It is no different with God. He forgave His children but there is still a price to be paid. No human would have been able to pay for it. So God paid the price by dying on the cross Himself for us. The talk about the blood of Christ not being necessary seems strange because the book of Hebrews talks about shed blood all over the place.

Jesus actually did talk about his blood being shed for the forgiveness of sins: “For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:28)

So very simply answered by Paul in Romans, “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?”, and by the Psalmist in Psalms, “Who is Man, that God would esteem him?”. Your question assumes that God is somehow accountable to you to explain why such a thing is deserved. He isn’t. If you’re assuming God for the sake of argument, and you are, then He is the Creator, you the creature. He’s not required to answer you, and its quite presumptuous and arrogant to assume that He does.

You said, “Then you allude to Jesus’ blood “paying” for our sins, in the same sentence, with the notion of forgiveness. Well, you can’t have it both ways! If God demanded full payment for all sins, then you’re really saying he is incapable of forgiving! Forgiveness is, by definition, an act which says, “no repayment is necessary.””

You’re ad hoc defining terms. Forgiveness- “to give up all claim on account of.” If God forgives on the basis of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, then he is giving up His claim for justice because of our sins on account of Christ’s sacrifice. You’re conflating “forgiveness” and “mercy” for the purpose of advancing your argument.

“If you’ll re-read the words of Jesus in the gospels, and look for where HE said his purpose for coming was to die as a blood sacrifice to PAY for our sins, guess what? YOU WON’T FIND IT. In fact, the one place where he does talk about sacrifice is where he says God doesn’t want it! He quotes Hosea, saying that God desire MERCY instead.”

You seem to think that because God didn’t tailor the authorship of the Bible to what you narrowly define, you’re free to fill in. You’re poisoning the well.

“Look in the book of Acts, at all those first Christian sermons. One would think that would be a real good time to explain what was Jesus’ main reason for coming, right? But in none of those sermons, do any of the apostles say Jesus was a blood sacrifice to pay for our sins!”

You’re assuming that your own purpose or reasoning must be effected in the text for it to be valid. Since God didn’t tell us Christ was coming in Genesis, and that would have been a good time, I bet that’s a good argument against the reality of Christ’s advent, right? Wrong. That’s not the purpose of Genesis nor the place God determined that information to both be revealed, and recorded.

“No, all these stuff about blood sacrifice was superimposed later on. Jesus actually said that God just forgives when we own up to our sins and repent. That’s it!”

Really? News to the Jews. Solomon burnt a lot of money building a Temple for sacrifices that God didn’t want. This assumption about God flies in the face of the Bible. I don’t just mean a passage or two, I mean the entire book.

“If not, then Jesus/God asks us to do something he, himself, cannot do, to forgive others without demanding any sort of payment or to suffer some painful punishment.”

He doesn’t ask us that. We are to forgive others, but the requirement of payment stems form Him, not us. When I forgive someone else, their accountability for their sins is to God, not me. Accordingly, God has either demanded payment from His Son, or will punish them for their own sins. Your conclusion is false because it’s based on false premises. Since you present this as a disjunctive argument in support of the point immediately above, this also reduces the support for that argument.

Peddle your universalism elsewhere.

First, where is the objective evidence that anyone has ever done anything to deserve eternal torture as a punishment? Of course, this is assuming that hurting people in return for whatever hurts they have done is a good idea in the first place, regardless of how long they are made to feel pain.

Then you allude to Jesus’ blood “paying” for our sins, in the same sentence, with the notion of forgiveness. Well, you can’t have it both ways! If God demanded full payment for all sins, then you’re really saying he is incapable of forgiving! Forgiveness is, by definition, an act which says, “no repayment is necessary.”

I’ve actually written an entire book on this topic–”Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There’s No Such Place As Hell,” (for anyone interested, you can get a free Ecopy of my book at my website: http://www.ricklannoye.com), but if I may, let me share one of the many points I make in it.

If you’ll re-read the words of Jesus in the gospels, and look for where HE said his purpose for coming was to die as a blood sacrifice to PAY for our sins, guess what? YOU WON’T FIND IT. In fact, the one place where he does talk about sacrifice is where he says God doesn’t want it! He quotes Hosea, saying that God desire MERCY instead.

Look in the book of Acts, at all those first Christian sermons. One would think that would be a real good time to explain what was Jesus’ main reason for coming, right? But in none of those sermons, do any of the apostles say Jesus was a blood sacrifice to pay for our sins!

No, all these stuff about blood sacrifice was superimposed later on. Jesus actually said that God just forgives when we own up to our sins and repent. That’s it!

If not, then Jesus/God asks us to do something he, himself, cannot do, to forgive others without demanding any sort of payment or to suffer some painful punishment.