I've been confronted about my first blog, titled "Jesus was a Man". To be honest, I came to my conclusions and was feeling quite unsure about it all, so that is why I put it out to the readers to test it out and hear some responses and feedback. So thank you to the responders.
I realise that saying Jesus gave up all divinity was a bit rogue, but I couldn't get around the explanation about him taking on all of our sins. I was taught that God cannot be in the presence of sin. Isn't that is putting God in a box? I don't have scripture to back that up, help me out with this if I'm wrong.
It goes back to discussing if God can be in the presence of sin. Why were the humans put out of the garden?
Once humans ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they opened the door (or made the decision that God gave them to decide) to decide for themselves what is good and what is evil.
According to Genesis 3:22-23, I would like to extract some things.
After humans ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, if they would have then eaten from the tree of life, they would have been able to live forever. God did not want that for humanity.
I think He simply did not want humanity to live forever with the knowledge of good and evil, or the responsibility of deciding. (I mean, how is it going for you so far?)
To "know" in the bible is an intimate action, they knew evil deep inside, intimately.
If at that time, humans ate from the tree of life, they would lived forever like that. God was protecting humanity by getting them away from the tree of life in the garden. He didn't put a guard in front of the garden to protect himself and his presence from the evil ones. He put the guard there to protect us from living for eternity in this state of being less than he desires.
The dilemma is played out with Cain. God said to Cain, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. It's desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it." (Gen. 4:7)
In other words, if we do well and listen and follow what we "know" is good, we will be right with God, but if we allow sin or evil into our thoughts and actions it will rule over us. God's advice is to rule over and be master over sin.
When we allow sin to Master us and act in us, we follow Cain and this is what God said to Cain, "Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened it's mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you it's strength. You shall be a fugitive and wanderer on the earth."
Cain's reply, "You have driven me from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden." Cain was in relationship with God, hearing his voice. Cain could have the voice of sin in him and be in relationship with God in community with God, but as soon as he acted on the evil or let the evil master him, he could no longer see the face of God.
My conclusion: Knowledge of good and evil clouds our perception of God. It impedes our ability to truly enjoy Him in His truest nature.
Saying that God cannot be in the presence of sin is not Truth. The problem with sin is that we cannot know and be in relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit when we are competing with their nature.
For a tiny example, can a football loving man, have a deep and connected conversation with his wife while his team is playing of the television. (watching football is the sin in this scenario =) )
The only way to truly abide in our God is to yield completely to Him. Which is what we were made to do, but God did not force it on us, he gave us a choice. A chose that we experimented with and found it wanting.
Yielding IS living into our perfect self. Relying on our God is what makes us perfect.
God is back, giving us another choice.
He came down , in the form of Jesus, to show us about our new choice, giving back our ability to choose good and evil, and surrendering all to him, becoming his body having Jesus as our head. When we are finally restored to relationship with God after the Second coming of Jesus, we will not have the battle of good and evil in our heads any more, but until then, we practice looking to him for direction. Yielding to His ways.