If god wanted people to be forgiven of their sins, why didn't he just forgive them?

You are forgetting man's free will. There are those who don't particularly want or see the need for being forgiven. In freedom they must be allowed to refuse. By Jesus' free will sacrifice, man is given the freedom to accept or reject God's forgiveness. Just another example of how "My ways are NOT your ways."

In Romans 6:23 it says the wages of sin is death. God is pure and total holiness and can't even look on sin which is why the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Keep in mind that this is spiritual death. In the Old Testament, the sacrificial law was established by God to show the people the gravity of sin and the cost of sin. The sacrifice had to be something of great importance to the people thus the requirement for an animal, first born, without spot or blemish and basically in its' prime. For a people where the animal is currency, an animal like this could be sold for a great amount or even rented out for stud and could keep the family well off for a long time. Also, when the animal was to be sacrificed, the priest had to lay his hand on the animals head and say "My sin has cost a life". This would give the people an inkling of how serious and costly sin is. When Jesus died on the cross, He paid the ultimate price by being the ultimate sacrifice. He was first born, He was not deformed in any way, He was in His prime, and He was without sin. All these were requirements for the sin sacrifice. Just like the loss of prime animals on a regular basis meant sacrificing something near and dear to the owner, He was very near and dear to God. The wages of sin really is death, but God loves people so much the He was willing to give up the most precious thing to Him...Jesus. I find that very humbling that God loves me so much that He did that to pay for my sins.

I guess you just don't see sin the way God (not "god") does. Sin is what destroys everything. YOU, however, seem to denigrate sin to mere "inadvertant misbehavior."

Sin is extremely sinful, and if left unchecked; and if God does NOT judge sin, then heaven would quickly become as corrupt (and more so) as earth is.

God MUST judge sin, and because of it's extreme nature, either the guilty must pay the penalty (eternity separated from God and all that is good), or a VOLUNTARY guiltless one must pay that penalty - WITH HIS VERY LIFE! That should show you just how serious God sees sin.

The Bible says that even though Jesus had never sinned, yet He actually became sin. He traded places with us and took our place so that WE would not have to!

But God is morally responsible to the entire universe to judge any and all sin that hasn't been repented of.

You talk about how "good and powerful and wise" God is, but let's just take a look at a made up scenario for a moment.

Let's just say, for instance, that as a child hiding in his closet, you witnessed the brutal murder of your entire family! You clearly saw the murderer, but because you had been playing "hide-and-seek", he didn't know you were there.

The perp was caught and brought to trial and found guilty on all charges.

Then, with you sitting right there in the court room, the judge says "Everybody considers me to be good and wise, so I will release this murderer on his own cognizance. I forgive him, and he is free to go. This case is closed!"

How would YOU feel? Would YOU consider that this judge was so good and wise?

For the judge to be good and wise, he MUST move the guilty somewhere where he could do no more damage to society!

And God is THE Judge! He MUST judge the guilty! Or God would NOT be good OR wise, but some kind of monster! And a monster who has all power is the worst thing possible!

NO! God MUST judge sin. If a person refuses to repent and turn from their wicked ways and put their trust in the vicarious death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then God has no other choice!

Right now, God is offering us an unmerited pardon BECAUSE OF what Jesus Christ did. If we will but confess and turn from our sins, and allow Jesus the rightful authority in our lives, to be the Lord (boss) of our lives, then and only then can God grant us an undeserved pardon - by His own grace and mercy!

Right now, He is offering to save us from our sins and their eternal consequences. But the offer is only valid while we live inside these bodies. Once your body expires, the offer does too. If you don't accept His offer now, then AFTER you die, He is (as I already pointed out) morally obligated to judge you.

"How can we escape judgement if we neglect so great a salvation?"

I pray that God would open the eyes of your understanding, that you may be able to see the height and depth and length and breadth of the infinite love that God has for you.

This question shows how much about justice you don't understand. If a man commits murder every moment he's alive, and you're the judge, can you allow this man to go without punishment? How can you call yourself a just judge if you don't sentence this man to some kind of punishment? If you say, "oh, you're free to go", that doesn't solve the problems this man creates.

Sins are just these taboo things we find on a dirty list. Sins are transgressions of the Law. One sin being committed at one moment in your life is as good as committing sins every moment of your life!!! A sin is a really big deal. God's law commands death to all who break His Law. Perfection is the requirement God has for us.

God knows we can't succeed on our own. God knows we were destine to fail. God can't be a just God if there isn't a price paid for our sins. Knowing all these things, God decided to pay the fine for us with His own life. So, if you accept the sacrifice of Jesus and call on His name you will be saved.

The fact of the matter is that it's not very loving to let someone destroy themselves. God could not be called a loving God if He decided to break all the rules just for us. God would be a hypocrite. If you read the Bible, you'd better understand the character of God. Don't just read a little bit; you need to read the entire thing.

Life for a life is the standard of the Law. We are all sinners and we all need a savior... there is only one and His name is Jesus.

Jesus saved us by His life. He constantly forgave sins. His death was because people put Him there, NOT GOD! The society at the time that the Bible was written believed in a vengeful God. Jesus did not present us with such a God. His

Death is not our salvation. His forgiving us for putting Him to death is a sign of God's great love for us. This forgiveness is our salvation. It could have happened without the crucifixion of Jesus. It did happen by the complete life of Jesus and not just His death. God never demanded human sacrifice. He showed this with Isaac in the Old Testament. It was the early writers who got the message wrong because they could not comprehend a God Who would not demand vengeance.

What you are trying to do is create a God in YOUR own image. Mold Him into what you think is right, kind, merciful, blah, blah. You have to realize God's reasons are His own, and maybe He does things that you don't like simply because He wants to. That's reason enough. He doesn't have to appeal to your idea of what God should be. Let me wrap this up by saying His kindness, benevolence, and Love are beyond our understanding. I've been studying God for 15 years now, and my understanding of Him has a long way to go.

Wouldn't it also be "kind, benevolent" if we all honored our neighbors, fathers, mothers, didn't murder, recognized God....

How, or why, would God simply say "you are all forgiven" if we 1) don't even "believe" in His existence, and 2) are naturally sinful. Before Christ, animals were sacrificed to clear man's sin, but man grew more and more corrupted, to the point where it simply wasn't enough to sacrifice doves to wash sin away. Christ, God's Son, came as the ultimate sacrifice; He died for our sins, and allowed Heaven to be opened to us. If your child constantly disobeyed you, you wouldn't simply say all is forgiven without consequence or punishment. It is no different; we are His children, constantly disobeying, but because of Jesus' sacrifice, we can be forgiven infinitely over and over. We are sinful creatures, all isn't just forgiven without accepting Christ as your Savior, and repenting. He is a kind, benevolent, loving God; He gave His Son to die for you and me.

That argument doesn't work, where is the justice. God is loving but just as well. Just because he loves you doesn't mean he will go against what he has already said and forgive without a sacrifice. Jesus bore the sin of all humanity on his shoulders while he carried his cross up that hill to his death. Even the Father couldn't look on the Son because of the sin.

You are right. I believe that not only did God not require a sacrifice in Jesus, he never required all the other blood sacrifices that let up to Jesus being considered a blood sacrifice by the early church. The stories in the O.T. about God requiring sacrifice were written by sixth-century BCE Jewish priests who, while writing a history of their people, were trying to provide a basis for traditions that they had been following for centuries. When Jesus' followers who believed him to be the promised Messiah were trying to make sense of his having been crucified instead of becoming a great political leader, the substitutionary sacrifice for sin was the theory, advanced by St. Paul, that eventually gained acceptance. I believe that God has no need to forgive us because he doesn't judge us in the first place. He loves us unconditionally. When people talk about God's justice, I believe they are confusing their own sense of justice with God's. (This is one of the ways in which we "create" God in our own image.) It is people who have the need to see good rewarded and evil punished, not God. It is people who devised the sacrificial system to gain forgiveness from God.

God's justice, I believe, has more to do with fairness in terms of everyone having the same access to everything (including God's love). Jesus tried to teach us that, but his message was lost in the furor over who he was. We should be more concerned with eradicating or "curing" evil than punishing it. Evil will be banished from our world when we have achieved social justice (everyone having the same access to resources and everyone treated equally), and when we have all learned to love as God loves. Then we will be living in the Kingdom of God that Jesus described.

God is mercyful, very true, but god cannot be unjust, the rule of god is very simple, whatever you sow you reap, if you sow good deeds you get good returns and vice versa. God has also given you a powerful weapon i.e repentance, if a person repent on what wrong he did only those people will be forgiven.