If Jesus Did Not Come What Would Have Happened?

[Mike209]

Hello everyone, My name is Mike and I had a quick question:

If God would not have sent Jesus would we all just stay dead forever? or would there still have be a resurrection to judgment? If so then what, annihilated? Lake of fire forever?

Your input would be much appreciated, thanks.

[JasonPratt]

That’s sure an interesting hypothetical question!

If you mean, what if Jesus was never sent by God, I can think of one answer for sure: God would not have been glorified.

However, if Jesus hadn’t come already, I would still expect it to happen in the future.

I’ll let others work on this without going into more detail myself (though I may do a Cadre Journal entry on it eventually – if so I’ll link here.)

On an admin note, don’t be worried if your first four or five posts don’t go through immediately. All posts from new members automatically go to the spamcatcher until the ad/mods check to make sure they aren’t bots or people selling shoes or essays or Warcraft gold or whatever.

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

Hi, Mike.

Here’s something I’ve shared in another thread. The Quora Q and A is similar. You can read though it yourself:

Today, I came across a Quora topic entitled:

Why couldn’t God have just forgiven us without the human sacrifice of Jesus?

You can read through the various answers. But I thought one presenter did state, the Eastern Orthodox position really well (which I fully endorse and embrace);

Most of the answers you are going to receive will be from those Christians who believe and worship within the various traditions and communities of Western Christendom. The West’s soteriological foundation is forensic and legal, and historically developed in its present form out of Anshelm’s understanding and extrapolations of certain of St. Augustine’s teachings. In short, for Anshelm, and those who followed him, the whole framework of salvation is modeled on the court of a medieval despot. The Lord is offended and the sentence for that offense if death. Only the death of another of equal dignity to the offended lord is sufficient to satisfy his justice. Forgiveness is either impossible or rejected as impropper absent that substitutionary death. If one affirms that death in place of one’s own then one is legally declared not guilty and God graciously declines to kill you and give you over to eternal torment.

In the forensic model Jesus, the God-Man, is given as that substitutionary sacrifice, and hence the Savior of all who believe.

The Eastern Church has a big problem with this western model in that boiled down to it’s bones it makes a moral monster out of God, who demands we forgive freely but is unwilling or unable to do so Himself. If there can be no forgiveness because Divine Justice must be satisfied…that creates a huge theological problem, because in this ideation God is bound by something greater than Himself…Divine Justice…which means, He is not free, and hence cannot be God in any sense we’ve been given to understand. He is not omnipotent because He must punish us with unending death whether He wants to or not. Apparently He would prefer not to, but has not choice than by the legal satisfaction of a blood debt.

Eastern Christianity rejects this whole paradigm as a gross misunderstanding of God, of Christ’s sacrifice and of the nature of both sin and salvation. In the paradigm of the ancient original Church…they way it understands the teaching of the Apostles is that man is sick unto death by sin. He is sick because sin has cut him off from his life, which if in God. His existential problem them not a lack of forgiveness…God forgives for the asking. His problem is lack of union with God, lack of connection to his life. That union is restored in Christ. His life, death, and resurrection bought all humanity back from the grave. It is why there will be a general resurrection. He is the new Adam. He is the resurrection and the life. Through baptism and confession of Him we are grafted into Him, into His Body, the Church, which functions for us something like a hospital. In the Hospital the Great Physician works to accomplish our salvation. Salvation is not being saved from the wrath of God, hell, or some similar notion. Salvation is derived from Salus/health. Salvation is a return to health. Little by little through the medicines and therapies of the Church working with our consent and cooperation we begin the process of transformation…of transfiguration into the image and likeness of Christ.

When we are baptized the mar image of God in man is cleansed and the work of our healing begun. Through faithful reception of the Holy Eucharist, through confession, through prayer, through faithfulness to Christ in the Church we become more and more like Him. The image is filled in with vibrant color and detail until by grace we have attained unto His likeness. That ancient task our forefather Adam fell so short of in ancient days. The image is given, the likeness to be attained. That has always been the great task of mankind. We are saved not because we have been declared, “not guilty” but because “we have been healed”.

Moreover we have the proof that this is the true and faithful teaching of the Church from its earliest days. Christ taught that trees bear fruit after their kind, figs from figs, thorns form thorns. If what the apostles taught of Christ is true then it should bear the same fruit from age to age until the present day…one single unbroken ontological continuity. To that end the Church presents her saints…her very best and most definitive fruit. Men and women who grew so Christlike they were transfigured like Christ on Mt. Tabor, or St. Stephen before his accusers. They live humbly, hidden, and yet are made know by the Spirit to the Church, who work apostolic caliber wonders, whose lives are radiant with Christ…men and women of whom the world is not worthy, and yet they live and are given in each age to offer prayer and give counsel to their generations. Men and women whose lives and deeds would be utterly impossible if the Church in which they live and worship and through which their faith was nourished was not all that it claimed to be.

For those interested in a more thorough critique of the Western Christian salvic paradigm, may I suggest, “The River of Fire,” by Dr. Alexandre Kalomiros.

Here is a link: The River of Fire - Kalomiros | Glory to God for All Things

What’s interesting is what I’ve learned, from hanging out with the Lakota, Ojibwe and Ute tribes - especially their medicine men and women. They use the term Medicine, to encompass all that heals. So I can expand on this, outside its Red Road or Native American context. Medicine could mean modern medicine (with all its tests, surgeries, etc.), ancient medicine (i.e. homeopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda), prayer, gifts of the Spirit, spiritual healing, Native American ceremonies, etc. It’s all medicine.

[Eaglesway]

If Jesus did not come nothing would have happened.

Jesus is the Logos. Everything was created with His coming in mind. It was the “prime thought” of God- a revelation of Himself to a creation He would bring into fellowship with Himself.

The creation was without form and void until the voice spoke, “Let there be light”. Jesus is the light of the world, the light that lights evryone who comes into the world.

“For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you” 1 Pet:20

Everything that is was done for our sakes, and we were created in Christ Jesus for the sake of the whole creation(Rom 8).

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. 19For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. Col 1

The Father’s good pleasure was not conceived after the creation. It was conceived before anything else of any kind happened.

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. Heb 1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. John 1

All things came into being through Him. All things are by Him and for Him. He is the Logos, the reason, the prime thought of God. Evry thing that is depends on His coming, and the reason for His coming, to bring the creation into full fellowship with the Creator.

I personally believe Christ crucified is the reason for everything, so if He doesnt come, everything- backwards and forwards, ceases to exist.

"By faith we understand that the universe was formed by God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. " He 11:3

What we see began somewhere we cannot see, in Him, In Jesus- all things began and subsist- all all for the purpose of His sacrifice- which delivers the divine nature into us as a “new creation” and makes us friends of God, and is the reason for everything- the Lamb slain form the foundation of the world, redeeming the whole creation until God is “all in all”.

In all wisdom and insight 9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.Eph 1

God’s kind intention was purposed in Christ before the creation, with a view to summing up all things in Him through the administration of time. SInce all things were created through Him with this in view, if He were not to come- and since all we see is created with material that is unseen, which is the word of God, which is the reason of God and the “prime thought” of God. Nothing would exist.

Thank God Jesus did come, and all creation will receive reconciliation through the blood of His cross, and restoration by “the power with which He is able to subject all things to Himself”. Phil 3

I know I over worked that a bit but I dont have time to edit it.

[Mike209]

Thanks for your response. Wow that’s interesting. Alot of people we’ll ask the question; " why would God create this world if he knew he was going to burn most of his creation in molten hot lava for eternity?" I can see now that the answer is He wouldn’t have! Wow I can’t believe we used to believe that nonsense! How irresponsible do we think God is? My goodness.

[Eaglesway]

I honestly believe that simple question… “Why” is one of the most powerful arguments for Biblical universalism. Why would God create such a horrifc scenario?.. and is so…Why would anyone want to serve such a God?

Clearly it would only be fear or an inability to recognize the implications of such a dicotomy. A God who would conceive such a plan as this is deeply conflicted and twisted- narcissistic in the uttermost. Indifferent to the eternal torment of billions so that he can have his little hand-picked club of worshippers.

The Savior sent to die for that little club, would surely be depressed forever, knowing that altho He came to save, He failed miserably on a quantitative level. The idea that the enduring shame and horror of that failure and its consequences would not affect us as the “survivors of God’s decimated creation”- because God would either 1) shield us from the awareness of it or b) cause us not to care about it- has a multitude of insidious logical conclusions tied to it- about the nature of God and what knowing Him creates in us.

YIKES!

A horrifying paradigm from a logical perspective, from a philosophical perspective and from a spritual perspective- and as far from reality as the flat earth theory is from the universe that really exists.