"I forgive you but SOMEONE has to pay!"

[Elijah John]

If someone says "I forgive you, but someone has to pay, how about my innocent Son?" Would that really be forgiveness?

Does true mercy require "payment"? If so, how is it still mercy?

If a loan is forgiven, does the creditor require payment from someone else?

Isn't God capable of forgiving the contrite, without "payment"?

[Elijah John]

According to JWs and Evangelicals, the whole vicarious blood atonement theology seems predicated on a literal Adam, and the notion of the "payment" of a ransom.

What happens to all of that if the Adam and Eve Garden story is only a myth?

Seems a heavy weight for such a tentative foundation.

[2timothy316]

According to JWs and Evangelicals, the whole vicarious blood atonement theology seems predicated on a literal Adam, and the notion of the "payment" of a ransom.

What happens to all of that if the Adam and Eve Garden story is only a myth?

Seems a heavy weight for such a tentative foundation.

Until Jehovah Himself says it's a myth and not men saying its a myth to suit their dogma, then speaking for myself, I will continue in the belief that the Adam and Eve Garden account is real. I personally don't base faith on 'what if' statements.

[ttruscott]

According to JWs and Evangelicals, the whole vicarious blood atonement theology seems predicated on a literal Adam, and the notion of the "payment" of a ransom.

What happens to all of that if the Adam and Eve Garden story is only a myth?

Not the only one:
1 Corinthians 15:14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

[marco]

Doing nothing doesn't wipe out a debt, only payment can do that.

This is patently untrue since the simple statement: "I don't want repayment" will wipe out a debt.

It is therefore understandable that others find it incomprehensible, inacceptable or even repulsive. But for us it rests at the heart of the Christian faith. It is this, that Jesus died to save mankind,

One can understand somebody jumping into a river and drowning in an attempt to save a person. A young Jewish man, accused of blasphemy and executed might well suppose he's been treated harshly, but to attribute universal salvation to the man is something that cries out for evidence. And there is none, just lots of theory.

In short, the ransom is the greatest expression of Gods love!

To use terms like "ransom" and attribute them to divine acts is imaginative. To call something so nebulous and incomprehensible "the geatest expression of love" is even more imaginative.


To imagine that God went through the ludicrous steps of having a man live for thirty years in a backwater, emerge, talk, get himself crucified...all from divine love is to out-Dickens Dickens. How can we possibly KNOW?

[JehovahsWitness]

This is patently untrue since the simple statement: "I don't want repayment" will wipe out a debt.

Fair enough, I will rephrase.

Doing nothing doesn't remove the loss, only payment can do that.

"I don't want repayment" may wipe out the debt but the loss is still there.

Waivering a debt simply transfers the loss from the debtor to the borrower. The loss is still there even if you are willing to live with it without insisting that the debtor pays. It wipes out his obligation to pay the debt, ie the borrowed amount, but the balanced remains as is.

To illistrate: If someone borrows $ 100 from you, you now no longer have the 100 dollars. If your debtor says they cannot (or will not pay) repay you and you agree to waive the debt, your bank balance is still deficit of $100 dollars, a hundred dollars doesn't magically reappear in your account because you free your debtor.

JOHN 3:16

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life

JW





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viewtopic.php?p=979715#p979715

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http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 07#p961607

To what did the ransom correspond?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 14#p852214

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ADAM &EVE, ORIGINAL SIN and ...RANSOM

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 14 by marco]




THE RANDOM [Index]

QUESTION: Is there biblical support for the idea of Christ providing a RANSOM for mankind?

MATTHEW 20:28

Just as the Son of man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his life as a ransom in exchange for many -NWT

MATTHEW 26:28
for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. NLT

MARK 14:24
He said to them, "This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

LUKE 22:20
In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. NIV

EPHESIANS 1:By means of him we have the release by ransom through the blood of that one, yes, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his undeserved kindness NWT

1 JOHN 1:7
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

1 PETER 1:18-19
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

REVELATION 7:14
And I said to him, “My Lord, you know. And he said to me, These are those who came from great suffering and they have purified their garments and whitened them in the blood of The Lamb - Aramaic Bible in Plain English

*While neither James and Jude directly refer to the blood sacrifice of Jesus, both make reference to Jesus' key position in the lives of Christians

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JESUS RESURRECTION , RESSURECTION CHRONOLOGY and ....THE RANSOM

[Elijah John]

According to JWs and Evangelicals, the whole vicarious blood atonement theology seems predicated on a literal Adam, and the notion of the "payment" of a ransom.

What happens to all of that if the Adam and Eve Garden story is only a myth?

Not the only one:
1 Corinthians 15:14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

Not sure, Ted, how that verse address my statement here. I was not asking about the resurrection, I was asking about the existence of the original Adam, and how it would affect the whole "ransom" blood-atonement theology if he were only a myth. So allow me to put it this way. What happens to Paul's whole blood-atonement theology if there was no "Adam" to begin with? No original sin that was passed on to humanity. No inherited guilt to be remedied?

What if the only sins that humanity has to deal with ate our actual, individual sin, and not some theoretical sin that Adam supposedly commited eons ago?

Would Christ still have had to be sacrificed on the cross in order for God to forgive humanity?

[shnarkle]

If someone says "I forgive you, but someone has to pay, how about my innocent Son?" Would that really be forgiveness?

Does true mercy require "payment"? If so, how is it still mercy?

If a loan is forgiven, does the creditor require payment from someone else?

Isn't God capable of forgiving the contrite, without "payment"?

The "payment" comes through following Christ's example. Paul puts it this way: "While we yet still sinners, Christ died...etc." Christ's death shows that self sacrifice is necessary to receive God's forgiveness. Self sacrifice is not something that we do because we can't do it.

Adam was created in God's image, but somehow he began to see himself as separate from God. He became narcissistic, self absorbed, etc., and assumed that the image he saw wasn't of God, but of himself. This is a delusion, and delusions can't do anything. Only the revelation of the truth will suffice, and when that happens, one sees that this idea of separateness from God is an illusion, and "payment" is then made in full because now, it is apparent that the identity is not the body it has been associated with.

Paul then can say that his identity is in Christ which is no different than pointing out that he no longer has a separate identity. When someone is reborn, they undergo what psychologists refer to as a dissociative disorder. Their lives are no longer their own. They are no longer in bondage to their lives, but now live in, with, through and for Christ who they now see in everyone they meet.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 18 by shnarkle]

You explained your understanding of the whole ransom/payment theology. But I do not see how that answers the question, "how is mercy that demands payment still mercy"?

[RightReason]

[Replying to post 7 by marco]

Theology isn't the best friend of common sense, RightReason. Can we rid ourselves of one wrong by offering another?

You once again label something as wrong because in your opinion it is wrong. Is it wrong for a person to lay down his life for a friend? For a parent to sacrifice their life for their child? Common sense tells us these things are not wrong and in fact are often noble.

One can readily understand acts of love and sacrifice.... Fr. Kolbe, for example. Offering one's son to be crucified as an act of love and forgiveness may be theologically impressive; to those that live on Earth it is hideous, as of course was the demand made to Abraham to kill his son.

It’s only hideous to those who do not recognize the supernatural.

Some could look upon childbirth as hideous and miss the miracle of birth.

Some could look upon sex as a grinding of the genitals, and miss the sanctity of ‘two becoming one flesh’.

Sometimes we are so sure we are seeing things clearly, until we actually do and then we recognize how blurry our previous view had been and we can’t imagine how we didn’t see it in the first place.

. . . And important fact of the story: Abraham did not kill his son.