Did God the Father kill Christ so that we might be justified?

[Robert]

God kills perspective:

"I [God] will strike the Shepherd. . . . We esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God" (Mark 14:27; Isaiah 53:4).

God abandons perspective:

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Mark 15:34).

           [NOTE:  I have corrected a typo in the chapter for Mark, above--GM.]             

[Robert]

Did God have Christ flogged within an inch of his life and then have him nailed on a wooden cross to suffer a cruel, sadistic death?  Is this what God did to Christ so we might stand just before Him?

[Robert]

"Upon Christ as our substitute and surety was laid the iniquity of us all. He was counted a transgressor, that He might redeem us from the condemnation of the law. The guilt of every descendant of Adam was pressing upon His heart. The wrath of God against sin, the terrible manifestation of His displeasure because of iniquity, filled the soul of His Son with consternation. All His life Christ had been publishing to a fallen world the good news of the Father's mercy and pardoning love. Salvation for the chief of sinners was His theme. But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father's reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt."  DA 753.1

Note:  The wrath of God against sin = the withdrawal of divinity.  

[Robert]

When Christ became a man in the incarnation He had to give up not His divinity, but His divine prerogatives, in other words, the independent use of His divinity. Even His God-consciousness had to be given up. Jesus discovered He was God only by revelation. He was not God-conscious as a baby. He had to grow up in knowledge. He had to grow up in everything because He had given up the independent use of His divinity and was made in all things like unto us (Heb. 2:17).

Therefore, He was totally God-dependent all through His earthly ministry. John 5:30 says, “I can do nothing of myself.” John 6:57 says, “I live by the Father.” See also John 8:28 and John 14:10. All these texts state very clearly that Christ was totally God-dependent. Then read Rom 6:4; Acts 2:24, 32; Eph. 1:20. All of these texts clearly tell us that it was the Father who raised Christ from the dead. Keep these two things in mind: Christ was God-dependent, and He was dependent on the Father for the resurrection. Don’t ask me what happened to His divine consciousness when He was in the grave. Where was His divine life? I don’t know. It’s a mystery. We will spend eternity studying that, but I do know one thing, it was the Father He was depending on for the resurrection just like everything else.

Do you know what the Father did on the cross? Christ cried out: “Father, Father why have you forsaken me?” What He meant is not “Why are you leaving me for three days?” but, “Why have You abandoned Me?” Do you know what that meant to Christ? It meant that the hope of the resurrection went with that abandonment. When the Father forsook Him in terms of Christ’s feeling, then the hope of the resurrection went with it. Jesus was now “treading the winepress alone.” He could no longer look on the Father with hope and assurance as far as His feelings were concerned. He felt the agony of God-abandonment, exactly what the wicked will feel when mercy no longer pleads with the guilty race.

Here is a key passage from Desire of Ages, by E.G. White, p 753: “He could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him the coming forth from the grave a conqueror or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that their separation was to be eternal.” 

Jack Sequeira  

[Robert]

18 minutes ago, Robert said:

Note:  The wrath of God against sin = the withdrawal of divinity.  

Matt 22:11 "..when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment (i.e., the robe of Christ's righteousness). 12 So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’"

Outer darkness = God abandonment =  the wrath of God

Those who reject God's redemptive work in Christ Jesus will have to take upon themselves the curse - that is the 2nd death, which is God abandonment. 

Instead of fearing God's wrath, in the traditional sense, we should fear God not being part of our lives.  

[Robert]

2 hours ago, Robert said:

"He (Christ) felt the agony of God-abandonment, exactly what the wicked will feel when mercy no longer pleads with the guilty race."

Christ experienced God-abandonment exactly what the wicked will feel.  Keep this in mind.  

Now turn to Rev 14:9,10

“If anyone worships the beast and his image...10 he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb."

Traditionally Christians have interpreted this passage as if God Himself is actively, physically tormenting the lost with fire and brimstone, but that's not how I understand God's wrath.

According to Jude, "Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around...are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." (Jude 7)

Did God destroy, as we traditionally understand His wrath, these four cities: Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim?

Yes, if you take only the traditional texts.  Here's one: 

"Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his [Lot's] wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt" (Genesis 19:24-26).

But "no" if you take other texts into account.  Here are two:

• "Jerusalem stumbled, and Judah is fallen . . . They declare their sin as Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought evil upon themselves" (Isaiah 3:8,9).

• "How can I give you up Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me. My sympathy is stirred." (Hosea 11:8)

Note that in the first text Sodom, and other three by implication, brought "evil" upon itself.  Are we to conclude then that God is evil?  No!  Then why did destruction (evil) fall upon these four cities? 

An answer is found in Deut 31:17

"My wrath shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’ 

This is how we are to understand God's wrath. 

[Robert]

6 hours ago, Seventh Day said:

I believe the translation with ‘forsake’ was unfortunate.

Well of course because it doesn't fit into your narrative.  

[Robert]

On 9/27/2016 at 3:53 PM, Seventh Day said:

But nay, say they, the Father forsook and abandoned his Son.  If that is what you prefer … it is not what the Scriptures teach and it is not what I believe!

Who is being truthful here and who is not?

“The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race."  DA 753

About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). Matt 27:46

 

 

[8thdaypriest]

Robert,

Do you believe that God told Joshua to "kill everything that breathes"??  Or do you believe this was actually Satan? 

If you absolutely believe that God does not "kill", then you must believe that God could never command killing either. 

[8thdaypriest]

God the Father SENT Jesus into this world, knowing that evil always destroys what is good.  Jesus was GOOD, therefore evil would destroy Jesus - unless God the Father especially protected Him. 

I agree that God the Father removed the special protection that prevented evil men (inspired of Satan) from killing His Son.  Jesus knew - ahead of time - that this was going to happen. 

It was a TEST.  Would Jesus remain "obedient unto death"?  If Jesus did remain obedient - then He would fulfill the one condition of the Sinai Covenant - perfect obedience to God.  He could then receive the promise of that Covenant - "eternal possession of the land".  He could recover the "dominion" which Adam lost through disobedience. 

Secondly - the mind of any human (including Jesus) is no match for Satan or one of his powerful spirit beings.  Without the special PROTECTION of God the Father and the holy angels, Jesus mind could be overwhelmed and clouded by the evil ones - to such an extent that Jesus could no longer SENSE His Father's presence with Him.  I believe THIS prompted His cry. 

I do NOT believe that God the Father literally, actively KILLED His own Son. 

I believe God ALLOWED evil to kill His Son.    Was God the Father responsible - for Jesus' death?    Yes - because He could have protected Him.  

Was Satan even more responsible?  Yes!  He did it directly - and with malice. 

[Robert]

2 hours ago, 8thdaypriest said:

Robert,

Do you believe that God told Joshua to "kill everything that breathes"??  

Seems that way....

I also read that "Achan's sin brought disaster upon the whole nation" of Israel (PP 497).  That doesn't seem just to me. Then Ellen White says, "the people had been held responsible for Achan's sin, and had suffered from its consequences" (PP 495).

How in the world can I reconcile the peaceful, loving Christ with a God who would make others pay for a man's sin? 

It's like I sin and God allows my grandchild to die in a car crash.  Is that the type of God I believe in?  IF so, I don't know if I can place my faith and trust in such a God!

I'm having serious reservations on the character of God....

 

[8thdaypriest]

21 minutes ago, Robert said:

I also read that "Achan's sin brought disaster upon the whole nation" of Israel (PP 497).  That doesn't seem just to me. Then Ellen White says, "the people had been held responsible for Achan's sin, and had suffered from its consequences" (PP 495).

 

It has to do with the word "cursed" and the instructions given to Israel regarding any THING that was "cursed" 

The word translated as "cursed" is  “cherem” (#02764) which means “devoted to destruction” or simply “devoted”. 

Here is Moses instruction concerning "things" that were "cursed" - or were in a place that was "cursed".

Deuteronomy 13:17  “So none of the accursed things shall remain in your hand, that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of His anger and show you mercy, have compassion on you and multiply you, just as He swore to your fathers.”

Here is Joshua's instruction.

    Joshua 6:17 [Joshua speaking] “Now the city [Jericho] shall be doomed by the LORD to destruction, it and all who are in it. Only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.”

    Joshua 6:18 “And you, by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take of the accursed things, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.

So - no man in Israel could claim ignorance.

Achen took of the "accursed things" and he brought "the curse" into Israel.  The only way to rid Israel of the "curse" was to destroy Achen along with the things he brought into the camp.

Achen's FAMILY knew about the things he had taken.  They were complicit.

Same principle applies to Saul - taken King Agag alive (as a trophy).  The reason WHY Samuel killed King Agag, is BECAUSE Samuel knew that Saul was bringing "the curse" upon all of Israel. 

Solomon allowed his "wives " to bring "accursed things" right into the heart of Jerusalem. 

The 10 Northern Tribes had brought "accursed things" (objects of pagan worship) into Israel.

If the LORD was going to protect a small part of Judah (those loyal to Him) then He would have to destroy those who had brought "accursed things" into "the camp". 

Because HE must enforce His Law. 

[Robert]

Seventh Day,

I will no longer respond to your distortions of truth.  You are on my "do not respond list".

Robert

[joeb]

Why not just take Jesus at His word on this subject?  

Quote

John 10:17  Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 

He made this statement more than once.

[Kevin H]

The entire trinity took our sins upon themselves. Jesus wanted to be with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Spirit wanted to be with Jesus. but they knew that if they did not allow my sins to separate them from each other that it would separate me from them. So while they wanted to come to each other they refused to out of love for us.

[TrevorL]

Greetings Robert,

 

On ‎11‎/‎09‎/‎2016 at 4:11 AM, Robert said:

Did God have Christ flogged within an inch of his life and then have him nailed on a wooden cross to suffer a cruel, sadistic death?  Is this what God did to Christ so we might stand just before Him?

Your question seems to lack a proper appreciation of the full scheme of God’s purpose in Christ, whereby the full revelation shows forth the glory and beauty and purity of God’s character of righteousness and mercy. The main basis of your statement seems to be a belief in the concept of substitution. I suggest that the Bible teaching is that Jesus’ sacrifice was representative. At the heart of this is the complete unity and love between the Father and His Son.

On ‎11‎/‎09‎/‎2016 at 4:19 AM, Robert said:

When Christ became a man in the incarnation He had to give up not His divinity, but His divine prerogatives, in other words, the independent use of His divinity. Even His God-consciousness had to be given up. Jesus discovered He was God only by revelation. He was not God-conscious as a baby. He had to grow up in knowledge. He had to grow up in everything because He had given up the independent use of His divinity and was made in all things like unto us (Heb. 2:17).

 

 

You also claim that Jesus is part of the Trinity, even though you are forced to remove most aspects of His Divinity. I believe that Jesus is a man, the Son of God by birth, by his character, and by the resurrection.

 

Kind regards

Trevor

 

 

On ‎11‎/‎09‎/‎2016 at 4:19 AM, Robert said:

 

 

[Robert]

On 10/27/2016 at 2:42 PM, joeb said:

Why not just take Jesus at His word on this subject?  

He made this statement more than once.

Oh, you think you have a simple answer, huh?  Ok - Jesus as "the son of man" or Jesus as God? 

Keep in mind that Deity didn't die - the son of man died.  Deity - or Christ as God - didn't die, that would be impossible.  Therefore Jesus as the son of man died.  Jesus, as the son of man, grew in wisdom and stature.  As God He was all knowing.  Also, as the son of man He couldn't do anything of himself.  Look the texts up.  That means as the son of man He handed over the independent use of His Deity over to the Father.  It was the Father, who is God too, that raised Christ as the son of man.  That's another text for you to find.

[Robert]

Here's Pastor Sequeira:

The thing that we need to realize is what we call in theology, “the kenosis doctrine,” based on Phil. 2:6-8. When Christ became a man in the incarnation He had to give up not His divinity, but His divine prerogatives, in other words, the independent use of His divinity. Even His God-consciousness had to be given up. Jesus discovered He was God only by revelation. He was not God-conscious as a baby. He had to grow up in knowledge. He had to grow up in everything because He had given up the independent use of His divinity and was made in all things like unto us (Heb. 2:17).

Therefore, He was totally God-dependent all through His earthly ministry. John 5:30 says, “I can do nothing of myself.” John 6:57 says, “I live by the Father.” See also John 8:28 and John 14:10. All these texts state very clearly that Christ was totally God-dependent. Then read Rom 6:4; Acts 2:24, 32; Eph. 1:20. All of these texts clearly tell us that it was the Father who raised Christ from the dead. Keep these two things in mind: Christ was God-dependent, and He was dependent on the Father for the resurrection. Don’t ask me what happened to His divine consciousness when He was in the grave. Where was His divine life? I don’t know. It’s a mystery. We will spend eternity studying that, but I do know one thing, it was the Father He was depending on for the resurrection just like everything else.

Do you know what the Father did on the cross? Christ cried out: “Father, Father why have you forsaken me?” What He meant is not “Why are you leaving me for three days?” but, “Why have You abandoned Me?” Do you know what that meant to Christ? It meant that the hope of the resurrection went with that abandonment. When the Father forsook Him in terms of Christ’s feeling, then the hope of the resurrection went with it. Jesus was now “treading the winepress alone.” He could no longer look on the Father with hope and assurance as far as His feelings were concerned. He felt the agony of God-abandonment, exactly what the wicked will feel when mercy no longer pleads with the guilty race.

Here is a key passage from Desire of Ages, by E.G. White, p 753: “He could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him the coming forth from the grave a conqueror or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that their separation was to be eternal.” Do you realize what Christ was tempted to do on the cross as He hung there? The Father had forsaken Him. But remember, He was still God. He could have taken hold of His divinity independent of the Father, against the Father’s wishes, and come down from the cross to save Himself.

[joeb]

I see no one has challenged Robert's last post on this thread so I'm assuming you all agree with him. 

I'll have an answer for you pretty soon, Robert, just not today as I am strapped for time and feel lousy. 

[joeb]

I'm glad you started this, Robert, for your position here is a
prime example of why accepting the Bible in its entirety is
vitally important. When the devil gets us to ignore Biblical
truth in favor of what we want to believe we end up viewing God
through large distortion fields created by the devil. Where you
see cruelty I see great love, in fact, I see the ultimate
expression of love by the entire Godhead.

Who wants us to view God negatively? The devil, because if we see
God negatively we will reject Him. Thus, when we start thinking
that the Bible is portraying God as cruel we can know where that
idea comes from, as it is certainly nothing God says about
Himself, and that we are missing a large portion of Biblical
truth that would show us the truth about Him. It is that missing
portion of Biblical truth that causes us to see a distorted view
of God, and it is the devil's work to get us to see that
distortion.

How do we get to such opposite points of view? This all centers
around our differing beliefs about sanctification. I believe that
sanctification is a must because that is what the Bible teaches
us. You cast doubt upon anything to do with sanctification by
saying sanctification is self-selfrighteousness, that we can be
and are saved without sanctification. Thus you get to a point
where you look at what Christ endured as nothing more than
cruelty because there is no need for such suffering, if
justification alone is all there is to righteousness by faith and
salvation. Therefore the theology you have chosen to believe is
responsible for your view of God. That, Robert, is very sad.

On the other hand, by including Biblical sanctification as a
necessary part of righteousness by faith and the plan of
salvation, I see the suffering, hopelessness, and despair that
Christ endured as the ultimate expression of love. Why is that?
Christ, to have what I refer to as heart knowledge of what we as
sinful human beings experience in a world of sin, had to
experience the worst pain, suffering, hopelessness, despair,
etc... that any of us as human beings will ever have to endure
through our separation from God and degradation by sin. Without
that heart knowledge Christ could not reach down into our
twisted, warped lives and untangle all the damage sin has done to
us. He could not be an effective advocate or spiritual healer
without that knowledge. Paul tells us in two different places
that Christ was perfected, made complete, through what He
suffered. That completeness is the understanding through personal
experience of what the rest of we human beings experience as life
in a world of sin.

Jesus said, “I came that they might have life, and have it more
abundantly”. Strong's concordance says that the Greek word
translated as abundantly in that text means to have a superior
quality of life. Jesus came so that we might have a superior
quality of life compared to what we would have without Him here
and now, not just a superior quality of life in the hereafter.
That, Robert, is far more loving than a theology that says God
will do nothing to heal us here and now, that we can just suffer
for now rather than be healed. I can testify to that in my own
life. Because of abuse I grew up full of pain, sorrow, sadness,
and despair, and because of that deliberately decided, the year I
graduated from high school, to commit suicide the slow way, by
drugs. I just wanted the pain to stop so I deliberately started
doing drugs knowing they would destroy me. I ask, what kind of
quality of life is it that makes a person want to destroy
themselves? It's a very poor quality of life. It sucked. But
Jesus, because He had experienced all the pain, sorrow, hurt,
etc... that I had, and much more because He had to endure the
very worst a human could experience to be able to help anyone no
matter what they had been through, was able to reach down into my
shattered life and slowly but surely heal that hurt, that pain,
that degradation, that very twisted thinking, that sin had
created in me. All I had to do was believe Him and trust Him, but
even that was very difficult because trust comes extremely hard
to someone who has been rejected by their entire immediate
family. That rejection teaches distrust, not the trust that love
brings. But, Jesus reached me, and that healing from the pain,
sorrow, and the physical and emotional effects of sin is a large
part of Biblical sanctification. It doesn't happen over night. It
can take years for this to happen for part and parcel of this is
developing a living personal relationship with God and learning
to trust Him implicitly. When He says jump, our response, if we
have learned to really trust Him, is to ask, How high? Not
because we fear Him, or because He is a control freak, but we
know from personal experience with Him that anything He asks us
to do is for own healing and is part of being re-created back
into His image. The other thing that this process creates in us
is a complete and total trust of God's word for experience
teaches us it is absolutely trustworthy. All of it is true, not
just parts of it.

Along with the healing of the effects of sin comes the healing
from sin itself--”Thou shalt call His name Jesus for He shall
save His people from their sins”. This must go hand in hand with
the healing of the effects of sin for sin itself is painful,
self-destructive, sorrowful, destroys trust, etc... so to remove
those effects of sin, sin itself must also be removed from the
life at the same time. This is done by faith, by trust in God. By
believing what He tells us through His word and acting on His
directions because we trust Him to know exactly what we need for
this process of healing to work He heals us of both sin and its
effects. Just like justification, sanctification takes our
consent and agreement. We can't be justified against our will or
by our own volition and neither can we be sanctified against our
will or by our own volition. Both are accomplished through faith,
by believing God's word and trusting implicitly in Him.

Here's an analogy of that. We are standing in the woods during a
big windstorm and a friend of ours who is facing us yells at us
to “run to the right” because a tree is falling on us. What
happens if we stand there and begin to argue with him or just
ignore him? We get crushed just as certainly as day follows
night. Our actions tell whether or not we trusted him. If we
moved did he save our lives or did we save our own lives? He did.
He saw the problem coming and told us what to do to avoid the
danger. Just so, when we believe what God tells us in His word
and act on it because we trust Him we are not the ones in charge
of what is happening in our life. God is, for He is the one who
sees the trouble, warns us, and tells us what to do about the
problem. It's a matter of faith and trust in Him if we respond
positively to His instructions. It's a matter of unbelief if we
ignore Him.

Here is what Ellen White has to say along these lines in the
Desire of Ages. It comes from what I see as the greatest chapter
in the book, "Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled", page 671:

Quote

 

"The Comforter is called “the Spirit of truth.” His work is to
define and maintain the truth. He first dwells in the heart as the
Spirit of truth, and thus He becomes the Comforter. There is
comfort and peace in the truth, but no real peace or comfort can
be found in falsehood. It is through false theories and
traditions that Satan gains his power over the mind. By directing
men to false standards, he misshapes the character. Through the
Scriptures the Holy Spirit speaks to the mind, and impresses
truth upon the heart. Thus He exposes error, and expels it from
the soul. It is by the Spirit of truth, working through the word
of God, that Christ subdues His chosen people to Himself.

In describing to His disciples the office work of the Holy Spirit,
Jesus sought to inspire them with the joy and hope that inspired
His own heart. He rejoiced because of the abundant help He had
provided for His church. The Holy Spirit was the highest of all
gifts that He could solicit from His Father for the exaltation of
His people. The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating agent,
and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no
avail. The power of evil had been strengthening for centuries,
and the submission of men to this satanic captivity was amazing.
Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency
of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no
modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power. It is the
Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the
world’s Redeemer. It is by the Spirit that the heart is made
pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the
divine nature. Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to
overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to
impress His own character upon His church."

 

What is Jesus to us? I'm going to quote Paul to you, but I'm
going to edit the text a little. I'm going to use the meaning of
the Greek according to Strong's concordance, not what it has been
translated as....

Quote

ICorinthians 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God
is made unto us wisdom, and equity of character, and a purifier,
and ransom in full:

That text is Paul's one-sentence refutation of your stance on the
plan of salvation. Jesus is made to us four things: wisdom, and
righteousness (equity of character), and sanctification
(purification), and our ransom paid in full. The logic of the
sentence says it is impossible to remove any of these things and
still have Jesus in our life, for all aspects of what Christ is
made unto us are connected by “ands”. There is neither an or, nor
any other conditional in the sentence. Thus wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and ransom in full all come
together as an indestructible whole. We cannot break them apart.
If we want Jesus we get sanctification. If we reject
sanctification, we reject Jesus. The logic of Paul's statement
leaves no other conclusion to an honest reading of the text.

Equity, as Paul used it, means to conform to a standard. What is
the standard? God's character which is righteousness. Practical
righteousness that is expressed in the life of the individual,
not some ethereal legal pose, for that standard of character was
expressed in the life of Jesus. So, Jesus is made unto us wisdom,
the standard of character, the agent of our purification, and our
ransom paid in full. Every part of the plan of salvation is
rolled into one in that text. He comes to all of us containing
all of these things at all times, not just some of them sometimes
and for just some people. We accept Him as He is, or reject Him
as He is. We do not get to pick and choose what we want that He
offers us. It is an all or nothing deal through faith as Jesus
comes as He is or not at all.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me:
and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of
me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is
not worthy of me. Matthew 10:37,38

The word “worthy” is translated from a Greek word meaning
deserving. If we will not sacrifice everything we are as Jesus
did, which is also what sanctification is about, we don't deserve
Him according to Jesus Himself.

Quote

...When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the
Lord shall lift up a standard against him. And the Redeemer shall
come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in
Jacob, saith the Lord. Isaiah 59:19,20

If we reject this truth of sanctification we open ourselves up to
the devil's delusions for he desires nothing more than for us to
reject God's word and accept his fables in place of them because
that is how he gets us to reject God and His word as his fables
give us a very distorted view of God. By rejecting sanctification
we see a God of cruelty instead of a God of love that longs to
heal us, to remove our misery, in the here and now. The
differences show a pretty powerful delusion and a major
distortion of the reality of who God is and the positive
differences He wants to make in our lives if we will only allow
Him to by believing His word.