Go to church liberals
- Thread starter FreedomWins
- Start date
a lesson that we are still being taught today:
be obedient to those who claim authority over you,
acquiring truth and knowledge is discouraged/forbidden
Maybe there’s a reason for that? Perhaps God knows what mankind will do with knowledge and truth and the kinds of evil that will be perpetrated against fellow man with that understanding?
Knowledge can be a blessing. It can also be a curse when used by people not equipped to handle it properly. And we see examples of this every day.
I'll begin by making clear that I have no pretentions that I am right in my understanding of all of this. It is entirely possible that I am wrong.
Having said that, the issue I have with the traditional "penal substitution" approach to the cross ("Someone had to pay in blood for the sins of the world.") is that it is nearly impossible to avoid seeing God as a cosmic child abuser at that point. The logic that an all powerful God had no choice but to demand a blood sacrifice is flawed, as others have noted in this thread. If there was no other option, can we really say that God is all-powerful? And if God is truly all powerful and still chose that, is God even worth worshiping?
In answer to your question, I lean towards what is called the "Christus Victor" approach to understanding the cross. Simplified, it understands the cross as the definitive confrontation in which evil seeks to destroy God's love and grace and the resurrection as the ultimate victory - the affirmation that God's love cannot be defeated, diminished, or destroyed. Jesus died, then, less as a blood sacrifice and more as a sign that his message - as crazy as it is - is ultimately true.
It's not the only way to interpret the cross, and it may not be the "correct" way (if there even is a single correct way), but it is the way that helps me best in my quest to follow Jesus.
This is not to me, but will offer some general comments from ignorance, since collectively we are not well studied to answer in depth many things that could be asked, nor those awaiting an answer to possibly have the background to fully understand the answer should that occur. There are those that exist with “better” understandings though.
Generally speaking, once Protestantism was formed the Christian community grew out of Catholicism to what some would say is now roughly 60,000 denominations. All will state that they are followers of the bible and yet the obvious question is how do all follow the bible and have so many different understandings? I think that answer lies in A) Some may not have in depth knowledge of the history, culture and verbiage of a particular time for understanding rather than understanding through those times with 20th century eyes. B) Which denomination or person chose a literal instead of allegorical understanding or vice versa. What book or scripture area is taken literally instead of allegorically is what differentiates so many understandings and this exists in ALL denominations. I think this is literal, but that is allegorically and so forth.
As an example Jonah and the whale was written about 800 years before Christ. Some will take that as a literal interpretation and understanding whereas others will see that as an allegorical representation of the resurrection 800 years later. For me it is an allegorical representation, but there are many that hold a different view. Different views or understandings happen in everything. All saw Purdue last night, but there would be many different understandings of who the best player was and so forth or what each player’s role was towards victory. To your more pointed question of Genesis I have a hard time digesting a literal understanding, but can neither state an allegorical view due to my ignorance. There are many other areas in the OT of which I’m ignorant. If the OT were sufficent, there would be no reason for the NT and this is NOT to suggest the OT has no value. Understanding that connection can be very difficult for the lay person.
I’m not sure if you mentioned evolution at some point in this thread or not, relative to man? I also do not think there is near the following of evolution of a previous species to jump into human species as 50 years ago. That said, evolution of an appearance of many is allowed in some denominations. Catholic teachings allow an individual to decide outside of the “soul” evolving. When we say man was created in His image, that thought may go much deeper than a physical appearance. The survival of the 7 deadly sins suggest the consistency of man's vices. Some would say the “soul” is that difference in weight of an individual prior to and immediately after death that is not explained by the volume of gas and waste released.
Anyway, I think for those sincere in understanding, reconciliation of science and the bible is a chasm wider for some than others and probably affected somewhat by our ignorance in both areas for in-depth paradigms held. There you have it…what I do not know. 😊
edited below
In that Catholic to Protestant conversion that led to Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist that was misunderstood by Hugo Black???? in creating the separation of church and state resulting from Henry 8ths desire for a son.
I think I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t agree with it. The idea that “God is a cosmic child abuser” is fallacious in light of the concept of “free will”. Once sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden, God gave mankind free will to choose which way they want to live and what they want to believe.
God also warned mankind that there can be consequences for the life you live and for what you do or don’t believe.
And the truth is that Judaism and Islam basically have the similar concepts of “blood atonement” in their belief systems as Christianity and the concept of an atoning Messiah. Who or what the Messiah is differs between the three belief systems somewhat.
Christ is the victor over sin and death. His love cannot be defeated. But that still does not obviate the need for his atoning sacrifice, which Christ was on the cross. Romans 3:25 - 26 says 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Seems pretty clear to me. Do you not believe this to be true? You’re trying to apply humanistic concepts to basic Christian understanding.
Hebrews 2:17-18 says 17 “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”
Where is the fallaciousness in light of the concept of 'free will'?
I don't see how free will somehow made it necessary in God's eyes for Jesus to be tormented and murdered.
If that didn’t happen, there would be no atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Murder sounds like Jesus died and stayed in the grave. He resurrected after 3 days.
The sin of world is so great, a great sacrifice was required to atone for it once and for all. Jesus took the punishment that mankind deserves for its abundance of sin. He took it in our place so we don’t have to.
How do you make a sacrifice otherwise? In the days of the OT, Jewish priests would sacrifice lambs, goats, and pigeons on their temple altars. These animals were bought by the Jewish people as atoning sacrifices for their sins - yearly. In the NT, Jesus is called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is a new covenant between God and all mankind (Jews and Gentiles.) The OT-style sacrifices have been overcome for good by the permanent sacrifice of the Savior. We are freed from sin and death if we believe (have faith) in Jesus and what he has done for us.
Last edited:
You're definitely not alone. I have had conversations with all kinds of folks - ex-Christians, atheists, Muslims - about that very thing. It's one of the reasons I prefer the understanding I described above.
It's not so much that God required that Jesus die as it is that the world in which Jesus lived was so resistant to his message of love and grace that included everyone, even the people you considered enemies, that the people in that world felt the need to silence that message and attempted to do so by killing Jesus. 2,000 years later and it is pretty clear that they failed spectacularly, as that message is still around (albeit sometimes difficult to discern amidst all the nonsense us church folks get up to).
In short - the Gospel message that Jesus preached was good news to the poor and oppressed, but good news to the poor and oppressed often looks and sounds like bad news for the rich and powerful. So the rich and powerful killed the messenger.
I don’t completely agree with this. Being the Son of God, Jesus could have just said he “would not accept this cup”, ascended straight to Heaven, and would never have been crucified. He did not do that. He said, “not mine, but thy will be done”. That is, he did will the will of the Father - which was to be crucified and to die for the sins of the world as an atoning sacrifice. That’s exactly what the Bible says happened, does it not? This is not ambiguous, Pastor.
Last edited:
What better way to endear people to Jesus and Christianity than to say he died for your sins? What a great guy. I can sin and ask for forgiveness.......no problem, it's already taken care of.
If you meet the requirements, you spend eternity in paradise. You don't, you burn forever. Carrot or the stick.
If you meet the requirements, you spend eternity in paradise. You don't, you burn forever. Carrot or the stick.
I certainly never asked for anyone to die for me.
That seems immoral. Particularly as an inducement. I never asked for that.
They wanted to censor Jesus. They did not like what he said. There was no 1st. Not much different than high tech and the media today or Germany close to 90 years ago
Last edited:
One either will live with Christ OR the anti-christ in eternity.
The great thing is God out of complete love for you... let it be YOUR choice.
Cooler still you have until your last breath to make that choice.
But the earlier you make it the more peaceful your life will be.
sorry for the lack of clarity...freedom of speech was not allowed. It wasn't a rich and powerful group against a poor and insignificant person as implied. It was a powerful group against a person that was growing in popularity and they wanted to shut Him up. That was the reality...shutting up someone that said things you didn't want to hear. I think we miss the target when we imply it was a class thing. They too didn't think they had the right to be offended. That is what happened. His words were offensive and they wanted to censor him so others couldn't hear his words.
Today, for some reason "some" have this idea that there exists some right to not be offended and yet the reason we have the 1st is to allow unpopular speech. When you shut down freedom of speech, your control is in full tilt. True freedom of speech allows "ideas" to be expressed, debated and hopefully leading to a better understanding. I know you know all that as do others, but there actually are "some" that don't really appreciate that dialog and want to censor speech. So, we can show that humanity over time understands the importance of censoring people and why the Founding Fathers (remember those old white men?) were so understanding of history that they tried to prevent that from happening in this country. If you value the 1st, you better value the 2nd because there is a lot of history that proves you need it to protect not only the 1st, not only all...but the potential for any future amendments as well. If you can't directly remove the 1st...go for the 2nd and you can then remove the 1st. Being the 1st and 2nd shows the significance of priority
This is your opinion, though. Which of course you’re entitled to…. But this is the exact messaging that turns so many people away. Be the exact way you’re told by someone else who knows no more than you do about the afterlife or face eternal damnation. Do you see how that could rub people the wrong way? I’m not asking you to change your beliefs; just understand plenty of people don’t follow that line of thinking.
The difference is lots of people now put their faith in an illiberal government to save them. They have ceded authority to a government that really doesn’t give a damn about them and certainly cannot save them or their souls.
