Roman executioner's are not priests,

[Elijah John]

Roman executioners are not priests, and the cross is not an altar. So how can Jesus execution be considered a "payment for sin"? In any kind of a theologically legal sense, that is.

If Jesus death is truly a legal "payment for sin" as Paul seems to teach, and as Jehovah's Witnesses claim, (ransom), then wouldn't his death have to be performed on the Temple altar, at the hands of a Jewish priest?

1) Is the idea of Jesus death as a "payment for sin" anything more than a metaphor? A metaphor that is useful for Paul and his followers, but not for everyone.

2) Is the notion of Jesus martyrdom as a "payment for sin" Divine revelation? Or theological speculation.

3) Seems Paul wanted to play the legal, Priestly game in regard to Jesus death, so why wouldn't the legal, priestly rules have disqualified his interpretations?

4) Is Pauline blood-atonement theology legalistic?

5) Would Jesus have approved of such a legalistic approach?

Please address any combination of the above.

[Divine Insight]

Roman executioners are not priests, and the cross is not an altar. So how can Jesus execution be considered a "payment for sin"? In any kind of a theologically legal sense, that is.

This can all depend on what your theological views are.

If this was God providing his only begotten Son as the sacrificial lamb for mankind, then anywhere in the world would be a suitable "Altar" since God owns all of creation.

The Roman executioners would not need to be priests because they wouldn't be the ones making the sacrifice. God is the one who is making the sacrifice.

The only question then becomes the question of why God needs to make a sacrifice at all? Who would he be making the sacrifice to? Himself? That seems rather absurd.

He certainly couldn't be making the sacrifice to humans because humans aren't asking that any sacrifice be made on their behalf.

And if he's making this sacrifice to Satan then Satan wins.

So the question isn't whether or not it make sense that God can make a sacrifice any way he sees fit. But rather the question is why this God needs to make a sacrifice at all?

But this goes back to the Old Testament as well. You need to understand that Christianity is just an offshoot of the original Judaism or Hebrew mythology where their God demands blood sacrifices.

Why should a God require blood sacrifices for the disobedience of men?

So never mind Christ or Christianity, this religion makes no sense from it's very beginnings. The entire Abrahamic picture fails. The Christian story of Christ only exposes the absurdity in full view. But the absurdity already existed in the Old Testament. So there's really nothing new in Christianity. It's just a continuation of the same original superstitious beliefs.

[Wootah]

So you do acknowledge that Jews made regular sacrifice for their sins?

Legalism and being legalistic is following rules in order to get to heaven. In order to not break the rules you create more rules to follow.

The bible shows that there are no amount of rules we can follow in order to get to heaven. Accepting Jesus is therefore the opposite of your implications.

Also in just a general rebuttal do you think God disregards a sacrifice just because it was offered outside a temple? Isnt that notion in itself legalistic?

[JehovahsWitness]

If Jesus death is truly a legal "payment for sin" as Paul seems to teach, and as Jehovah's Witnesses claim, (ransom), then wouldn't his death have to be performed on the Temple altar, at the hands of a Jewish priest?

Yes, you asked a similar question on Sunday July 24, 2016.

Here is the answer
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 048#801048

1) Is the idea of Jesus death as a "payment for sin" anything more than a metaphor? A metaphor that is useful for Paul and his followers, but not for everyone.

Yes, its not for everyone. It's not for atheists and people that don't believe the testimony of the Apostle Peter.




... and its not for those that object to the explicit statements of Jesus himself, John the Baptist and all four gospel writers
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 647#887647

[Divine Insight]

Also in just a general rebuttal do you think God disregards a sacrifice just because it was offered outside a temple? Isnt that notion in itself legalistic?

Question for you:

Who is making the sacrifice?

And to whom is the sacrifice being made?

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 5 by Divine Insight]

Mine is the standard Christian answer.

Jesus was fully man and fully God and died as a sacrifice for our sins to God.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 5 by Divine Insight]

Mine is the standard Christian answer.

Jesus was fully man and fully God and died as a sacrifice for our sins to God.

In that case Jesus' sacrifice was suicidal, and those who executed him could only have been pawns who were used by Jesus for the purpose of his suicidal sacrifice.

Also, this means that Jesus could not himself have been God. Or even part of a trinity. Otherwise we have God sacrificing himself to himself which would amount to nothing more than a very sick masochism.

So clearly this theology needs to some work.

By the way, it's an oxymoron to claim that any being is both fully man and fully God in the context where this God is supposed to be both omniscient and omnipotent. Clearly men are neither of these things. Therefore it's impossible to be both fully man and fully God simultaneously.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 7 by Divine Insight]

Its fairly common for God to make good from bad. If somepne chooses evil and God chooses good so what they are still evil.

I dont think Jesus had to die. Had everyone recognised him there may have been another result in mind that God had. Going into danger for others is not called suicidal. Ypu may wish to consider you are deliberately misusing a word and why you want to do that.

Actually its not an oxymoron. I play a lot of board games and sometimes when i play someone who is learning i make a bad move deliberately. I limit myself from my knowledge. Or a better example just came to mind. When we learn karate the master limits themselves so they dont kill you.

Finally you sbould be more concerned about the omnipotence issue you create. Is God omnipotent if he cant become fully man and fully God?

[Divine Insight]

I dont think Jesus had to die. Had everyone recognised him there may have been another result in mind that God had. Going into danger for others is not called suicidal. You may wish to consider you are deliberately misusing a word and why you want to do that.

But here you are requiring that this supposedly omniscient God is not omniscient at all. Instead you are assigning to this God the very same handicaps of mortal men. In other words, you have this God trying things trial and error without knowing what the perfect solution would be.

So your apology here requires that your God is fully anthropomorphic including having all the faults and frailties of mortal men.

Actually its not an oxymoron. I play a lot of board games and sometimes when i play someone who is learning i make a bad move deliberately. I limit myself from my knowledge. Or a better example just came to mind. When we learn karate the master limits themselves so they dont kill you.

Your analogy here is also extremely flawed. For one thing a Karate master does not need to limit themselves in order to not kill a student. All they need to do is not lose a bout to them. Period. They don't need to kill the student. In fact, if they need to harm the student in any way in order to win the bout, then they should have stopped the bout and graduated the student right on the spot.

Again your analogies aren't helping your supposedly all-wise perfect God. Also if you are deliberately making bad moves during a game you are deceiving your opponent. They may actually recognize your bad move as being bad and think that you are that ignorant, and play accordingly.

In fact, if we take this over to Christianity. If you claim that it was a "bad move" for God to have Jesus brutally crucified, and people recognize that this was indeed a "bad move", then people who see this as being too ignorant for a God to have done would be totally justified. So your analogy of making purposefully bad moves to excuse this God only serves to justify the non-believers.

Finally you sbould be more concerned about the omnipotence issue you create. Is God omnipotent if he cant become fully man and fully God?

No, even an omnipotent entity cannot do things that are mutually exclusive. If Jesus was omniscient and omnipotent, then he could hardly be fully human. Humans are not omniscient and omnipotent.

And besides, if Jesus was "fully God", then there is absolutely no excuse for why he couldn't have either cast the evil demons out of the Jewish Chief Priests and cured them, or if they weren't possessed by evil demons, then he should have been able to intellectually demonstrate to them the fallacy of their thinking.

Clearly Jesus could not convince the Jewish Priests that they were corrupt. Therefore Jesus could not be fully God, especially if you want to claim that God is omnipotent and there is nothing he cannot do.

This religious paradigm is grossly flawed. No excuses can save it. The excuses themselves require extreme contradictions. In short, the apologies given for this religion are no less self-contradictory than the religion itself.

The apologies don't help.

[paarsurrey1]

Roman executioners are not priests, and the cross is not an altar. So how can Jesus execution be considered a "payment for sin"? In any kind of a theologically legal sense, that is.

If Jesus death is truly a legal "payment for sin" as Paul seems to teach, and as Jehovah's Witnesses claim, (ransom), then wouldn't his death have to be performed on the Temple altar, at the hands of a Jewish priest?

1) Is the idea of Jesus death as a "payment for sin" anything more than a metaphor? A metaphor that is useful for Paul and his followers, but not for everyone.

2) Is the notion of Jesus martyrdom as a "payment for sin" Divine revelation? Or theological speculation.

3) Seems Paul wanted to play the legal, Priestly game in regard to Jesus death, so why wouldn't the legal, priestly rules have disqualified his interpretations?

4) Is Pauline blood-atonement theology legalistic?

5) Would Jesus have approved of such a legalistic approach?

Please address any combination of the above.

One's points are very reasonable.

Since Jesus survived death on the Cross as he was delivered in near-death position from the Cross, he was treated in the tomb by his friends for his injuries inflicted upon him on the Cross. Jesus remained in hiding, met only to his followers secretly, did not meet the public or the "adulterous Jews" to whom he was to show a sign as promised by him, and went out of Judea lest the Jews catch him and crucify him again.

The fictional* "human sacrifice" of Jesus for the atonement of Pauline-Christians' sins neither took pace nor it was ever needed. JW's including, all the Pauline-Christianity people , who bank for their sins upon Jesus' "human sacrifice" are as sinful as they would have been without it, please.

Regards

________
*One may like to read:
The Pagan Christ

"The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light is a 2004 non-fiction book by Canadian writer Tom Harpur (1929-2017), a former Anglican priest, journalist and professor of Greek and New Testament at the University of Toronto, which supports the Christ myth theory.[1] Harpur claims that the New Testament shares a large number of similarities with ancient Egyptian and other pagan religions, that early Church leaders fabricated a literal and human Jesus based on ancient myths, and that we should return to an inclusive and universal religion where the spirit of Christ or Christos lives within each of us.

The book was named the Canadian non-fiction bestseller of the year by both the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail. It was later released under the title The Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity? in the United States by Walker Books and in Australia by Allen Unwin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pagan_Christ