This is a special posting by Dennis Diehl, who is seeking some AW reader feedback in preparing an upcoming article. The SAB link to the right of the Bible texts takes you to the relevant page of the Skeptic's Annotated Bible.
It is obvious from scripture that Jesus predicted his own resurrection, either by his own efforts...
John 2:19-21 - Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. SAB
Or be raised up by God the Father.
Acts 2:32 - This Jesus hath God raised up.... SAB
Acts 4:10 - Jesus Christ... whom God raised from the dead.... SAB
Acts 13:30 - But God raised him from the dead. SAB
Galatians 1:1 - Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead) SAB
Colossians 2:12 - Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. SAB
1 Thessalonians 1:10 - ... his Son ... whom he raised from the dead. SAB
This, of course, implies that before his death, Jesus knew he would be resurrected over a mere weekend and back better than ever "sitting on the right hand of God."
God as well, knew he could and would raise Jesus back to life after a short weekend (Imagine how much more at ease human fathers would be if they knew that if their children died, they could get them back in a mere three days good as new?) Would take a lot of the fear out of life and having kids.
This being the case,..
Why is the sacrifice of Jesus such a great sacrifice for all humanity? Why is "God giving his only begotten son" so amazing if God knew He would raise him back to life again better than ever. Why is this mere weekend inconvenience for God and Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice for all humanity. Should a real sacrifice not stay dead to be considered a sacrifice?
This question seems to me to be one of the hardest of all to answer for Christians if they take time to think about it. It was born out of a comment a client made, who had lost her only daughter in a car accident and who was tired of the Church telling her that God gave his only son and understands her pain.
She said "No...my daughter is still dead, and God got Jesus back after a mere weekend. I would be willing to wait a weekend to get her back. God giving Jesus was a weekend inconvenience, and my daughter is still dead. Jesus should still be dead for me to be impressed by a Deity giving His only son for us."
A very hard question indeed.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
A Very Hard Question
173 comments:
I don't see it as a difficult question at all. It is certain you are looking at the opposite end of the message, the lesson, and the answer. To start with the question of a weekend wait is totally flawed, as usual.
One part of the equation you totally missed was the purpose of His arrival on earth. It wasn't just to die, silly, it was to live a perfect life and then die. I'd like to see you do that. If you can live a perfect life, make no mistakes, tell no lies, etc. etc. then complain about a "hard question". It is only hard to those who have no concept of the "rest of the story".
Of course, I expect to see you jump and say, where's the rest of the answer? Well, that will come when you can understand the first part of the answer given above. Please give us a history of your perfection so far please. Then you too can die for us.
Bob
It's a sincere question not having anything to do with my being an unworthy sacrifice myself.
I told Gavin I hoped for some thoughtful responses instead of personally snarky ones. So far:
Snarky 1
Thoughtful 0
The question was born out of a woman who was not comforted by her church telling her that God understood her pain because he lost his only child as well and her finding it unhelpful due to Jesus getting to come back.
But I appreciate your perspective.
I will play the rare role of apologist here for this question.
Suppose that it really is true that a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day to God. Also suppose that Jesus, as the Word was a created being made directly from God Himself to create the entirety of the Universe and also the angels. God would have spent billions and perhaps hundreds of billions of years with His Son.
Then it comes to the day that He sacrifices His Son and His Son dies miserably. Each day is as a thousand years -- each tick of the clock has God, The Father, waiting for the time He can resurrect His Son. It is an excruciating time to be separated from someone so close that each second seems like an eternity over three days which seems like 3,000 years.
On the flip side, while it is a sad depressing thing to lose a child, either to death, or perhaps worse to something like a terrible disease and mental illness, having to endure the stress of pain in empathy for your own child, in the scheme of things over an eternity, it is a mere blip. If there is a resurrection to eternal life, the momentary pain of a lifetime will measure as nothing over, say, 200 trillion years of time.
This is not a flip answer. It really is difficult. But if there is an eternity, then truly, our lives as human beings is terrifyingly temporary.
There are those who take comfort in these thoughts as a matter of faith.
Thanks Tired Skeptic.
How do you feel about the concept that a real sacrifice should stay dead? Sincere question here.
Thanks for the fast response.
Like it or not, and I don't, the family who lost the girl are humans. Their wonderful daughter died, and that was a horrible tragedy. And, right now it seems very difficult, or depending on when it happened, they may have come to handle it some better. I hope so. But, the fact is, the girl, here parents, and we are humans. The Messiah's death and resurrection did not promise that we would no longer have human suffering. The girl did not die over the weekend for our sins, she died because she was human, living a "normal" human life. In other words, it was not her, nor our mission to die for a weekend after a life of perfection for the salvation of ALL mankind. She will, though, be resurrected to life at the time appointed for the rest of mankind. The Messiah's appointment was then after only three days.
Also, the Messiah's death and res. was not to change time for us. We still have to live through whatever our regular lives present to us, but for those who understand, now with the realization that there is a possibility of life again after death. For those who don't believe or understand there is no answering them since their mind is not open to such answers.
All, and I mean all, will be made alive again to live in eternity happily and abundantly.
Bob
It was not his only His death but the way it came about. Take your belt and strip the skin off your son's body, pull his facial hair out of his cheek, ram a crown of thorns on his head then nail him to a tree.
Have his friends run and hide from the mob.
In the early 1900's many a black male had a thing like this happen to them for saying " good morning" to a white woman.
I'm thinking that the face of Jesus was near eye level with the mob, so they were spitting directly in his face.
Have this take place in front of their mother.
Ram a spear in his side.
Or have your sons do this to you.
I cuss and swear if I just stub my toe.
You can go to You Tube and watch the allied films of the liberation of Buchenwald, Dachau and others. Links will take you to other Nazi sites as well with the allies filming the discovery of war crime sites. I watched one where the Nazi thugs were dragging a young woman by her hair. The youn lady too would have had parents. The Nazi thugs even filmed some of their mass murderings. You Tube has many of these you can watch.
Jesus was a war crimes victim. Good vs evil.
We'll all be alive again. Either through reincarnation, resurrection, or just plain a ghost, either right away or in a time right for you. All cultures seem to have a hard wire program of this in their brains.
I acknowledge that this is of little help to parents who have lost their children. I've known people who have gone insane at the death of their child even though they believe that they will see their child again.
Dennis wrote: How do you feel about the concept that a real sacrifice should stay dead? Sincere question here.
Response: A real animal sacrifice should stay dead. A unique sacrifice of a special Being should not stay dead. The resurrection part was to show that death for humans is not permanent. Otherwise, if He was still in the grave what would be the purpose? Dead is dead. I don't think that would give a very good picture of what was promised mankind. Man was promised life after death. He was not promised just a sacrifice so he could live the physical life without any problems until death caught up with him.
How do you feel about the concept that a real sacrifice should stay dead?
Again, as an apologist: God the Father isn't going to let the daughter of your client stay dead -- she will be resurrected. Believers feel that God does value humans in His Plan above beasts. To the girl, it will be just a few seconds of lost consciousness.
There is another issue at stake. If Jesus were really the Son of God, sacrificed for all humanity, then there were people to see and things to do, when the excruciatingly long waiting period for God The Father was over. The Word had already been committed to the other phases of the project for the sake of humanity and he certainly couldn't stay dead as a sacrifice. For one thing, for your client's daughter to be resurrected one day, there'd need to be the return of Jesus and the resurrection of all the dead. Jesus was merely the first of many to be raised from the dead to eternal life.
Again, not to be flip, but there are sacrifices and then there are sacrifices. The Apostle Paul calls for Christians to be living sacrifices. According to the pattern, Jesus was both a living and a dead sacrifice. And, remember, again, from the Scripture, he was a sacrifice to God, His Father.
As to whether or not I actually believe all this, well, ask me again when I get everything sorted out. About five years should do it.
I don't think that a sacrifice must be permanent.
The problem with the texts Dennis cites is that most are unreliable.
John is the last of the gospels, and whoever wrote it was, shall we say. "creative" in the telling.
Colossians is deutero-Pauline... i.e. it's pseudonymous, or less delicately, a con job.
Acts is an inter-Christian political treatise designed to paper over the cracks in early church history by rehabilitating a heretical Paul by pulling his fangs.
Which leaves Galatians and 1 Thessalonians as credible... EXCEPT Paul never met Jesus and paid scant attention to those who had.
So we know not a lot about what Jesus thought his own fate or purpose would be. SO, while "it is obvious from scripture that Jesus predicted his own resurrection," it is less obvious that scripture is conveying fact rather than later imaginative speculation.
Did Jesus expect to be resurrected? Probably not.
Was Jesus resurrected in the traditional sense of the dogma? Absolutely not.
There is another issue at stake "If Jesus were really the Son of God, sacrificed for all humanity, then there were people to see and things to do, when the excruciatingly long waiting period for God The Father was over. The Word had already been committed to the other phases of the project for the sake of humanity and he certainly couldn't stay dead as a sacrifice"
So the idea that Jesus could be the ultimate sacrifice is balanced by the fact that he had to be back to work on Monday morning?
Age of Reason:
That is my bigger view of it all as well. What and if something did or didn't happen as recorded is a whole other disturbing facet of this question of Jesus dying and being the ultimate human sacrfice for all humanity.
I'm trying to get a handle on in what way this sacrfice which didn't cost Jesus anything much (and don't say he had to step down as God for 33 years) nor God anything even in a very short term is the ultimate sacrifice upon which all the emotion of Easter or Passover are based.
"Did Jesus expect to be resurrected? Probably not."
I would say that the author of the Jesus who felt forsaken and that God did not intervene before his death reflects this idea. I suspect push the Romans to the point of God's intervention was what that Jesus had in mind and it went wrong.
There are a couple things different for both God and the Messiah, which differ from most human death.
This is personal opinion, of course, but I believe that Christ lived with God before the earth's creation and that his life was as a higher being.
Then 'by choice' he first sacrificed that type life in order to be lowered to human life.
There was also the aspect of choice in that he had to choose to live the human life as a perfect example. There was always the risk that he might not always make the right choice - right up to the end where he was able to say, "It is finished." Not meaning that all that he would ever do was finished, but that what he had been sent here to do was finished.
His, and probably our, resurrection was/is dependant on him making the right choices every time.
I don't think this is to say that our human lives are more expendable than his pre-existent life, but it is different somehow.
Dennis wrote: How do you feel about the concept that a real sacrifice should stay dead? Sincere question here.
The reason Jesus stayed dead and in the earth for 72 hours was to be considered really dead by Jewish law it had to be 72 hours legally.
I believe the key to this question is the mode of the incarnation. Jesus was fully God and fully human. This seems to me strange, but only because I have no understanding of the mechanism of this duality. But I don't have to understand that.
Christ experienced death through his human ontology. And that death was like the death that we will die.
For his sacrifice to be effective, does he have to stay dead -- that is in a state of unawareness -- for eternity? That idea of course rests on the Armstrongite idea of death which involves soul sleep.
The definition of death aside, it is God who determined what was the necessary sacrifice for salvation.
I believe that the only reason why it was necessary for Christ to die is because God determined that. Christ could have come to earth, not as a human, but as mighty and powerful being and simply announced that salvation was available. We know from the Biblical record that Christ forgave sins before he was sacrificed.
Christ's death resembled our deaths in some respects and in other respects it did not. But that is God's call. Some of us will have loved ones who die and will be consigned to Hell, for example. But God will never experience this precise kind of loss.
I believe God always knew the human dimension of death and grief. But he made us know that he knows through Christ and what happened to Christ. Christ's sacrifice was to inform us not to inform God.
-- Neo
Neo,
I have to agree with some of what you say.
I have trouble with the idea that Christ came as a 'sacrifice' anyway. I think he came, as he said when on trial, "to tell the truth". It cost him his life, but I do not think his life was a reqirement by God that had to be satisfied before we could attain salvation. As you mention, forgiveness was available long before he ever came to earth.
Also the people learned that the sacrifice of their children was evil, so why would God turn around and do exactly what He forbade? I do believe that Messiah is the son,
and not The God.
A lot of extra ideas have been inserted into both the older and newer texts, which someone collected from other texts and then named it all, "The Holy Bible".
I can't answer the question from an Xtian basis, but I will take a stab at it from a Gnostic perspective: Maybe the theology therein might make your client feel a little less like ripping out the throats of her fellow church-members. (I know I would if I were in her shoes!)
Gnostics hold the view that the bible itself is a collection of parables, a bunch of yes, very nice very holy texts, but they are, in the end, morality fables and nothing more. "Jesus" as pictured in the New Testament actually did not die because he did not live. He did not exist.
The Gnostics believe that the early christian faith (before it got taken over by what became the roman catholic church) believed in a god that permeated everything; not a personalized god, but a divine fire, that existed (and created) the universe and humans and everything in it.
Gnostic theology states that humans were created so that this god might know itself, through the perceptions of the humans it created.
(I'm not saying I follow through with all of the Gnostic practices; for practical purposes I like the Quaker example better than most.)
You with me so far? Okay, so then the books of the bible outlining the christ figure's life are merely a guideline, an example of what a perfect life can be, if one chooses to live it.
Where the text got corrupted (the Gnostics believe) is when the crucifixion became rendered as a death. Originally, in the Gnostic belief system, the crucifixion happened at the christ figure's birth, and indeed it happened for all of us at our own births.
The theology as I understand it goes something like this: The divine fire that is the creative, generative force behind the universe and everything in it, including humans, periodically strikes sparks off of itself, and these "sparks" are then sent down to earth to manifest in human form. This is what sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.
(I am using very liberal gnostic terminology here; the mainliner Gnostic theological terms are much more technical and are somewhat inaccessible.)
Through the process of physical human birth, these sparks, in the act of being born, are actually dying as "gods", by giving up their part of the godhead. They are doing so willingly, they make this sacrifice, so that they may be able to see the divine source they come from, from the outside. From an observer's perspective, as it were.
Thus we have the crucifixion at birth, and humans spend the rest of their lives trying to get back to "the divine source" that they have voluntarily removed themselves from, prior to birth. (The Gnostics claim they have the inside track on doing so. They don't.)
At death, Gnostics believe they are returned (resurrected) back into the divine godhead, reunited with the infinite, limitless source. Their spirit then remingles with the divine fire, and another spark is struck off, that may or may not contain elements of the spark that went before.
If a spark that gets struck off does not live a good life (as provided for us by the example life of the christ figure, left behind for us in the parables of the bible), then they are sent through the process again.
If a spark that gets struck off decides it doesn't believe in god, and wants nothing to do with trying to determine what, exactly, the god they've been sent to observe is, well, they get sent through again.
If the divine spark is successful, in this life, with living the perfect life, they go back into the divine fire, get reabsorbed, and redistributed, and portions of their essence (either the good bits or the bits that need recycling they're not sure which) get sent through again.
So the moral of the story is, as with everything, try and live a good life while you're here, and if you're not so much worried about what's at the end of the line, you might get a chance to take the trip again. Or not. But parts of you might.
All of us, as divine sparks, have the same essence of the divine fire within us, and recognizing it within each other is the living embodiment of the golden rule.
Therefore, in the Gnostic theology, they don't have to do cartwheels around the problem of the three-day weekend, because in their system, it never happened in the first place.
The death and resurrection is indeed a corruption of a far older Egyptian myth surrounding Horus. But I won't get into that argument again, I know how much Pagan Roots discussions are reviled around here. :-)
I offer your client my deepest condolences on her terrible loss, and I hope that her soul eventually finds some rest.
I submitted the same question in a bible study when I joined the WWCG, about 25 years ago.
The minister didn't really seem to get what I was asking and sorta blew it off.
I brought it up a couple times in conversation with others in church, but no one seemed to think it was a problem.
My issue was a little bit different, though. I couldn’t understand how Jesus could trade his life for ours and still have a life left over for himself.
I hadn’t thought about for a while, but it no longer bothers me that way.
Instead of thinking of the atonement as an economy issue, I think of it as more of a blame issue. Isn’t that what Jesus is there for, to take the blame?
And what’s wrong with heaping the sins of the world onto Him? Isn’t He supposed to fix the whole mess?
I’ve had a few “prayers” saying life isn’t fair and blaming God for the whole thing.
The answer to those prayers, and I believed they were answered, seems to be that I'm supposed feed on Christ’s body and blood for sustenance.
Deconstruct that!
I guess it really doesn't matter whether a human considers Christ's sacrifice sufficient, because God does.
What alternative would you suggest, Dennis? Would it be adequate if a member of the deity were extinguished for all eternity?
I believe that the Jesus phenomenon was multi-level. He was an example of what God intended for the rest of us. He was a prototype, much the same as Adam.
Also, God's law is good. We're not able to keep it, in fact nobody except Jesus ever did completely keep it. And, in keeping it, He also fulfilled it, and taught us how to live in the spirit of the law. He even lives his life through Christians, and that's what God the Father recognizes as righteousness, Christ's righteousness in us.
I love reading the gospels, because Jesus was such an effective teacher, had a great sense of humor, and was arguably the most intelligent man who ever lived. Just the way He got into the Pharisees faces was awesome. He knew that the Pharisees considered it a sin to make clay on the sabbath, so He deliberately did it as part of healing a blind man on the sabbath. He had pet nicknames for His disciples, too. He called the sons of Zebedee "Boanerges", or sons of thunder. When He counselled Peter, it was similar to a professional review that one might receive while working for a Fortune 500 Company!
Dennis, I know you're trying to do some good here. I know you're trying to help people that are still caught up in the cult. But, when you refer to the passion of Christ as Jesus' bad weekend, you lose much of your audience.
Putting this into modern day personalized terms, what would you do if one Saturday morning, someone came to the hospital, complaining about a failed medical procedure, and spit in your face? And what if they left, but came back with a mob to beat you to a bloody pulp, holding you responsible for something you hadn't even done? And, what if (assuming she's still living) they brought your mother along to watch? Finally, not being satisfied, they found some grotesque way of killing you? I'm not suggesting anything more than a mental exercise here, but wouldn't that be more than just a bad weekend for you?
I'm going to admit something here, and I fully expect to be made fun of for it. I can't read the crucifixion narrative in any of the gospels without actually breaking down and crying! That's been true since I was a child. Here's another thing: I think that's good!
As a biker, I've come to realize that Jesus Christ was the toughest man who ever lived. I respect that immensely. There's no human way I could do what He did for all of us.
Jesus is my friend, and I love Him.
BB
Bob's "I'd like to see you do that" comment is unnecessarily mocking and totally off topic. I have always had a hunch that God is far more understanding and tolerant of skeptic's questions than his "followers" are (especially those chosen ones who are quick to dismiss those who hurt or try to help those who hurt).
Organized religion is a mess, as evidenced by vapid, all-knowing answers like Bob's. Such smug, self-righteous posturing overshadows whatever good that even has a chance of shining through.
The crucifixion story is a moving narrative, as indeed it's meant to be, and both the Pauline and pre-Constantine versions of it are graphic and unforgiving. That is how they were intended.
The Gnostic belief (which I didn't really explain clearly enough in my comment above) is that the crucifixion story speaks to the "stripping away" of the parts of the divine spark that makes it a part of the divine source, that they believe takes place at birth.
This would, according to the Gnostics, be a horrifying sacrifice; after literally having infinity as your playground, you're stuck in this (to borrow Dennis' oft-used phrase) carbon-based wetsuit with five senses (often lousy ones at that), for a short amount of time, and you enter the world small, helpless and unable to care for yourself, and remain that way for a large part of your life, for too short a time you're able to live at your fullest, and then you're helpless and unable to care for yourself again.
I would definitely call that a sacrifice, and that's what the crucifixion story is an allegory for, in the Gnostic theology.
Dennis, you are sure to get some folks riled by asking such questions!
However, I do believe that it's ok to ask such questions.
My dad liked a concept of Jesus as destroyer. He got it from "the church", and it always seemed strange to me. He liked the idea of Jesus making mincemeat of others who would dare challenge Him.
My dad would love both what he saw as psychological smooshing as well as physical smooshing of those with views other than which he had.
He liked to think "Jesus really stuck it to those stinkers", as well as "when Jesus returns, He will make the earth thick with the blood of more of those stinkers"
I recognized an insanity in such a view, and could never get jiggy with it.
Just as I couldn't get jiggy with the idea of "smite-happy Jesus", I also couldn't accept the idea of a Jesus I should get gushy over cause He did the ultimate loving deed for me. Seems to me He'd be a total jerk if he had the chance to "save" mankind and didn't.
Heck, if the story were true, did Jesus have a choice?
Did Dad YHVH realize he made a defective product(mankind) and send a "ringer"(sorry, Ouroboros!) to make it better and keep from seeming a jerk Himself?
Yes, a sacrifice that comes right back to life seems less than "ultimate", especially in the face of the woman's loss of her child.
Perhaps it's worth understanding the "Jesus story" as a myth containing archetypal elements.
(Isa 45:9 KJV) Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?
I have lost 2 children.
They have been gone for a long while now, but I have the knowledge that they will return to better times. They were children,so not really sinful themselves .I took a lot of
comfort in the thought of Mary losing her child and of God knowing what it is like to see a child suffer and die .be discarded , unloved, hated unjustly even though he was so very good. It is hard to see a child suffer that way too. Parents of living children know the pain of seeing a child suffer unjustly at the hands of others.
I think it is significant that Jesus did not have to go through what he did for any reason other than love. He was with God and was not under a penalty of death for sin. He offered up his life, he offered to go through it all for the sake of loving his creation. He was despised, rejected, hated, beaten to a pulp and killed in a vile horrific manner in public.
He knows what it is like to suffer and die now, something he did not really know before and we know that death is not permanent because he lives again and that is our hope.
Although the father knew that he could restore him to life, it would not have been so if Jesus had sinned. If he was human, and to be like us and understand us he had to be, he would be tempted with sin in all ways we are. If he had succombed to sin he would have not been resurrected. He took a chance. Yes it was less of a chance maybe than for us since he knew heaven, knew the father better, knew for an absolute certainty all the truth, but he still took a chance for us no matter who small we may count it, if indeed we do.
I am grateful that because he did die, and because more importantly he lives again, that I will see my children again and all those who went before me.
'question was born out of a woman who was not comforted by her church telling her that God understood her pain because he lost his only child as well and her finding it unhelpful due to Jesus getting to come back'
The loss of a family member is devestating. No matter how close we may be to God it hurts - there is always a 'hole'.
But with Jeus at the right hand of the Father, and with the intimate relationship we can have with a loving (spirit) Father there is comfort and support until we pass on.
Part of the reason for 'church' is the reflection of that love through the brethren in practical support
Gavin. The 'strings' get longer and longer, and more difficult, thus. to access. Would it help for you to draw a line after a while, perhaps opening a new 'continuation'?
"The reason Jesus stayed dead and in the earth for 72 hours was to be considered really dead by Jewish law it had to be 72 hours legally."
Of course one could argue that a Friday late afternoon to Sunday AM was not even 72 hours, so Jesus wasn't even legally dead. This would be the traditional days as opposed to the Thursday-Sunday apologetic.
I'm really appreciating all these views.
Well Dennis, this pre-supposes that this whole crucifixion-resurrection episode is even true. It also pre-supposes that the person Jesus even existed. That might not be of much comfort to the woman you mentioned. But if one starts from a false premise then no amount of reasoning is going to help. You will only dig the hole you are in deeper.
A more likely scenario, if we can believe at all in this tale, is that Jesus was expecting some sort of insurrection to start when he entered Jerusalem. And when it did not the authorities decided to nip his fanaticism in the bud.
Later on, his brother James took over the movement, which was subsequently scattered to the winds after 70 A.D. The rest is history.
Except that it is not. The Roman Church decided to capitalize upon all this, and had the power of Constantine behind it to do so. And, despite having the label "Great Harlot" stamped on it by the Armstrongologists of the world, this great harlot is the very organization who brought them this Bible they all so adamantly approve of, and put their total trust and confidence in!
And that in itself is enough to "deep six" most of what they might have to say on this topic. You cannot reason with people who have lost their ability to reason. These True Believers will only continue to mock you for even trying.
The only real answer I can think of to your conumdrum, or for any that truly want an answer, is this one. In the movie Lonesome Dove Gus (Robert Duvall) said it best:
Life is short. And it's shorter for some than others.
Anon. saith :
Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!
Well, THAT was certainly helpful here! I suppose by that bit of Bible thumping you are saying that ANY discussion about this topic is somehow going to bring down the wrath of your god on us?
Oh, what the hell. Your god was very good at throwing his wrath around, according to the book you like to thump. Every time the Jews turned around his wrath was burning against them for any old reason. One time it got so bad that, after your god had ordered his good King David to do a census, he turned around and slaughtered 70,000 Jews with plague. The reason being -- he was pissed at David for taking a census! Geezus freaking Crisco, with a god like that, Hitler was a comparatively nice guy to the Jews.
Anyway, I'm sure that Dennis will appreciate your very "intelligent" comment there. :-)
Neotherm said:
Some of us will have loved ones who die and will be consigned to Hell . . .
Well Neo, if that's true then it certainly pays to be a Jew these days! Paul the Apostle said somewhere that "All Israel shall be saved."
Hmmmm. You know, I could kinda get back into that U.S.B.I.P thingy. Yeah, I think I could. ;-)
I feel like everyone is overthinking this, and ascribing such lofty meaning to the story of Jesus that they don't even consider the most basic question:
What logic is there in Jesus dying for the sins of others???
In other words, where is the logic in him saying (or God the Father deciding), "Ok, I will heap all the sins of the world on the head of Jesus, and he will pay for them".
To me, there is no logic in that. God (or Jesus) might just as well have said "ok, I will eat an ice cream cone and by doing so declare that all sins are paid for".
This is a question I have had since a child, and no minister could ever give me an answer that made any sense.
Thoughts?
Anon. said :
What logic is there in Jesus dying for the sins of others???
There isn't any.
And even if this Jesus actually ever lived, and even if this Jesus actually ever lived a perfect life (which is another ridiculous concept) there would still be no logic to this concept. It's about as silly as the old Jewish custom of sacrificing an "unblemished" lamb, as tho such an action could in any way atone for any "sin" unblemished or not.
Of course, religionists are pretty short on logic. Faith and logic do not co-exist very well. So, for people of "faith" this concept makes good sense. And the more faith one has, the more sense it makes. When one has no good sense then anything can make sense.
The whole Jesus story never made any sense to me as a 5 year-old, nor does nit now, as a 50 year-old.
We accepted, obeyed, and believed because the mysthology has been pounded into our heads as truth all our lives.
Nor was I ever impressed with Jesus fasting 40 days w/o food & water, and surviving the ordeal. Or that the alleged temptation was a temptation at all. (My minister never could answer that one, either). Or that he resurrected on the third day, but there wasn't a single witness to the event. And that if you look at the three-year ministry, one would have expected a little more if he was truly God.
There's a reason why people really don't talk about Jesus very much. There's not a whole lot to say.
One of the many many difficulties with this topic is the bias established by Herbert Armstrong. At no time have I ever experienced any of the various churches of gods actually rendering any sort of understanding or even a belief of a personal God as the Father or as Jesus as a brother.
Here is what it has been like for me: The teachings and preachments of all the church of gods is one of a Big Powerful Creator God who is distant and unavailable -- sort of a deadbeat dad that nobody ever gets around to talking about. He's often arbitrary and vindictive, but we're supposed to respect Him, not unlike an alcoholic father in a totally dysfunctional family.
Jesus is a true son of his Father in this scenario of Armstrongism: A candidate of Alanon, having flashes of humanity, and certainly being brilliant enough to gainsay to hypocrites of his own time, but having flashes of vengeance manifesting themselves as one who grew up in the shadow of his Father while being emotionally abandoned. Nevertheless, he's the shining example to his brothers and sisters, and Dad, as is typical of the emotionally unavailable and often absent Dad, proclaims how proud He is of His son while not doing all that much for him, as He's off doing Himself knows what. Jesus comes off as someone with a splintered personality, loving at times and being harsh and critical at other times -- just as one would expect from such a dysfunctional family arrangement.
If all this sounds familiar, it should: This was the same arrangement that Herbert Armstrong had with his son, Garner Ted Armstrong and the other family members. The magic of Herbert Armstrong seems to be that he managed to expand the dysfunction beyond the borders of his own family and managed to screw up the rest of us. This is my belief anyway.
With such a biased skewed, totally distorted perception of who and what God and Jesus are / were, it is unlikely that any of us could actually divine the true nature of God The Father and Jesus Christ, even if they do exist -- which, given the dysfunction of the entire Armstrongist movement has certainly utterly destroyed and undermined the faith of all of us to one degree or another. There hasn't been one minister I could ever look to, to be sane and reasonable to set the kind of example which would lend any sort of understanding of God as a loving Father whose mercy never fails, is ever present and looking out for our welfare and entirely available emotionally, mentally and spiritually 24 by 7. The God worthy of the praise of Psalms simply never existed for those in the church of gods. It's more like dear old Dad is going to give us a beating when and if He ever gets around to coming home -- which He seldom does. Inquiries go unheeded: The common thread is, "Where is He?".
The environment of the churches of gods is one which is entirely sterile.
So when it comes down to it, the churches of gods are totally useless and the ministry is worthless if we really do want to seek God while He may still be found and want His Will in our lives. We're on our own. The only thing we were ever useful for was to be a cash machine and narcissistic sources for a series of petty dysfunctional despots [many of whom were alcoholics in their own right] seeking to be gods in their own right -- after the pattern that learned at Ambassador College as being members of a paramilitary organization with no basis in reality whatsoever, except as the one of a drunken sot manic spendthrift arbitrary shortsighted "leader".
Of course, there is a huge problem sorting all this out and it takes awhile. For those who truly seek the truth and want to know God as The Father [if that is the truth] are going to have to realize that we have been the victims of fiction fantasy and abandon the sick dysfunctional environment. Learning how "normal" loving families actually work is going to be a struggle after being subjected to an onslaught of craziness for decades.
It's much more than a healing process. It's taking hold of your own life and stop having others run [the "I" turns run into ruin] or affairs for us, telling us to pay and pray and stay faithful to your particular Gulag of insanity. It's accepting the fact that the ministers can't help you know God as the Loving Father whose mercy never fails because they don't know God and never did. It's a matter of developing personal experience one on one with God with anecdotal experiences in your life filled with miracles and interventions on your behalf -- not that we necessarily ever deserve them, but because it is the loving and kind thing for God to do, to deliver us from impossible situations while building the character in us to do as much as we can on our own.
Confidential to the ministry with very low graphoria:
It's the teaching of the immortality of the soul, not the immorality of the soul you moron.
If you really want people to take your take of the Calendar seriously, you're going to have to be more careful in your verbal and written communications. Just being an "authority" isn't going to cut it: Given your painfully stupid guffaws, it's unlikely the alert will pay any attention to you at all, so stop with the critical preachments of "Synchretism" and fix your own problems.
Oh, never mind: You'll disappear from the scene in just a few scant more years anyway, so just forget it!
How does the death of Jesus Christ pay for the sins of mankind? This is what the bible teaches, but it is difficult for the human mind to comprehend how the death of one human being would serve as payment for the sins of many.
I will not go through the many theories presented to resolve this question, but want to focus on an issue that is not often considered. The bible reveals that death is the result of one man’s disobedience and while all people die it is because of Adam’s disobedience and not the due to personal sinfulness. This doesn’t mean there are people who have not sinned, but it means the human race is destined to die whether they have sinned or not. This has led to the belief in the depravity of human nature. While this is true in one sense it falls short of solving the problem. The reason is that believing we sin because of our sinful nature removes the personal responsibility for sins. It also clouds the issue of the death of one man who was perfect in obedient paying for the sins of the whole human race.
The bible teaches there is a resurrection of the dead, but what it teaches about this resurrection may not be connected to sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. Remember that Adam’s rebellion resulted in the whole human race being expelled from the Garden of Eden and the tree of life. The biblical story reveals the need for a mediator who can restore the relationship that had been broken by Adam’s disobedience. The NT story reveals that God prepare a second Adam to serve this purpose. The fact that Jesus Christ was resurrected reinforces the biblical promise of a future resurrection, but how does the resurrection contribute to Jesus being the payment (or ransom) for the sins of many?
Remember NT story is that Jesus Christ came into human existence with a preordained purpose. He was the product of a special birth and was obedient to God in every way and without sin. The bible refers to Jesus as the lamb created to fulfill the sacrificial role he was born to fulfill. We do not need to resolve all the questions regarding the origin of Jesus Christ and the subject of preexistence to understand the simplicity of the second Adam’s role in freeing the human race from the bondage of sin and restoring a connection with God and the tree of life.
What we need to recognize is that a resurrection is necessary if there is any hope of life after this life has ended in death. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was not the resuscitation of the old body, but a resurrection to a new type of body even though it bore some of the old scars for identity. It was referred to as a spiritual body, which indicates that it was energized by something different than the blood that energizes those who experience this present existence. The bible applies resurrection to those resurrected to a human life that will experience death, but it also reveals there are those who will experience a resurrection to a body that will not die. I will not go into all the details, but want to point out that Jesus will never again have a body subject to death like the one he took to the grave. It was his willingness to suffer death even though he was sinless that made him a sacrifice acceptable to God in restoring the relationship broken by Adam’s disobedience.
I believe we can see that the bible addresses these questions in a way that gives hope for the whole human race, but if we choose not to believe what it presents we are left facing death and an uncertainty about any future existence.
Bert
Yes, If Jesus merely "sacrificed" a human existence - where is the sacrifice?
A horrible death, no doubt, but no worse than some others and not near as horrible as being skinned alive (as some Christians did to extract confessions from innocent people) or burned at the stake after weeks of torture.
So he died violently because of his religion, a lot of people do (like 6 million Jews), but they aren't considered to be sacrifices covering the sins of others.
In fact, fathers and sons can't die for each other's sins, only for their own sins.
Deu 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
So, whose sins did Jesus die for? His father Adam's? Or, his follower's (sons)? Either way, it was against the Law.
And, if Jesus was "god" (which he wasn't) and died for his followers (which is impossible since god is immortal and cannot die) then where is the justice? Because it was Adam who was sentenced to die, not God.
There is no way to make any of it make sense.
Then there is the idea that Jesus was the antitypical Passover lamb. Okay, did the Passover lamb come back to life? Heck no, they ate it and turned it to poop.
The whole "sacrifice" thing is just a bunch of leftover barbaric and savage blood letting Jewish rituals that had to be answered in some pious way. The truth is, all nations on earth made sacrifices to their gods (some still do) and is just a barbaric leftover from ancient and savage man.
I believe there were many people in the old WCG who saw HWA as a representation of the Father and GTA as a representation of Christ. I believe that this was a clever and image-based way to deepen deception about the real Father and Christ. Armstrongism was carefully designed and engineered.
There is no logic about why Christ died for our sins. It was an act of love and love often does not make sense. (If I were a Darwinist, I would argue fervently for the eradication of love because if really messes with natural selection.)
Christ's sacrifice was substitutionary. Armstrongites are fond of saying that Christ's sacrifice could cover all of us because Christ was worth more than all of us. But that is anal retentive, quantitative measurement Armstrongism. It clouds and perhaps even erases the direct personal connection that we are intended to understand between ourselves and Christ.
Christ's sacrifice covers our sins because God said it did.
Be glad.
-- Neo
Dennis and all:
Me thinketh that you make a leap in assumption in saying that it was a "long weekend" for God.
Time is relative said Einstein. God is said to be light. At the speed of light, time as we know it , no longer functions.
For us humans, stuck here on Earth, it was just 72 hours, or as you stated , a long weekend. For God, the entire event could have been "stretched" so that each agonizing "frame" could have been an eternity relative to him. Or God could have pressed the "fast forward button" and have it all end in a Nano-Second. Perhaps it was both. Perhaps he constantly must experience it forever in a sense, always in that moment in time.
Yes, a long weekend for us, but how long for God? A tough question for us to answer stuck where we are in the space/time continium.
Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA
"Christ's sacrifice covers our sins because God said it did."
That's the story anyway.
In earlier history regarding God and humanity, God was totally against those who sacrified their children. It makes no sense for Him to do such a thing as sacrifice his child.
So there you have just another contradiction in the big book.
This story came together in pieces hundreds of years before we were born. Knowing that God is good and fair, He would never hold us accountable for stories made up and changed throughout the ages.
I expect we will not learn the truth or the details in our lifetime, but even without being able to go back and decipher the beginning of languages and history of writing, we still know right from wrong. There is only a problem if we think there is some perfection in the story as handed down.
If we can believe any of the book and story, God forgave sin long before the book was compiled, so He can forgive/save humanity at His own will without any formula.
The trickery of symbolism and numerology had a huge part in how the story shakes out, along with power of some men over others.
I believe there were many people in the old WCG who saw HWA as a representation of the Father and GTA as a representation of Christ. I believe that this was a clever and image-based way to deepen deception about the real Father and Christ.
Yes, Neotherm, complicated by the fact that Herbert Armstrong held his son, Richard David, in much higher regard. This did nothing to help GTA with his insecurity. If RDA had survived, would the landscape have been much different?
As for Armstrongism being planned, well, while I have a very high regard for you and your comments, I couldn't disagree more. Herbert Armstrong may have been a master manipulator, but he was very short sighted. He sort of blundered around, trying this and that, what with his directionless spending of money arbitrarily. He had a vision but he never really had much of a plan, waiting as it were for opportunities to manipulate to his own advantage.
This is fairly well documented in the Ambassador Report, particularly with the description of the flow of tithes and offerings. Herbert Armstrong was terrible at managing money and had to have Stanley Raider take his cardboard box of stuff and put it into filing cabinets. He had to call on brethren through coworker letters when he overspent and things looked like disaster looming.
Visionaries really should watch where they step. Looking too far ahead to the future is an excellent excuse for not living in the present. Armstrongists should have learned from this: By being so future oriented, they have not done the things to make their lives sustainable in the here and now.
Dennis:
You want other than snarky responses - given your cosmological view of deities, can you guarantee a non-snarky article when you finally publish it?
That is, if I give you my views, do they get treated with respect?
Just Askin'
All of this back-and-forthing gets away from the original topic, which is:
What is Dennis' client supposed to say to her allegedly christian brethren, who are telling her to just suck up the fact that she's lost her only child, because god did too, and his pain was worse than hers?
They are, in a very real sense, telling her to deny her own pain. That isn't healthy, and certainly would not be required of her, by a truly loving god. It is not the god who is demanding this, as always, it is the people who say they have the inside track on the god, or this god in particular.
The answer depends on whether or not the mother, intrinsically, believes what her brethren are telling her, and wishes to accept it, or if she is kicking and screaming at the sheer injustice of her supposed friends even suggesting such a horrendous thing.
If she is turning to Dennis to resolve the conflict she feels over not being able to accept what her fellow church-goers are telling her, then the bottom line is that she wants to be lied to. She wants to put the pain away for a little bit. That's understandable. It's human.
If she really is starting to question her beliefs, and those of her church, with an open mind then the answers here, ranging the spectrum, should be helpful to her in making the effort to think for herself.
What to tell her brethren? Until they have experienced her experience, of the death of her child, through her eyes, they have no right to make such pronouncements as to how she is or is not supposed to handle it.
There's a scripture about splinters, beams and motes, that I won't get into here, but it might be a useful quote for your client to use on her so-called brethren, Dennis. :-)
PurpleHymnal,
I concur with what you say with one caveat: After dealing with the current pain of loss, it may well be time to take a hard look at the "friends" who are all miserable comforters. Is that the real issue?
If it is the real issue, then it is high time to take one of two approaches:
1) Teach the "friends" at church how to offer their support and condolences in a meaningful or appropriate manner or;
2) Find friends that do.
To tell someone who has suffered loss that "someone had it worse" is a terribly cruel approach and is not just unproductive but damaging. A vulnerable person isn't going to tell others to "go stuff it", but as near as I can tell, it's the most intelligent, reasonable and logical response to give, notwithstanding the counter response of "What's with her?!". And if you have to explain it, the "friends" are too dense to be of any worth anyway, unless they are willing to learn how to do it right.
Dennis, This is off your topic a bit but it still may have some relevance to your overall theme.
I should preface this for any that aren't familiar with me that I am a believer...
With that said I, even as a kid wondered why the 'Temptation' of Christ by Satan was really any kind of temptation at all. Satan's best offer was only the kindgoms of the earth!!! Big f'ing deal if you are the son of God, you have the entire universe as well as whatever lies beyond that. How could the kingdoms of the earth offer any *real* temptation???? I find that to be a hard question.
To be quite honest. I never really gave the sacrifice much thought as a 'hard' question. It wasn't so much that Jesus would have only been dead for three days and then raised up, to me the sacrifice on the part of God is that he would allow himself to suffer at the hands of men, for our benefit. To me that was and is the price that was paid. Death and ressurection, not to minimize it, were nothing in comparison.
Anyhoow it was the "temptation" that stuck with from a kid to this very day.
I find that some want a dead Jesus to show that the sacrifice was real, but then they would not believe that it took place. Some don't respond well to things like how is it that the sun and moon are the same apparent size. Just one of many reasons why I'm a believer.
It's God's house. She/He/It made the rules. Is there is a forensic, scientific answer for Dennis?
Does there need to be?
Great question Dennis. I have never agreed with what Christianity, including the Church of God, teaches, or sort of implies with their explanation of most aspects of this sacrifice.
While most of the responses have been very good and thoughtful I think Byker Bob, Mel, and Corky posted with the most thoughtful and useful comments, from my perspective.
Without going to long on this, here are my thoughts.
I think it was Mel that made the comment about God producing a defective product....I believe that is exactly right. God's plan is much more thoughtful and long range than any of us can really comprehend; and much more complex. God always lives in reality. He does not play games and he is not into "pretend." (although when he does play games I think he has more fun than we do--smile)
I believe his plan was always to create beings that are very defective. He was not surprised at all with the first man and woman. Their sin was a given for God.
This creating defective beings is a major component of free will and developing character. If one has never thought deeply about how character is developed one might have difficulty with accepting the idea that God would create defective beings. The scripture about "and it was very good" is used to prove God did not create humans defective, evil, etc. This, from my perspective, is shallow thinking. That is exactly how God created us, and he did it, apparently, knowing that was, essentially, (you'll understand my using essentially when reading my conclusion) the only way to create beings with our potential, with true free will and the potential for righteous character. These attributes are all extremely complex to create.
I will skip ahead to try and condense.
His plan included a savior. God must always be righteous. In some way, for some reason (and perhaps this is your real question, Dennis)God has determined that when there is sin there must be a sacrifice for that sin. I don't claim to fully understand this concept. It is beyond me in many ways. But, although God is love, merciful, wise, etc. he is also righteous. Being righteous he cannot allow sin to simply go without some sort of penalty. If we think about this it makes perfect sense. Being righteous requires right judgement, and fairness.
The Book, and common sense, tells us life is in the blood, at least for physical beings. So this "blood thing" is directly related to what God considers needed to make things right, to make things righteous.
As several indicated, and I thought the ice cream cone analogy was the best, we really can't understand this at a very deep level.
One or two alluded to the pre-existence of Christ. A bit of a side issue but I don't believe Christ pre-existed. Stay with me.
Christ is the second Adam. He came into existence when he was conceived in Mary's womb. Although a unique man, he was a man. He was the promised messiah. He was tempted in all things like we are but without sin.
How was he able to live without sin? And I think, as a few mentioned, this was perhaps a bigger part of the sacrifice than the actual crucifixion. The blood sacrifice was needed, I believe,for the reasons mentioned above. The Messiah also had to live a sinless life. Again, apparently this goes back to what God has determined in order to be righteous. God must always be righteous.
I think Christ's most poignant moments were in the garden the night before he was crucified. I don't think he was asking the Father-- if there is some other way to do this....
Christ knew most, if not all, the details about his crucifixion. He knew it would be extremely difficult to go through all this....without sinning. Christ knew the destiny of eternity was on his shoulders. Christ knew he could not allow God to be a liar.
And, he was fully human. If he was not fully human, God was just playing a game.
In the garden Christ was asking for some help. I think the Father had planned,and Christ probably knew, for Christ to go through this without any supernatural help. We know Christ always had supernatural help, in one sense, having God's spirit in a way no man had ever had. I think, after Chirst's third request for this supernatural help, the Father decided to give it to him, with the angels coming to minister to him.
I don't think this decision of the Father to give him this supernatural help was an easy one for him. I say this because it goes back to the concept of free will and developing character.
This leads to the question, since Christ was a man, the unique agent of God to be the Messiah, and yet not created defective, how was he able to develop character, how did he have free will?
In other words, why didn't God create all of us like he created Christ? (I know most in the churches of God believe my doctrinal stance is heretical)
For me, this is a much tougher question. My inclination is to say....I really don't know.
In creating Christ as the "second Adam" God created him as another type of being. That is, a man but a man with a different nature than other humans. And that is the new creature Christians should be working towards. It can only be done through God's spirit. It can only start with the Father calling and opening a persons mind. It cannot begin without that.
So in one sense, in attempting an answer to my question above, I think we are developing character, having true free will, by the same process Christ went through. I don't think we can really understand the sacrifice Christ made in living a sinless life. This sinless life was not a "cake-walk." We really don't, we really can't understand living a sinless life. Most Christians have a very shallow concept of what sin is.
So I believe the sinless life was the bigger part of the sacrifice. The blood sacrifice was what God deemed necessary for the reasons mentioned above.
To conclude with what I consider a very glorious thought. (again considered heresy) As I have mentioned on this blog before, I tend, tend, to believe in universal salvation. I believe God is way smarter than us.
Jim
Just have to disagree with this idea that God created humanity as defective beings.
He created us perfectly according to plan, with the option of choice and the ability to learn from the good or the bad choices made.
Evenutally this leads to our having the mind of God and ultimately perfection.
I am not sure what is being said here about the pre-existence of Christ. He did pre-exist in spirit as the Logos. The person of the Son was a new type of being, fully God and fully man. But since God is not constrained by time, I am not sure how all this happened.
When I stated earlier that Armstrongism was carefully designed and engineered, I did not mean to imply that the designing and engineering was done by HWA. HWA was just a convenient tool.
God condemned child sacrifice because if was wrong in many dimensions. But one aspect that stands out is that it made a mockery of what he intended to accomplish through Jesus. God has the right to make these decisions, human logic notwithstanding.
-- Neo
Fully God and Fully man does not compute.
Fully God = 100%
Fully man = 100%
______________________
total 200% makes 2
Its another story repeated so many time people believe it.
The idea that forgiveness was not available is along the same lines that the Holy Spirit was not available to anyone until the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
That makes another contridiction in the big book where we can read that David prayed to God, "Please don't take thy spirit from me".
The reason I believe that Christ existed in another form earlier comes from the book of Job where it tells of the sons of God like Michael, Gabriel, The Great Angel, etc. Personally, I believe that Messiah had been The Great Angel - the one who spoke for God at Sinai and may have wrestled with Jacob.
When I stated earlier that Armstrongism was carefully designed and engineered, I did not mean to imply that the designing and engineering was done by HWA. HWA was just a convenient tool.
Ah, got it. Thank you.
"A very hard question indeed."
Nope, for Jesus, if he even existed, did not rise from the dead over the weekend. It's a religious myth.
Paul
Just Askin' said...
Dennis:
You want other than snarky responses - given your cosmological view of deities, can you guarantee a non-snarky article when you finally publish it?
That is, if I give you my views, do they get treated with respect?
Just Askin'
I'm actually interested in the perspectives of this group more than even writing an article. It's a sincere question based on the practical fact that much Church encouragement is NOT very encouraging to those in real pain. She also said "If one more person tells me God won't give me more than I can bear, I will quit."
Most Christians are not good at encouragment in real life crisis. We all tend to reach for an idea that the person will grasp and feel better. But they don't feel better. Life is never the same.
EVERY couple who lost a child in my congregations who lost a child eventually left the church quoting failed promises in the Bible of protection,blessing etc....It's just how it works , to me, in many churches if not all.
I never ask an insincere question even if I don't agree with the responses. My personal view doesn't even reguire I figure out an answer to this as I have bigger questions about the entire topic of Biblical origins and just who or what Jesus really was if he was.
"The bible reveals that death is the result of one man’s disobedience and while all people die it is because of Adam’s disobedience and not the due to personal sinfulness. This doesn’t mean there are people who have not sinned, but it means the human race is destined to die whether they have sinned or not."
What if the story of Adam and Eve is really just mythology and never happened? Original sin certainly goes out the window. I personally find the fact that it's mythology to be true. Humans have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years as science informs those who wish to see it.
You should try coming up with a harder question than this. The penalty of sin is death. We die because of our sins. But because of what Christ did we will all be resurrected (some to life, some back to death). The reason it was such a big deal for Jesus was not the fact that He would die, but that in order for him to die He would have to take on all of mankind's despicable sins. This is no small task for someone who has known no sin. Think of the worst sin any human has performed, then know that Jesus felt that one.
"Most Christians are not good at encouragment in real life crisis. We all tend to reach for an idea that the person will grasp and feel better. But they don't feel better. Life is never the same."
Twelve years ago, our oldest son committed suicide.
The wcg minister and his wife who came to 'comfort' us, got into an argument in front of my husband and me, regarding whether or not suicide was a selfish act.
Our Southern Baptist neighbor, who himself had a lost a son in a car accident, told us our son's death might be a good thing because he might have contracted a terminal illness later in life, resulting in great pain for us.
Regarding your client, Dennis, I think she is right on - it was no sacrifice at all, for either the father or the son...of course, I also believe the father and the son are imaginary...just like all the other gods that humans have invented.
Isn’t the basic ‘mystery’ of Christ’s sacrifice that God rates the violation of His own law as such a serious issue that a serious penalty had to be inflicted.
However if the penalty of death was justly inflicted on those that violated His law, there would be no way they could be reconciled and made at one with their Creator.
God reconciled justice and mercy by inflicting the penalty for the sins of His creation upon Himself, through Jesus Christ. God needed to allow evil to exist, as He gave us free will, but He then allowed an incredible amount of pain from this evil to directly hit Himself following his creations’ choices.
This surely shows God’s love to mankind.
Can you imagine the impact this act must have had on the angels, and other beings on a spiritual plain? They KNEW who Christ was, and there he was, voluntary allowing himself to suffer and die at the hands of his creation.
Why Does Human Sacrifice Make Everything Better?
Christians are often known to speak of the sacrifice of Jesus as essential for our salvation. I grew up with "Jesus DIED for my sins." I was not pointed to his perfect life but to his terrible death, thus the original question.
Actually I have no idea if Jesus lived a perfect life of no sin. I didn't read his thoughts. He did treat Mary badly several times and disrespected his parents as well. Were they sins or not? That Jesus lived a PERFECT life and thus is why he is the only sacrfice is hearsay. I know it's difficult for most to get past, "but the Bible says," however that it says it is so does not make it so in fact.
If Jesus had a fully human part (that's an oxymoron) along with fully god, then the fully human part sinned or he was not fully human. He was fully human in a way other humans aren't and its all doubletalk.
“Without the blood of Christ, there can be no remission of sin.”
What they can’t seem to answer is why not?
When this religion was born, people probably didn’t ask this question. It seemed to be taken for granted by so many religions at the time that the gods enjoy having blood spilled upon their altars.
Jewish traditions, as reflected in the Old Testament, often involved making animal sacrifices to appease the wrath of Yahweh or to gain his favor. Other ancient traditions all across the globe shared this practice of human or animal sacrifices as part of their religious rituals. No one ever seemed to question why such slaughter might be beneficial to the gods or how exactly it pleases them.
Given such a paradigm, that blood sacrifices make everything better, it makes sense that the way to take the traditions of the Old Testament of animal sacrifices to the next level would be a human sacrifice.
Forgiveness is really a decision that needs no ritual to make it so... right?
We are capable of forgiving others without killing our own sons. Why should we think that we are better able to forgive than God?
Does not forgiveness occur when the decision to forgive is made? If God had a plan to forgive mortals, then it was already done. Why is there the need to go through with the bloody ritual? And then when doing it, be one of the only grand sacrfices performed where the sacrifice doesn't stay dead leaving a doubt as to why it is such a grand sacrifice to begin with?
If God the Father had to mourn the loss of his only begotten son who was NOT coming back EVER and really gave it all for others and excluded himself..now that's a sacrifice we can understand. It seems.
It really doesn't take the shedding of blood to forgive sins in our world. It takes, "I forgive you."
Is this too easy a way for a God to behave or too simplistic an example to set for humans that it has to be blood and guts or nothing?
Of course the answer is, "well it didn't happen that way so however it did happen is the way it has to happen." That's still not an answer to me and really I am not looking for "the answer" It just good to stretch the mind a bit on thing theological since these concepts are used daily to control the literal behavior of millions
Anon. said :
The whole Jesus story never made any sense to me as a 5 year-old, nor does nit now, as a 50 year-old.
Me neither, esp. with this 40 day fasting myth. Jack LaLane or Body by Jake would be dead inside of 10 days. And since Jesus was "fully human" (according to Neotherm, who continues to dodge my question about his god sending people to Hell) Jesus would be dead too!
Just try walking around any desert without any water for 10 days. Oh yeah. Food, maybe.
But wait, there's more! (as the religious info-mercials might say). Here comes the Devil, tempting Jesus with what? Bread?? How in the hell are you going to swallow bread when your throat is stuck shut due to dehydration. Excuse me, but as Sam Kinneson might have said about those people needing lugg