Was Jesus' Sacrifice Significant?

[Linus]

My belief in Jesus is is predicated upon Him being a teacher and prophet.

Mine is based on Jesus' resurrection. Without it, His death means little, and his message means little more.

there a many learned scholars who state that the Gospels were written with a political bias.

So? There are many learned scholars who believe that they weren't.

If you doubt the veracity of the scriptures, how can you be sure that any part at all is correct? If you reduce the gospels to a mere political tool, you can't very well rely on any part of hte message within them. Not with any great confidence anyway...

The question arises; If I am responsible for my own actions and face judgement, then why should I rely upon someone else, namely Jesus, to take the hit for me?

Why did God tell the Jews that a lamb or a heffer should take the hit for them?

 

[bartdanr]

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.

Hi Blueman, thanks for the post.

I think here you are introducing another topic worthy of its own thread--"Did Jesus fulfill messianic prophecy"? It is certainly not an indisputible claim. Indeed, Jews (that is, other than "Messianic Jews") do not see Jesus as fulfilling the prophecies, while Christians do. I've studied the debate a lot myself, and I see that some traditional Christian apologetics on this matter are wanting.

If you would like to start another thread on this subject, it might make for interesting discussion.

Peace

 

[bartdanr]

The whole debate on human sacrifice is also worthy of its own thread. Also complicating the debate is that God's reaction to the human sacrifice of the Canaanites was, in effect, the human sacrifice of those entire nations. ("Wholly devoting them to destruction").

 

[Bennettresearch]

Mine is based on Jesus' resurrection. Without it, His death means little, and his message means little more.

So? There are many learned scholars who believe that they weren't.

If you doubt the veracity of the scriptures, how can you be sure that any part at all is correct? If you reduce the gospels to a mere political tool, you can't very well rely on any part of hte message within them. Not with any great confidence anyway...


Why did God tell the Jews that a lamb or a heffer should take the hit for them?

Hi Linus,

I am respectful of your belief in the resurrection, but you have done little to disuade me from my point. Many Christians defend the dogma, but he movement towards extracting Jesus from within the canonized biblical writings from that period, that have been deemed infallible by dogma, is a strong one.

Let me addres your reactions to my statements;

1. The belief in the Resurrection is very different than the belief in human blood sacrifice to cleanse sins.

2. There are parts of the scriptures that I doubt. This does not mean that I don't believe in Jesus, it only means that I am not sure that everything said in the Bible is necessarily true. In studying on the subject, we know that the scribes were prone to color the story. This can be benign or it can be problematic. I am not reducing the Gospels at all, only studying them.

3. Do you equate Jesus as being the same as a lamb or a heifer? Is animal sacrifice equal to human sacrifice? Are you saying that God ordained human sacrifice as holy?

These aspects of the political viewpoint of those who penned the scriptures could very well have led us all in the wrong direction. This is my point.