I never said that. I said God accepted animals, and God accepted Jesus. There were also times when God didn’t accept animals.
Like if I give you $1 or 1 trillion dollars (infinity), you can accept them both, but one means a lot more to you or you can do more with it. Or if I gave you a handful of dirt, you wouldn’t accept that. But it isn’t what you can do, or end up doing with it that means you accept it or not.
I see no where in the scriptures that says a sacrifice must be resurrected to be accepted. Jesus was accepted, and He was resurrected, but one didn’t cause the other, they both might have validated the other.
God accepted the animal sacrifices, but what was more important, was the repentant heart that God was accepting. In accepting it, God was accepting their sins being covered. God also accepted Jesus as a sacrifice, and accepting this was out sins being removed, as far as the east is from the west. This was God’s sacrifice to us though, it was not our sacrifice. This was also Jesus’ sacrifice to us. But the sacrifice wasn’t the only the death, though He had to die, the sacrifice was His life, and that is what conquered sin.
If you draw up a demolition plan, strategically dig holes, place thousands of pounds of C4 over years of work, and then one day, put a tiny spark/electric signal and a place gets destroyed, what destroyed the building? The spark/signal, or the C4? Most people would credit the C4, though the explosion never would have occurred without that signal. But if you placed the C4 poorly, or not enough of it, the signal would not have done the job either.
Jesus life was an orchestration of timing, placement, knowledge, power/love, and finally His death was the tiny electric signal that destroyed death.
John 14:23 “Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.”
Jesus doesn’t say, anyone who loves me will agree on how to get saved, or how heaven works, or the geographic cosmology, or the historicity of Noah, or ect…
I have theories, and interpretations of what the Bible says on certain things. I use the Bible and the logic God gave me to come up with those opinions. They help me understand and know God better, and I want to keep learning more about Him and His love.
However, in the grand scheme of things, it is so not important what our opinions or interpretations of these trivial things are. What is important is to obey his teaching. To love the Lord our God with all our hearts, soul, strength, and mind. Give Him the glory for all things, know that He deserved all the glory, that is His kingdom that has come. Knowing the goodness of His kingdom, and wanting to live it and share it with the world. The way we share His kingdom, is to show it to others. Love our neighbors as ourselves. Put the needs of others above our selves.
This is what our King does, He washed His disciples feet. And I don’t think that Jesus was thinking “eww, I hate feet, this job is below me, or I will do this out of love, but it is not my favorite thing to do”. I think Jesus actually valued their needs above His own, and took great joy in washing their feet, great joy in putting their needs above His. I pray that everyday more and more I see the world through His eyes and put the needs of others before mine, showing them Him and His love, and His Kingdom, through my life, and may He ever be glorified.
If you want to claim that is my own personal canon of Scripture, go ahead, though I can easily back up all of that with scriptures. I don’t get too wrapped up in social constructs. Like this thread says What do you call yourself? - #55 by still_learning .If you want to know for social reason, I will call myself a Baptist and I go by the canon that the 66 books in the protestant canon. I don’t challenge that canon, but when I say challenge, I meant challenge ones interpretation that lead to some of the catechism or doctrine that is so widely believed like YEC. But when looking deeper into the scriptures, it can easily (and I argue more strongly) be looked at in a different light, which seems to agree more with other scriptures and the entire Biblical narrative even better.
I am personally believe that I am saved by the power of Jesus Christ. Who lived, died and was resurrected. I now have His Spirit living in me, and when my flesh fails, He will still be with me for eternity, thanks to His great grace and mercy, not through anything I did. I try to follow the 2 greatest commandments as best as I can, because I believe they are the best way to live, and they bring God glory, to whom all glory belongs. There is no saving power in doing these acts, nor condemnation power in not doing them.
I am also not sure if everyone needs to believe in Jesus as I do to be saved. There are various scriptures our there that contradict that. I will still continue to preach of the goodness of Jesus, and that He was the image of the invisible God, His love manifested for us, to save us. That what Jesus did was ordained from before we were created and it brings God great glory, and we can live life the most abundant through knowledge of who Jesus was and what He did.
But I will not condemn others or say they must believe what I believe to be saved or that have the only true answers or I know the mind of God. So in a sense, I am a universalist or inclusivist, or I see scriptures that fit those theories. I won’t preach those, not claim they are right or wrong, because we were never to preach theories to anyone, rather the love, and put others needs before our own, “Obey His teachings”.