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Tigress
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252

Posted 6/7/2004 11:38 AM (GMT -6)

Here's another question that's been bothering me for a while. Did Jesus die on the cross to obey The Father, or because He loves us so much? Or did He do it for both reasons equally? If He did it mainly to obey The Father, that means His love for us is lesser than His love for The Father which deep down really hurts. But, if He did it mainly because He loves us so much, then He'd be an imperfect Son of God, which we know is not true. Yet, it seems to me that the Bible emphasizes more Jesus' obedience to The Father, than His great, sacrificial love for us in carrying out His mission. Am I simply overlooking the obvious here? Is it wrong to be jealous of Jesus' love for The Father, if indeed He did it more to obey Him?

Tigress

"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."

-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

John Earp
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715

Posted 6/7/2004 11:51 AM (GMT -6)

It seems to me that to try to separate love and obedience is a false distinction. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments," and that the two greatest commands (implying obedience to duty) were LOVE.

Also, the fact that Christ came into the world to save sinners, singularly motivated by godly (benevolent) love, eliminates the possibility that his love was in any way selfish or less than fully loving towards all. Just as "he that loves the Father loves his children," (1 John 5:1), Christ's love for his Father and for all people are logically inseparable. If God had not loved the world, the Son would not have been sent into the world.

"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.

revivaltheology.net

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 6/7/2004 12:27 PM (GMT -6)

When do you guys have time to think up these problems? Gosh.

Bandit

1Heart
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2004
Total Posts : 1128

Posted 6/9/2004 8:19 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by TGB

When do you guys have time to think up these problems? Gosh.

I never doubted His love before, but have a growing sense of wonder at His love for me. Seeing The Passion (what I could watch of it, that is), I can hardly begin to fathom the depths of His love for us. It is immeasurable, inexplicable, as far as the east is from the west, vast beyond all measure, yet so intimate, so personal, and just as the Father's love is inseparable from the Son and the Holy Spirit, nothing can separate us from the love of our triune God. Romans 8:39 is a wonderful verse about that.

His love is an amazing reality in my life...even when I don't feel it. (I feel a song coming on here). Eyebrow

What a wonderful thought to go to sleep with.

Good night and God bless,
Jo-Anne

"Sometimes all we can do is go back to the character of God, and drop anchor there."

cbost6421
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 65

Posted 7/6/2004 5:24 PM (GMT -6)

Is it a bad thing if Jesus Loved the father more than anything else?

If Jesus truly loves the Father, then He'll Love us naturally...
"for anyone who does not love his brother, does not know God"

If He truly loves the father He loves us.
I just still cannot understand how HE can love a poor sinner just like me!

God Bless,
-Chuck

stu.westga.edu/~cbost1/openviewtheism.html
"those who pray truly are theologians and those who are theologians pray truly"
-Evagrios The Solidary

Sahid
Megistered Rember

Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013

Posted 7/6/2004 9:54 PM (GMT -6)

I don't think obedience to the Father and love for us conflict. "He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name." Philippians 2 "Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. Hebrews 12 " I am the good shephard; the good shephard lays down His life for the sheep.... He [as opposed to the good shephard] flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep." Jesus obeyed the Father, but the Father asked Him to do something he wanted to do. The Father and the Son are in harmony.

Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre

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