Christ was fully human and he suffered

Faith & Science Conversation
21

So you reject Matthew’s Gospel then.

And this would seem to be some sort of rant or criticism?

Rejects the Trinity that you seem to be attacking.

God so loved the world…?

There seems to be a lot of angst and anger in your post? Perhaps you would like to explain why?

Richard

22

Is there any need for human culpability if God did it freely? Aren’t you missing the point?

Richard

23

I am stating a fact that Christ was crucified by human beings. I cannot see your point, if you have one to make.

24

And I am asking so what? Would you prefer Him to have committed suicide? There are some who claim Holy week was self-destructive anyway.
Perhaps it would be better to see why He was killed by humans? What it was that deserved it? Claiming to be God perhaps? (Though rarely blatantly) Or just being a pain in the side of the authorities! Disturbing the peace and the status (un)quo.

There are some dynamics here that seem to get missed. Before He could be killed Christ had to be known. The death of a heretic is of little consequence. It took three years to reach the fame or notoriety to make Easter both possible and memorable. If Christ had been seen as divine then there would be no point in trying to kill him (Mark’s Gospel). If Christ had no relevance to Judaism then His mission was pointless (Matthew’s Gospel). If Christ had no relevance to Gentiles then His actions were of limited value (Luke and Paul) If Christ had not actually revealed His divinity then we are left with a human sacrifice (John’s Gospel)

The Bible is there for a reason, and so are the different Gospels.

Richard

1 Like
25

Dunno what Richard says. But He made them.

26

If we have a disagreement, I cannot find it. I have summarized the way people reacted to Christ as outcomes of carnal human nature, and you give some detail of this. My point is that Christ was human and yet without sin, so that he presented to us the nature we should aspire, and the faith in Christ teaches us that is part of the Gospel message, that Christ is our savior.

If you are making another point, I would appreciate a clearer statement.

27

Do you think that is a plausible aspiration? Even with Christ?

All I am saying is that faith has to have a practical element. There is no point in doctrine or theology if all it does is cast a burden on society and condemn it. We can discuss the inner workings and tease out the details as much as we like but they have little value to the common person. all they want to know is how to live their lives without guilt or worry and in a manner that is socially (and maybe spiritually) acceptable. SIn, death, and Hell are destructive concepts. The time of Hell and damnation sermons is long past. People don’t want or need to know the gory details or be frightened into believing. They want assurance of existence, especially of loved ones past or dying, and they want some sort of compass to live by. Christianity is life without the straight jacket of ritual and service. They accept responsibility as long as it is not coerced or imposed. They want to choose and for it to be a clear choice not a Hobson’s or worse. Universal sin is no longer PC.

Richard

28

My impression of the events is he purposely provoked the pharasies calling them vipers, sons of satan, having the keys to the kingdom but not entering and worse keeping everyone else out. Not doing their job. Where God made sure they would fight back noting Jesus’ claim that all His words are not His, but what the Father has told him…

29

IMO, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified because:

  • Source: Wisdom of Solomon
    • 1:15. For righteousness is immortal.
    • 1:16. But ungodly men by their words and deeds summoned death; considering him a friend, they pined away, and they made a covenant with him, because they are fit to belong to his party.
    • 2:11. But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.
    • 2:12. Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training.
    • 2:13. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord.
    • 2:14. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
    • 2:15. the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange.
    • 2:16. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father.
    • 2:17. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
    • 2:18. for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
    • 2:19. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance.
    • 2:20. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected."
    • 2:21. Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them,
    • 2:22. and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness,
      nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
    • 2:23. for God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity,
    • 2:24. but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it.
    • 3:1. But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them.
    • 3:2. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction,
    • 3:3. and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.
    • 3:4. For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality.
    • 3:5. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
    • 3:6. like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
    • 3:7. In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble.
    • 3:8. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them for ever.
    • 3:9. Those who trust in him will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love, because grace and mercy are upon his elect, and he watches over his holy ones.

In his life on earth and his death on the cross, our incarnate God underwent an experience which stops the mouth of anyone who wants to say: “But God does not know what it is like to be human.”

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30

Indeed.

I believe there was a discussion in one topic about making us in His image. This rings true as it is the same promise in Christian cannons.
Concluding one part of being made in His image is being eternal.
thanks

Suggesting another way to name pride as the first sin.

I will have to assume the ‘torment’ being described is from the wicked as described. And if they try, then we get into the armor of God discussion.

All things are in Him, and He is in all things knowing both innocence and wickedness through the eyes of His children. Where is awe and wonderment, surprise followed by laughter except in us. I even dare say God is living through the eyes of His children and we are the Life of our Father.

Thanks for sharing.

2 Likes
31

Also nice topical selections Terry, it read well. Was that you?

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32

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition
My selections.

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33

Didn’t Jesus say, in His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, that it was for this hour that He came into the world? That does sound like a plan…as well as inevitable.

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34

Your point is full of rhetoric stuffed with vacuously pious metaphor upon metaphor. The point, if Jesus was God incarnate, for which His death-resurrection is the only warrant, is none of that. The point is that: Jesus’ death-resurrection is the warrant for God. Period. For Love transcendent rampant. Competent. For all being well for all.

35

An interesting, if unhelpful question. If Peter, James, and John fell asleep, who heard what Jesus prayed?

There were no videos or mobile phones to record with. There was not a scribe or stenographer to write down every word that Jesus spoke. No newspapers or investigative reporters and no editor to double check or verify facts. Gospels do not conform to any form of literature be it journalism or historical record

Having said that, it seems clear from how Jesus is portrayed across all the Gospels that He knew His path. The Garden of Gethsemane shows the humanity we need to see in Christ. In theory, He not only knew about His death but also His resurrection. As such he could have been cold and calculating and lacking all human emotion, but for it to matter He had to really live it. It is called “The Passion” for a reason.

Part of the reason for Christ coming to earth is to demonstrate empathy and understanding of the human life (including suffering and death).as well as sovereignty over all of it.

There is still faith in Christianity that supercedes the written words of the bible. The bible is the start, not the end of understanding.

Richard

36

Jesus. . . . .

37

Funny? I didn’t know that He had written one of the Gospels.

Richard

38

WEll…good thoughts. But my question was not unhelpful given the comment I was responding to. Jesus did say, in the Gospels, “Could you men n ot keep watch with me for one hour?” He said this to Peter — who must have been awakened by Jesus (Matthew 26:41) and then told them to “watch and pray…” v 42…Elsewhere He said “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Luke 22:46) That remark is also in Mark and in similar form in Matthew. They were asleep and then they awoke briefly, evidently when prodded by Jesus…and probably heard bits and pieces of His prayers to God before falling asleep again…It happens that way with you and me as well at times.

BUT…I was addressing something else that was quoted at the top of this blog. The comment included the quote:

Well, then, did the Father want Jesus to be crucified? And, if so, why? The answer as I see it is again: No. The mission of Jesus from the Father is not the mission to be crucified; what the Father wishes is that Jesus should be human

The comment seems to be by someone who concluded that “as the writer saw it” the Father did not want Jesus to be crucified…This remark seems to upend – or forget – a whole boatload of biblical theology … about a range of things from sin to forgiveness for sin to the need for an atonement for sin to the point of the whole Old Testament temple sacrificial system ( which pointed to our need for a Savior and also to the reality that human sin is serious business and that there has to be consequences, and serious enough that those consequences necessitated the shedding of blood --and not just “any” shedding of blood …etc …etc…) and ultimately the sacrificial system ended with the coming of “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (read John the Baptist’s remarks)…

And what did Jesus know and when did He know it? What did the Father want or not want? The quote from McCabe [was this Joseph McCabe, by chance?] asserts that “the Father did not want Jesus to be crucified” and that Jesus’ mission was to “be human.” [see McCabe not me].

But Jesus said in His prayer “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (John 12: 27)

And now that I look into it…this statement by Jesus, in prayer, was NOT at Gethsemane (although who knows what He said when the three men were asleep?) …This statement was made during prayer and in front of a crowd, likely after raising Lazarus from the dead and at or before the day when He rode a donkey into the city —that is, the week before His crucifixion.

So I stand corrected on the sequence of events.

39

No. Good plans have contingencies and Jesus prayer in the garden does not at all sound like that part was inevitable.

BUT, by the end of that prayer in the garden Jesus concludes that this is the will of the Father.

Yeah that just makes me laugh… Jesus was human. It is strange to call that a mission. If we want His mission then I would suggest looking to Jesus words on the matter…

John 10:10 “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”

John 18:37 for this cause came I into the world , that I should bear witness unto the truth.

and people must have their sacrifices… this speaks more to what people wanted rather than what God wanted. So they shouted “crucify Him!” and Pilate washed his hands of it.

40

That was never my intention.

The Gospels go out of their way to include Jewish Scripture in the pathway laid out for Christ. And Christ knew Scripture better than anyone. However there is a perceived gap between the Father and sone while Christ was on earth. Maybe due to the limited capacity of the human brain, or maybe just a necesary dynamiic for God in human form. Perhaps, sometimes we try and fathom too much. Perhaps we should just stick to

God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son.

And stop before all this talk about judgement because that is also part of the text.

God did not send His Son to be its judge, but to be its saviour.

Richard