rose again from not just physcial death, but spiritual death. Once again pure and clean with a living spirit within him. Just as he took our nature (sin), so now we can take his nature (righteousness) by faith. 2Corinthians 5:21 "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him".

Take the time to read Romans chapter 5 sometime. It is laid out in detail there. There is a lot more than just physical death involved in what Jesus did on the corss.

Answer 8

Byron - This is not something one can explain on Yahoo Answers and more than likely no where else (though I see many did, lol). You are asking to have the totallity of Christian belief explained to you. If you cannot believe in the Bible, nothing I say is going to make a difference.

Thank you for not trying to degrade Christianity though, its a pleasant approach for a change.

Answer 9

He who believes but has not seen will be saved. Remember, If you believe there is a Christ/God, then who are you to question him. Obviously you have started or have read the bible. Pay attention to the Gospels, Mathew, Mark Luke and John. Do you believe he rose from the dead? If so then he is still alive and I believe that would make him more of an expert than any human you can ask!

Answer 10

Good question!!

The short answer is that Jesus not only suffered a physical death but He actually suffered a spiritual death... Because He became the Lamb of God, the bearer of sins, because He became sin for us, God the Father had to utterly forsake Him while He hung on the cross ...

Obviously a physical death - like a martyr - is noble but not unusual. But Jesus as the pure spotless Lamb of God, never having sinned, was not subject to death! But He voluntarily took upon himself not only the form of man in general but the form of the first man, Adam, and became the sin-bearer, suffering physical and spiritual death.....

There is a lot more to say but email me if you wish....

Answer 11

Because he did it of his own free will. He loved you so much he died for you.. He was not forced by God to take all that pain and humiliation for you he did it on his own.. He could have called out to God ,,,, and he would have whipped out all of mankind,,, but he didn't(because he loved you so) HE WAS THE only perfect person on the face of this earth,,, He had never sinned, he was born on this earth just for this purpose, so he was able to take over for all us. He was the perfect one, the only one on earth,, the son of GOD.... THAT'S HOW HE DID IT!!!!! HE WAS SIN FREE THE ONLY WAY GOD WILL EXCEPT ANYTHING OR ANYONE...... SIMPLE.