Thanks.
Our modern cultural conception of it doesn’t.
No gnashing of teeth or wailing?
And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.
“All of this is wrong. God does not demand or require blood to redeem us. God neither inflicts violence nor desires suffering in order to set the divine–human relation right. In spite of its pervasiveness in Christian imagery, the cost of communion, of reconciliation and redemption, is not blood and suffering.” Bell
How can any of us be offended by the bloody sacrifice of the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world? The precious bloody Lamb that redeems us? The bloody Lamb of the New Covenant that Jesus is the mediator of. The bloody Lamb that is our Passover Lamb. The bloody Lamb that washes white the robes of those in Heaven. The blood of the Lamb that causes us to overcome sin, flesh and the world. And Look, there is a bloody Lamb who was sacrificed to redeem us from sin, that sits on the Father’s throne. And let’s not forget the bloody Lamb that just like his Father is filled with wrath.
Obviously, God approves of the blood sacrifice of the Lamb of God.
John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
Jesus did not shy away from the blood sacrifice of the Lamb.
Luke 22:7 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”
Paul thru the Spirit of God recognized Jesus as the bloody sacrificed Lamb of God.
1 Cor 5:7 For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Peter understood that Jesus redeemed us with the precious flood of the Lamb.
1 Peter 1:18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
In Heaven there are those who washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Rev 7:14 "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
We overcome this world by the blood of the Lamb.
Rev 12:11They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony;
It is the bloody Lamb that is seated with God on His thrown
Rev 22:3 The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.
People will be in terror because of the wrath of the Father and bloody Lamb.
Rev 6:16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”.
Oh the foolishness of the wisdom of man, that rejects the wise justice, mercy and grace that is shown towards us through the bloody sacrifice of the Lamb of God on His cross that takes away the sins of the world.
We are all aware of what the Bible says Cody. Quoting the passages over and over will not change the fact that we understand them differently.
We say this is NOT indulgences for sin, NOT blood magic (like some power of human sacrifice), NOT a God who likes to torture people and you keep quoting the Bible which does not say any of these things as if they somehow prove us wrong. But these words are NOT in the Bible. So your objection to our refusal to believe in such things does not come from the Bible.
Indulgences means getting a free pass on our sins, and we do not believe these passage of the Bible mean anything of the sort. It is about changing us so that we stop behaving in such a self-destructive manner.
Blood magic is this idea that you can accomplish mystical or spiritual things by the ritual killing of animals and/or people, and we do not believe these passages in the Bible mean anything of the sort. It is about getting us to face up to the dire consequences of our sins.
Nor does the Bible say that God likes to torture people. This does not mean there is no “gnashing of teeth”, “eternal torment”, or hell of some sort. And while there are some here who are universalists or endorse universal reconciliation, I am not one of them. I don’t think it is essential to Christianity either way. But in my judgement, Jesus supports such an idea and I think it is entirely possible that our choices can have eternal negative consequences even if they are not quite what fundamentalist damnationalists are pushing: something like… believe what we dictate or God is going to torture you for an eternity. Such mobster scare tactics are what I expect from the devil not from God.
Speaking of sinning against God, lèse-majesté, it occurs to me that denying his existence is may be the worst sin? Why should he not have the right to deny us our existence? And don’t we in effect deny his life when we do not respect his kingship and authority?
The Agnus Dei rescues us with his blood and resurrection.
Since mankind is a slave to sin as Paul states, no amount of trying to change ourselves through our own efforts is going to make us righteous before God. Mankind is a helpless slave to sin and the devil, the god of this age. They are too weak to break loose from their slave masters and there is no way possible for them to generate inside themselves the very nature of God by their hard work. Works, Works, Works can not save a man from sin, death and the devil. We needed absolute, unmerited favor (grace), power from the Almighty God to set us free. He had to do something that we could not.
If we could somehow die to sin, then we would be released from its power. But how am I going to die to the Law of Sin and Death that is in my flesh, just by saying no to it? That won’t work, just as Paul said, the things I don’t want to do I do because it is the Law of Sin and Death in my members. Who will deliver me from this master of Sin? JESUS! What obedience to the Law of Moses could not do, Jesus did by becoming mankind’s corporate head. He became us. He became sin. He died to sin and rose from death, not just the dead but spiritual death, what we were. It was fitting for the author of our salvation to become like us so that He could be a faithful high priest. When He became sin, and gave Himself over to death, God judged sin in Him, God condemned sin in the flesh. And when He stripped off powers and principalities and rose from death, He did what none of us could do. He delivered us from our absolute bondage to our old masters. We are saved by the grace, the unmerited favor of God.
We are saved by our faith, by placing all our confidence in Jesus and what He did through His cross. Saved by grace through faith.
The change we needed to stop being a slave of sin and to stop following sin, comes through our death to it by our union with Jesus in His death. There is no way you can free yourself by your willpower to do good for the sake of doing what’s right. You are dead, dead, dead in your sins. No LIFE in you. We had to die to sin and be raised up in the righteousness of God to be delivered, and only the Father could do that. We needed Eternal Life (the nature not the length). And He did it through the Son of Man. Grace! And from that gift of God’s grace, we now have been set free to live in victory over sin, to live by the righteousness of God in us. Not by our might or power or works, buy by God’s Spirit.
The cross of Jesus is where justice and mercy met. And where the grace of God overcame sin, the devil and spiritual death. And that is why all the glory and honor goes to Him who sets on the throne and unto the Lamb.
Let no one miss the grace of God. If righteousness could come through the law (obedience alone) then Christ died in vain. Righteousness is a gift from God.
Correct. The Christian gospel of salvation by the grace of God is that God must be the one who engineers these changes in us. God is the ONLY one who knows how. It is faith to put ourselves in His hands for this. In Matthew 19 answering his disciples question, “who then can be saved?” Jesus says “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
But that doesn’t mean we have to believe God accomplishes such things by necromancy and blood magic any more than we have to believe that Adam and Eve were golems of dust and bone.
Do you as Paul did, Glory in the cross of Christ alone?
I glory in GOD alone and certainly not in some theological dogma.
I certainly do not rejoice in the murder and torture of Jesus. I certainly do not love the idea of bathing in blood like some kind of vampire. But I do believe that Christ was not a victim even if those who betrayed and murdered Him were evil. He went to His death willingly for the restoration of God’s children.
Yes we have definite differences in our understanding of this stuff. But believing whatever you dictate is not some requirement of salvation.
1 Like
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth 19of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.…
I need power to comprehend the tremendous dimensions of God’s love, they are so enormous
Have you given much thought lately to how much He loves you, Mitch?
What Jesus reavealed to Paul caused Paul to know something that generated that statement. If you cant say that than you are lacking somehting that Jseus revealed to Paul that produced it.
Let that statement go through your thoughts over and over. Ask God why Paul would say that. Think it through so you can gain understanding where that would of come from.
I glory only in the cross of Christ, for through it I have been crucified to the world and the world to me. Galations 6:14
How could Paul have been crucified with Christ and why would he glory in it.
1 Like
But not the >97% who don’t? On a regular weekly top-up basis? Unless once-saved-always-saved ‘conversion’ or confirmation, applies? Which covers many nominal Catholics including Orthodox, and Protestants. But not the 3/4 of humanity that have never ‘repented and turned to God’ in narrow terms, how many turnings are there there?
God will ensure that everyone is given the opportunity to repent, even Orthodox chaps like myself or Catholic, Evangelicals and Protestant friends (indeed some atheists I know may be well ahead in that lineup). 
This is a key challenge (I think) for Christians still today (and I further suggest that is not easily accepted by any of us here either). It is one thing to repeat it as a glib formula. Paul said it, and so we piously repeat it as if we’ve fully taken it in; but I suggest that in the mouths of most of us Christians today it has been reduced to a doctrine, and as such - little more than a pious totem. Like a religious symbol we wear around our necks but then otherwise don’t much reflect on, much less live by.
Paul actually gloried (or strove to find glory) in his own weakness in front of others, because he notes that it is in and through such shortcomings of his own that Christ would shine through most brightly. The cross is the ultimate act of turning the other cheek to evil - something we still can’t much stand the thought of (much less the doing of) even today. We want to glory in strength, not weakness. We admire those who can best “stand up for themselves” (and we soften that a bit by noting that they (we) can also then stand up for others - usually those dear to us and most like us - too.) We Christians, when offended, too often are in a “smiting” mood rather than imitating Christ who prayed blessings and forgiveness on his enemies, even while they were still busy being his enemies. The cross is a hard and very high road indeed; a road that we too rarely actually take. It’s much easier to wear a small jewelled one around our necks, and rehearse pious platitudes about it as if by believing some correct thing about it, we can avoid Christ’s call to actually be willing to take it up and yield our lives in the process.
3 Likes
Paul is describing his earnest desire to exalt in an agonizing, bloody, torturous, barbaric process that kills in order to be more like Jesus.
Bell, the essayist you recommended we read, says blood and suffering have nothing to do our walk with Christ.
“All of this is wrong. God does not demand or require blood to redeem us. God neither inflicts violence nor desires suffering in order to set the divine–human relation right. In spite of its pervasiveness in Christian imagery, the cost of communion, of reconciliation and redemption, is not blood and suffering.” Bell
Which version of hell do you adhere to?
Yeah - notice that (converted) Paul always seems to be on the receiving end of inflicted suffering. He doesn’t inflict it, much less celebrate its infliction on others. Kinda like Christ. Torturing people is evil, Ralphie. Period. This isn’t hard, and it is what scriptures teach us.
1 Like
Christ told us to take up our crosses daily to follow him.
Hopefully I don’t adhere to any - if you know what I mean. But I gather you’re asking what (if any) of notions of hell I believe literally must exist as a place somewhere? I think more like @mitchellmckain on this that people get a headstart on living in hell during their physical life already … just like they can also get a headstart on living in the Kingdom of God too. It is here among us already. I suppose the same could be said for hell - which is what trying to separate oneself from the source of life is. I don’t believe there is some place where God keeps people alive forever just so they can be tortured forever.
3 Likes