Motivations

[Elijah John]

The story of God supposedly commanding Abraham to sacrifice is son Isaac.

The notion of Jesus being crucified to supposedly "pay for our sins".

In each of these stories, is God (the Father) glorified?

In the first, is God glorified by "testing" Abraham in this manner?

Or is the Hebrew nation attempting to glorify Abraham for his "great faith" and thus justify it's own existence as God's "chosen people". (disclaimer, I do not disagree with the notion that the Jews are God's "chosen" but for different reasons).

And the story of the crucifiixion of Jesus "paying for our sins".

Again, who is glorified?

The story paints the Father as bloodthirsty, as demanding satisfaction, blood satisfaction. And all the glory goes to the victim, who heroically "dies in our stead".

But God clears His own name in all this...

"I desire mercy not sacrifice ".

Questions for debate....

Do these stories of "sacrifice" do the Father an injustice?

or if the Father is glorified in all this, how is the Father glorified by demanding sacrifice?

[ttruscott]

Questions for debate....
or if the Father is glorified in all this, how is the Father glorified by demanding sacrifice?

It is all through Paul:
Romans 3:25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood--to be received by faith.

but if you don't like Paul (how inconvenient that the book that brings Jesus to you also brings Paul...) do you accept The Revelation? Revelation 1:5...and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,

But the The notion of Jesus being crucified to supposedly "pay for our sins" is NOT universally accepted in Christianity by any means.

http://jonjourney.blogspot.ca/2009/04/d ... -debt.html
Yoma 5a; Zeb. 6a, (image) = "There is no Atonement except with blood," with the identical words in Heb. ix. 22, "Apart from shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins]." The life of the victim was offered, not, as has been said, as a penalty in a juridical sense to avert Heaven's punishment, NOT to have man's sins laid upon it as upon the scapegoat of the Day of Atonement, and thus to have the animal die in his place, as Ewald thinks ("Alterthmer," p. 68), but as a typical ransom of "life by life"; the blood sprinkled by the priest upon the altar serving as the means of a renewal of man's covenant of life with God (see Trumbull, "The Blood Covenant," p. 247). In Mosaic ritualism the atoning blood thus actually meant the bringing about of a reunion with God, the restoration of peace between the soul and its Maker.

1 Timothy 2:6 ...who gave himself as a ransom for all [people]. [People is found in many renditions of this verse but is extraneous and if placed into the verse to facilitate meaning should be bracketed to show it as a editorial comment.]

Ransom does NOT pay a debt...
Covering us from the angel of death is not paying a debt...
His sacrifice was a ransom and does cover us from the angel of death, both of which are indeed glorifying!

[Divine Insight]

Questions for debate....

Do these stories of "sacrifice" do the Father an injustice?

It's my theological position that pretty much the entire Bible is an abomination to the God it claims to decree.

As far as I'm concerned I'm a valid "theologian" who simply came to the conclusion the the Hebrew picture of God cannot possibly be true precisely because it is a disgrace to the very concept of "God" (especially if we are going to hold that concept up as referencing a supposedly all-wise benevolent loving deity).

And the fact that this dogma does coincidentally also happen to contain some actual wisdom here and there, I don't see where that saves the overall paradigm as being viable.

[Yahu]

The story of God supposedly commanding Abraham to sacrifice is son Isaac.

The notion of Jesus being crucified to supposedly "pay for our sins".

In each of these stories, is God (the Father) glorified?

In the first, is God glorified by "testing" Abraham in this manner?

Or is the Hebrew nation attempting to glorify Abraham for his "great faith" and thus justify it's own existence as God's "chosen people". (disclaimer, I do not disagree with the notion that the Jews are God's "chosen" but for different reasons).

And the story of the crucifiixion of Jesus "paying for our sins".

Again, who is glorified?

The story paints the Father as bloodthirsty, as demanding satisfaction, blood satisfaction. And all the glory goes to the victim, who heroically "dies in our stead".

But God clears His own name in all this...

"I desire mercy not sacrifice ".

Questions for debate....

Do these stories of "sacrifice" do the Father an injustice?

or if the Father is glorified in all this, how is the Father glorified by demanding sacrifice?

Yah isn't demanding sacrifice, He requires it because He is a JUST God and Perfect being. Any violation of His law requires sacrifice to atone for it. Abraham showed he was willing to sacrifice.

Yah sacrificed in Eden by granting dominion over the earth to mankind. Just look at how that sacrifice has been on Him with mankind turning against Him. At least during the millenial kingdom we will see how much better it is to follow His law since Yeshua regained that dominion by being perfect under the law and gained His inheritance of the earth.

BTW, the Israelites are the chosen people. Each of the other 70 nations have another El over them, Yah took a subset of the Hebrew nation for His own to be His inheritance and priesthood by passing the priestly line through Shem/Eber down to Abraham. IMO Yah was testing Abraham to be worthy of that honor.

To be a servant of the Father, we must all be willing to sacrifice for others. Yes Yah was glorified by finding a worth line as His priesthood in Abraham in whose line Yeshua was sent to regain dominion back to His son.

So the Israelites were the chosen priesthood of Yah until Yeshua who still retains the role of high priest. But there are still active promises for the descendants of Abraham. Being anti-semetic is a good way to bring down His wrath. He will bless those that bless Israel and curse those that curse them. They are still His people.

[Elijah John]

Questions for debate....
or if the Father is glorified in all this, how is the Father glorified by demanding sacrifice?

But the The notion of Jesus being crucified to supposedly "pay for our sins" is NOT universally accepted in Christianity by any means.

http://jonjourney.blogspot.ca/2009/04/d ... -debt.html
Yoma 5a; Zeb. 6a, (image) = "There is no Atonement except with blood," with the identical words in Heb. ix. 22, "Apart from shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins]." ("Alterthmer," p. 68),

That notion from the Hebrews quote is a primitive vestige of Paganism and is, in fact, refuted by Scripture. Consider Luke 3.3:

He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins

So it seems there IS remission of sins, without blood.

Ransom does NOT pay a debt...
Covering us from the angel of death is not paying a debt...
His sacrifice was a ransom and does cover us from the angel of death, both of which are indeed glorifying!

I'm intrigued. This is a different and more thoughtful slant on the blood atonement notion. One problem though, ransom implies payment ...ransom implies DEMANDED payment. Question, to whom is the ransom paid, and what does that say about the one who demands it?

[tam]

I'm intrigued. This is a different and more thoughtful slant on the blood atonement notion. One problem though, ransom implies payment ...ransom implies DEMANDED payment. Question, to whom is the ransom paid, and what does that say about the one who demands it?

I cannot answer for Ted, as I am not sure what more he believes on the subject, but...

The ransom is paid to the one Adam sold his offspring TO. Adam did not sell his offspring to God.

Adam sold his offspring to Death. (The Destroyer, Abaddon/Apollyon, the King of the Abyss; the last enemy to be defeated)

Christ gave His life in exchange; hence he purchased men back for God with HIS blood and HIS life.

God sacrificed His Son for our sake... but not because He demanded a sacrifice to Himself.

"I desire mercy, not sacrifice."


But because that is what was required to purchase us back from the one the first Adam sold us TO.

Life for life.

I shared a little bit on this forum (and more fully elsewhere if you are interested) what I received from my Lord regarding the written law on eye for eye... life for life. That this was not meant to be about vengeance, but rather that it was meant to be about GIVING life... for life. Not taking life. Christ taught the truth of this... not just in word but also in deed.

He even said that love has no one greater than this: that one lay down his life for another.


Hope that helps, EJ!

Peace to you, and to your house,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[ttruscott]

That notion from the Hebrews quote is a primitive vestige of Paganism and is, in fact, refuted by Scripture. Consider Luke 3.3:

He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins

So it seems there IS remission of sins, without blood.

Why do you assume these remissions are an either or and not just different aspects of the same thing?

As well, it is also written Acts 13:24 Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel.

Ransom does NOT pay a debt...
Covering us from the angel of death is not paying a debt...
His sacrifice was a ransom and does cover us from the angel of death, both of which are indeed glorifying!

I'm intrigued. This is a different and more thoughtful slant on the blood atonement notion. One problem though, ransom implies payment ...ransom implies DEMANDED payment. Question, to whom is the ransom paid, and what does that say about the one who demands it?

Not really my area of strength but let's discuss... I suggest:

GOD's justice demands a death for sin. Period. This was instituted before creation as the possibility of evil coming into HIS creation by HIS allowing us free will was a possibility that had to be dealt with. Then He instituted legal forgiveness of sins and remittance from death by 1. accepting the life's blood of a perfect person as an atonement of the sin, 2. agreeing HIMself to be the blood / life giver in the Person of HIS Son the Christ for any who would accept by faith that work on their behalf while 3. those who rejected HIS deity and therefore his empty promises were left under the control of sin to die.

If you were in charge of creating a system of forgiveness for some people which only applies to those who were not perfectly committed to evil, how would you go about defining how the two types of sinners are different and how the forgiveness of their crime would work?

Where is the immorality to declare that justice demands that everyone who sins must die? And how is justice perverted to also declare that a method of being saved from the full dictate of this rule of justice exists? And does it matter if this payment for sin is an atonement or a ransom or a forgiveness or...?...are they not all one - a restoration of the criminal to GOD?

So I think ransom is an analogy for earthly life that suits the situation without any special meaning placed on who receives the ransom. No one received His blood, but because it was shed by a perfect man for the purpose of the ransom, it had that effect.

Death is separation, nothing more. Earthly death separates us from our bodies and spiritual death separates us from GOD for ever. Having our judgment commuted by Christ restores us to GOD. Where is the evil in this system? Christ was a volunteer because of His love for us. Is that evil? GOD demanding justice for capital crimes is not evil. Having a method of restitution to bring sinful criminals back into polite society is not wrong if it is open to everyone. So what do you see that would lead you to ask in a pejorative manner, "to whom is the ransom paid, and what does that say about the one who demands it?" To me it says HE is both just and forgiving...

[ttruscott]

Adam sold his offspring to Death. (The Destroyer, Abaddon/Apollyon, the King of the Abyss; the last enemy to be defeated)

Could we have the scriptures that support this contention please?

[Yahu]

Adam sold his offspring to Death. (The Destroyer, Abaddon/Apollyon, the King of the Abyss; the last enemy to be defeated)

Could we have the scriptures that support this contention please?

Not possible since the destroyer, Apollyon isn't even mentioned until after the flood. The first reference to Satan is in the book of Job. Apollyon is just the Greek god Apollo by an alternate spelling.

All Adam did was get led into error by his wife. I wonder if Adam even knew what fruit his wife gave him before he ate.

I had my own wife do the same sort of thing. She fell into error so she tried to get me involved in the same error so I couldn't accuse her when I found out.

[Yahu]

I'm intrigued. This is a different and more thoughtful slant on the blood atonement notion. One problem though, ransom implies payment ...ransom implies DEMANDED payment. Question, to whom is the ransom paid, and what does that say about the one who demands it?

It was the spoken law of Yah that demanded it. Once spoken, it became law. Disobedience to Yah's spoken command required a death. If you eat of the tree, you will die. Because Yah can not lie, a death was required.

A perfect sacrifice was needed by the priesthood for purification. That sacrifice was the red heifer. Yeshua met all the conditions of the red heifer sacrifice so that others could be purified.