How I Discovered, as a Scientist, that God is Real

Faith & Science Conversation
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It is not a sense of entitlement that I “deserve” eternal life, but rather faith that what God said is true. Our faith in Christ is not that He exists, or that He is God’s Son, but that He fulfilled God’s unbreakable Law. It is impossible to understand the New Testament without understanding the Old. God said EVERYONE must fulfill the Law; EVERYONE must continually be covered by a blood sacrifice after repentance in atonement for the forgiveness of sin, in order to receive eternal life, if they have ever been made aware of God’s demand that we be holy.

This means was made available to every person through Jesus’ blood (the atonement at Calvary) for those who remain in repentance for sin, and strive for obedience to Him. It is not our goodness that gives us eternal life, but our faith in Jesus, who made the act of atonement for us. For those who understand sin and righteousness, but do NOT accept Jesus’ blood atonement, the only other means possible is keeping the Torah Law of Yom Kippur, the once a year Day of Atonement blood sacrifice.

If I am going to Believe in God at all, I have to believe what he says about himself, and what he promises to those who obey him. God has left very clear instructions so every person can do as Paul said, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith.” — II Corinthians 13:5 because we need to know - now, whether we are in a right relationship with Jesus. If we have gone off course; are ignoring His voice when He speaks to us and are actually living exactly the opposite of how He is trying to direct us; we need to know it immediately to correct the error. It will be too late after we die.

“To those who receive Him, he gave the power to become the children of God” John 1: 12 This “power” is the Holy Spirit, but even though He is available to every person who chooses Jesus, most never actively seek to make Him part of their lives; to look for His guidance or empowerment to serve God spiritually. If we are in a right, active, personal relationship with Jesus, we will also be in a discerning relationship with the Holy Spirit. He will be communicating with us continually so that we know where we should be, what spiritual issues in our lives God is dealing with, and what he wants us to be doing in his kingdom. Most people don’t recognize the Holy Spirit’s nudges and ignore them. Pastors don’t teach about Him. We are all meant to have absolute assurance of achieving our eternal goal, as the Apostle John had. Based upon God’s promise, we have the hope or prospect of eternal life in heaven with God if we continue to live by faith (1 John 2:24;25) The key as to receiving anything from God, is not hope, but faith. Faith is believing, and acting on God’s Word, knowing it is true. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11: 1) The thing about Faith is that it is absolute assurance; it is way beyond hoping God will give us what we want. It is certain knowledge that he will give us what he said he will give us. I know for certain I will have eternal life not by presumption, but by faith, because he said in His Word, if I continually look to Jesus as the leader/manager of my life; seek, hear and follow His directions and corrections; then, if I am obedient (and He will confirm this along the way, also correct us when we take a wrong turn if we listen), THEN , fulfilling my part, He will fulfill His part. God cannot fail. God promised eternal life through the atonement in Jesus’ blood, that substituted for the blood of goats and bulls in the O.T., for those who sincerely repent of sin, and sincerely seek to follow Jesus. God cannot lie. My entitlement to eternal life is only because of his unbreakable promise: if I keep my part of the contract (sincerely repent of sin, and sincerely seek to follow Jesus) He MUST keep his part and grant me eternal life.

The truth of the Words of Christ and His apostles when in a universal context, are the surest foundation on which anyone, in faith, can ever depend. After 50 years of dedicated Bible scholarship, I have learned to say, like David did, “Oh how I love thy Law (Word)” “I meditate in your Word day and night” “Your Word is the delight of my heart” . It is a strong tower and place of refuge. It is a mystery of spiritual strength, that the Word made flesh, Jesus, is the Word, Truths of God, made alive in us. Blessings in Him.

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Now that is an example of some stuff in the Christian spectrum which I do not believe in. There is no magical power in blood or human sacrifice – particularly no power over God. Rather it is simply our own perversity that we will not change until the innocent suffer because of our own bad habits. And it is not about fulfilling/obeying laws or about divine demands, but about who we are and what kind of world we create around ourselves by our treatment of other people. Heaven demands perfection in the removal of sin because no matter where we may be, sin will change it into hell.

And I believe what you describe is a gospel of salvation by special knowledge, which is a distortion of Gnosticism. Instead I believe the words of Jesus saying of salvation “for men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” This is a gospel of salvation by the grace of God alone. To be sure He asks us to have faith, which means as I have explained that we speak because we believe it to be true and do good because it is right. Pascal’s wager is the opposite of faith, seeking to purchase salvation with your integrity. It is disgusting.

Yeah this is an excellent description of what I think is most distorted in some sectors of Christianity. This idea that faith means God giving us the power to save ourselves. I don’t think faith is any such thing.

I would suggest that you become more aware of the full spectrum of Christian belief which is quite a bit more than what you have been taught.

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…is not all true.

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Indeed! I couldn’t agree more!

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You need to do a better job of explained why you infer your ‘entitlement’ issue. I don’t think that it’s because I am dense that I don’t get it.

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Reflecting on that, I’m thinking it is a passive power, so to speak, a legal right, an ‘empowering document’ of adoption, if you will, since we have been adopted into Jesus’ family, and not your mistaken entitlement idea. It is nothing of our own doing, your ‘the power to save ourselves’ – it is no such thing. (You need to give up that part of the ‘spectrum’ and make it a little narrower. :slightly_smiling_face:)

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Whenever Christians speak of promises and rights I wonder to which court you’d press your case if your expectations are not met. :wink:

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If your expectations are not met then you are not expecting the right things – your case would be thrown out. :slightly_smiling_face:

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…of something straight out of scripture. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Legalists are amazing! They think they can even bend God over a barrel with their imagined contracts. I do not believe there is anything Christian about such entitlement, no matter how many scriptures they bend to prop up such a thing.

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And @maggie777, welcome. I also enjoy speaking with the likes of @MarkD and have frankly learned a lot from him from his witty interaction and intellectual background. His gentlemanly and kindly interaction have also been enjoyable. I myself am only a family physician who struggled a long time before leaving YEC, and found that this is a helpful site for learning without fear of recrimination. I’m a Christian, but find my background, while in the health sciences, doesn’t really make me a practicing scientist. I’m amazed at the poets, English majors, Christians and skeptics who participate. Based on what I’ve seen so far, your contribution will only make it richer. Thank you for your input.

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Haha. I am such a legalist. :grin:

Are you adopted? I hope so. (That’s a fairly major concept in the NT – you really should not have so much difficulty with it.)

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Thank you. What is a YEC? I have encountered a great number of new acronyms here, but this one really stumps me.

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YEC- young earth creationist. There are several flavors with the most tart being the Answers in Genesis and Institute of Creation Research varieties.

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:grin: That is a very gracious characterization.

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Why are you still beating that drum? Neither Maggie nor I believe any such thing. Could you not read?:

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Dale, you stated “This idea that faith means God giving us the power to save ourselves” in response to my quoting John 1:12 " as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God". Why did you misstate what I said? I said nothing by which we can save ourselves; I said the power God gives us when we have faith in Jesus Christ, is the Holy Spirit. He enables us to understand how to yield to the Lord’s will for us. How could you possibly interpret “the power of the Holy Spirit” as “the power to save ourselves”?

Then concerning the blood sacrifice of the Torah you said “Now that is an example of some stuff in the Christian spectrum which I do not believe in. There is no magical power in blood.” As far as God having created the concepts of what does and does not have (spiritual) power, you are not contesting either against me or Christians when you say you do not believe “there is … magical power in blood”. You might as well say you don’t believe in the power of the moon to affect Earth’s tides. Don’t accost the astronomers; take it up with God. He made up the rule.

If you are going to make inquiry into how and why God does things, you can’t edit out of his book everything you don’t like before class. Christians did not make up the rule; “… under the Law almost everything is cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness [neither release from sin and its guilt, nor cancellation of the merited punishment].” (Hebrews 9: 22) [Paul added the word “almost”, because according to the Law (the Torah) certain objects, but not sin, could be cleansed by water)]. I don’t have a choice about depending on the blood of Jesus for salvation, nor does any other Christian, nor do you, nor does God. God bound himself by his word. Because God demanded the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sin in the Old Testament, he had to keep his own command in the New. In the OT, the blood from the sacrifice had to be poured on the altar every year. In the NT, when God’s own Son became the sacrifice for the blood, it only had to be done once, for eternity. Either way, you don’t have an option to remake God and his demand for life to be given, in keeping with 20th century American morals; God set the rules five thousand years ago when sacrifices were a given way of life. God does not ask YOU to shed blood; Jesus shed His 2,000 years ago. It is finished. God would not ask anyone to do so today. Accept that 2,000 years ago, God fulfilled what had been custom 1,500 years earlier, and move on. The first time God gave the rule that blood must be shed for the forgiveness of sin (upon repentance), he gave it to Aaron, Moses’ brother, the first priest. These are some of the scriptures showing how and why God established spiritual power in the blood:
(Leviticus 17:11) 'For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your sins; (Exodus 30:10) “Aaron shall make atonement on the altar with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once a year”; (Leviticus 23:27-28) Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement [Yom Kippur].

The premise that sacrificial blood poured on the altar before God in conjunction with repentance, signified God’s forgiveness of the sin, saturated Jewish thinking. As God clarified Messiah’s first coming was to cancel sin for all repentant men, the importance of His blood was emphasized by the the NT writers, and correlated with the miracle working power the sacrificial blood had at the Exodus, in “saving” God’s people at the “Passover”. Remember, Passover and Yom Kippur are the two most important days of the Jewish calendar, and both are based on the power of blood as instituted by God.

If you recall the story, Moses had repeatedly pleaded with Pharoah “let my people go” into the wilderness to worship God. Every time Pharoah refused, a new plague was released on Egypt. The worst one was “the death of the first born”. God said if Pharoah would not let the children of Israel go, he would cause the death of the first born male of every household in Egypt. He said to Moses however, that his people would be :saved. Each family was to sacrifice a lamb, get ready to leave in a hurry, even eating the bread before it was leavened; they were to take blood from the lamb and put it over the doors of every house of the people of God, and when the death angel came to slay the first-born, he would “Pass-over” the houses wherever he saw the “blood of the Lamb”. This is what Passover means. The blood from the sacrifice had the power to save God’s people from death in the O.T. . The concept of there being “power in the blood” is not from Christianity", it predated Christianity by at least 1,500 years at the command of God. Today Christians refer to the blood of the Lamb, as the blood of Jesus which both cancels the penalty of sin, but also saves us from the power of the “death angel”, Satan, whose goal is to take us to eternal death. If we remain in faith and obedience to Jesus, His blood “saves us” from Eternal Death, and gives us eternal Life.

These concepts as to the importance of the blood of Jesus; the obedience of faith; communion in personal relationship with Jesus; being led by the Holy Spirit (who is given to us to be the enabling POWER by which we are changed from our old carnal nature into the new nature of Christ), and the necessity of continuing repentance from whatever is transgression of the precepts of God for salvation, are all part of Christianity 101. It is not that knowledge saves us, but ignorance will kill us if ignorance keeps us in sin. At any rate, a belief in the “Power of the Blood of Jesus” is not optional in Christianity. It is as much a spiritual fact as is the fact that the sun has thermodynamic power. In fact, it is the basis for Christianity. If it were not for the efficacious power of the blood of Jesus, we would all have to live under the 600+ laws of the Torah to have any hope of eternal life. First century Christians knew all these things. They grew up with this knowledge. Today’s Christians don’t, but every word is in the Bible, and any theologian will confirm them.

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I didn’t. That is @mitchellmckain’s take, not mine. Maybe you meant to reply to him, not me?

Ah, maybe I see the problem – I was quoting him, and you thought it was my voice? The vertical bars to the left of text is a quote bar, indicating another voice. A double gray bar means it is a quote within a quote.

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OH! YEC. You mean, Yech, such distasteful doctrine for anyone who can actually read.

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Your words are nested by the double bar here inside of @mitchellmckain’s where he was quoting you. My reply has no bar to the left.