Was Jesus' Sacrifice Significant? (crucify, beliefs, eternity, God, Christ)

[mr.guy]

Man! that guy does more in three days than i've done all year! thanks for the info, aqualung.

[Aqualung]

Originally Posted by mr.guy

Man! that guy does more in three days than i've done all year! thanks for the info, aqualung.

Yeah, he's a real work-aholic! Glad I could be of help to you.

[Bennettresearch]

What is problematic about the Mantra of our sins being cleansed in the Blood of Jesus is that it is a political perspective of the authors of the Gospels and is not necessarily the perpective of those who were there and witnessed the event of the Crucifixion. To represent it as ordained by God and as the act of God giving His own Son as a sacrifice is contradictory to previous developments in the scriptures. In chapter 22 of Genesis Abraham proceeds to give up Isaac as a sacrifice. The end of the story has a happy ending in so far as God does not want Abraham to perform a human sacrifice on His altar. If this is so, then why would God perform a sacrifice with His own Son?
What if the crucifixion has been misinterpreted? Jesus was taken out by the establishment and His resurrection is represented by the fact that 2000 years later He has a worldwide following. The establishment didn't win by putting an end to Jesus and His Word, but actually caused His Word to flourish. Deut made a good point about atonement. We don't have a free pass to sin because we will always be forgiven for it. There are requirements attached and one must change their ways.
We still have not thrown off the yolk of believing that God micro-manages our lives. Human nature is more than willing to lay the responsibilty onto someone else's shoulders. The actions of those who participated in taking out Jesus were the actions of mankind and not that of God. What better way to absolve someone of responsibility than to say God ordained it !!!

[Aqualung]

Originally Posted by Bennettresearch

If this is so, then why would God perform a sacrifice with His own Son?

Well, look at the entire mosaic law. This law is a type of Jesus. For example for sins, you sometimes have to offer up a first born lamb without blemish. Does this every time have a "happy ending," where they say, "oh, you don't actually have to kill the lamb"? No. Abraham's offering was a type because it asked him to offer up his son. Mosaic law was a type because it actually required the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins. Another thing to consider is that Abraham was not asked to do it for the forgiveness of sins, so the fact that he didn't sacrifice his son can't be said to be proof that Jesus wasn't sacrificed for sin. It was just to give a type of father and son willingly agreeing to the sacrifice.

Originally Posted by Bennettresearch

We don't have a free pass to sin because we will always be forgiven for it

Definitely not. Good point. A lot of people think that Jesus's sacrifice means that you can essentially do whatever you want, and that is definitely not true.

[bartdanr]

Originally Posted by Linus

I believe that His death, burial, and resurrection together make up the process by which we can have forgiveness of sins, thus allowing us to have a relationship with God. But if you want to break it down, I guess you could say that technically, the blood of Jesus was needed for the cleansing of sins.

It goes back to the Olt Testament. The Hebrews would sacrifice bulls, and goats for the clensing of their sins. But as we read in the Bible, their blood was not enough...

Hebrews 9: 11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; 12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Also,
Hebrews 10: 1The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

So I guess Jesus, blood technically is what save us, but it saves us through the resurrection as we can see in the 1 Corinthians passage I quoted above.

Does that make sense?


Time, maybe? He gave up three days of his life just to be beaten, whipped, nailed to a cross, left hanging there for a few hours, stabbed, and left for dead. I dunno that was just a guess. Though, I guess a few days are really nothing light of eternity.

It was a significant sacrifice for him because of how painful and humiliating cricifixion is. Jesus was physicaly abused by the Roman guards (slapped, hit on the head, etc.) he was whipped (scourged, which is painful enough as it is), had large nails driven through his hands and feet, left to hang, solely by those nails, from a cross, and stabbed in the side. Sounds pretty painful to me. And it probably isn't someting any of us would reasily go through. I would say that is a sacrifice. While he may or may not have technically "lost" anything, he did do something that none of us would be ready to do. I hope that's right....

Hi Linus, thanks for your post.

Yes, I guess it's a "time thing"...what is three days of intense suffering compared to an eternity of bliss?

However, your post got me thinking: I consider those who use some of their time to sometimes "sacrifice." For example, even if a soldier is not killed or wounded, to spend time away from loved ones and home is a sacrifice, even though they didn't "lose" anything (but irreplacable time).

Perhaps I should modify my premise: Jesus did, in fact, sacrifice something (he had horrible pain for three days, something most of us wouldn't want to do). But the act of dying was not the sacrifice. Everyone dies; but only Jesus resurrected himself. Jesus' death was a temporary thing, so not really a sacrifice. However, his suffering was a sacrifice.

The blood atonement thing still seems a bit pagan to me. However, the idea that God himself bore all the suffering in the world seems like a noble image. That is, the "bearing of sins" isn't just an "icky" feeling or feeling of intense guilt, but rather the experiencing of all suffering caused by sin. That would be an enormous sacrifice, and the torturing and suffering on the cross (while intense) would really be nothing compared to that.

However, I don't see CHristians as a general rule focusing on this. Indeed, I haven't really seen much written about what it meant to "bear the sins of the world" except for the results as it relates to us; i.e., the wiping out of our sins.

Peace

[bartdanr]

Originally Posted by Steve

Who are you that Christ should have been beaten and crucified for you? I could argue that the punishments are unequal but in the other direction, that the very author of life came down to earth to suffer and die the way he did could be considered more significant then all the humans ever being punished in hell forever. Who are we to weigh the significants of our Creators beating and Crucifixion, who are you to claim that your punishment in hell comes close to even just one slap on Jesus' face? Even if you never accept him as your Savior this side of the grave im sure you will understand the significants of his humiliation, beating and Crucifixion when you stand befor his Majesty and Holiness on Judgement Day. When you see the nail holes in his hands and feet you too may wonder in light of his splender and perfection how someone such as him could have even walked and talked among fallen mankind, let alone make atonement the way he did. It seems you have no comprehension of who Jesus is, maybe you need to take up the attitude of John the Baptist - consider his comments..

And this was his message: "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. Mark 1:7

This same person John is describing is the same person who went through Crucifixion for you, to consider the atonment he made as substandard is not wise esspecially considering he didnt have to make one at all. Its your choice whether or not you are willing to accept him as your Savior.

Hi Steve, thanks for your post.

I guess I really can't see how a slap in the face to a divine being is equivalent or worse than spending eternity in hell. I cannot conceive of God being so concerned about others respecting or worshipping him that this would be worse. It seems to me that the one who would say "turn the other cheek" would have the grace and love not to be so incredibly offended at someone disrespecting him/her.

Really, the whole concept that God demands our "worship" with bowing before him/her like some kind of oriental potentate and spending all of our time (really, all of eternity) sining how wondering s/he is, is astonishing to me. Does God really want us to fawn over him/her? Does s/he seek sycophantic followers? Or does s/he seek loving children who continually grow to be more like him/her?

Peace

[bartdanr]

Originally Posted by Aqualung

Truth. Jesus wasn't "dead" in that he was essentially in an uncoincious state of rest for three days. He was very much alive, but he "decended to the dead," that is, to the place where the spirits of dead men are kept. This is the place that is equivalent to the belly of the whale. He is essentially dead to the rest of the world, but very much alive. 1 Pet 3:19 "preached unto the spirits in prison", 4:6 "gospel preached also to them that are dead." You are saying that the belly of the whale is death itself. The belly of the whale is not. It is what he was doing when he was "dead," though he was actually very much alive.

Hi Aqualung, thanks for your post.

By saying Jesus was not "dead" and defining it about going to the place of the dead, wouldn't that mean that no one was really "dead", just "desended into the place of the dead"?

Peace

[Aqualung]

Originally Posted by bartdanr

By saying Jesus was not "dead" and defining it about going to the place of the dead, wouldn't that mean that no one was really "dead", just "desended into the place of the dead"?

Yep. That's exactly what it means. If you think that dead means that they have completely ceased to exist in any form other than a pile of flesh and bones buried in the ground somewhere, then nobody ever really dies. It really just depends on how you look at what "death" really is. If you think of death as being the state in which the spirit is sperated from the body for a length of time, than Jesus, and all the others, most certainly were dead. But if you look at it that way, death really isn't anything at all.

[michel]

Originally Posted by Aqualung

Yep. That's exactly what it means. If you think that dead means that they have completely ceased to exist in any form other than a pile of flesh and bones buried in the ground somewhere, then nobody ever really dies. It really just depends on how you look at what "death" really is. If you think of death as being the state in which the spirit is sperated from the body for a length of time, than Jesus, and all the others, most certainly were dead. But if you look at it that way, death really isn't anything at all.

A good explanation, aqualung; I think this is somewhere where non-theists become 'distracted' because of their unwillingness (Which is perfectly understandable) to accept without proof.

The shame of it is that when arguments come up over subjects such as these, the theist naturally accepts the pretext of 'continuing life' (Albeit in a different non-physical framework), whilst the non-theists see only the flesh and bones.

[blueman]

We have a historical record that Christ was crucified in the New Testament Gospels, lets get that straight initially. There were many people during that time in 1st century Palestine who could have disputed the events that Gospel writers provided a historical record of. The significance of Jesus's death and resurrection was that fact that He did it to redeem the sins of mankind so that we might have a relationship with God and through Jesus, have everlasting life. If someone wrongs me, I have the capacity to forgive that person, but no one else does on my behalf. Only Jesus was able to do this by being the ultimate sacrifice because He was God incarnate. The other level of significance is the fact that if you objectively reference the Old Testament or the Jewish Talmud and read the prophetic words of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and some of the other Old Testament prophets, Jesus met the biblical blueprint of all the Messianic prophecies. No one else in history can lay that claim next to their name but Jesus.