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Jesus' Sacrifice
- Thread starter Fool
- Start date
First you have to cement the foundation that it is called a suicide. Are you saying every person that dies on the battlefield has committed suicide when killed by the opponents?
Is self-sacrifice for your fellow man a sin? Say you were with a group of folks who broke the rules imposed by some ruler who demanded someone be executed for the crime. You volunteered in order to save everyone else in the group. Would this action be a sin?
That was not a suicide. Nor He gave away His life.
He just left during the Passover weekend. A short holyday, so to speak.
Ciao
- viole
I do not think 'suicide' is an accurate term for Jesus' death.
sacrifice
everyone who goes into battles doesn't die. everyone who does die doesn't necessarily die willingly. some christians portray jesus as dying willingly by the hands of his accusers.
suicide by cop
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Christian's claim that Jesus laid down his life for others.
It's my understanding that he laid down his life for all; including his own. He who wishes to be greatest must be servant to all. Was he offering to commit suicide by roman soldier in order to fulfill his role as a servant to all?
Other prophet's had come, righteous men too, and their lives had been taken also; so why were they not acceptable sacrifices?
Matthew 9:13
But go you and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Matthew 12:7
But if you had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.
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Politesse
Amor Vincit Omnia
I would not consider either course to be a "sin", but it seems to me that giving up one's life for another is hardly the same thing as suicide. It is true that many suicides believe they are doing this, but if the others around them agreed, it wouldn't be called suicide in the first place.
Every person who goes willingly to war and dies is not a suicide. Every time a soldier realized that the grenade will kill his friends and lays on it is not classified as a suicide.
Def. by Merriam Webster:a : the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally
Jesus gave his life voluntarily but did not take his own life..
therefore your initial premise is already faulty and the question is mute within that context
true
faulty premise within the definition. He offered his life for others.. yes.
They were acceptable... but not for the payment of the sins of many for (within Christian understanding) Jesus was sinless where the others had their own sins and could not pay for the sins of others.
we're not discussing the motives of other people. I can see putting oneself in harms way to save others in imminent danger but serving all as ONE is in itself sacrificing one's own selfish motives. a father/mother putting themselves in peril to save the life of their child can be construed as a act of vainglory or selflessness..
there is a difference. the focus isn't on self but on the well being of another. it isn't the same as self-preservation or self-glorification.
volunteering to be a servant and of service; is not suicide. sacrificing is suicidal. jesus didn't wish to die; nor did he want the cup of bitterness being offered to him by the sanhedrin.
"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" "We can," they answered.
1. Father forgive them for they know not what they do.
2. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.
being a servant to all is an offering. one doesn't have to die to accomplish the other. he who wishes to be greatest must be servant to all. he didn't say he who wishes to be greatest must sacrifice himself to all.
you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it sup
Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
his coming and witnessing expiated the sin. his death didn't alleviate their sinning. ignorance, or unknowingly erring is sin too.
it's simply the difference between willingly and unknowingly committing a hostile/negative act against another. kind of like a difference between murder and involuntary manslaughter.
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A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
This doesn't frame up the circumstance appropriately. Didn't Jesus supposedly know he was bound for death? Now consider your "person on the battlefield" - does any soldier know for certain that he is going to die on the battlefield? No. In fact, if anything every single person on that battlefield (unless a suicide bomber or kamikaze of some form) wants desperately to be one of the ones left standing. However, to fulfill his destiny, I would think Christ would have had to even go so far as to desire death on some level, to consecrate the sacrifice. No?
What I've thought before is that God didn't need a sacrifice. The Judeans needed a sacrifice. They were so stuck with the traditional idea of quid for quo for God they couldn't accept the idea that God would offer his mercy freely. They just needed to accept it. However they wouldn't accept it because of traditional belief. So knowing that they intended to kill him anyway, Jesus hoped folks would see this as the ultimate sacrifice so they'd see this traditional need fulfilled and accept that God had forgiven them.
In other words this sacrifice was not needed by God, it was needed by the Judeans because of their traditional concepts of how forgiveness was supposed to work.
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
Is this really your stance on that matter?You got it!
You have no idea how many times I get to re-affirm my "faith in nothing" by hearing/reading ideas like this one of those who call themselves "Christian" (among other things, obviously) and realizing that, in no way do I want to emulate their thought patterns on those ideas.
i agree. you can't give to God what is already God's; if God is omnipresent.
DavidFirth
Well-Known Member
I think you have just messed up your premise of suicide since the definition is that one is taking ones own life away.
IF, as you say "jesus didn't wish to die", then you have just accentuated the reality that he didn't commit suicide but rather others took it away.
However, let's look at this carefully:
One can't just select scriptures that supports one's position but one must harmonize all scripture:
John 10:
17 This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again.MSG
17 Therefore* doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take itagain. This commandment have I received of myFather.
John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (And he called us friends)
So let's look at his statement of the cup:
Matt 26
39 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying,O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
42 He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying,O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
Notice he didn't say "I'm not going to do it! But rather... if there is no other way, I will do it. And previously "I lay it down myself"
Harmonizing:
the death of the cross is hard enough... to pay for the sins of all is hell on earth. As a man, that in and of itself is a hard decision but he made it... why? because of his love for his friends.
If the issue is what happens when someone commits suicide, God looks at the heart. It isn't a cardinal sin IMV
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