The Sacrifice
of Jesus
Crucifixion
is
a horrible way to die. If you hang a man with his arms
outstretched then besides the immense pain of taking his
body weight on nails through his wrists/hands, and having
his arms pulled out of their sockets - he can't breath
properly and starts to suffocate. Unfortunately he cannot
overcome his instinct to survive and will do anything to
enable himself to take a breath. The only way he can do that
is to take the weight off his arms by pushing with his legs
- which have a nail through them. He cannot maintain that
for long so falls back. This cycle is repeated until total
exhaustion. In one of the gospels it says that at the end of
the day they found Jesus was dead so they did not need to
break his legs to finish him off.
Jesus gave his life
to bring us God's message, and by dying and rising from the
dead he brought that message to the attention of the whole
of mankind. He knew what the consequences would be and he
accepted them because he believed his mission was that
important and because he believed that is what God wanted
him to do. Our salvation depends on us following that
message. He paid with his life in a truly horrendous way to
give us the means to our salvation. He is therefore rightly
described as our saviour.
Surely the idea that the message he brought was inadequate is abhorrent, yet the Church says it is; that the Church had to augment his message with necessary Doctrine. In the case of the Trinity - that he left out something really important. Something it took the Church 3 centuries of bitter controversy to work out. Did he forget? As they were about to nail him to the cross did he think "oh heck I forgot to tell them about the Trinity"? If so he had another chance when he rose from the dead but what he actually said (message to his Disciples) was “I go to my father and your father, to my God and your God” John 20:17 implying that his relationship with God, though special, was in essence the same as the disciples relationship with God - earthly son, heavenly father. If Jesus was God then clearly he didn't think we needed to know. I come back to the idea that Jesus' message had to be simple enough to safely leave in the hands of uneducated fishermen and the like.
I believe he rose from the dead. If he didn't the behaviour of his disciples is inexplicable, going from being a group of confused, frightened men terrified that they would be rounded up, into a fearless bunch willing to die in the service of the risen Jesus.
What is less convincing is the Church's claim that God gave his only Son as a perfect sacrifice, to take away the sins of the world. It doesn't make sense. A sacrifice, by its very nature, is a gift to please or placate a deity.
Question - Who in this instance is supposedly sacrificing who to please/placate which God.
Did "the world" sacrifice Jesus to please or placate God? Why would God be pleased it was a truly horrible thing to do? Was "the world" rewarded for the terrible thing it did?
Did Jesus sacrifice himself to satisfy an agreement or pact with God? If so God, "who's nature is always to have mercy", who outlawed human sacrifice when he stopped Abraham humanly sacrificing Isaac is now insisting on the most horrible painful death of his most loyal servant before he will do something he could have done anyway. The Church says that "sins have to be paid for". If so who made that rule if not God? If there are rules which God himself must obey then who made them? Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings". If you add in the Church's claim that Jesus was not only God's son but also in some way God, then you end up with God sacrificing God to please or placate God?
Why did he tell us to pray "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" If by dying he took our sins away?
Let us be clear. A sin is an act contrary to God's will. It is something which has happened and cannot be "un-happend". It may be forgiven so it won't be held against you, but it can't be "taken away" nor can it be transferred to a goat - the Church makes Jesus into a super version of a scape goat. It maintains the concept of communal sin in the phrase "sins of the world" - contrary to what Jesus taught. The "world" had to neither give up something it values (the widow's mite criteria) nor did the "world" have to repent of its sins - what Jesus teaches as being the way to mitigate sin.
Another example of the convoluted idea of transferable Sin comes in the Doctrine of "Original Sin". This says that when a baby comes into the world it inherits sins from its mother. There was a problem however in that the Church wanted to claim Jesus was without Sin but he was born of Mary so they came up with a work-around, the Doctrine of the immaculate conception. This relates to the conception of Mary. The Doctrine says that when she was conceived she inherited no sin from her mother and so was without sin when she gave birth to Jesus and passed no sin on to him. The Bible doesn't say who her mother was but obviously she had to be special so the Church called her Anne and made her a saint! In the 1960's it was normal practice for a midwife to baptise a baby if she didn't think it would live "so that God would let it into heaven". Could you really believe in such a God? A sceptic (me!) might conclude that the main purpose of this Doctrine was so that the post Nicene Church could claim that nobody, not even a baby, could go to heaven without the help of the Church. The Nicene creed talked about baptism for the remission of sin.
Problem 7 is that other Key Doctrine, beside the Trinity don't actually make sense and are not going to make sense to someone who has not grown up in the Church or who is not in awe of the Church. Such a person is liable to walk away shaking his head and mumuring "Blimy do these people really believe this stuff?". Again it has no effect on how we relate to God or how we follow the teaching of Jesus. Church Doctrine has not aged well.
NEXT >
Surely the idea that the message he brought was inadequate is abhorrent, yet the Church says it is; that the Church had to augment his message with necessary Doctrine. In the case of the Trinity - that he left out something really important. Something it took the Church 3 centuries of bitter controversy to work out. Did he forget? As they were about to nail him to the cross did he think "oh heck I forgot to tell them about the Trinity"? If so he had another chance when he rose from the dead but what he actually said (message to his Disciples) was “I go to my father and your father, to my God and your God” John 20:17 implying that his relationship with God, though special, was in essence the same as the disciples relationship with God - earthly son, heavenly father. If Jesus was God then clearly he didn't think we needed to know. I come back to the idea that Jesus' message had to be simple enough to safely leave in the hands of uneducated fishermen and the like.
I believe he rose from the dead. If he didn't the behaviour of his disciples is inexplicable, going from being a group of confused, frightened men terrified that they would be rounded up, into a fearless bunch willing to die in the service of the risen Jesus.
What is less convincing is the Church's claim that God gave his only Son as a perfect sacrifice, to take away the sins of the world. It doesn't make sense. A sacrifice, by its very nature, is a gift to please or placate a deity.
Question - Who in this instance is supposedly sacrificing who to please/placate which God.
Did "the world" sacrifice Jesus to please or placate God? Why would God be pleased it was a truly horrible thing to do? Was "the world" rewarded for the terrible thing it did?
Did Jesus sacrifice himself to satisfy an agreement or pact with God? If so God, "who's nature is always to have mercy", who outlawed human sacrifice when he stopped Abraham humanly sacrificing Isaac is now insisting on the most horrible painful death of his most loyal servant before he will do something he could have done anyway. The Church says that "sins have to be paid for". If so who made that rule if not God? If there are rules which God himself must obey then who made them? Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings". If you add in the Church's claim that Jesus was not only God's son but also in some way God, then you end up with God sacrificing God to please or placate God?
Why did he tell us to pray "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" If by dying he took our sins away?
Let us be clear. A sin is an act contrary to God's will. It is something which has happened and cannot be "un-happend". It may be forgiven so it won't be held against you, but it can't be "taken away" nor can it be transferred to a goat - the Church makes Jesus into a super version of a scape goat. It maintains the concept of communal sin in the phrase "sins of the world" - contrary to what Jesus taught. The "world" had to neither give up something it values (the widow's mite criteria) nor did the "world" have to repent of its sins - what Jesus teaches as being the way to mitigate sin.
Another example of the convoluted idea of transferable Sin comes in the Doctrine of "Original Sin". This says that when a baby comes into the world it inherits sins from its mother. There was a problem however in that the Church wanted to claim Jesus was without Sin but he was born of Mary so they came up with a work-around, the Doctrine of the immaculate conception. This relates to the conception of Mary. The Doctrine says that when she was conceived she inherited no sin from her mother and so was without sin when she gave birth to Jesus and passed no sin on to him. The Bible doesn't say who her mother was but obviously she had to be special so the Church called her Anne and made her a saint! In the 1960's it was normal practice for a midwife to baptise a baby if she didn't think it would live "so that God would let it into heaven". Could you really believe in such a God? A sceptic (me!) might conclude that the main purpose of this Doctrine was so that the post Nicene Church could claim that nobody, not even a baby, could go to heaven without the help of the Church. The Nicene creed talked about baptism for the remission of sin.
Problem 7 is that other Key Doctrine, beside the Trinity don't actually make sense and are not going to make sense to someone who has not grown up in the Church or who is not in awe of the Church. Such a person is liable to walk away shaking his head and mumuring "Blimy do these people really believe this stuff?". Again it has no effect on how we relate to God or how we follow the teaching of Jesus. Church Doctrine has not aged well.
NEXT >
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