Who benefits from Jesus death?

[Elijah John]

Who benefits from Jesus death?

Everyone? Does his death pay for everyone's sins, whether they realize it or not?
Everyone who seeks to live a God-centered life?
Every person of good will, who tries to live right?
All who try to follow Jesus teachings and example of love?
Believers in the doctrine of his blood atonement only?

Or no one? Except maybe the High Priests and Romans who killed him?

Who benefits from Jesus death? Was it redemptive? Does anyone benefit from his death whether they realize it was redemptive or not?

In other words, does Jesus death "fix EVERYTHING" between humankind and God?

[Divine Insight]

I think you make a lot of good points in this post, but I would take issue with lumping Judaism and Islam with Trinitarian Christianity, as the two have completely different ideas of atonment from the predominate Christianity model.

I agree that Christianity is significantly different from both Judaism and Islam. However, I would be quick to point out that Judaism and Islam also differ from each other quite significantly. Thus Christianity is in no way unique among these three main factions.

My point is that all three modern versions of all of these religions still evolved from the very same fables of a single jealous God. Therefore, in that sense they are indeed all the "Same Religion" at their foundational roots. There is no getting around that fact.

Also I disagree with your conclusion that because this God has not made crystal clear the way to gain Heaven and avoid hell, therefore this God must not "care". I don't think that necessarily follows. Could be confusion on the human scribe side of the equation. Maybe just maybe God sent another prophet Mohammed, to reaffirm the message of Judaism's ethical monotheism and that salvation (or getting right with God) is based more on behavior rather than belief.

Well, my point here was made with respect to the idea that Christianity is right and the other Abrahamic religions are wrong. You are basically arguing that they are fundamentally all true. And that God sent both Jesus and Mohammad, etc.

I can't argue with that view other than to say that it does seem to fly in the face of the Christian claims that Jesus is the "Only Way". Which supposedly comes directly from the New Tesatment and Jesus himself (i.e. No one comes to the Father buy by me). You need to totally dismiss these "sacred words" of Jesus in order to give Judaism and Islam equal credence.

Finally, I would argue that if we were going to take that view, then why stop with the Abrahamic religions? Why not assume that God was also speaking through Buddha, and all the other religious figures. Maybe this same God was even communicating to the Greeks through the stories of Zeus. And then we would need to give credence to the Goddess of the Wiccans too, etc.

In some sense I could agree with this to a point. But even so, this seems to be implying that there are countless paths to God and salvation and what might be trust for "Christians" wouldn't necessarily be true for anyone else.

I think we would need to extend this same line of thinking to atheists as well, and assume that since there do seem to be decent moral atheists among us, then this all-embracing God must condone non-belief in him as well. Once again, violating Biblical Scriptures.

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In short in this latter argument you are basically suggesting that this God has made things "crystal clear" to everyone simply because there is no single absolute way to salvation and therefore there is nothing to make "crystal clear".

In the end I'm afraid I would need to side with secular atheist materialists on this one. It's seems far less complicated, and far more reasonable to just conclude that there is no such thing as a higher conscious entity who is playing all these absurdly convoluted games with us.

If such an entity actually existed why not make things clear?

Why play all these guessing games and games of hide-and-seek. It just doesn't seem rational at all.

Great points about the mass resurrection of the saints though, and obscure story that seems to get little attention or mention from Bible literalists, as I think that is a hard one to explain or defend.

I agree, most biblical literalist do avoid this tough issues. Although I have had these debates in the past. The most popular apology for this is that Jesus went to hell for the three days he was dead, and when in hell he met people who were willing to repent and those were the "saints" that were resurrected with him. In this way they can still give Jesus "Credit" for having offered grace to these "saints".

I personally don't buy into that because that would imply that these saints were cast into hell even though an omniscient God knew that they would change their minds later. And supposedly there will be no chance to change your mind once you are cast into the hellfire.

So I don't buy their excuses for these clearly flawed stories.

But in a similar vein, Jesus parable of the rich man and Lazarus (from Luke, I believe) mentions that "listening to Moses and the prophets" is enough to show people the way to avoid hell, and that even if someone were to "come back from the dead" they would not be believed. Ironic given who is preaching the parable.

The parable seems more evidence against Jesus martyrdom being any kind of literal blood atonement to "pay" for sins.

There are many arguments that can be made against the idea of Jesus needing to be the sacrificial lamb of every single human person.

Jesus himself preached, "Be perfect like your Father in heaven is Perfect".

This surely implies that it's possible for us to be perfect (at least in a moral sense), otherwise why would Jesus have told anyone to do this? So the idea that we can't be perfect is in contradiction with the very teachings that have been attributed to Jesus.

I also always point to Luke 6:37 where Jesus state that if we forgive we will be forgiven, if we do not condemn we will not be condemned, and if we do not judge we will not be judged.

This doesn't seem to fit into the idea that every single person is in danger of condemnation and will be judged no matter what.

So there are many reasons even within the New Testament scriptures to argue that Jesus does not need to be the scapegoat for every single man. Yet almost of all of Christendom holds that he does save for some of the more liberal progressive denominations.

Potentially Catholicism may also allow that people can indeed be saved by works alone. I'm not exactly sure about that. But if a person can be saved by their own works, then they hardly require Jesus to be their sacrificial scapegoat.

This is why most fundamental Protestant Christians are dead set against being saved by your own merit. They demand that everyone must be saved by Jesus. They will not tolerate any exceptions to this. They most likely also won't tolerate the idea of anyone joining anything other than their church either.

[sleepyhead]

Who benefits from Jesus death?

Everyone? Does his death pay for everyone's sins, whether they realize it or not?
Everyone who seeks to live a God-centered life?
Every person of good will, who tries to live right?
All who try to follow Jesus teachings and example of love?
Believers in the doctrine of his blood atonement only?

Or no one? Except maybe the High Priests and Romans who killed him?

Who benefits from Jesus death? Was it redemptive? Does anyone benefit from his death whether they realize it was redemptive or not?


In other words, does Jesus death "fix EVERYTHING" between humankind and God?

Of the choices offered, I will go with everyone who tries to live right. The sermons that were given in the book of acts indicates that the benefit promoted was the Holy Ghost. The HG in dwelled within individuals giving a new heart.