Quizzes & Puzzles1 min ago
"The" Easter question
60 Answers
How exactly does this Jesus saving everybody by dying on the cross work?
I'm seriously interested because I've never quite gotten my head around how it is that Christians think this works.
Is it that God needed to see a sacrifice from Jesus (part of his own being) to see humanity worth saving? - How does that work with omniscience?
Or is it some sort of PR thing that this event "proved" God existed so that non-Jews would prey to him - because he could only save people who believed in him (could / would?) being good wasn't enough.
How specifically do the mechanics of this work?
I'm seriously interested because I've never quite gotten my head around how it is that Christians think this works.
Is it that God needed to see a sacrifice from Jesus (part of his own being) to see humanity worth saving? - How does that work with omniscience?
Or is it some sort of PR thing that this event "proved" God existed so that non-Jews would prey to him - because he could only save people who believed in him (could / would?) being good wasn't enough.
How specifically do the mechanics of this work?
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It still doesn't explain the mechanics of how Jesus getting crucified magically absorbs mankinds sins.
The appeasing a vengeful God bit doesn't work because a God that can see all time is hardly likely to have his fury assuaged by any act that he knows will happen - especially if he's responsible for it!
The appeasing a vengeful God bit doesn't work because a God that can see all time is hardly likely to have his fury assuaged by any act that he knows will happen - especially if he's responsible for it!
-- answer removed --
A theological view.
a) It still doesn't explain the mechanics of how Jesus getting crucified magically absorbs mankinds sins.
Your use of the word magic is rather enchanting. (sic)
Mankind is Adam and it is Eve. Most people think of them as individuals, but theologically it is humans generally. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve believed the serpent. This infers that they doubted God's love for them. It is considered that Adam made a big mistake which compromised not just him, but all of humanity for ages to come. Furthermore, that we still inherit the state of Adam's sin. This disharmony between human free will and human solidarity is a consequence of original sin.
Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned. Rom 5:12
Through Christ's Resurrection, Baptism re-establishes God's friendship with us by washing away this sin from our soul. In Baptism we receive Sanctifying grace and are born again into eternal life, and this makes us pleasing to God. Baptism does not cancel all the effects of Adam's sin, (e.g concupiscence). But it and the other Sacraments give us the grace needed to find our own salvation.
/contd
a) It still doesn't explain the mechanics of how Jesus getting crucified magically absorbs mankinds sins.
Your use of the word magic is rather enchanting. (sic)
Mankind is Adam and it is Eve. Most people think of them as individuals, but theologically it is humans generally. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve believed the serpent. This infers that they doubted God's love for them. It is considered that Adam made a big mistake which compromised not just him, but all of humanity for ages to come. Furthermore, that we still inherit the state of Adam's sin. This disharmony between human free will and human solidarity is a consequence of original sin.
Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned. Rom 5:12
Through Christ's Resurrection, Baptism re-establishes God's friendship with us by washing away this sin from our soul. In Baptism we receive Sanctifying grace and are born again into eternal life, and this makes us pleasing to God. Baptism does not cancel all the effects of Adam's sin, (e.g concupiscence). But it and the other Sacraments give us the grace needed to find our own salvation.
/contd
b) The appeasing a vengeful God bit doesn't work because a God that can see all time is hardly likely to have his fury assuaged by any act that he knows will happen - especially if he's responsible for it!
You are assuming it was a punishment for Jesus. This is not entirely true. We don�t know why God chose this for Jesus, but He did. Maybe John 15 hints at why: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends Essentially it was an act of divine love.
God didn�t make an arbitrary or cruel choice to impose needless suffering on His Son. Christ�s suffering and death were the only means by which He could bring God and fallen man together.
We can�t really �justify God�s reasoning�. These things are all assumptions. In either light, our free will condemns us, our depravity condemns us; we are saved by God�s grace. And that is the essential status of a Christian.
Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of God, who took away the sins of the world.
You are assuming it was a punishment for Jesus. This is not entirely true. We don�t know why God chose this for Jesus, but He did. Maybe John 15 hints at why: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends Essentially it was an act of divine love.
God didn�t make an arbitrary or cruel choice to impose needless suffering on His Son. Christ�s suffering and death were the only means by which He could bring God and fallen man together.
We can�t really �justify God�s reasoning�. These things are all assumptions. In either light, our free will condemns us, our depravity condemns us; we are saved by God�s grace. And that is the essential status of a Christian.
Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of God, who took away the sins of the world.
Jake, you're loking for reason and logic in an area where you must know there is none.
Who certified Jesus as dead? The soldiers who 'saw that he was dead'. How did they know? I doubt whether even a qualified modern doctor could tell just by looking. A stethoscope would be the least he would need.
And what did Jesus die of?
That the death was suspiciously premature is shown not just by Pilate's justifiable surprise but by the fact that his two fellow crucificees had to have their legs broken to kill them.
If I had to explain the resurrection the obvious solution would be that Jesus was not dead because he had no reason to be and we have no credible evidence that he was. He then received enough TLC in the tomb to allow him to be escorted away to no-one knows where.
That is so straightforward and reasonable that we don't need the supernatural.
But since I don't accept the gospels anyway, I don't have that job.
Who certified Jesus as dead? The soldiers who 'saw that he was dead'. How did they know? I doubt whether even a qualified modern doctor could tell just by looking. A stethoscope would be the least he would need.
And what did Jesus die of?
That the death was suspiciously premature is shown not just by Pilate's justifiable surprise but by the fact that his two fellow crucificees had to have their legs broken to kill them.
If I had to explain the resurrection the obvious solution would be that Jesus was not dead because he had no reason to be and we have no credible evidence that he was. He then received enough TLC in the tomb to allow him to be escorted away to no-one knows where.
That is so straightforward and reasonable that we don't need the supernatural.
But since I don't accept the gospels anyway, I don't have that job.
-- answer removed --
-- answer removed --
The use of original sin is interesting.
I don't think many Cristians believe in that.
Do you Octavius?
Do you believe there was an actual Garden of Eden where a real Adam and Eve disobeyed God and brought the fury of God on the heads of all mankind?
If the sin that you've been talking about Jesus saving humanity from is original sin I'm somewhat surprised.
Next you'll be telling me you think that Noah was real and that the Earth was really totally flooded and all the Lions an Tigers and Komodo dragons on the planet are decended from the ones in a big boat!
I don't think many Cristians believe in that.
Do you Octavius?
Do you believe there was an actual Garden of Eden where a real Adam and Eve disobeyed God and brought the fury of God on the heads of all mankind?
If the sin that you've been talking about Jesus saving humanity from is original sin I'm somewhat surprised.
Next you'll be telling me you think that Noah was real and that the Earth was really totally flooded and all the Lions an Tigers and Komodo dragons on the planet are decended from the ones in a big boat!
We could speculate that it wasn�t the only choice available, but perhaps God, being aware that Jesus was going to rise again and ascend into heaven to be with Him, it was the preferred choice. In so doing the suffering of Jesus before and on the cross demonstrated to the world, that if Jesus can submit himself purely in faith to the will of God, then so can we all.
A few points. God is not amenable to ration or logic - if he were the whole thing would be done and dusted. Since man was made in the image of God, then it must be safe to believe he shares emotions. If in the beginning God was floating about in isolation, he would have wanted love, so he created a freewill mankind with the ability to love of freewill, but also, to reject or hate with freewill. There is no point in love not freely given.
Sin is not "doing bad things", sin is a state of separation from goodness, a failure to be perfect.
The words on the cross - "why have you forsaken me?" - they may have been exactly true. A complete absence of God, a total loss of anything good, then the suffering/bearing of all the ills of the world ever, past present and future is mind-boggling. No wonder Jesus asked in Gethsemane for the cup to be taken from him!
Of course he died on the cross. The Romans knew how to crucify someone. But, imagine, he was up all night, flogged (which in itself could be fatal), nailed up for at least 6 hours, a spear stuck in his side, does anybody really believe that a short rest in a tomb being patched up with a few ointments could produce an individual who would just two days later re-inspire the depressed disciples, in some cases to martyrdom. No man will die for something he knows to be a deception.
It will never be proved and equally important it will never be disproved.
Sin is not "doing bad things", sin is a state of separation from goodness, a failure to be perfect.
The words on the cross - "why have you forsaken me?" - they may have been exactly true. A complete absence of God, a total loss of anything good, then the suffering/bearing of all the ills of the world ever, past present and future is mind-boggling. No wonder Jesus asked in Gethsemane for the cup to be taken from him!
Of course he died on the cross. The Romans knew how to crucify someone. But, imagine, he was up all night, flogged (which in itself could be fatal), nailed up for at least 6 hours, a spear stuck in his side, does anybody really believe that a short rest in a tomb being patched up with a few ointments could produce an individual who would just two days later re-inspire the depressed disciples, in some cases to martyrdom. No man will die for something he knows to be a deception.
It will never be proved and equally important it will never be disproved.
Octavius, How could there have been a 'complete absence of God', and how could Jesus have submitted himself purely in faith to the will of God? He was God.
Gormless, Of course no man will die for something he knows to be a deception, but those who have died in the name of Christianity were no more aware than you are that the whole thing was a deception.
Gormless, Of course no man will die for something he knows to be a deception, but those who have died in the name of Christianity were no more aware than you are that the whole thing was a deception.
Octavius, I doubt that you would accept it if I were to point out a very alive fellow and tell you that he had been dead a couple of days ago, my only evidence being the word of some unknown soldier.
Gormless, �Of course he was dead� is not argument or evidence, mere rhetoric. The preliminaries to crucifixion that you list were common to all victims, yet the average survival was three days.
The piercing in the side is mentioned only by the unknown author of �John� (written somewhere around 90-120 AD) and does not appear in the three gospels that preceded his. Where would he suddenly have got that new information from at such remove? The piercing story is irrelevant: it was meant to show death not cause it, and it doesn�t do that anyway.
That Octavius is prepared to base an astounding miracle on the word of a soldier, reported by unknown people years after the event, and Gormless on dodgy reasoning, shows just how low the evidential requirement is for Christians to believe these things.
As I have said before, believing the Jesus story is purely a matter of faith, and that�s fair enough. It�s when you try to give it a historical basis that you come a cropper.
With genuine sincerity I wish you a happy Easter, just as I would wish an astrologer a happy conjunction of Mars and Jupiter and a druid a happy summer solstice at Stonehenge. And I am not being sarcastic: I like people to be happy.
Gormless, �Of course he was dead� is not argument or evidence, mere rhetoric. The preliminaries to crucifixion that you list were common to all victims, yet the average survival was three days.
The piercing in the side is mentioned only by the unknown author of �John� (written somewhere around 90-120 AD) and does not appear in the three gospels that preceded his. Where would he suddenly have got that new information from at such remove? The piercing story is irrelevant: it was meant to show death not cause it, and it doesn�t do that anyway.
That Octavius is prepared to base an astounding miracle on the word of a soldier, reported by unknown people years after the event, and Gormless on dodgy reasoning, shows just how low the evidential requirement is for Christians to believe these things.
As I have said before, believing the Jesus story is purely a matter of faith, and that�s fair enough. It�s when you try to give it a historical basis that you come a cropper.
With genuine sincerity I wish you a happy Easter, just as I would wish an astrologer a happy conjunction of Mars and Jupiter and a druid a happy summer solstice at Stonehenge. And I am not being sarcastic: I like people to be happy.
Cheers Andy. So doff your hat I pray!!
I know a song about that......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woqfb12h4y4
I know a song about that......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woqfb12h4y4
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