Are you able to forgive someone without having to sacrifice your own son to do it like God did?

Yes I AM

Peace

Certainly. I can forgive someone of a murder. However, it isn't just to let them go without any punishment. But if I give them a punishment, then I am no longer merciful. Someone needed to pay for the crime in order to have justice. Christ was the scapegoat, and Christ loved each of us so much that he volunteered to be the one who will take on all of our punishments.

The law of justice was fulfilled, and the law of mercy was as well.

Think of it this way. Suppose someone owes you money, and they do not have the money within the amount of time they were supposed to pay you back. What do you do? Give them justice? Or give them mercy? Wouldn't you want both? In this case, someone(Christ) came and said he would pay the money that the debtor owes. Justice was fulfilled and the debtor was still given mercy.

In order for me to BOTH forgive and receive justice from someone who wronged me, there has to be a third party who decides to take the punishment out of love. It could be my son, or it could be someone else.

So there is no yes/no answer to your question since you're conveniently leaving out the fact that justice also had to occur. I am able to forgive without sacrificing my own son, but I am not able to forgive and receive justice at the same time unless there is a third party involved.

You lack understanding of why Christ came to planet Earth. Contemplating the the prophecy of Simeon in the Gospel of Luke may help clear up your misconceptions.

Luke 2: 34-35 ''And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.''

For the fall: Christ came for the salvation of all men; but here Simeon prophesies what would come to pass, that many through their own wilful blindness and obstinacy would not believe in Christ, nor receive his doctrine, which therefore would be ruin to them: but to others a resurrection, by their believing in him, and obeying his commandments.

The Gospel of Matthew foretells that ''every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment.'' (Matthew 12:36)

The prophecy of Simeon implies that on the day of judgment, the 'thoughts of many hearts of many will be revealed.'

Exegesis of these predictions indicates that without Christ's sacrifice on the cross, the day of judgment where the true motives, thoughts, and clandestine words and actions of the world's population will be revealed would not be possible. Why it was necessary for Christ to sacrifice Himself willingly for these prophecies to be fulfilled, I do not know. But, it is called the ''Paschal Mystery'' for a reason.

Sure I can. But that only serves mercy, it completely sacrifices justice.

God can do both.

Think about that guy that ratted you out to the boss, or that kid in high school that made the rest of the class laugh at you... have you forgiven him yet?

I don't even know you... but I know you've got some ill will going on with someone... and THAT"S where the Christian ideal of "loving your enemies and praying for those that persecute you" really comes to fruition. You can mock the more mysterious and mythological aspects of the faith... but you can't deny the three fingers that point back at you when you point... and that's the point... isn't it?

How do you know God wasn't showing His love for us? He allowed people to kill His benevolent Son to free us from the bondage of sin, not just to forgive us.

We, who believe, are now justified through the Blood of Jesus from everything we could not have been justified from by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:38-39)

Yes but it is very hard.

I always imagine your voice as sounding like Gilbert Gottfried as I read your Q&A'S.

With your Avatar and demeanor.

Sounds like you are mocking the Lord above.

Typically yes. I've sacrificed 4 of my children now.

I'm not too certain of what you mean exactly by your question but I will try and answer it the best way I can. Yes anyone can forgive anyone without having to sacrifice their son. When you forgive you actually don't have to sacrifice anything much but maybe hurt, pain, and pride. As for God and his forgiveness I am not sure if you understand the concept of God giving his son. God can forgive us without giving anything. That is actually the easy part for God because he is Love and love is not capable of harboring emotions such as lack of patience, hate, pride, and ill will. Love is not self-seeking and it holds no record of wrong doing.This definition of love is what love really is the true definition, it is not the definition hollywood often displays. With this being the case and him literally being Love he can not do anything but forgive. It is against who is is to do anything else he literally could not make another choice. Kind of like the saying a, "leopard can not change his spots." So now that you know this let me bring you back to your question, Can someone forgive someone else without having to sacrifice your own son as God did? Well we already established that yes someone can. God sacrificed his son not in order to forgive the world but in order to save the world. You can forgive someone and not have to save them or not have to continue to deal with them. (Example, Someone steals an item with you there and you have no idea. You get caught by security and sent to jail for a crime you did not commit but you are paying for it as your record has you listed as an accomplice. You may choose to forgive the person but still make a sound decision not to hang out or be friends with the person because they make poor choices, not because you don't forgive them.) God sent Jesus to the world because he had forgiven us and he still wanted a relationship with us! There was a problem though because of our sins we we're now forever separated from God. He is pure and holy and can not have any part in sin even more he had already promised that " the wages(payment) of sin was death."(Romans 6:23) because God does not lie and we as humans have sinned then someone needed to die. Here is we're it gets tricky. We do die as humans, had we not sinned we would have never died but because we did and do we will suffer an earthly death. Now before Jesus this death would have been immediate and eternally(forever). That would have been it God's creation was destroyed and now separated from him forever but because he loved us and did not want us to be gone forever ( like a parent does not want to lose a child.) He made sacrifices to try and fix the mess that we made. He, the holy spirit, and Jesus devised a plan the only being that would be worthy enough to die for all sins would have to be God as if that was not complicated enough he would have to be human as the race who was to be punished through death was human. Not only did this being have to be God as well as human but he had to be SINLESS. Being without sin is the only reason why the beings act of becoming human as well as being God and dieing for multiple people and multiple sins would make the act divine. The act needed to be divine in order to fully fill its purpose which was to pay the wage of all sins through death. Had Jesus failed once in anyway shape form or level his death would have been worthless and the creator of sin's (satan) argument (which was no one can keep the law of God because it is to hard and unfair) would have been proven to be correct. This is also one of the reasons why although Jesus was God he had to be born human. Him being human made him vulnerable to all temptations weaknesses and desires that we feel. But because he was human as well as God and he did not sin but innocently got murdered by sinners having done nothing wrong with the full intention of asking his father to look down take his death that was undeserving and apply it to all humans that are deserving of death as a substitute. This is why the only way to be saved and live eternally(forever) can only be accomplished through accepting Jesus Christ in to your heart and life. When you do this and God comes to you for judgement and for you to pay the consequences or price for the sins you have committed Jesus will be able to stand and say "Father he has already paid, he or she is one of those that I died for." Similar to a lawyer arguing your case but not only that being willing to pay your ticket and the court cost! On the other hand those who do not accept Jesus and his death will have to pay for there sins themselves, as they did not choose the alternate payment arrangement. To summarize, you can forgive anyone with no sacrifice of a son, God did not sacrifice his son to forgive, and because God forgave us he gave his son to save us.

OMG LMAO, Banana this made my day. I was depressed (I debated a young earth creationist, depressing stuff).