What's the Download?

Why Did Jesus Have To Die?

produced by static force llc sometimes things don't change.

Transcript

After listening to an episode, a friend asked a strawman question. He called it a "possible Newbie" question:

"I get that Jesus loves people and that he wants people to love each other, and not to hate or judge. But I am still not getting WHY Jesus had to die?"

"If we would just stop 'hating' each other and begin 'loving' each other wouldn't that be enough?"

I spent some time thinking about how to answer. It's a really important question. My first reaction was, "who defines what 'hating' and 'loving' are?" Eventually here's what I texted back to my friend:

"If you were a robot" (meaning an android), "I would tell you your software is corrupted. Jesus needed to get access to the sign in for your heavenly accounts that you didn't know you had. That way He can guide you to log in to the right system, not the wrong one, and you can get some much needed system downloads."

"These heavenly systems have biometrics for verification." 

Knowing the nature of my friend, I knew another question would come, so I tried to preempt it. I texted 

"But the key is to get the downloads Jesus has 

more than it's important to know 

how He hacked the system."

My pre-empt didn't work. My friend texted,

"Does Jesus need to hack the system, or does He have a universal key to the back door of the system?"

To which I replied, "Just get the download..."

And he got in one more reply, "Okay. Get the lowdown on the download...Jesus!"

So the next question I want to pose for the purpose of this episode is, 

"What's the download?"

To answer I'll appeal to another term we use for data transfer -- "streaming". It references data as a digital liquid.

Isaiah depicted something like this kind of data transfer nicely in Isaiah 55:

7 let the wicked forsake his way,

    and the unrighteous man his thoughts;

let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,

    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

Verse 10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

    and do not return there but water the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

    it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

IN THE FUTURE

May we succeed in accepting the death of Jesus in our place so we can ask Him to give us different ideas of what goodness and evil are.