I would love to elaborate more on what Bro Unknown Warrior has said.

The key: God came down to be Born among men, so that men might become Born again of God.


Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

Man can know by reason that God exists, but not what God is really like. Yet because God would very much like to be known, He has revealed himself.

God did not have to reveal Himself to us. (u see, since the time of men, from animism, to egyptian worshipping Sun, Sky, Wind, Roman Gods, Greek Gods...instead of men worshipping Him, men worship His Creation! How infantile we are!)

But He did it – out of love.

Just as in human love one can know something about the beloved person only if he opens his heart to us, so too we know something about God’s inmost thoughts only because the eternal and mysterious God has opened himself to us our of love.

From creation on, through the patriarchs and the prophets down to the definitive – REVELATION in his Son Jesus Christ, God has spoken again and again to mankind. In him He has poured out His heart to us and made His inmost being visible to us.


From the Old Testament, which predates Birth of Jesus, but prefigures His coming:

God reveal himself in the Old Testament because He does not want to remain incognito, He does not want to remain a 'Higher Being' that is merely a sense.

God shows himself in the Old Testament as God who created the world out of his love and remains faithful to men even when they have fallen away from him into sin.

God makes it possible to experience him in history:
With Noah he establishes a covenant to save all living things.

He calls Abraham so as to make him “the father of a multitude nations” (Gen 17:5b) and to bless “all families of the earth” in him (Gen 12:3b). The people Israel, sprung from Abraham, becomes his special possession.

To Moses he introduces himself by name. His mysterious name YHWH, usually transcribed Yahweh, means I am who I am (Ex 3:14).

New Testament:

God show us in Jesus Christ the full depth of his merciful love.

Through Jesus Christ the invisible God become visible. He becomes a man like us. This shows us how far God loves goes: He bears our whole burden. He walks every path with us. He is there in our abandonment, our sufferings, our fear of death. He is there when we can go no further, so as to open up for us the door leading to life.



This includes He understands a child, an adult, everything that we went through, God went through.

He loves us so much, and what did we do?

We crucify Him, because we worship His creation (power, lust, money etc)

And He died saying: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

He died opening His arms wide, still there, waiting for you to hug Him and to tell Him, you love Him too, and you wish to share His love with others.

That is the greatest love.

This post has been edited by Jedi: Dec 26 2012, 04:14 AM

yes, I got a few different answers from yahoo answers. but i'm not satisfied. if everything were to be answerable by google then a thread like this does not need to exist does it?

anyway a big thank you to Jedi and unknown warrior, you have answered my question.

Actually, some question we can just ignore, there is a reason why some still choose not to believe or fail to understand because God has not chosen to reveal it to those who have been spiritually blinded or seeking with a harden heart for the sake of knowledge.

John
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.
37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

This post has been edited by fghvbn: Dec 26 2012, 07:28 AM

Aw ... ... you can go higher

Athanasius, who quite elegantly declared that the Son of God "became man that we might be made God" (On the Incarnation of the Word)

We are indeed given the highest order in creation ranking.

and this is my own personal opinion,

could be a respond by God to Satan's when he thought it was he who should be. (1 Corinthians 1:28)



This post has been edited by unknown warrior: Dec 26 2012, 09:16 AM

Hmm? Ah no ... it's not about creation but more, the purpose God became a man ... (Rom 1:3-4, 2 Peter 1:4)

There's a lot of misunderstanding churned out by the media especially the internet about Christianity and God

There are quarters on purpose mis-quote scripture to suit their agenda.

I've seen a fair share enough to just sigh, shaking my head.

I must stress, people without the spirit of God will not get the same revelation of the Bible like we do.

Because God's word in the Bible is inspired by the spirit of God, hence the reason.

It's not a matter of pride to say this but for proper perspective.

to restore us to that position.

I mean.

Ah (you are asking the right question ) ...... but that was only redemption ... to restore us to the original position of Adam. Otherwise, we have no RIGHT to receive the divine life to grow as the sons of God. But salvation is not just redemption only.

I think most are clear that the Lord has no sin (Rom 8:3). But rarely do people see that although his humanity is perfect, it was not being glorified or brought into glory yet. Well ... to make it clear, our humanity requires 2 steps (fallen -> original (redemption) -> uplifted) through sanctification. But the Lord's humanity is sinless, yet His humanity needs to go through death and resurrection so that the divine life concealed in His humanity will be released.

This is clearly seen in Rom 1:3-4. Through His resurrection, Christ became the firstborn Son of God, full of the essence of God’s holiness, not only in His spirit, but also in His body. Before His death and resurrection the holiness of God was in Christ’s spirit, but this holy essence had not been manifested in His flesh. In other words, it had not permeated His flesh. It was through death and resurrection that God’s holy essence saturated the physical body of the Lord Jesus (glorification).

Concerning the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of holiness was within Him before His death and resurrection. This Spirit of holiness is the divine essence of holiness. Through the process of death and resurrection, this holy essence saturated and permeated the Lord’s humanity, including His flesh. As believers in the Lord Jesus, we also have the divine essence of holiness, which is the Spirit of holiness, the very Christ, in our spirit. Because this holy essence is still concealed within our humanity, we need to pass through a process under God’s sovereign arrangement that will enable this essence to saturate our entire being.

Now (in His resurrection) He is the Son of God in a way that is more wonderful than before, for now He has both the divine nature and the resurrected, transformed, uplifted, glorified, and designated human nature.

As the Son of God with both divinity and humanity, Christ is now the pattern and model for the mass production of the many sons of God. God does not want just one Son, the only begotten Son; He desires many sons, all of whom are the mass production of the Firstborn (John 12:24, Rom 8:29)

PS. Even if Adam didn't fell (and corrupted his perfect humanity) ... it didn't met God's purpose to be life to man (putting man in front of tree of life) .... God wants man to receive Him as the divine life into him ...

This post has been edited by pehkay: Dec 26 2012, 10:53 AM

and daughters.

Before another accuse me of "something" ...

"Sons of God" includes man and women
"Bride of Christ" includes man and women ... yeah .... manly brothers!!! ... we are all "female" in this love relationship. Get used to it

In the new creation ... no more man and woman ....

This post has been edited by pehkay: Dec 26 2012, 11:29 AM

*Bride of of Christ is not man and women but the Church itself, while we make up as the body of Christ

haha.

Which is made up of Man and Woman of God.

Or you like to be more pedantic than what unknown mentioned ...

The church composed of a group of human beings coordinated together as a corporate Body with which He may mingle Himself in His divine nature, which becomes the Bride of Christ.

But then, what is more important is the Christ is preparing the Bride. Are we beautiful? The Lord is not coming back for a "child-Bride". No wonder He is waiting still.

The time is coming when He will present the Bride to Himself. Surely at the time of her presentation to Christ, the Bride will not have any wrinkles or spots. In His Bride Christ will behold nothing but beauty. This beauty will be the reflection of what He is. Do you know where the beauty of the Bride comes from?

It comes from the very Christ who is wrought into the church and who is then expressed through the church. Our beauty is not our behavior. Our only beauty is the reflection of Christ, the shining out of Christ from within us. What Christ appreciates in us is the expression of Himself in us. Nothing less than this will meet His standard or win His appreciation.

Firstly, Christ must come into us and then be assimilated by us. Then He will be able to shine out of us. This shining is the glory of the Bride, the manifestation of divinity through humanity. Real beauty is the expression of the divine attributes through humanity. Nothing in the universe is as beautiful as this expression. Therefore, the beauty of the Bride is Christ shining out of us. It is a matter of divinity expressed through humanity. Through our humanity there is an expression of the divine color, the divine appearance, the divine flavor, the divine nature, and the divine character.

and the way to do is, is to look away from yourself and to look to Jesus as your true self.

a bit challenging for some. But with continuous effort to trust in the one who will keep us blameless,

it will blossom.

i have 2 sensitive question here, what do you think of the Israel? Can you accept the Jews?

Israel is our God's chosen nation.

We can learn a lot from them because they do hold roots to the ancestry of our Faith.

I have no qualms to uphold them in prayer.

Yes agree with your view on this.