I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There's no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man's debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves.
forgiveness religion sin responsibility redemption immorality scapegoating
A man does not have to feel less than human to realize his sin; oppositely, he has to realize that he gets no special vindication for his sin.
equality forgiveness human sin excuses salvation sinner repentance confession special torture realization ridicule normal normality
It is unfortunate that in most cases when the sins of the father fall on the son it is because unlike God, people refuse to forgive and forget and heap past wrongs upon innocent generations.
forgiveness life wisdom revenge sin forgive vengeance innocent punishment sad-but-true god observations future-generations
We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble.
forgiveness guilt time sin humility repentance
To shame our sins He blushed in blood; He closed His eyes to show us God; Let all the world fall down and knowThat none but God such love can show
forgiveness sin jesus the-cross god
Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross. Golgotha came as a result of God's great desire to forgive, not his reluctance. Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it.
forgiveness sin jesus salvation the-cross
Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution.. Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.
forgiveness sin prayer jesus confession
Well, heaven forgive him! And forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none: And some condemned for a fault alone.
forgiveness sin virtue ice
God has left sin in the world in order that there may be forgiveness: not only the secret forgiveness by which He Himself cleanses our souls, but the manifest forgiveness by which we have mercy on one another and so give expression to the fact that He is living, by His mercy, in our own hearts.
forgiveness sin
Everyone believes in sin, the people who charge their peers with political incorrectness and the people who regard political correctness as the bogey of a little mind. What everyone does not believe in, as nearly as I can tell, is forgiveness.
forgiveness sin political-correctness
[I]f the name of wife appears more sacred and more valid, sweeter to me is ever the word friend, or, if thou be not ashamed, concubine.. And thou thyself wert not wholly unmindful of that.. [as in ] thou hast not disdained to set forth sundry reasons by which I tried to dissuade thee from our marriage, from an ill-starred bed; but wert silent as to many, in which I preferred love to wedlock, freedom to a bond. I call God to witness, if Augustus, ruling over the whole world, were to deem me worthy of the honour of marriage, and to confirm the whole world to me, to be ruled by me forever, dearer to me and of greater dignity would it seem to be called thy concubine than his empress.
women honor marriage sin self-determination devotion dignity integrity wife matrimony virtue shame social-norms married-life vice bonds freedom worthiness
Let the freedom to fail give you the hope to fight.
sin freedom hope
I want to protect innocent people from sin by locking them in cages, where the evil can't get to them.
funny protection innocence sin evil illogical absurd
Men will allow God to be everywhere but on his throne. They will allow him to be in his workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow his bounties. They will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends Hes throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth. And we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon His throne whom we trust.
grace man power sin god sovereignty
Do not fight the thing in detail: turn from it. Look ONLY at your Lord. Sing. Read. Work.
sin fighting god
If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.
sleep man sin woman alone shame bed god
The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.''What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.
sin church organized-religion god
.. There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.
sin one god
We tend to be taken aback by the thought that God could be angry. How can a deity who is perfect and loving ever be angry?.. We take pride in our tolerance of the excesses of others. So what is God's problem?.. But love detests what destroys the beloved. Real love stands against the deception, the lie, the sin that destroys. Nearly a century ago the theologian E.H. Glifford wrote: 'Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.'.. Anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.. How can a good God forgive bad people without compromising himself? Does he just play fast and loose with the facts? 'Oh, never mind.. Boys will be boys'. Try telling that to a survivor of the Cambodian 'killing fields' or to someone who lost an entire family in the Holocaust. No. To be truly good one has to be outraged by evil and implacably hostile to injustice.
christianity religion sin justice evil good wrath god
We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love.
philosophy christianity inspirational spirituality sin christ jesus cross salvation catholicism the-cross theology jesus-shock god
Were God to show grace to all of Adam's descendants, men would at once conclude that He was righteously compelled to take them to heaven as meet compensation for allowing the human race to fall into sin. But the great God in under no obligation to any of his creatures, least of all to those who are rebels against him.
grace man human sin justice creator god
In God's eyes, a man who teaches one truth and nothing else is more righteous than a man who teaches a million truths and one lie.
righteousness truth honesty lies sin knowledge divine divinity holiness righteous holy god
We can only know God well when we know our own sin. And those who have known God without knowing their wretchedness have not glorified Him but have glorified themselves.
truth sin organized-religion knowledge god
No, I thought, growing more rebellious, life has its own laws and it is for me to defend myself against whatever comes along, without going snivelling to God about sin, my own or other people's. How would it profit a man if he got into a tight place, to call he people who put him there miserable sinners? Or himself a miserable sinner? I disliked the levelling aspect of this sinnerdom, it was like a cricket match played in a drizzle, where everybody had an excuse - and what a dull excuse! - for playing badly. Life was meant to test a man, bring out his courage, initiative, resource; and I longed, I thought, to be tested: I didn't want to fall on my knees and call myself a miserable sinner. But the idea of goodness did attract me, for I did not regard it as the opposite of sin. I saw it as something bright and positive and sustaining, like the sunshine, something to be adored, but from afar.
life sin good god
The world as it is is the world as God sees it, not as we see it. Our vision is distorted, not so much by the limits of finitude as by sin and ignorance. But the more we raise ourselves in the scale of being, the more will our ideas about God and the world correspond to reality.
growth sin perspective god
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