Four questions for Christians

[Consilius]

As long as the person is sinning, God's anger will fall on him, and the sinner will only have Hell to look forward to.
It's like insurance coverage. Christ died so that he could redeem whoever followed him. Those who refuse to follow him can not be redeemed because they are holding themselves back. There is no redemption for them on account of their sin, the sin they choose to remain in.
When the sinner repents, he gets Christ's sacrifice all over again and he can look forward to being with God. God's anger remains on all those who continue to sin because they are sinning.

Yet sin is relative is it not? It is okay to kill someone under one circumstance but not okay under another - so the act of transgression must be relative.

For example, It was considered an abomination to do ANY work on the Sabbath but that death sentence was magically rescinded. Another example is the eating of pork or shellfish, those things would separate a person from God by transgressing his covenantal restrictions.

Sin then must be relative to conditions set forth by God. Another example is Paul's wonderfully liberating statement, that all things are permissible but not all things profitable.


In light of this what exactly is God's anger? And how does it remain on a person? Is it something like having two left feet or the art of failing to learn to ride a bike?

Sin is disobedience to a command. The pagans who worked on the Sabbath weren't struck down, but the Israelite who had been specifically told to do so during the Exodus was. God gave this man more reasons to respect that commandment, so his refusal to do so was more serious than it was in later generations and had to be punished severely and immediately.
Killing is killing. But the reasons it is administered vary. Soldiers in armies die, hostile intruders die, and God, in many instances, kills those who reject him by doing wrong.
The laws in the Torah showed the faith and obedience of the Jewish people to their God. It is not the eating of pork that was sinful, but the disobedience to God it indicated. They were outward indications of what was inside hearts and minds.

God can't prevent us from doing anything, but he remains in the position to give the laws and punish when they are broken. Sometimes the punishment comes from the lawbreaking itself, hence, "not all things are profitable".

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When it comes to sin, I have always been partial to Buddha's definition. The only sin is harming others unnecessarily, and all other sin is invented nonsense..

Isn't this what sin has always been and always will be, within and outside of religion?
Your quote came from Robert A. Heinlein.