I mean that, CERTAINLY, Jesus died in our place, FOR, the penalty due as a consequence of us sinning........... BUT, I cannot, in my wildest imagination, envision an angry God deliberately venting that anger upon His son as punishment. No more than He would do the same to us. God is not about "pay-backs", and getting even. Not the God I worship.
Is it possible that our understanding of God's anger upon sin and insisting on payment for sin is not something we can truly grasp in our minds? I don't think it's about paybacks as much as I see God has some kind of judicial issue that we can't perform to meet. So we needed someone who could.
First of all, I do not think that Jesus just simply "died" in His quest to "destroy the work of the Devil." I think there was a lot more to it. I think that the Bible spoke the truth when it said He BECAME sin. THAT'S AN IMPORTANT THING TO GRASP, I believe. It makes His death different from a death any us us can die. VERY different!
I agree with that as much as I can understand any of this.
I believe He BECAME sin, so that when He died, sin (all sin, forever) had no way out of ALSO dying. But sin stayed dead when His body resurrected... and, likewise, it remains dead to OUR risen life.
I'm a bit confused about what you mean here.
That's one point, but here is the "penal " part.........
I don't think punishment for sin is sitting in God's "kill 'em" box, waiting for Him to selectively pour it out on each of us, one at a time. I believe that consequence of sin exists as a "law" God spoke into existence way back in the Garden... just as surely as the 'law' of gravity existed from the day God created it, and exists today
ok, but that takes out the "personal" part for those apart for Jesus. For believers I see what you are saying, we will suffer consequences for sinning like if we are to lie, we will not be seen as honest before other people and we will suffer the consequences of being treated as a liar, but God does not condemn us or cause people to see us that way, those are normal consequences set in God's plan like when He created gravity. Same as any other issue that is negative. If we over eat, we will get fat... if we jump off a building we will go splat.
Just as gravity is not a law "waiting" to punish us each, individually, should we step off a 100 foot building, so the "law" governing the decreed consequences for sin ALREADY exists, and, WITHOUT JESUS, we have no way around feeling the full impact of it upon our deaths. Nor is the effect of gravity, God "punishing" us for our stupidity..... What happens when we hit the ground is the effect of what God put into motion long, long ago. "If you eat, you will surely die"... NOT, "If you eat, I'll come looking for you, and punish you."
That's it in a nutshell. If I left something unclear, feel free to ask further.