[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
As I understand it (and this is obviously just the views of some Christians and only my perception of them), before Jesus we were automatically damned. After Jesus, we just automatically die. To be damned we actually have to do some sinning of our own, whereas before his death we assume the sins of our forebears.
[/QUOTE]
Basically before Jesus, humans had no free will? They were monsters who deserved hell the moment they took their first breath.
For an entity who supposedly loves us so much, he sure has a weird way of showing it.
[QUOTE=monstro]
So somehow Jesus’s death redeems us from sin. But most Christians are taught that believing in Jesus is necessary for obtaining eternal life. Not believing in Jesus = going to hell. Which seems to indicate that Jesus’s sacrifice didn’t transform anything in humankind. If you don’t believe in Jesus and follow his example, you’re no different than Moshe Q. Hebrew who lived prior to Jesus.
[/quote]
Jesus’ death has the potential to redeem us from sin. But you still need faith/works to make good on the deal.
In exactly the same way the local doctor has the *potential[/i to save you from death, but you still need to actually have sufficient faith in medicine to go in for a checkup and you still need to put in the effort to diet and exercise properly if that is what she tells you to do. The potential for salvation exists in both cases, but faith and works are needed in both cases as well. The mere existence of the individual won’t save anyone on its own.
Standard Christain belief is that prior to Jesus the only way to certain salvation was to live a good life and believe in God, and that meant following the Mosaic law scrupulously. Jesus’ sacrifice means that you can gain certain salvation without following the Law and without leaidng a perfect life. That is what Jesus’ sacrifice changed.
Moreover even pre-Jesus Jews were dependent on the fulfilment of the covenant for salvation. If jesus hadn’t fulfilled the covenmant then nobody could be saved, Jew, gentile or otherwise.
As Raindog said, it was a sacrifice.
Under Jewish law you needed to sarifice an animal and sprinkle its blood on the ground on a regular basis as attonement for the sin inherited from Adam. Think of it as a fine paid to god for crimes commmited against him. Stop paying the fine and God would withdraw himself form humanity and horrible things would happen both before and after death.
God also promised that he woudl be fully reconciled with humanity one day, IOW that he woudl forgive us for Adam’s sin. however that would require a perfect sacrice to attone for the perfect life therown away by Adam. No animal sacrifice can be perfect so God sends a perfect human life to be sacrificed. that was the ultimate fine paynment, the biggie.
That is what Jesus’ death accomplished. It wasn’t attention getting, it was the final and complete payment of the fine imposed by God on humanity because of what Adam did. Up until then the animal sacrifices were just payment of interest so God wouldnt; abandon us. Jesus death was the massive lump sum that made humanity and God square again. It reconciled humanity and God. Humanity was no longer in God’s debt because someone had given back to God the perfect life that Adam had thrown away.
With the ultimate sacrifice God can now see his way clear to erasing all sin from humanity. That’s going to take a while for various reasons, but it is now possible. Had Jesus not made that sacrifice forgiveness would be impossible because we woudl still owe God reparations.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
I can understand why what Jesus gives up is something we cannot give up; i’m asking the question of what exactly it was that he gave up, because if he gave it up he should no longer have it anymore.
[/quote]
He gave up a perfect human life. And indeed he no longer has that any more. He has a perfect spiritual life still but the human life is lost to him forever.
I don’t think there is any difference between the positions. Raindog is a JW, and I’ve been arguing from a position that is acceptable to JWs as well as other Christians. Can you explain what you think the difference is between giving up the perfectness of a human life and giving up the perect humanness of life? To me this is just semantics. Jesus was a perfect human when he gave up his life. The only life had to give up was human, and it was also perfect. When he sacrificed his life he sacrificed the lot: the perfection and the humanity.
And no, Jesus didn’t retain the perfect spirit life he always had. He lost all life. He was dead. Really dead. Really gone. The JWs particularly stress this, but even mainstream Christianity accepts this: Jesus died for three days. He snuffed it. The Bible is quite clear on this: he didn’t retain some spirit life, he actually died just like humans do, and he went exactly where humans go after death, to sheol (variously translated as hell, limbo or pergatory).
God resurrected him, but for three days Jesus was really dead. And when God resurrected him he re-imbued him with the perfect spirit life he had always had. But that wasn’t something Jesus retained, it was something that he had relinquished when he became mortal and something that God volunteered to give back.
I don’t think that raindog and I are arguing different concepts of sacrifice. I hope we are both using the same concept but explaining it slightly differently.
[QUOTE=monstro]
Basically before Jesus, humans had no free will? They were monsters who deserved hell the moment they took their first breath.
[/quote]
Umm, no. Humans always had free will. They were all sinners, and they still area. I suppose you could argue they deserved hell, but it’s an odd way to put it. More a case of humanity having earned hell as a reward for it sins.
[QUOTE=Blake]
I don’t think there is any difference between the positions. Raindog is a JW, and I’ve been arguing from a position that is acceptable to JWs as well as other Christians. Can you explain what you think the difference is between giving up the perfectness of a human life and giving up the perect humanness of life? To me this is just semantics. Jesus was a perfect human when he gave up his life. The only life had to give up was human, and it was also perfect. When he sacrificed his life he sacrificed the lot: the perfection and the humanity.
[/quote]
Theree’s certainly little difference there, but the way I read the raindog’s post was that he gave up perfectness entirely, rather than just perfect humanity.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Theree’s certainly little difference there, but the way I read the raindog’s post was that he gave up perfectness entirely, rather than just perfect humanity.
[/quote]
I’ll leave raindog to adress that, but I’m fairly certain you’ve misinterpreted. JWs believe that Jesus is still perfect, just not a perfect man any more.
No you didn’t, you read it perfectly. I just wrote it very badly. I shouldn’t have said that Jesus retained a perfect spiritual life. Accurately he was resurrected into spiritual perfection after he died.
Umm, no. Humans always had free will. They were all sinners, and they still area. I suppose you could argue they deserved hell, but it’s an odd way to put it. More a case of humanity having earned hell as a reward for it sins.
[/QUOTE]
I’m really trying to figure this out, because this is at the heart of my alienation from Christian teachings.
Why were the sinners before Jesus worse than the sinners of today?
If God loved us so much, why not make forgiveness a part of the deal from the very beginning? Why develop a strange calculus whereby the children of Adam are born in such a wretched, sinful state so that they need saving in the first place? Why initially require people to jump through the insane rules of the Law in order to get to heaven, and then manufacture Jesus and concoct a sacrifice to “rescue” them from this requirement? What purpose did the Law serve in our spiritual evolution?
Why should we feel especially grateful that our Webmaster uploaded a patch (Jesus) to fix a bug (original sin) that he intentionally created? Seems to me the more appropriate response would be anger, maybe relief, but not gratitude and praise.
[QUOTE=C K Dexter Haven]
As a parenthetical aside, one can argue that the sin and punishment of Adam (the near the beginning of the book of Genesis) was, in fact, overcome much earlier – by Joseph, at the end of the book of Genesis. The punishment of Adam (and mankind) is two-fold:
(1) That women shall have pain bearing/rearing children. Genesis thereafter describes siblilng rivalries (Jacob and Esau, Joseph and brothers, etc), spousal jealousies (Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Leah, etc), and all sorts of family problems. Joseph forgives his brothers, and thus ends that curse. The rest of the bible has very few sibling rivalry or spousal rivalry stories (there are a few, but they’re few and far between.)
(2) That mankind shall have to toil for bread. Genesis is then one cycle of famine after another, culminating in Joseph who does rationing and planning, and thus overcomes the famine-cycle. The rest of the bible almost never mentions famine.
An interesting argument, methinks.
[/QUOTE]
Regardless of what’s mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures, (1a) women still experience pain in the bearing of children, (1b) deadly sibling rivalries haven’t become a thing of the past, (2a) there have undoubtedly been thousands of famines since the time of the Joseph stories (whether they are history or parable), and (2b) while what I do for my bread these days wouldn’t be considered ‘toil’ by BCE standards (I imagine a typical Israelite from the time of David, if he could watch me for a day, and communicate with me, saying something like “dude, you’re sitting down all day! You spend your time looking at that thing that shows those not-so-graven images, and you do something with your fingers on that other funny gizmo. You call that toil, bucko? Come back to my time, and I’ll show you toil!”), even now most people in the world have to engage in genuine physical toil to earn their daily bread.
[QUOTE=monstro]
Why were the sinners before Jesus worse than the sinners of today?
[/quote]
They weren’t. All are equal. the only difference is the way to avoid punishment for sin.
Hence the reason why I’m not a Christian. I have never found anyone who can explain this fundamental point Christianaity to me in a manner that makes any sense at all. I can understand the concept of original sin. I can understand the concept of Jesus’ sacrifice and so forth. What I don’t get is the whole concept of needing the sacrifice. We’re dealing with an omnipotent God. He can do anything, that’s what ommipotent means. Why not arrange solution that doesn’t involve torturing his own son? Why not just click his fingers and wipe away Adam’s sins? For that matter why not just make Adam and Eve barren and start all over with Man 2.0 so there is no inherited sin?
In all fairness God didn’t create original sin, man created it. God created perfection inclduing perfect freedom. Man decided to exercise his freedom to decide right and wrong for himself and as a result grew away from God. That was the choice of humanity and something entirely of their creation.
The bizarre part is that a jusrt God allowed people who made this choice to have children who would have no choice but to be subject to the same misery. That’s sociopathic and sadistic and ourtright criminal. I’m sure it makes perfect sense in a society where a man’s chidlren and wife are his property and he can sell them into slavery to pay his debts, but in a society where such actions are consdiered reprehensible the actions of God are even worse.
Revenant Threshold
Let me say first that I appreciate your posts. Like cosmosdan, (and a few others) your posts are insightful and measured, and even when you disagree you demonstrate sufficient class that the discussion is rarely derailed. It’s a model for what GD should be about.
enuff of that.
To answer your question[s] to me, I’ll say that Blake answered the questions very well, and I don’t think I could improve on them. They represent the bible’s take on the subject (as far as my readings indicate).
I would add this, however. Certainly it can be said that he ‘sacrificed’ his perfect human life. However, rather than describing what he sacrificed, what is described is the qualities of love and humility that Christ displayed. To the extent sacrifice is discussed, Christ is not said to be sacrificing, but to be the sacrifice.
This is an important distinction. Christ demonstrated love, humility and obedience to his Father. He was selfless, and surely he suffered. It is appropriate to say he ‘sacrificed.’ But the primary point made was the qualities (principally love) he displayed. In this context, though, Christ was the sacrifice.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
I was responding to the raindog’s specific point; A sacrifice generally means giving something up.raindog’s post gives three possibilities; perfectness, humanity, or life. Plenty of people have humanity and life that they could choose to give up, and Jesus’s difference is highlighted by raindog as being his perfectness; since to me that implies that Jesus’ sacrifice meant he was no longer perfect, and that doesn’t sound all that likely to be the raindog’s view, i’m asking him about it.
IOW, it’s a point addressed to him specifically, not Christians in general, unless you share his particular beliefs in this matter.
[/QUOTE]
Highlighting mine
As I noted above, the use of “sacrifice” in this context denotes [much more often than not] who Christ was, as opposed to what he did.
Thanks, raindog. I do see your point about being the sacrifice - to put it in I hope not too crude terms, in your earlier example of animal sacrifices, Jesus was the sheep rather than the guy with the knife. That was my idea in the beginning, so i’m afraid I just didn’t put it all that well.
Let me explain it by analogy. I purchase a single match ticket for the local sports team, and you purchase a life membership seat for the same team in the same venue.
By your argument we can both both make exactly the same sacrifice by declaring that we will never watch the teamplay. After if it’s just a matter of not watching the match then we can both make that sacrifice, right?
But you make by far the bigger sacrifice. I only rented a seat for a while, a seat that I would have had to give up after a brief period of time anyway. At most I can sacrifice a single match. You OTOH could have enjoyed an infinite number of matches. You can sacrifice somehting that I never could because you posess something that I do not. You give up far more because you potentially posess far more. I gave up a single epehemeral event that I was obliged to relinquish soon anyway. You gave up an infinite number of events that you could have enjoyed forever.
[/QUOTE]
Not really. See, Revenant Threshold is really only giving up his pass for three days. Furthermore, he knows it’s only for three days.
Anyway, if he really was going to never wach that team play, there was probably a pretty good reason. Especially since you made the same decision, independently of him (presumably). It probably isn’t a very good team.
As I noted above, the use of “sacrifice” in this context denotes [much more often than not] who Christ was, as opposed to what he did.
Christ was the sacrifice.
[/QUOTE]
So, who sacrificed him? I mean, if I sacrifice a goat, I lose my goat, right? That’s what sacrifice means. Who sacrificed Jesus?
What I do not understand is why a Supreme being would creat a creature He knew would be faulty,punish him and all his decendents, because they were, then wait for thousands of years, become a man Himself, then have Himself killed to make up for all the decendents (and Adam’s) sins. Then let people decide if they still wanted to sin, punish them again if they did, and hide, then let humans write a book, call it His word, say He inspired it, knowing that humans are still subject to embellishing the truth, giving humans a spirit to inspire them to translate His so called word so many, many different ways.
Monavis
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
So, who sacrificed him? I mean, if I sacrifice a goat, I lose my goat, right? That’s what sacrifice means. Who sacrificed Jesus?
[/QUOTE]
Anybody? Who sacrificed Jesus? Is the answer blindingly obvious, and I just don’t get it, or is the question unanswerable?
He sacrificed Himself. He was all-powerful and humbled Himself to the power of others. He chose to go through torture and death even though He was innocent and could have used His power to escape pain and death, even to rule over the world. Like someone who sacrifices their own life for the life of their loved one.
[QUOTE=gigi]
He sacrificed Himself. He was all-powerful and humbled Himself to the power of others. He chose to go through torture and death even though He was innocent and could have used His power to escape pain and death, even to rule over the world. Like someone who sacrifices their own life for the life of their loved one.
[/QUOTE]
That is in direct opposition to the raindog’s post that I quoted, and as such, not really responsive. ** the raindog** says that it is not what Jesus did, but what he was that constitutes the sacrifice.
But let’s look at your answer. If an infinite and eternal being chooses humanity for 33 odd years, after which he continues along with his infinite, eternal omnipotence, can that really be called a sacrifice? What has he lost? What is 33 years compared with all of time?
My opinion, and I only attened church until I was a teenager, is:
I would think too that we sacrificed Jesus. Here we had the ultimate teacher of how to be good people and societies and how to create a heaven-like environment here on earth with no crime or hungry little children’s and we go and nail his ass to a cross.
Or something like that.
Someone gave us a golden goose and we cooked him for dinner.
[QUOTE=Tahssa]
My opinion, and I only attened church until I was a teenager, is:
I would think too that we sacrificed Jesus. Here we had the ultimate teacher of how to be good people and societies and how to create a heaven-like environment here on earth with no crime or hungry little children’s and we go and nail his ass to a cross.
[/QUOTE]
Does Jesus no longer exist? If he does exist, where is the sacrifice?
What did he teach that was not taught by previous teachers?
What do you mean “we?” I had nothing to do with it. Nor did anyone alive today. Why does all of humanity bear the responsibility of a tiny subset of one population, all of whose members died two thousand years ago?
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
But let’s look at your answer. If an infinite and eternal being chooses humanity for 33 odd years, after which he continues along with his infinite, eternal omnipotence, can that really be called a sacrifice? What has he lost?
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, especially since what kind of earthly pleasures was he having? It wasn’t like he was having sex and getting drunk.
