I'd like an answer to a question posed me, in the absolute caldron of personal pain, about just why the death and sacrifice of Jesus was the ultimate and incredible sacrifice it was said to be and of which we are reminded at this time every year?
She was a client in my therapeutic massage practice and within the first minute of the session, she started to sob. This can happen in my work when people stressed to the max finally relax a bit, feel safe and experience safe touch.
I simply asked her if she was ok as it is not my place to rush in and immediately try and "fix" something during a session. She said that she was not ok and could she talk with me. Of course shared that her only teenage daughter had committed suicide. Hmmm, nothing worse and I can't imagine a worse pain parenting.
I asked her if she was getting professional help with those who are qualified professionally to help with such things. She said she was and then I asked if she attended church and was the church helpful. She said she did and "NO, they are of no help."
I asked her if they told her that God won't give you more than you bear and she said "YES".
I asked her if she could bear this and she said "NO"
I asked her if they told her that her daughter was far better off now with Jesus? She said "YES"
I asked if she felt that was true and she said "NO, I want her home."
I asked if they told her she would be in her thoughts and prayers and did that help? "YES and NO that did not help."
Finally I asked if her pastor was encouraging to her and she started to shake under my hands.
What did he say?" She told me "He said that God understood because lost his only child as well." (We might even say by suicide when you consider that overturning the tables of the Temple during Passover where Romans were already guarding against insurrection was suicidal for any Jew in those days.)
What did you say?
She said she screamed at him "NO!!!! In THAT story, Jesus knew he was going to return better than ever in only three days! In THAT story, God knew that he would bring his lost son back in just three days! My daughter is DEAD. If I thought she was going to die on a Friday and return on a Sunday, better than ever, I'd be getting the party ready. But my daughter is DEAD! Shouldn't a "sacrifice" stay dead? As far as I am concerned, the death of Jesus was merely a WEEKEND INCONVENIENCE! It's not real and certainly not the worst or most amazing sacrifice ever. My daughter is still dead!"
Realizing his mistaken analogy, the Pastor apologized.
Whoa...I"m not easily taken back by theological issues, but on this day at this moment I learned that questions born out of absolute disaster and grief can leave one with nothing to say. It was one of the most profound moments in my theological thinking in my life. "Shouldn't a sacrifice STAY DEAD?" has stuck in my mind ever since. "THAT Story is merely a weekend inconvenience to both Jesus and God."
We have all been told that the sacrifice of Jesus was the most and worst kind of death, and thus redemptive, that any man has ever gone through. Misusing "He was scarred above any man" misleads us. Of course this is not true. Many human beings have undergone physical deaths in far worse ways and over far longer periods of time. Jesus spent a mere 6 hours on a cross, so goes the story, and got a heroes burial. In real life, crucifixions take days. No one gives you a drink and no one gives you a burial fit for king. You rot on the cross and when the parts fall off, you are eaten by dogs. That is the purpose of Roman Crucifixion. It is designed to instill fear.
" The Roman historian Josephus wrote in Antiquities 13:14:2 that in 88 BCE, the Hasmonean king, Alexander Jannaeus (in office 103-76 BCE), ordered the crucifixion of 800 Pharisees. "As he was feasting with his concubines, in the sight of all the city, he ordered about eight hundred of them to be crucified; and while they were living, he ordered the throats of their children and wives to be cut "
Let's see you beat that!
Or how about the death of Colonel Crawford when he ran into the wrath of Ohio Native Americans who were in the mood for revenge? I believe I will let you read the account if you wish and not "torture" us here with it. Needless to say. Jesus got off easy.
https://consecratedsword.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-tortuous-death-of-col-william.html
https://consecratedsword.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-tortuous-death-of-col-william.html
Up to this point on of my more interesting theological questions based on real life experiences and mores was when a teen in Kentucky asked me, "Mr. Diehl, who was Mary married to when she had Jesus?" I knew where this was going. I am not stupid so I told him that was a great question. It was. I told him that Mary was not married and in the story God is the father of Jesus of course. He agreed and then asked me if that was not fornication on God's part with an under age girl? I said "That's a good question. Keep thinking those things through!" What else could I say? lol.
So the questions are:
In what way was the death of Jesus the worst of deaths and was he really scarred above all men ever?
Why was the death of Jesus really not just a weekend inconvenience, almost like a Passion Play that always has a great ending?
Shouldn't a sacrifice stay dead? Every Old Testament "type" of a sacrifice, of which Jesus was the ultimate point of it all stayed dead. How can coming back in merely three days better than ever be a sacrifice on the part of either Jesus or God.
God did not lose his son the way my client lost her daughter.
Her daughter is still dead and there was no party for her coming back shortly better than ever.
You tell me and believe me when I say my question to you, just as hers to me is deeply sincere and not meant to offend.
76 comments:
It was not God the father's sacrifice.
It was Jesus who made the sacrifice. Jesus was dead, stone dead. His resurection was never a sure thing.
His dead was no fun and therefore was sufficient to pay others debts.
The requirement for payment for others debts/sin was and still is death and death alone.
Hope only exists because that payment for debt survived was retrieved.
Theology riddles are very simple when you disregard mystery religion and embrace acwcg type explanation.
The riddle is impossible to solve for traditional christianity since they believe God and Christ arecthe same. Its simple math.
Nck
This girl and every other human are the result of son or enmity against God for the very reason we are not God.
The only hope a christian person can have is to become like God. All the other solutions are not in par with simple mathematical equasions and therefore phantasy. The only other option is that christianity itself is a phantasy too, invented by babylonian star watching mathematicians.
Evangelicals are the worst mathematicians in christianity and pure armstrongists the very best.
Nck
Some do not get the concept of the wages of sin. They are death because Life is the flipside of the coin.
Then weaklings would make the accusation that I am making the poor suicide girl out to be a sinner.
That is a blatant lie. For some unknown reason this girls has fallen victim to sin by probably others or even generations before her maybe resulting in illness.
And the wagea of sin are death because that is the antithesis og life.
Only a return or a resurection mythology would offer any hope since we cannot pay that price ourselves because we do not amount to the needed compensation.
Nck
The other sincere theological question would be why nck would bother to post 4 comments on this topic.
The profound answer is that my wife is fitting new sets of clothes and I am bored waiting.
Nck
Dennis,
There are times when people are hurting, angry or bewildered when they need someone to listen - not to offer advice or answers. I think that's one of the principal lessons of the story of Job. Our hearts are in the right place - we want to offer comfort and help to those we care about, but our analysis and suggestions are often cold, misplaced or just plain wrong. Christians, like everybody else, often forget about things like compassion, empathy and kindness.
By the way, Paul did not promise the saints at Corinth that God would never place more on them than they were able to bear. Instead, he sought to assure them that the temptations that they were experiencing were the same kinds of issues that face all humans, and that God would always provide them with an escape route.
In this life, we often face things that are simply too much to bear (like the death of a child). Christ did not exempt his followers from experiencing these things. In fact, he assured his followers that they would face many problems/difficulties/sorrows in this life.
When the woman who suffered that loss was truly ready for someone to answer questions, a Christian minister should be ready to reassure her that suicide is just like any other sin - that it doesn't mean a certain swim in the lake of fire. In terms of Christ's sacrifice, I would seek to reassure her that what Christ did would make it possible for her to see her daughter again someday (and I wouldn't try to define exactly what that would entail - too many Christians are too sure about details that they can't know for sure).
So, are you saying that Christ's sacrifice would have been more meaningful if he had remained dead? Are you disputing the fact that he died? Does it really matter whether it was one day, three days, twenty years or for all eternity?
As I understand it, the Christian position is that he died, and that that death paid the penalty for all sins (death). Moreover, from the Christian perspective, the resurrection (return to life) was just as important to our ultimate salvation as the death. I think that most Christians would say that Christ ascended into heaven and currently serves as our advocate before God (remember, Christians continue to sin after they are converted and baptized).
We believe these things, or we don't. As you know, it's called faith. And, if you've decided that Christ's sacrifice is meaningless to you and your life, there is probably not a whole lot that I or anyone else could say to change that conclusion.
In Jesus' birth story, we are told that Mary was already betrothed to Joseph when the Holy Spirit impregnated her with Jesus. Let's remember that God could very easily have chosen a woman not already betrothed. Lest we forget, a betrothed woman was not allowed to bear a child with anyone other than the man to whom she was betrothed. Divorce was possible, to make such a union legal, but we see that Mary did not divorce Joseph before yielding to the Holy Spirit. In ancient Israel it was in special circumstances tolerable for one man to bear children by two women, but in matrilineal Judaism it was never tolerable for a woman to bear children by two men unless there had been a divorce or a death to make the parentage clear.
If the Holy Spirit did not obey the Commandments, Jesus was born because of a sinful act and could not be the Messiah. However, if the Holy Spirit acted within the law of God, surely Christians with the indwelling Holy Spirit have the same prerogatives today, in which case the Holy Spirit living within Dave Pack's father could impregnate Dave Pack's mother and legitimately usher in the Second Coming. One way or another, the implications of Jesus' birth story are problematic.
Dennis, in consultative equipment sales, when we become aware of a production problem that is within the power of our equipment to resolve, we ask the prospect or customer a series of questions designed to cause that problem to be magnified in the their minds. When the timing is just right, we propose a solution, tailored to the customer’s needs, involving an array of our machinery.
I’m assuming that this event you shared actually happened, and is not a creative exercise of literary license.
You may not have realized this, but the questions you asked that poor woman were just the sort of magnifying questions used in a consultative sales process. Your questions literally brought that poor woman to crisis point without your having any sort of solution to offer which might have provided relief or catharsis. There are some situations in life where it is just better to listen compassionately, and silently.
This is crushingly sad. I’m adding your patient to my prayers. One suicide sometimes leaves those who are left behind in such a state of pain and vulnerability that it causes one or more of them to seek the same “solution”.
BB
Bob, the questions I asked the client were the standard comments given either in the scriptures themselves..."God won't give you more than you can bear..." etc, or standard answers folk give that don't help such as "You'll see them again in heaven" or "At least you have other children." They want THAT child. Just as in Job where in the first chapter he loses his ten children and then in the last gets ten more back AS IF that helps. I am sure he wanted the original ten and not replacement parts. Yes, this is a real conversation about a real situation. I have had three clients start crying on the table and all three had the same story of a teen child suicide. I got to where when someone started to sob I was hoping it was a breakup, divorce, job loss or health problem and not another child suicide.
NCK..pardon if sometimes I can't figure out what the hell you're talking about lol.
1209 I don't believe there is any historicity to the Birth Narratives of Jesus so the how's of it all are moot to me.
And too...so far I don't consider anyone here yet to have addressed why a mere three day, weekend inconvenience with the players knowing how it all works out just fine is the sacrifice to end all.
One theological reality is that, in the story, Jesus had to not die permanently. Everyone does that so that would not be a big deal. Without a resurrection story no one would know that he achieved anything in anyway for anyone. There would be no Jesus story. Without a resurrection story there could be no Second Coming Story. Without a Second Coming story, there would be no Worldwide Church of God/RCG/PCG/CCG/LSD/PCP 3-5, 10 to 15 at the most, 25 tops so "send it in" story. Without the Old Testament, no one would understand the story of Jesus in the New either even though Jesus is not the subject of Old Testament "prophecy". New Testament Jesus is prophecy historized and not history prophecied.
But I stray... Shouldn't a sacrifice stay dead as unhelpful to the drawing power of religion as that might prove? Why is it not just a Passion Play and why not just going through the motions so to speak for three days until it's all good again and quickly for God and Jesus? God only gave his only begotten son for three short days then back better than ever.
nck, like many others, doesn't consider it problematic that his god has decreed an infinite punishment for a finite sin.
Here’s the thing. An atheist considers God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the angels, Satan, and the demons to be much the same as Casper the friendly ghost——cartoon characters. So, from that perspective, sure. Why not let a cartoon character stay dead? Imaginary characters won’t be missed anyway.
The Christian realizes that Jesus has a continuing role in the saga, performing many active functions for all humans including those who are unable to believe in Him at this time. In fact Jesus has much greater perpetual value as a living being than He could possibly have if He had remained dead. Why should not the Savior have at least an equal reward as those whom He has saved? As is, Jesus serves as a perpetual example for the rest of us.
BB
Dennis - you bring up several problems.
1) pastors need to be trained in grief counselling
2) pastors need to be highly empathetic.
3) only someone who has suffered the untimely loss of loved family members can truly know what it feels like.
I am not a fan of Biden, but the one area he is outstanding in, is grief counselling because of his own personal losses as a young man (as well as recently).
Fortunately for me, this is not an area where I have personal experience, and I hope all of you reading this do not have this experience.
Dennis @1:37, as I mentioned in my initial response, you may not have realized the nature and effect of those questions. In fact, as a caregiver, I’m sure you didn’t. But, in effect, they follow the form of the part of a sales presentation in which a problem is exposed and magnified.
These situations are always very difficult, and it’s not easy to know how to handle them. Once while driving away from a completed service call in Hollywood, I saw a heavy set gal crying as she hitchhiked. Of course I stopped for her. Turns out that she had just been raped by a pimp. I asked if there was anything I could do to help her, and she said “Just take me to where my friend works.” So, I did, she thanked me, and that was that. Honestly, I really couldn’t find any words which would have helped the situation anyway.
BB
As is, Jesus serves as a perpetual example for the rest of us.
The Jesus story, building on the Abraham/Isaac story, is dangerous stuff. The idea that these stories mirror God's idea of parental responsibility and love is an idea that leads directly to all sorts of abusive parenting.
"The Atheist considers...." (a weak view evidently) "The Christian realizes..." (The strong view evidently) Why not the Atheist realizes...and the Christian merely considers?
All Christians, and I know I did, have Faith Restrictions. That is, what does not keep our faith strong must be restricted in our view. Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry and Bob Thiel are excellent examples of Faith Restricted teachers of truth. That is an oxymoron. When faith restricts the information on is willing to consider they are not really an objective or critical thinker and have to come to already drawn faith conclusions. That is why the Church of God sermons are stuck in 80 years of faith restricted information and predictably boring and repetitive. No new information allowed. It is too threatening and will upset the apple cart because we had the original truth and we can learn nothing new or even admit we were simply mistaken on this or that view of scripture.
Men whose jobs depend on adhering to statements of faith or getting fired for introducing more genuinely accurate information are not scholars in the real sense. They can't be. They won't go into whatever abyss the facts take them, as they say. They don't sit down before facts. They are faith restricted and thus can learn precious little or admit to it at least.
Dave Pack's faith restrictions made a fool out of him in his shallow, inaccurate and childish but bombastic presentation on why Creation is a no brainer and evolution a joke. He is not taken seriously by anyone but those who also have their faith restricted along the same lines of thought.
or I should say, "He is not taken seriously by anyone but those who also have the same faith restrictions as to the facts they can afford to let into their minds."
No slight meant, Dennis. We’re often reminded that atheists or agnostics are simply individuals who see no evidence to support the existence of God. The state of not knowing means that by definition, they “consider”. Much actually is tentative. So, when shopping for the verbs, I felt that my choice was both appropriate and inoffensive.
BB
"Shouldn't a sacrifice STAY DEAD?" " THAT Story is merely a weekend inconvenience to both Jesus and God." Shouldn't a sacrifice stay dead? Every Old Testament "type" of a sacrifice, of which Jesus was the ultimate point of it all stayed dead. How can coming back in merely three days better than ever be a sacrifice on the part of either Jesus or God. God did not lose his son the way my client lost her daughter. Right or wrong those remarks fall short of what the Bible tells us.
To me the Christian faith is not referring to the death of Jesus as an "inconvenience" and the crucifixion was used to show the worse kind of death. The whole story has a deeper meaning for mankind than that. If person who claims to be Christian has not been taught or doesn't understand why the gift of eternal life is promised when a person accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior they cannot or will not have the faith a true Christian needs. The Faith God desires is a growing experience that come through the trials of a person's daily living. ASB
Dennis,
Miller Jones and I had a discussion that addressed these issues at http://gordon-feil-theology.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-atonement-was-it-penal-substitution.html.
Dennis,
Don't you think it's dangerous to say things like "all" Christians (sounds like "all" black people like watermelon or "all" gay folks have limp wrists). I don't see my faith as a restriction, and I know I'm not alone in the Christian community (although, I'm willing to acknowledge we may be in the minority).
I have been willing to follow the evidence. I accept that there are factual/historical errors in Scripture, that there are glaring contradictions contained in those documents and that cultural and personal biases have intruded on them. I accept the Big Bang, evolution and the other findings of scientists from other disciplines. My faith has not restricted my acceptance of any of these facts. Has your journey restricted your ability to consider/accept/allow faith?
Many of us who were part of Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God were unwilling to consider alternative interpretations/views of God and Scripture. Likewise, many of us rejected out of hand anything that contradicted or was perceived as interfering with our belief system. We spent our time defending and reinforcing what we had received or what we believed that God had revealed to us, and we ceased to grow in grace, love and knowledge.
I know that you have journeyed many miles from that mindset - me too! I'm sorry if you think it's impossible/improbable, but it is possible to receive and accept many/most of the same facts/information that you have been exposed to and reach different conclusions.
What you are asking for answers requires a spiritual plane of thought. In this case, for this woman and her family, even if she were in a strong comforting church, there is no immediate solace in a tragedy. Death is a insidious enemy and some in severe grieving blame God in their pain.
It is unfortunate that so called modern religion can't give this woman answers to help ease her mind as she goes forward, but this is the age we live in. What compounds the problem even more is lukewarm religious thought being transferred down upon the recipients so that they are unable to be receptive to what is true testimony.
The answers are there and they are not that hard to see and understand but they don't fix death in this present time; and that is a hard thing to live with sometimes.
All I can say about this topic, is that some have allowed their minds to get bigger than their britches.
Miller, Faith by definition is restrictive to facts that contradict that which there is faith in. Faith, according to Hebrews is what is hoped to be true based on no evidence that it is true. "The evidence of things unseen" and all that. I don't think that way. I never did and realize that even when in WCG, I suppressed my natural skepticism for the "should" and "musts" of my naïve youth in wanting to believe what I could not actually prove to be true.
I am evidence based. A doubting Thomas I suppose and 2000 years later, the doubts have grown and not diminished.
"All" is a big word for sure. What I mean is that Christianity by nature, just as Islam etc restricts what facts may contradict the views of those beliefs. It's not about the people however when people cling to faith in the face of facts to the contrary, such as in divine healing, proving God by giving and seeing that the windows of heaven will open or the obvious to all but literalist believers of Creationism etc, , it has to stop somewhere. Jesus said "Whatever you ask in my name I will give it to you." That is simply not true and have no faith in such a thing. It would be a disaster for most people if it was true. Of course, we ask amiss so there ya go! lol.
Anyway, phrases "Jesus died for our sins", "God gave his only begotten son" "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins," "Whoever does not eat of my body or drink of my blood has no life in him" and all the other meme's of the faith are so deeply ingrained in us all, we seldom allow ourselves the freedom to think them through. Eating a body and drinking it's blood is somewhat creepy and way out of date in modern thinking
People need time to grieve. In most cases that’s the only factor which assuages the pain. This is something which was not understood or practiced in Armstrongism, especially in cases involving the death of an “unconverted” relative. “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll see your Aunt when she comes up in the second resurrection.” That’s the Armstrong-politically correct way of saying “get over it”, but if we do say something canned like that, we’re not helping.
I’ve come to the conclusion, through my own mistakes with others, that the best we can do is to try to avoid adding to the bereaved person’s pain. Be a good listener, and compassionate. Keep our own words to a minimum. If we have an agenda, best not to share at someone else’s lowest point. Somehow that type of sharing, although often well-intentioned always rings hollow anyway.
BB
I remember one time back when I was a kid, in the innocence of youth, asking my dad if death was the requirement to pay for one's sins, and since it is given to all men once to die, why our own deaths aren't sufficient to pay for our own sins?
He replied that death alone was not sufficient, that permanence was also required, so it would only work if I was never resurrected. As far as I know, he just pulled that out of his ass because I've never come across anything that might hint he got it from anywhere else. But as a kid, that sort of made sense within the narrow parameters of my thinking at that time.
But if you consider Jesus' death, that answer makes no sense at all. The question also raises a theological conundrum:
If death alone were sufficient to pay for our own debt of sin, then why wouldn't our own death alone, irrespective of whether we were later resurrected or not, be sufficient to pay our debt? Why would anyone need substitutionary antonement?
But if death alone was not sufficient, and if a subsequent resurrection nullified the terms of the payment, then why wouldn't Jesus' resurrection nullify his payment of our debts too, in the same way that our subsequent resurrection would nullify our own payment of that debt?
That doesn't make any sense.
Once I realized how biblical theology relies on divine cheating, and that biblegod uses a double standard and isn't willing to play by the same rules that he requires humans to play by, I began to notice a disturbing pattern of other ways in which god frequently gets to have his cake and eat it too, meanwhile, like any other crass dictator, he never lets the buck stop with him.
For example, there's the principle that responsibility follows control. If you don't have the power to control something, you can't be held responsible for what that thing does. If you do have that power, and that thing does something bad, it was either doing your bidding or else you were negligent. The bible claims god is always the one ultimately in control, but he only takes the credit for all the good things that happen, but shirks responsibility for all the bad things. Is he only a classical demigod who only has control over one class of things, while another demigod (Satan) has the control over the other? There's a principle at stake here.
What's more, while he takes 100% responsibility for the good things, he divides responsibility for the bad things we do between us and Satan, and that doesn't make any sense either. On the one hand, he's inconsistent about how to divvy up responsibility, and on the other he's passing the buck.
What you're left with is either a unprincipled and unjust god, an imposter, or a fairy tale. No matter how you slice it, you're left with an unsavory character who uses his might as a license to break his own law, exchange righteousness for unrighteousness, and calls that "holy." He masquerades as an angel of light, but doesn't possess the character to do the heavy lifting required to actually be one.
I don't say the christian god doesn't exist, or couldn't have the power to resurrect people, but if he does, is he worthy of worship? And would you really want to live for eternity serving the corrupt and unholy god described in the pages of the bible?
Just some food for thought...
Dennis,
You say that you are "evidence based." What does the historical evidence on this topic suggest to you? For instance, the evidence suggests that religious/spiritual/supernatural beliefs appear to be a universal phenomenon among humankind. And why did the religious beliefs of a small, insignificant and nomadic group of people who inhabited an equally small and insignificant slice of real estate between important empires become the basis for the religious beliefs of the entire Western world? Does the Bible and other historical literature have any relevance to the modern world? Stated another way, does the past have any bearing on the present?
Is it in the nature of atheists to reject/dismiss/ignore such evidence? Could we say that it is an inherent trait of atheism to reject anything that smacks of faith? In other words, are there some kinds of evidence that atheists reject out of hand because it doesn't fit with their worldview?
You reference several biblical statements that Christians "cling" to which the facts clearly contradict. Is it possible that any of those statements might be subject to alternative interpretations that might render them plausible? Are Christians required to be literalists (I'm well aware that many of them are)? Aren't there a great many Christians who reject the notion of transubstantiation? In other words, they don't believe in Christians literally cannibalizing their savior!
1:51
Infinite punishment for finite sin?
Not in Armstrongism.
Thats what makes Armstrongism the largest growing philosophy at present.
The recent popes changed most concepts on heaven and hell already in conformity with armstrongism and "respect for christianities jewish roots". I can see "the world council of churches adopt a "2nd chance philosophy" shortly.
Nck
By the way?
That sheep or goat that was sent into the dessert? Did it die or did it wander away.
I guess sin itself is a perpetuality. The sinner himself not so much.
Nck
Christ has existed for trillions of years. He risked his eternal life and Godhood on becoming a human and having to live a sinless life, No being in all eternity has ever, or will ever do that.
In the OT, those who tried to lead others away from God were to be pitilessly stoned. Yet this warning does not deter Dennis with these non stop articles designed to destroy readers Christian faith. It's as if Dennis lacks a sense of reality.
Two species: The human species, and the God species. Separate and unequal. The higher species is paternalistic, keeping the lower species in a veiled, need to know state. As intelligent, sentient beings, many humans perceive this veil. Some attempt to crack it through various constructs and means. Others deny it and what lies beyond it. The fact is, history shows that there are higher concepts, some of which man has unlocked through science, but others of which mankind is incapable of understanding in his present larval stage.
BB
“That’s what makes Armstrongism the largest growing philosophy at present”
Nck, have you shared this inside information with UCG, PCG, LCG, RCG, Thiel, Malm, and the COGaWA? I think they’d all be very happy and surprised about the growth of Armstrongism on the version of planet Earth in another part of the multiverse. Let’s just hope that this growth never takes place on our own planet Earth.
BB
I am just about finished reading John Vis’ PhD thesis entitled “The Purification Offering of Leviticus and the Sacrificial Offering of Jesus”.
Hopefully this from his discussion on the Book of Hebrews, maybe of interest:
Lev 4:24 And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it... it is a purification offering.
Lev 4:25 And the priest shall take of the blood of the purification offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering.
Lev 4:26 And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar... and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.
“Sacrificial procedure, specifically the practice of the slaughter of the victim as explicated in Lev 1–7 and discussed above, also supports reading Jesus’ qualifications for priesthood as taking place after his death on the cross. As has been shown above, the priest need not perform the slaughter of the sacrificial animal, but does need to perform the other sacrificial tasks...” (p.298).
Heb 9:23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
Heb 9:24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands... but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
“All this is further evidence for making a distinction between Jesus death on the cross and his offering of blood in heaven. Both were necessary... Jesus’ obedience and death are necessary components for his perfection, but it is not until he is raised that perfection is complete...” (p.298).
“At the heart of both the sacrificial system of Leviticus and the sacrificial offering of Jesus in the Letter to the Hebrews is the issue of humanity’s access to God. How can God, YHWH, and humanity dwell together? The sacrificial system, as explicated in Leviticus, was the principal tool for facilitating this communion. YHWH’s people and YHWH’s dwelling place on earth required regular purgation of the pollution of sin and uncleanness. The purification offering purged the Israelites and the sanctuary of the sins that clung to the Israelites and to the sanctuary. While the Letter to the Hebrews ultimately concludes that the Israelite sacrificial system was unable to solve, fully and definitively, the issue of access to God, it does affirm many aspects of this system, specifically in relation to the purification offering. A sacrificial offering is still the proper institution through which to solve the issue of sin, and thus access to God. Jesus’ sacrificial offering, begun on earth but completed in heaven as Jesus offered his blood and indestructible flesh in the heavenly sanctuary, provided the definitive cleansing of believers, and even of the heavenly sanctuary. Only after Jesus’ death and resurrection did Jesus have the qualifications to be high priest and to offer himself and his blood to God. Furthermore, like Leviticus, Hebrews stresses the very physical nature of sacrifice and sin. Jesus must present his blood and indestructible flesh in heaven in order to accomplish redemption. This offering cleanses the consciences of believers and even perfects the spirits of those already dead. However, this is not the final stage for believers. As my work on Lev 4:1–5:13 and Lev 16 showed, sacrificial purification is a two-stage process. In Leviticus the move is from guilt-laden to forgiven, and then forgiven to pure. For the author of Hebrews, the move is from sinful to cleansed, even perfected, and then from cleansed/perfected to transformed. In the final rest, after Jesus’ return, believers will share in Jesus’ indestructible flesh and will dwell together with God. This is the argument of Hebrews and this is the accomplishment of the sacrificial offering of Jesus” (pp.307-08).
1102 In the OT, those who tried to lead others away from God were to be pitilessly stoned. Yet this warning does not deter Dennis with these non stop articles designed to destroy readers Christian faith. It's as if Dennis lacks a sense of reality."
This is from a real life experience I had with a woman who lost her child to suicide and found no solace in the church. It caused HER to ask these questions and make these observations. The next time I encounter a real human being with real pain because of real life I will tell them I cannot help or answer because I might get stoned but I'm sorry for your loss. I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers...
I find most here to deflect real questions and then view them as planned and deliberate attacks on their faith. Thus I rest my case about faith restrictions that do not allow them consider how they might actually answer a genuine and sincere question about that faith.
well Dennis, from the pastor's comments it's obvious he doesn't know or understand God...he's in the confusion of "heaven/hell" (and likely "sunday/christmas/easter too), telling someone their loved one is in heaven with Jesus is an absolute lie and does nothing to comfort the grieved...it actually makes people angry at God for taking their loved one away.
I'm tempted to say that a True Church pastor could help her, but unless she's been called it would do no good, the poor lady would not understand anything he tells her. Satan rules this world with confusion and the people suffer because of it.
from the girl's perspective her resurrection is instant at the time of her death, and things are much better for her, and she'll be able to learn the truth of God, and ultimately be back better than ever if she accepts the truth...she will become a member of the God family and be just like Him.
I've been watching you slide farther and farther away over the last few years, and it concerns me....this latest post of yours has got to be the worst.
Trillions of years???? Time as we know it is part of this universe. As a component of spacetime it is not even a constant- there are even tiny variations on the surface of the Earth depending on the local gravity.
557, I appreciate your concern but I am fine. You're perspective is classic WCG and I held to that all once as well.
I still would like to know how a mere three day event with Jesus coming back better than ever in the story and God getting back his son, in the story, that the Bible claims was such an amazing sacrifice on the part of both is amazing? How is that a sacrifice at all?
Hello Dennis
Sincerely. I think the answer lies in a couch potatoe watching the movie "the longest day" with John Wayne. While burping on his beer and guacamole he asks himself : How is this John Wayne fellow making a sacridice jumping from his cardboard props while "WE" won the war, wallowing in the knowm unknowns and "in hindsights."
Nck
5.57 AM
Nice kind words on your part, but the lose of the remainder of the girls life is still a major loss. There are experiences forgone that will never be experienced in the future, friendships that could have been, educational opportunities that might not be able to be duplicated in the future. Growth lost.
It's good to try to comfort others but, err, reality is reality.
To Dennis: There is no reason to ty it to a sacrifice other than the fact Jesus was pointing to the fact that all in the human race are doomed to die. The illustration was pointing to God's fatherly love. If you can't see that I would suggest you think about all of the people who accept God's love when life is not lovely. ASB
Dennis asks "how is that a sacrifice at well?"
So here we have Dennis in minister mode again. The answer to his question is in the posts above, but has chosen to ignore them all. That's because Dennis is one of the big people whose opinion has all worth, and the rest of us are little people whose opinion is worthless. It's like the bully with his/her 'that's just your opinion' comeback.
Why read his articles with this monstrous double standard?
"I find most here to deflect real questions and then view them as planned and deliberate attacks on their faith."
If Christ knew He had to die as a sacrifice, could that be considered as suicidal? Maybe, especially if He had sinned, but if He had not sinned, then could not that be seen as some kind of Savior for those who have sinned? And then if He dies, how can He teach others to be more like Him? Does the sun sacrifice itself every winter solstice knowing that it will rise again in three days? We humans can't contemplate eternal cycles let alone the difficulty in the origin of myths.
DBP
945 PM, I don't think God disowns responsibility. "Behold, I create evil." "The creation itself was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope..." When we are willing to see it, we can clearly see that even evil is part of what God is doing. In the end, it really isn't evil. It is hardship needed to make a better final product.
DennisCDiehl said: I still would like to know how a mere three day event with Jesus coming back better than ever in the story and God getting back his son, in the story, that the Bible claims was such an amazing sacrifice on the part of both is amazing? How is that a sacrifice at all?
There was a 99% certainty that you would not receive the answer you were looking for. The dynamic of diving into a theological scenario from an individual plane of thought or belief and getting an acceptable answer is remote when it comes from a human reasoning foundation.
Back in 1970 when the band The Doors were looking for pictures for their up coming album, they came to a hotel in downtown Los Angeles called the Morrison Hotel. When lead singer Jim Morrison was asked what he thought about the hotel, he responded that it looked like a great place to start a religion and a great place to plan a murder.
In the 1990's and 2000's how many men from the COGs contemplated in their minds; this is a great place in time to start a religion and a great place in time to plan a murder? Many of these men had no problem "murdering" any other men in their way to start and continue their religion and many of these same men have found it convenient to murder Jesus Christ and ravage their membership in their quest to elevate themselves.
If you would of brought 100 people to the Morrison Hotel in 1970 and asked them what they thought about it, you would probably have gotten 85 different answers. In the 1990's and 2000's some 150,000 people had to make a theological decision and those decisions are evident today in COG splinter-land.
HWA spoke often of the carnal mind. Billy Graham spoke sometimes about the carnal mind. The carnal mind will find it easy to agree with you, as I do from a carnal perspective that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is nothing but a poorly thought out passion play. It certainly does nothing for anyone in this physical life. Many have lived and died rich; many have lived and died poor; many have lived and died young; many have lived and died to a ripe old age with the death and resurrection making no difference to the end result.
HWA quoted II Cor. 4 often in his messages. Modern thinking doesn't let one see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ (Vs. 4). Modern thinking doesn't figure out how a person gets life from eating the flesh and drinking the blood of another person either literally or by symbolism and modern thinking can't see any benefit to a supposed death and resurrection.
Human reason and modern thinking can't fathom that a power inhabiting another dimension has and is interacting in human lives. The people of faith mentioned in Hebrews had that interaction and were only assured of the possible future realities based upon that interaction. People in the COGs have experienced a strong calling or a healing or miraculous protection and a relationship and trust in the promises that they can plainly see.
Again, the answers you are looking for are both easy to see and dynamic in their meaning to many. Those same answers to you and others are just a brick building with a picture window sitting in a declining downtown in Southern California.
What about the truth said: "The dynamic of diving into a theological scenario from an individual plane of thought or belief and getting an acceptable answer is remote when it comes from a human reasoning foundation."
What kind of reasoning do you do if it's not human reasoning? And please don't say that your reasoning is the kind God would use. That's cheating and unprovable and not a little arrogant
TLA
The universe according to scientists is about 13 billion years old. Since Satan was 'a murderer from the beginning,' the destruction of this planet took place not long after its creation. Meaning, God spent the last 13 billion years designing all the new vegetation and creatures on this planet. From a design viewpoint, it takes longer to come up with a original design, than to modify existing designs, so it probably took God more than 13 years to design the original plants and animals.
So your 'time is part of the creation' and somehow God is above it, seems hollow.
Herbs church attacking reason with the sneer of 'human reasoning' is another example of the ministers having all rights and the members having non. Ministers can use reason, but the members cannot. The bibles 'prove all things' only applies to the ministers, according to church culture. One minister I had radiated the attitude that you were robbing him if you make a decision yourself, since only ministers have a right to make decisions.
This belief is text book psychopathic, ie, they own you, and have a right to control your mental processes.
Just a couple random thoughts which may or may not help tie the discussion together.
We must remember that all humans, unless they are severely disabled, have the ability to terminate their own lives. Most don’t. For those who do suicide, something in their lives has either left them boxed in and feeling hopeless, or they realize that something is mentally wrong with them and the drugs and alcohol with which they have medicated themselves are no longer working, or they have simply lost the will to live after struggling for so many years. Some do it over a lost love, or due to consuming guilt over a horrible act. Pain or dementia from a terminal illness can also be a factor. Some commit medical suicide by secretly letting a curable medical condition take its natural course. Sometimes, there is conjunction of factors.
One school of thought (and this is not the religious perspective) is that each human has the right to terminate his or her own life on their own terms. Unfortunately, doing so causes a chain of the deepest possible grief and guilt in all who knew them. The one who suicides is beyond help or further pain, but their loved ones never fully recover.
Second point; during the entire course of my life, up to perhaps ten years ago, I had never heard anyone suggest (even hypothetically) the idea that Jesus would have made a better or more effective sacrifice had He remained eternally dead. And, I do read incessantly and widely, and am in regular contact and speak with a with a large number and wide variety of people. In fact, I can’t even fathom the type of thinking, or the level of anger and pain which would cause someone to make or agree with such a statement. It is a radical distortion, offensive to all we know as good. Neither does it derive from dispassionate logic. It is an attack, a disease, and certainly off any reasonable scales or charts.
There. Someone had to give vent to that.
BB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZdbB8sP8do
3:27 and my 7:52 are exactly the same.
We make comparisons with movies and passion plays.
Whatboutthetruth unfortunately uses the buzzword human reasoning.
What he means is. For those to whom god is not real a fictional character, and for those to whom god is real.
Another related example.
What to some is aspiration or "a desire to be the best one can", to others might be perceived as delusional or vanity or even arrogance.
What is real? I ve been in advertising. And we made fairly accurate predictions of peoples consumer behavior, months before they knew it.
Nck
"How is that a sacrifice at all?"
I'm beginning to feel that I'm listening to a demon.
It’s a bogus story. Any reasonable sane person knows that dead people don’t come alive again, they’re gone. The brain begins to deteriorate in just a few minutes with no oxygen. The story is a myth. To believe that story one must believe in supernatural / miracles. “When I was a child I thought like a child”, etc.... Time to grow up. Happy Easter bunny day. :)
BB said: ". It is a radical distortion, offensive to all we know as good. Neither does it derive from dispassionate logic. It is an attack, a disease, and certainly off any reasonable scales or charts. "
I would have thought Bob that at least you would have understood the question posed to me.
One last time.
A woman mourns her teen daughter's suicide
Her pastor tells her that "well, God lost his only child too"
She in pain and reality does not see the analogy as helpful. How is it the same when Jesus knew he'd die and come back and God was going to bring him back in just three days and better than ever forever.
How is what appears as merely a planned, three day passion story and as she said, "A weekend inconvenience to Jesus and God such a big sacrifice. John 3:16 now seems somewhat muted because it was a nothing sacrifice.
From this she was thinking of all the Bible sacrifice stories in the bible from sermons etc and thought they all stayed dead.
That's not all that hard to understand. For bringing up HER Experience and HER question, I am demon possessed evidently lol. Only on Banned!
I would never accuse you of being demon possessed, Dennis. I believe that the demons have been restrained by the work which Jesus did while on earth. However, that does not prevent any one of us from becoming irrational or losing balance occasionally on our own.
For the past number of years, you have been referring to holy week as “Jesus’ bad weekend”. You have also expressed that you felt that neither Jesus, nor God had actually made any sort of real sacrifice, because it wasn’t permanent in that Jesus had not remained dead. Now, a patient of yours, as she is being questioned by you, expresses those very same conclusions. I just find it very curious that in her grief, her words would mirror one of the theses which you have been expounding upon for years right here on Banned. She virtually recited your script! I also see a parallel in the factor which has produced that line of thought. The woman has suffered what is arguably the most grievous and heart wrenching experience known to the human species. I believe that towards the last period of your ministry, you also suffered incredible grief, at least as deep a grief as your patient, although from a different set of circumstances. In both cases there are lingering effects which will impact judgment and opinions.
I also believe a little common sense and courtesy are in order here. If we were in the presence of devout Muslims, would you deliberately choose Ramadan as a time to intensely diminish or debunk Mohammed? There’s a time to give the blog a little relief from your repetitive themes. Holy week might just be one of them.
BB
Well, Dennis, that minister was wrong to use that kind of analogy. Suicide often hurts the relatives and loved ones more than the one who committed it. So her daughter has achieved her suicide and has arrived at the pearly gates and is asked by St. Peter, "You have arrived too soon", and her daughter responds "It's my family's fault!". There are many ways of completing the scenario, but one way or another, her daughter has to demonstrate that she had no free will but her mother had. I suggest either that they both had free will or that neither of them had. Of course it is gratifying to the mother and to all parents to believe that they have more free will than their children. But it won't do. The problem is to stop the boat rocking between the arrogance of 'I had the power and the knowledge to help' and the self repudiation of 'I failed'. It will always be terrifying of the things which will inevitably happen in any family if you start out with a false estimate of the power and the wisdom of whoever it is that runs the family. What one human being can do for another is not quite nothing, but it probably sometimes helps the helpee when the helper is clear about how little help can be given. Some temporary protection from the cold winds of an insane civilization, some shared tears and laughter, and that's about it.
Now coming from someone that doesn't believe Jesus Christ was actually real, I find it somewhat disingenuous for you to use the resurrection story of three days when we both know about the winter solstice. I find that this in no way interferes with Christ's ministry, then again I could be mistaken.
DBP
I had a minister (not COG thankfully) say the same stupid thing at a great-uncle's funeral a few months back. "Well, God lost his son."
I thought it was a very stupid comparison to make for all the same reasons your survivor mentioned.
10.27 AM
But there are some words of comfort in saying 'well, God lost His son.' A very loving Father intently watched His son being mistreated in the most appalling manner. For instance, the reason Christ couldn't carry His own cross was because His back muscles were shredded. God the Father is a emotional being as well. He would have 'gone through hell' witnessing all this.
Yes, RSK! I believe that that's something we can all agree upon. It's a bad cliche, and a false comparison because spirit beings are eternal and supernatural and have powers to violate the laws of the universe in order to fulfill their purposes. We humans do not. So death can seem final, a freezing of the life process. Many believers "consider" that suicide is an act which automatically removes one's ability to repent, leaving it as unforgiven sin. I personally believe that we can expect more from a compassionate God, but for a parent or loved one to be shackled with the fear, guilt, or paranoia that they may have caused the suicide is absolutely crushing. The effect of words from even the kindest and most well-intentioned friend is very temporary. Almost anything anyone can say will be wrong. Only time can heal the shattering, and then there are scars.
BB
BB
Please give biblical examples of spirit beings having the power to violate the laws of the universe. If that's the case, why the existence of demons?
Hi Dennis, this seems to be a pain point for you as it has come up in your postings fairly often. If that is the case then I don't want to be dismissive of that pain. I think the majority of us wrestle with theology in some form on this blog. Whether we do so as atheist, conservatives or liberals. Mostly because we've suffered from its misapplication. Your client suffered from its misapplication as as well. And forgive me if I'm making an incorrect assumption here but I think you would have liked to have eased her pain but because you yourself could not ease it, you tried to take it on. You seem to me like the kind of person who would do that.
Both hers and your responses to theology misused are natural and fair in my opinion. However, I think is is a misdirection to try to address an inappropriate usage with an attempt to refute or correct that theology.
The misuse by her pastor was an attempt to minimize her grief and avoid participating in it. I'm sorry to say that something that I too would have done not so long ago. So many of us are afraid of being overwhelmed in another's pain. While I don't agree with her pastors beliefs, I think his greatest issue was understanding how to respond.
In terms of the theology, I think we wwcg survivors are for the most part rather limited in our understanding. The majority of the time what I read on this blog are people whose Christian theology is almost entirely the evangelical protestant view. Which whether we recognize it or not is what was employed in the wwcg when it came to atonement and sacrifice. HWA really didn't differ as much as we like to think in that way. When it comes down to it, where HWA differed most from conventional protestant views were how God would bring about his purpose, not always so much why.
I'm not by any means theology learned. But I have been making efforts to expose myself to differing theological positions. That is why I think the above.
All that being said, I hope you find your answers and if not then at least how to make peace with the questions. I only say this because it is what I hope for myself and any who struggle.
Thanks Mickey. I appreciate your understanding. I am close if not there to being an empath and have been since a child
I was just watching a BBC rendition of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.
When Fantine passed away I felt a profound confirmation of the sacredness of life and what it means to be devoid of that sacred state of being.
Then I wondered if Dennis his questions are in fact provoked by the real profound loss or transition he personally experienced not so long ago rather than a philosophical theological quest he has embarked upon to reach conlusions.
It might appear as a fierce attack striking at the heart of the christian religion but if there is a God he is able to see right through the masks we choose and deal with us individially.
I do not inquire for a response, just sharing my thoughts about this "debate",
Nck
Dennis – you say above:-
“I don't believe there is any historicity to the Birth Narratives of Jesus so the how's of it all are moot to me.”
I take it that you have a similar view of the gospel accounts of Jesus, of His life and death? That you believe that the accounts were manufactured by the early Christians, in effect a work of fiction. That being the case, claims of resurrection of Jesus would likewise be a fantasy in your view. (If I am in error in this, please let me, and everyone else on this board know).
If the above is what you believe, then how can you also say:- “believe me when I say my question to you, just as hers to me is deeply sincere and not meant to offend”.
You know that any answers you get, you are looking through the filter of believing that the gospels are fabricated documents about a person that probably didn’t exist.
How can you actually expect to get an answer that will satisfy you if that is your standpoint? Nothing can be said that will help you if your standpoint is that it’s all made up anyway.
It’s a pointless exercise for you to engage in.
Sorry, Buckwheat (12:22), I don’t answer fake questions, especially really stupid ones like that.
BB
Questeruk, I can't speak for Dennis but I can see that you haven't read very widely in what theologians, archaeologists, linguists, and other scholars have said about the New Testament books. There is a middle ground between "somebody deliberately lied" and "these accounts are infallible in every detail, even when they seem to contradict each other."
Let me see if I can help you understand a viewpoint other than your own. Perhaps the single most important point in understanding the New Testament is to understand it in the order in which it was written. Once you realize that Paul's letters were written BEFORE the four canonical gospels, you will see the New Testament in a new light.
We often hear that people are supposed to "grow in grace and knowledge" as they mature in the faith. Wouldn't this also apply to the earliest church members? HWA certainly believed differently in 1984 than he believed in 1934, as did most if not all of his followers. Well, go back and read Paul's letters, and read them without projecting the Gospel accounts into them. Then notice the details added by the Gospel accounts, and notice the bits and pieces of Paul's approach that are absent from the Gospel accounts. You'll get a sense of a group of living and breathing human beings trying to figure out the mystery of the astonishing things that happened around Jesus. Some devout Jews' belief in Him only made sense to them in light of Old Testament prophecies. Other followers were less concerned with the Jewish past than with the prophesied future.
Let me put it to you another way. If you and one of your grandchildren were each asked to research and write a family history, and in 200 years someone looked at your separate efforts and found differences, what should they conclude? Was either one of you deliberately falsifying the facts? Unlikely. But were there ordinary human failings in each document? Almost certainly. If both documents were of the highest quality, yet they differed on some details, future members of your family might find value in both documents. Furthermore, someone might go back and edit your work to bring it more in line with what your grandchild wrote.
If you think of the New Testament in that way, it should be a lot easier to wrap your mind around the idea that there was never a single "Gospel of Mark" that was written once and canonized as-is. It took many hundreds of years, and some scribal revisions, for Mark to settle into its currently accepted form, yet we don't see anyone seriously calling it a "fabricated" document.
If you and Dennis are honest about the evidence, you should have to agree that the process of creating and canonizing the New Testament books was a very human process all along. The difference is that for most Christians there's a belief that God's hand guided the human process, while Dennis and others see only the human process and are skeptical of God's hand in it.
The only indefensible proposition is that God somehow created the whole New Testament canon "ex nihilo," with no human fallibility discernible within. No serious Christians believed that to be the case until modern Protestant fundamentalism came into being -- and by "modern" I mean hundreds of years post-Luther. It's as silly and indefensible a position as that of the King James Version-only people, but millions who mock the KJV-only people hold a similarly indefensible view of their own NT canon.
First I want to say that I deeply feel for that lady and there's nothing that anyone can say or do to relieve her pain. Sometimes it's just best to shut up, hug and cry.
I don't know if anyone has said this or not (I'm not reading through 63 comments to find out). But Jesus' death was not the sacrifice. The sacrifice was him, as God, coming down here and living with the possibility that he would sin and die eternally. This is why Stavrinides back in 1991 was so far off when he said it was impossible for Christ to sin.
If it was impossible then his sacrifice was meaningless!
Kevin McMillen
Kevinmcmillen64@gmail.com
TLA, time is time whether comprehended by physical beings or spiritual beings. Picture eons ago, long before anything physical. Now picture God (if he exists), picture the Father talking with Jesus, from the point that he started talking to the point that he ended is a period of time. Though there's nothing physical to measure it, it's still a period
Scientists claim that gravity slows time, that's b.s. Their proof? The oscillations of ceasium atomic clocks speed up as gravity decreases, therefore gravity slows time. But what if gravity merely speeds up the oscillation of the atoms and the time factor is moot?
I realize that I'm not educated in the basic principles, but just how do they know that it's actually time slowing down or speeding up? That's like me moving the hands of a clock backward and claiming that I'm time travelling.
Kevin Mc!illen
Questeruk thinks "It's a pointless exercise" to ponder the meaning of stories one believes "are fabricated documents about a person that probably didn’t exist."
Not pointless at all. It's one of the most characteristically human things we do. Language allowed our remote ancestors to share experiences so that others could learn from them even without witnessing the event. "Yuck, don't eat those berries. They made me sick." Language also allowed them to put together stories based on virtual experiences. Such fictions were often more fascinating than factual stories, yet they embodied important lessons. Little Red Riding-Hood certainly did not exist, yet the virtual experiences her story recounts tell girls not to stray from the (behavioral) path because there are (figurative) wolves out there who will take advantage of young girls, with devastating after-effects on their families.
Some storytellers repeat this mantra: "All stories are true. Some of them are also factual." Talking about our individual reactions to stories teases out truth from them, whether the stories themselves are factual or not.
If all four gospels told the exact same story no one would believe them. If four witnesses testified the exact same thing in a court case they'd be thrown out for collaborating.
Kevin McMillen
Anonymous April 23, 2019 at 5:52 AM
Please don’t try to patronise me, I have been around many years, and studied many things. Why would you assume I don’t understand any viewpoint other than my own?
In fact, as it happens, I agree with much of what you said.
You said - There is a middle ground between "somebody deliberately lied" and "these accounts are infallible in every detail, even when they seem to contradict each other."
Of course there is, don’t try and imply that I made either one of those two statements – nowhere did I say that "somebody deliberately lied", nor did I say that the accounts are infallible in every detail.
The point I am making is that Dennis has already declared his hand, in both this and other very similar posts. He said “believe me when I say my question to you, just as hers to me is deeply sincere and not meant to offend”. Fine I will take that at face value, however suppose for example I start to answer in the following way:-
“The Bible claims that Jesus Christ was the creator of all things, that without Him there was not anything made that was made”.
If I say that, before I have even progressed the explanation any further, Dennis will have rejected the argument even before anything else is stated, because, as he has pointed out on many occasions, he has grave doubts that Jesus even existed as a human being, let alone giving credence to the idea that He was actually an eternal living being prior to His human existence.
That is why I am saying that Dennis is engaging in a pointless exercise, because the first step in attempting an explanation is going to be rejected, before anything else is even stated. If I am wrong in this statement, then Dennis please let us all know.
Retired Prof said...
Questeruk thinks "It's a pointless exercise" to ponder the meaning of stories one believes "are fabricated documents about a person that probably didn’t exist."
Retired Prof, no I am not saying that it’s a pointless exercise, in general terms. What I doubt is Dennis’s statement “believe me when I say my question to you, just as hers to me is deeply sincere and not meant to offend.”
If Dennis is outright rejecting the idea that Jesus Christ was the creator of all things, who has existed as an eternal living being prior to his human existence, which I understand is Dennis’s position, seeing he has regularly cast doubt as to even the human existence of Christ, how is he going to seriously consider an explanation which includes this idea as a basic underlying step in the expression of an explanation?
My statement was specific to Dennis’s statement, not a general one.
If I am incorrect in anything I have stated, Dennis is quite capable of answering for himself.
Quest, if Dennis is going to use the death of Jesus and resurrection three days later to define a cheap, easy sacrifice, then he's got to accept the explanation that the death and three days of lifelessness were just a small part of the sacrifice. That God was risking a lot to save mankind. Jesus, who had been with the Father from eternity and the Father were willing to risk the chance that Jesus would sin and earn eternal death.
Now if anyone believes it was impossible for Jesus to sin then the death was meaningless because most Protestants and Catholics believe that only the body died and that the soul went to hell for three days. There was no real sacrifice.
But if he was really dead, body and soul/spirit, and if he could have sinned, and did, then he would have ceased to exist, the Father would be the lone God being (I'm not getting into the trinity doctrine) and mankind would be lost forever.
That is a significant sacrifice. I have no problem if Dennis no longer believes any of this, but if he's going to use an example that he doesn't believe he has to listen to an explanation that he won't believe.
Kevin McMillen
Kevinmcmillen64@gmail.com
Thanks Kevin.
For those who skipped my 6 postings on the topic, your 2:41 summarizes my point exactly. (as I focussed on the "value aspect", the reality of death and the possibility of the sacrifice all going wrong (or becoming unacceptable as Cains sacrifice), through sin)
The topic is not about some lady grieving "irretrievable loss."
The point is in what way did Jesus' death serve as a sacrifice.
I believe your 2:41 summarizes the topic well, leaves 2000 years of debate for traditional christianity who indeed offer no sacrifice IF Jesus was predestined to succeed (my John Wayne point, fiction versus reality) and moreover the reality of the resurection for those who are religious.
nck
Kevin, I think in summary we are in agreement!
If Dennis is ‘going to use an example that he doesn't believe’, then he is only going to get ‘an explanation that he won't believe’.
Which was the point I was attempting to make in my postings.
Quest, for the most part all posts here are a pointless exercise. I seriously doubt we're going to change very many minds.
Kevin
Question asked was: "I'd like an answer to a question posed me, in the absolute caldron of personal pain, about just why the death and sacrifice of Jesus was the ultimate and incredible sacrifice it was said to be and of which we are reminded at this time every year?"
Within this post, comment was made saying: "..Every Old Testament "type" of a sacrifice, of which Jesus was the ultimate point of it all stayed dead.."
That is a statement made without proof, and most of us were taught that, but it's not true. I will share some thoughts from portions of a couple of sermons given back in the year 2000…save me some typing time.
What’s the big deal about Christ our Passover sacrificed, killed or slain, for us?
Most of those sacrifices actually pictured the ultimate death of Satan and his angels for the sin (I John 3:8; John 8:44, 2 Tim 2:26; Eph 2:2; James 4:5, etc.) caused in the lives of human beings, including the murder of God's Son.
Quoting from transcript Christ our Passover Part 1, 6 May 2000, says:
"...This is a very key to start to understand this, so you’re not confused when we talk about sacrifice.
Do you realize that the word “sacrifice” just means killing, or slaying? It’s just killing. That’s all it means.
We have a picture that Jesus Christ was our sacrifice: that He was somehow put on this altar a special way and then was kind of accepted and all this other stuff on this altar like this, like these burnt offerings are, and Jesus Christ was not done in that manner whatsoever.
This is a very, very special thing that Jesus Christ did for us, and as we get into this you’re going to see this. So, be with an open mind. We’re not just changing things. We’re defining some of these definitions to make everything a little bit clearer.
Christ certainly did die, and because He did, that blood covers us all. That’s never going to change. That will never change, but the definitions and viewing it properly is very important...Now, Satan didn’t want you to really concentrate on all of this, because he wanted to confuse all of this. He wanted you to believe that Christ was taken out because of all this evil, and taken out there and cut up and put on this altar and, and it’s like a burnt offering.
Oh, it’s a big counterfeit! That’s what was in our mind when you hear: sacrifice! That’s what you think of; don’t you? Oh, there are these altars and there are things that go on that altar.
Do you know what the majority of them are?
If they’re not these offerings to God and glory and honor to the Father, which He says you have to do every day. Then on the Holydays, and on the Sabbath: those are offerings showing the Plan of God and showing the glory of God. We’ll get into all of that at a later date.
But every time they bring a bullock, a ram, a goat, and there are a few others: those all picture Satan. Those are Satan!
That doesn’t picture Christ.
That pictures Satan as a burnt offering. It’s a sin offering! And He pictures, and shows us through that, that Satan has to be killed! He’s the one who did the sin! He is the one who made the sin, and every time they do a burnt offering, it’s showing Satan being killed: not Christ!
Do you see how Satan maneuvers this around?
Instead of seeing that sacrifice of Satan with the bullock, and the ram and the goat, God is showing us Satan has to be killed for that sin: “Oh, no!” He transposes that in our mind that we kind of picture: “Well, Christ, oh, yes! Christ had to be killed because of it.”
No, see, he confuses. He always counterfeits. He always covers himself so you can’t really see him...."
To be continued…
John
Continuing…
This post mentions the grieving mother's comments relative to her dead daughter:
"She said she screamed at him "NO!!!! In THAT story, Jesus knew he was going to return better than ever in only three days! In THAT story, God knew that he would bring his lost son back in just three days! My daughter is DEAD. If I thought she was going to die on a Friday and return on a Sunday, better than ever, I'd be getting the party ready. But my daughter is DEAD! Shouldn't a "sacrifice" stay dead? As far as I am concerned, the death of Jesus was merely a WEEKEND INCONVENIENCE! It's not real and certainly not the worst or most amazing sacrifice ever. My daughter is still dead!"
Well, Jesus was so marred He was no longer recognized by Mary after His resurrection by His Father, but I won't argue with anyone about that. Sacrifices do stay dead, but sacrifice just means "killing, slaying."
What happened to Jesus Christ will benefit all of us.
Transcript Christ our Passover Part 1, 6 May 2000, remembering I Cor 5:7 in mind, says: "...What does our Passover Lamb do for us and the rest of the world? He takes away! Remember John 1, verse 29!
John 1:29 “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
He takes away the sin. He takes away Satan out of this world, later on. Our Passover Lamb covers us from death, and also the whole world. Satan has no covering. He has to die forever. It’s very simple!..."
How many years has it been since this mother's daughter died? Well, she is that many years closer to being reunited with her again! She will live again, whether anybody likes to believe that or not.
Transcript Christ our Passover Part 3, 20 May 2000, says"
"...Do we have to keep the Passover every year to forgive us of our sins and maybe work on the next year and kind of do all that, and? No! We do have to keep the Passover for a remembrance of what we just learned this year. He is your Passover Lamb, and without that you’re dead. The whole world’s going to be dead! Satan’s going to be dead. The demons are going to be dead. They have no Passover Lamb. The Great Day of the Lord, Armageddon, all of it: they die! When they’re resurrected they come under the Spirit: at least the people, the sheep do.......Total free gift, never to be taken away! Sacrificed, killed, murdered once, and was accepted for all humanity!..."
John
Post a Comment