Talk:Christ's death was unjust if physical death wasn't the penalty for sin

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Quoting the second response: "If Christ paid the penalty of death, and the penalty involved is physical death, are we to take it that nobody in history has ever been a (true) Christian and thus gained physical immortality?" This seems like a non-sequitur to me. It may be true that nobody has ever been sinless, but I don't see how that necessarily implies that nobody has ever been a true Christian. If being sinless was a requirement for being a Christian, then the doctrine of repentance would be irrelevant. --C.B.

I think you've misunderstood the purpose of that response. We're not trying to disprove Christianity or call anyone's faith into question. We're trying to show that the death which Jesus died to save us from didn't necessarily need to be physical death. The arguments goes like this:

1. The punishment for sin is physical death.
2. Everyone has sinned, earning the punishment.
3. Jesus took the punishment of sin upon himself, freeing us from that death.
4. Hence, true followers of Christ possess physical immortality.
5. There are no immortals on earth.
6. Hence true followers of Christ do not exist.

This is an attempt at a Reductio ad absurdum, showing that the initial assumption that the death in Genesis must be physical in order for Christ's sacrifice to mean anything leads to a prepostorous conclusion.

TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 13:15, 26 Jul 2005 (BST)

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Well to begin with, this argument does not address any sect of Christians that believe in a physical resurrection (and hence a physical immortality at a later time--i.e., after the rapture). To my knowledge, this is the literal view of Mormons, although if I'm not mistaken, it dates back much further, as Christian burial practice (preserving the body in the ground) is also rooted in this belief.

However, I think the argument doesn't work, even in general. One need only argue that following Christ allows an overcoming a physical death, not a prevention of it.

--C.B.

As for the difference between overcoming and preventing death, I'm not sure I understand the distinction that you're trying to make. If the punishment of sin is physical death, and someone is a true follower of christ, and Christ paid the price of sin for his true followers, then why do they die? It seems that God has begun taking the lives of those who no longer owe. Saying that they get better later doesn't change the fact that their deaths are suddenly inexplicable. The idea that the form of death imposed by sin is physical can be salvaged, and the idea that it refers to nonphysical death of some kind hasn't been proven, but at the very least this is one argument against the absolute necessity of it being physical death, which is the reason it's here. TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 03:04, 27 Jul 2005 (BST)