The cross, death and resurrection are so central to Christianity that it is no wonder there has been many kinds of thinking about these. I guess there was also a difference in the thinking of educated gentile Christians and those having an oriental or Jewish background. Metaphysical approach may have it’s roots in the eastern gentile thinking, rather than the Jewish way of viewing the world. This is just my guess as I’m not an expert.
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If you kill someone, is it enough that you say in the court ‘sorry, I will not kill anymore’?
If God says that doing something is forbidden and the punishment of doing it is death, is it enough that you say ‘sorry, I will not do it anymore’?
It’s like God saying ‘ok, you can forget what I said earlier, it does not matter’.
Why was the first coming of Jesus needed, why was it not enough that He would come only once?
Those who will see Him in His glory could just have said ‘sorry, I was wrong, I will sin no more’. Why was that not enough?
Indeed!
The “penal substitution” or (slightly different) “satisfaction” theories of atonement were actually put forward by St. Anselm in the 11th century. He was trying to improve on the deficient “Ransom” theory which has the world being ruled by the devil (not God) and God being obliged to pay Satan’s demanded ransom in order to convince Satan to release us. I.e. It has Satan calling the shots. All of these theories will have various scattered scriptural passages for support (even the “Ransom” one - think of Christ’s 2nd temptation), but suffer the deficiencies of flying in the face of virtually all the rest of scriptures as a whole. Anselm certainly noticed that the ransom to the devil theology that had prevailed for nearly the millenium before was not a theologically or scripturally satisfactory view of the world. Hence his preference for a penal substitution understanding instead. And since his time many Christians have noticed that this too, even with its own isolated passages that appear to support it, is nonetheless not true (in their view) to any scripturally sound (much less Christ-centered) understanding of God.
Some of these man-made understandings have cost enough people their faith that it is important enough to spill lots of ink over it, removing unecessary stumbling blocks. The cross is quite a large enough offense all by itself for real without the man-made manufacture of yet more.
Probably the best that can be said for these prior understandings of atonement is that they might lend a particular facet of insight to a much larger whole. It would also seem that they much more easily become hindrances against accurate understanding when one tries to put too much weight on any one of these earlier ones exclusively. Even the later (and in my opinion more scripturally faithful) ones such as Christus Victor should probably not be presumed to alone bear the entire weight of atonement truth as these too are simply our human-bound (necessarily language-bound) attempts to wrap our minds around something that will not yield itself entirely to any such intellectual or human or even scriptural analysis.
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I am a little confused by the disjunction between your strawmen comments/questions and what you are responding to in the quote of what I said.
Are you are arguing that Jesus on the cross was blood magic?
Did Jesus say, “your sins are forgiven, so SAY you will sin no more?”
Can you say “strawman” and do you know what it means?
But people who sin do not drop dead on the floor, nor is the fact that they sinned means they doomed to hell without any other possibility. Sin is a progressive, addictive, habitual spiritual illness that grows relentlessly without intervention, so spiritual death and hell is the eventual consequence without a cure of that illness. The whole judicial treatment of sin in the Bible is only ONE of many metaphors. But it really isn’t about punishing one lustful thought with an eternity of fiery torment unless you say the magic words over a blood sacrifice. It is about the fact that no matter where you go your self-destructive habits of sin will carry the seeds of hell with you to bring torment to you and everyone around you. The whole “because I said not to” basis for morality only works for two year old toddlers without sufficient rational capabilities. Eventually you have to understand WHY?
If there is no why then Christianity is a nothing but a disgusting way of thinking and acting that needs to be buried and forgotten no different than the human sacrifice religions of the Mayans and Aztecs.
Sin. Which dooms us all to spiritual death and hell.
It was enough because He replaced the contaminated inheritance from Adam… for those who choose to partake of it.
Why? You think Jesus will come again because what He did the first time was not enough?
It was never about what you SAY, no matter what apologies or doctrines you spout. That will make no difference whatsoever, no more for me than for you!
Those who truly have placed their trust in Christ have two natures within their being. The flesh still has the Law of Sin and Death in it but the sprit of the person has been born again by the Father, with His righteousness abiding in it. And by our submission to that indwelling righteousness, and the indwelling Spirit of God, we can overcome the Law of Sin. That is the grace that God has shown toward us through Jesus.
God wants mankind to know and understand what He did through the cross and resurrection of Christ. He proclaimed it through Jesus, then the apostles. It is God’s desire for us to have correct understanding of Jesus.
Heb 2:3 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.
Study to show yourself approved. Be transformed by renewing your mind to the understanding and wisdom that is expressed in the cross. Don’t neglect it. It is our salvation.
They don’t? Acts 5 vs 4. Death? Which kind? Spiritual? Sure we do. What else frees the sinner from bondage and future torment? Sin is a state of existence, too. I’m prone to it. I’m guilty because I’m human. Our capacity for evil is boundless. We are all in the same boat.
Sin can also be a blow out or a slow leak. Only 1 lived without ever sinning and He was born without the human sinful condition. He was perfect inside and out. There’s never been anyone like Him. The Saviour of the world.
That has absolutely nothing to do with the forgiveness of sins. Jesus tells everyone all day long not to sin anymore. People have listened to him say that for 2,000 years and never received forgiveness.
That’s not what He said to the dying criminal beside him who would join Christ in heaven that very day.
No. They don’t. exceptions to the rule doesn’t change the rule.
Neither. They don’t die physically and they are already dead spiritually. First sin? I repeat, exceptions don’t change the rule.
There is only one thing that frees the sinner from this: God. We have many names for the event/process. Regardless, it boils down to the removal of sin.
WRONG, and I can prove it! Adam and Eve before the fall were human and they were not guilty. Jesus was human and He was not guilty. You are guilty because of YOUR choices, NOT because you are human.
It is not about capacity, it is the nature of sin. It grows until it consumes everything.
Contradiction. The second statement logically means we are not in the same boat. What is the same is our ultimate destination without divine intervention.
This certainly describes Jesus. He is certainly the only one I know. But I do not imagine that my knowledge is the limit of reality itself.
Over and over again Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven, so go and sin no more.”
But I guess you think Jesus is a liar.
Jesus was the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. The one who shed His blood in which the New Covenant was istablished, which is the means to forgvness of sin. He gave his life blood for our salvation, the foundation for our forgvness. The Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.
Blood covenants and offerings were from the beginning. God killed an animal to cover Adam and Eve. Abel offered up animals and was accepted, Cain’s offerimg was not. Abraham offered up a lamb that God provided. God established animal sacrifice for forgivness of sins. Israelite belivers were under a covenant sealed with blood. Forgivness was obtained by blood, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgivenessof sin”.
The Son of Man gave His lifeblood for mankind. Accept the blood of the New Covenant and you are united to Jesus in His death and resurrection. Reject it and you have no covenant with the Father.
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Blood covenants are indeed deeply blended into our scriptural traditions, and you are correct that many passages can be found that seem to sanction (even demand) them for all time. Here is a good essay by Daniel M. Bell Jr. that discusses our historical and modern obsession with “redemptive” violence, and shows (from scriptures) how we learn from Christ that God does not need blood or bloody violence in order to cleanse us from our sins and forgive us. We serve a God that is not bound by pagan ritual, even if in the past God made use of such ritual as an entry point to reach people who understood the world in those terms.
In the same way, he sprinkled with blood the tabernacle and all the vessels used in worship. 22According to the law, in fact, nearly everything must be purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” Romans 3:24-25 KJV
"So if I can offer forgiveness without the shedding of blood, and so can other people, what is going on with God? Doesn’t He freely forgive (Col 3:13)? Since when are there conditions for unconditional love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness? Is God’s forgiveness of a lesser sort than ours? Or maybe His forgiveness is of a more powerful type of forgiveness that requires blood?
And if God’s forgiveness is greater and so requires blood , then my next question is, “Why blood?” I mean, if God is the one making the rules, and sin is a serious affront to His holiness, then why did He decide that blood would appease Him? Why not require … I don’t know … spit? Or hair? Yes, I like the hair idea.
Well, He liked the idea of shedding blood.
Why didn’t God simply say “Without the cutting of hair, there can be no forgiveness of sins”? Of course, that might not be fair to bald people, but I digress …" So if I can offer forgiveness without the shedding of blood, and so can other people, what is going on with God? Doesn’t He freely forgive
No. It cost him everything. We don’t have to shed our blood. Thank Him, forever.
Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you.…
(Col 3:13)? Since when are there conditions for unconditional love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness? Is God’s forgiveness of a lesser sort than ours? Or maybe His forgiveness is of a more powerful type of forgiveness that requires blood?
I don’t know the exact moment, but receiving the benefit of His love is conditioned upon our receiving it. Remember the 10 million in the bank for me? I have to let the bank know that it is mine or it doesn’t do me much good. It’s mine, but I have to take it.
And if God’s forgiveness is greater and so requires blood , then my next question is, “Why blood?” I mean, if God is the one making the rules, and sin is a serious affront to His holiness, then why did He decide that blood would appease Him? Why not require … I don’t know … spit? Or hair? Yes, I like the hair idea.
Why didn’t God simply say “Without the cutting of hair, there can be no forgiveness of sins”? Of course, that might not be fair to bald people, but I digress …" Jeremy Myers
Well, if God decided that the shedding of blood is necessary for him to provide forgiveness rather than shooting pool, I guess that is his prerogitive. He didn’t ask for my advice.
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My choices are tainted because my core is corrupted. Once Adam and Eve sinned, their human nature became fallen, corrupt, stained with sin and that propensity was passed along to all. It is easy to spot it in us. Look at our history and look at daily news.
“The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.” Muggeridge
Confusion is sometimes a good starting point. Clarifying the confusion may help to understand why we think the way we think. I try to explain some ideas behind my comments.
Like it or not, animal sacrifices and blood had a visible role in OT. I don’t think this was magic. I see these as strong symbolic messages to those that say they are God’s people. We in the modern societies may think this was strange or even appalling but we should remember that these were messages to people who lived in a different world and viewed the world in another way.
One strong message is in the link between forgiveness and animal sacrifices (blood). This link seems to tell that acting against the will of God is a serious matter, a matter of life and death. Regretting was needed but it was not enough. There was no forgiveness without a sacrifice.
To make a (poor) analogy, it’s like telling that there are no free meals. Somebody pays.
What Jesus did was interpreted in the light of OT, after the resurrection. Jesus was the Lamb of God, the sacrifice for our sins. We can interpret what happened during those days in another way but NT clearly connects the cross with the symbolic sacrifices of the past. Much of the jargon among believers during the last centuries comes from this connection between the cross and the OT.
The blood of Jesus saves. Saying this may sound as bloodmagic but it has been used as a shorthand of the connection between the cross and the OT sacrifices. It’s jargon, just as ‘Trinity’.
Personally, I think we should get rid of speaking Christian jargon because few outsiders understand it correctly. Yet, for many it is a dear way to speak because the expressions are loaded with meaning and emotion. Jargon is also a very short way to express complicated matters, provided that the other person understands the connection between the jargon and the texts in the OT and NT.
Jargon or not, I do believe that Jesus was the Lamb of God, slaughtered as a sacrifice for our sins. The cross, death and resurrection includes more than that but for us sinners, I believe the sacrifice was needed.
It’s simple. The sinner deserves death, both temporal and eternal. His life blood must be given to God. If we die in our sins we justly receive eternal death.
The Word became flesh, Son of Man, The Second Adam. He united Himself to us, went through both our physical and spiritual death. He poured out our blood, the blood of The Son of Man, The Second Adam. He paid the price that we owed God for our rebellion, our sins. Our blood and our dead spirit.
God required our blood. He got it in the blood of The Son of Man, The Second Adam. The price was paid for our redemption. We were purchased by His blood.
Now that same power that God EXERTED (it didn’t take EXERTION to raise Lazarus) raising Jesus up from death, spiritual death that we had, is said to live in those who have faith in that blood of the New Covenant. Reject the blood and you are still in your sins and outside the New Covenant.
Thos who have no faith in the Covenant in the Lord’s blood, have no participation in or place at, the Lord’s Supper.
The essay includes good points. It may well capture something essential of what happened on the cross. Yet, I got the feeling that the essay is an attempt of explaining things so that the not-so-comfortable parts of the story can be rejected.
There are many viewpoints to what happened on the cross and they are not necessarily exclusive explanations. I can well accept that showing devotion and obedience to the painful end was a main point in the sacrifice. Yet, the connection between the cross and the OT animal sacrifices (blood) is so strong that it would be one-sided to reduce it just to the obedience aspect.
I don’t think that demanding that justice happens, keeping His words, or letting the evildoers to face the consequences of their wrong choices makes God a bloodthirsty, angry God. If people have free will, they have also the option to disobey and face the consequences. If God has forbidden something and said that the consequence of doing it is death, is God a bloodthirsty God if He keeps His word?
In many parts of the Bible, God is calling and warning with the hope to save people from the suffering that is waiting ahead. There are also passages suggesting that God has patiently waited for a change in behavior, maybe even centuries, until the moment that things have gone too far. After that, the passages suggest that God has allowed or even ordered suffering as a consequence of the evil done during long times. My interpretation of this is that God is righteous, cannot accept evil and is also a judge, if the people are not willing to accept the way of life. This aspect should be remembered also in the context of the cross.
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I’ve been told here that I don’t need to quote scripture here as much as I do because everyone here has read their Bible multiple times. But it appears that some may have missed Hebrews. I suggest you read it as the Word of God.
It appears some have the tendency to metaphor themselves into unbelief.
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It seems that we look at the cross from partly different viewpoints. We agree that He needed to come because of sin. As my two previous replies perhaps tell, I include the need for sacrifice for our sins in that.
I’m not sure I understand right the part ‘He replaced the contaminated inheritance from Adam’. Maybe it is just that the use of different expressions hampers communication.
I do believe that Jesus will come again. Not because what He did was not enough but to fulfill the promises about the kingdom where He will be the king. It’s probable that I will die before the second coming but I wait for it.
I certainly reject a literalism as warned against by Jesus which turns Christianity into a legalistic Gnostic Satanic blood magic cult of necromancy worshiping an evil liar god.
I am not a big fan of eschatological things like this. Maybe Jesus will come again and maybe there will be an antichrist, and maybe the belief in a second coming will provide an antichrist an opportunity to lead astray “the elect” with signs and wonders (Matthew 24:24). And like Weinberg warns and we have seen so many times before, religion will make good people do many evil things.
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I read it. The author is ignorant of what God has made clear from Genesis through the NT about what the blood of the representative of the guilty party does. It’s made so clear that it is only because of ignorance and unbelief a person does not understand. As I said above, People metaphor themselves into unbelief.