Posted by Pastor Steven on June 09, 2002 at 10:15:15:
In Reply to: I have a few question posted by Xavier on June 09, 2002 at 01:51:21:
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: Faith is a strong word with an even stronger meaning, to believe in the unseen and the unknown.
: There alot of things about my faith I leave at will, though as always I have questions. Are there any passages in the bible that explain why Jesus died for our sins ? I mean did he know that, that act would cleanse us ? If I am showing some huge lack of knowledge now I am sorry, I have just wondered how and why that act has meant so much, why it is our foundation. I have asked this question before and recieved a quizzical " Why would you ask such a thing " response, here on the board I feel in the company of family so if I am to niaeve by asking this again if anyone could point to some scripture I will gladly affix it to my soul.
We have been having a sermon series on faith for a few weeks now. I wish you were there, as we have discussed many different aspects of faith, what it is, and how it is revealed. These things you are asking about the redemption issue we have also discussed.
Suffice to say that Jesus was God, and knew ALL about what he was doing going to the cross. There are prophecies written many hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus telling that the Messiah would be a sacrifice for sins and by His sacrifice we would be redeemed. Jesus Himself acknowledges this purpose (His purpose) many times in the Gospels. So this is not some new doctrine made up by the apostles or the church--it is revealed many times in Scripture before the first apostolic epistle was ever written. We talked about one of these prophecies in Isaiah a couple of weeks ago, in the context of having faith in God's work for us specifically, and how we know that it is real.
I obviously can't reteach sermons from the last few weeks over again on the message board; there's just not enough time! I sure wish you could have been there. You've missed a lot of teaching about faith lately.