Serious question for Christians: Why do you think that it's right for the entire human race to be punished,

Question

damned, and labeled sinful for the transgression of one person? Are these the actions of a kind, loving, merciful God? I really do want to know what you think. Thanks.

That's what I wonder about...how kind and loving is it to condemn all of humanity for the actions of one? It seems that if God paints everyone with the sinful brush, working on the assumption that every person would do the same thing, that there is not really free will.

Why would this loving God label us all sinners, and insist on a blood sacrifice to make things right? That seems bloodthirsty and cruel to me...

Answer 1

I believe we could and should seek to create heaven and harmony here on earth.

Answer 2

"Why do you think that it's right for the entire human race to be punished,
damned, and labeled sinful for the transgression of one person?"

It's not what I think, it's just the way it is. I could ask; why didn't God just create a new race of man after Adam? One that would not sin? But that's not what God did. He basically came after Adam and Eve. He couldn't allow the contamination that we all suffer from to continue. The best way for me to understand it is that the contamination went into the spiritual level. And spirits don't 'die.' Rather they live on forever. And man is both spirit and flesh, that made us different to the angels, we were something new, and created in His image.

So what God did was come after us, He basically came to save us from spiritual death, and succeeded, because He has me and some others that will not have that 'spiritual death' hinder us from being with Him forever. As if we were drowning and God Himself jumpednto the whirlpool of sin and was able to save those He wanted to save.

So I can call Him kind, wonderful, loving, and merciful. But He only wants those that are chosen. He chooses. And He knows that I won't argue with Him about that.

That's what I think, I hope it helps you understand.

Answer 3

How much Bible reading do you do? Surprise, surprise, it has concepts in it that should make you very uncomfortable. You're going to tell God what is "right"? Didn't Job do the same thing? Read Psalm 51:5 for some more discomfort. Isaiah 64:6. Romans 3:23. Romans 5:12. Many more. Kind, loving, merciful? Yes, but don't think you merit a single thing on your own. Those scriptures also put us in our place.

Answer 4

You're right. I always tell people Christ didn't come as some sacrifice like a lamb to the slaughter.

He walked away from Eternity, incarnated as a Man, took on all the pains and inevitable death we all face in order to talk to us as equals, and let us know what we were here for, to love God and to love each other, and to make those our first and last rules for life.

Makes me unpopular in some circles, since being a Pharisee is just so much easier than doing what Christ said...

We need to read more Luke and a lot less Paul, I say.

Answer 5

It wasn't quite like that! Death, and all that came with it (disease, famine, war, murder, hatred, etc...) was a CONSEQUENCE, not a punishment! Adam and Eve had already been given EVERYTHING human hearts could possibly desire, and warned not to concern themselves with just one tree in all that paradise. They knew UP FRONT, as it were, that God had said they would die if they ate from it. So they used the free will God gave them and made the wrong choice. Death, and all that came with it, ensued. Like a bent pie plate that always puts a mark in every pie made in it, Adam and Eve then passed down imperfection and death and all that comes with it to their offspring. But God loved mankind enough to give us a second chance at that life in perfection... faith in a value for value sacrifice. Adam was perfect and lost US perfection.. Jesus was perfect and won us back the right to eventually be perfect! THAT'S the action of a loving and merciful God! If God stepped in whenever you or I think He should have (or should now), someone somewhere would be saying " I didn't know! I didn't have time to prove my side!" God's mercy and judgement are perfect, ours is not.

Answer 6

Christianity does not teach that you are punished or damned for the sins of Adam or anyone else. What it teaches is that Adam's sin caused a change in his nature. Instead of desiring only the things of God, he began to desire things for himself, his own pleasure, and from the world around him. Those desires are what cause a person to choose to sin. It is called a sin nature.

Just like a father passes down to his children his hair color or his long fingers, or his race, so each father passes down to his children the tendency to sin. The Bible refers to it as a "sin nature".

Have you ever heard of a child who had to be taught to be selfish? Or taught to hit or tease or lie? Those things just come naturally to every person because of their nature. They have to learn to be kind, honest, forgiving, etc. That is because of the sin nature.

No one is punished for having a sin nature. The "punishment" only beings when a person obeys that sin nature. They are not punished for desiring to lie. In fact, if they desire to and then overcome it, they are rewarded and have grown in character and maturity. But the desire and then DO it, they the trouble begins.

So what should be the action of a kind, loving and merciful God in this situation? Simple, all He has to do is get that desire for sin - that sin nature - replaced. Give a person a righteous nature, and he will be righteous. This is what God did in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. He made a "second Adam" (as the apostle Paul calls Jesus in Romans 5), who is now able to give his righteous nature to all his children. Just as any who is born through Adam (and that everyone - we all can track your family back to him) inherits the nature of Adam, so everyone who is born through Jesus inherits his nature. Remember Jesus' word "You must be born again"?

Just as the nature of Adam does not produce punishment unless a person acts on it and sins, so the nature of Jesus does not produce salvation unless a person acts on it and believes. That is the action that releases salvation into a life.

Paul tells exactly how to get the Jesus Nature started in your life in Romans 10:9. He says to acknowledge that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and to believe that he rose from the dead, and then you will be saved.

As a kind, loving and merciful God, he could do no less.

Answer 7

The idea of Original Sin is not a curse so much as an explanation for our evil nature. Anyone who has studied humanity and its predecessors understands that we have ALWAYS been an extremely violent and evil race. War, theft, murder, and lies have been part of our very fiber since the first stone knives were knapped from a piece of flint. It's not God's fault. It's OURS.
Are YOU without sin?

I thought not.

Answer 8

The fool's bargain that Adam entered into with Satan ended up with the entire human race becoming slaves to the forces of Satan, sin, and death.

God didn't do this. Adam chose it for himself, out of pride and as a natural result of putting his faith in someone who was not God.

But even though Adam did a very stupid thing, and God was under no obligation to do anything about it, he sent his own son to redeem us, and set us free again.

Now everyone has a choice: Stick with the one who has enslaved you, and share Satan's eternal destiny, or profess your faith in Christ, receive your freedom, and share in all the wonders of God.

Answer 9

Adam was one man and he represented us in the Garden of Eden cause the fall of the race because we all sinned in Adam. By the same token we can be saved through one man Jesus. Condemnation enter the world through one man but so did salvation. And given the chance we all would have chosen the fruit too.

Answer 10

Yes I do, we all sin because we are all born sinners.
We don't become sinners when we sin, we sin because we are sinners.
We don't have to be punished, God has made a way in Christ Jesus, the only way.

Answer 11

I dont think Adams mistake should have fallen on the rest of us, Its not my fault when someone chooses to do drugs or kill a person