An Ordinary Faith

Question: why did Jesus need to offer His life as a sacrifice if, as it seems from the Old Testament, God doesn't want sacrifices and already forgives those who are repentant and do His commands?  Response: Abraham was counted righteous first because he had faith in God and then proved it by his obedience (Genesis 15:6, Hebrews 11:17-18; see Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, James 2:14-26). In the Bible, genuine faith is always accompanied by doing God’s commands, though the works themselves are not what saves — it is God who forgives and saves. Merely repenting and doing God’s commands is worthless unless it is accompanied by faith in God (Exodus 14:31, Numbers 14:11, Deut. 9:23, 2 Chron. 20:20, Psalm 78:22-32, John 3:16-21, John 14:11, Romans 4:11,   Hebrews 11:6 — this will be important later).   The sacrificial system was meant 1. to be a way to show one’s faith in God (Genesis 4:3-4, Genesis 8:20-21, Genesis 22:13, Genesis 46:1, 2 Samuel 24:24, Psalm 51:17-19) 2. to remembe...

(This was originally posted in a Muslim/Christian discussion group chat, and is an expansion on a thought prompted by Greg Gilbert's SBTS chapel sermon, " The Servant King ." I've made some m inor edits after posting, and some sentences have been modified/added for clarity.  The two primary passages referenced are Philippians 2:3-11 and Genesis 3. "Phil" refers to the Philippians passage, and "Gen" refers to the Genesis passage.) In Philippians 2, Paul is writing to Christians (ordinary people, not the super-rich or powerful) who are being persecuted for their faith, and he has a two-fold goal: first, to encourage Christians to be humble and consider others better than themselves, and second, to teach them the truth of Jesus’s divinity.   To do this, he uses fascinating allusions/references to Gen. and goes almost line-by-line through the creation story, showing how Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s plan.   In the Bible, Jesus is often cal...