[b]MattBob_SquarePants wrote:[/b] [quote]From OUR perspective, however, they are far more powerful. I am deprived of something of value, something which would feed my family for quite some time, something from which I could make a fair amount of textiles, something I could barter and get quite a good offer out of. I have to kill this perfect specimen, and understand that this animal is dying a meaningless and fruitless death because of MY sin... and I would understand that this is what I\'m doing to G-d when I ignore His Word and commit sin. It is not much different today. One big difference is that while offering the lamb is a complicated and costly experience, and really makes me not want to sin for a long time (so I won\'t have to go through the sin offering for a long time), since we now have the Eternal Lamb to sacrifice, it seems to be a far less effective deterrant to sin. I\'m not out anything if I sin, so I may be more tempted to sin next time. I may take a more liberal approach to what is or is not a sin. But I digress. [/quote] i do think that that statement ^^ has a really good point, and that it is so much easier to fall into the temptations of sin repeatedly today, then it was in old testament times, but i don\'t believe that we were saved by grace in old testament times... \"He came into the very world he created, but the world didn\'t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God\" -John 1:10-12 To me, this sort of implies that at the moment that the son of God stepped onto the earth, he stretched out his arms and began accepting people by faith alone... that this was some sort of change.