I would love to get some feedback on this next question.
"If Jesus came to reedem the world, why isn't the world more redeemed?"
It is a question that Jews in light of the Holocaust, and others questioning the Messiahship of Jesus, have been asking for centuries.
Got a thought...an answer...or maybe a followup question?
Go ahead and leave a comment, lets get some dialog going on this one. I'll share my own thoughts in a future post.
6 comments:
go to mine and leave your own comment on my 2nd to last blog ...
the Messiah brought victory over the power of death, publicly defeated Satan ...
but beyond this, gave a beautiful example of gentle, humble love... that was scandalous because it was given to the gross 'sinners' of his day ...
laura
The world has been redeemed through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His blood being shed on the cross, true. The beauty of our Father however, is the fact that He has blessed us with something called free will. This makes it all the more beautiful when we make the decision to serve Him with our lives. However, not all people choose to serve Him, and in doing so the love of Christ and the evidence of His sacrifice are not manifest in their lives. The redemtion of each man is to be worked out in their own lives as Paul says: "through fear and trembling". Many men (and women) do not choose to work out their salvation, they take the easier path. When it comes down to it, I think that the world is not more redeemed because it's difficult. It's hard to live and to love like Jesus does, and therefore, many people take the wider road, rather than the difficult one.
This comment is meant with the utmost respect (it may just be hard to word right).
The Jews were always looking for a certain kind of Messiah. One that they had created based on the life that they were living under the Roman rule. A few centuries before the Jews had different expectations of a Messiah. I believe the conflict with the Jews understanding Jesus as the Messiah is a lack of either ability or willingness to see Jesus has he was and what he came to do. Until the Jews are willing to take off the old pair of classes that they have been using to try to see the messiah they will sadly miss seeing him for who he was and is. As sinners we all have to do this to become a follower of Jesus. It is the same internal battle in a Jew as in any other gentile. Will you see Jesus for who he really is?
But then this bring up the issue do we REALLY have free will or does God choose who we draws to him or are predestined.
John 6:44
44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,
NIV
Ephesians 1:11
11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
NIV
Romans 8:29-30
9 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
NIV
Or look at it this way....the world IS redeemed. Redeemed from the absolute tyranny and chaos that is inherent in sin. God chooses to keep the evil in this world in check. It may not seem so to the devastated victims of Katrina and victims of earthquakes in Pakistan. God must keep sin in humans in check, since we (as humanity) are not utterly evil all the time. There are bad people, but even the worst murders and pychopaths, at some level, love their mother or someone, and hold on to some thread of humaness. I don't think that we can even begin to imagine life if sin conquered all on earth.
What would the world look like if it was "more redeemed" than it is now?
Maybe things would be a lot worse than they are now if the world was somehow *less* redeemed as "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
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