Jesus Sacrificing His Life

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Miles
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Jesus Sacrificing His Life

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Post by Miles »

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In several threads I've seen here it's been said that Jesus sacrificed his life so that those who "believed in him" would gain salvation.

That a person will gain salvation is not in question, but rather the claim that Jesus, the Son of god, sacrificed, his life.

Sacrifice
verb
1. to willingly give up something one would otherwise rather keep.


"In terms of Jesus' sacrifice, anyone familiar with the Bible will first think of His sacrificial death at Calvary to atone for the sins of mankind. His crucifixion was indeed the greatest act of sacrifice in the history of the world, a perfect demonstration of His own teaching in John 15:13,"

source

Looking at the pre-existence of Jesus some say, ". . . from all eternity the Son has been enjoying the love and glory that he shares with God the Father."
source
which is as good a claim as any. Then god sent his Son down to earth where he was incarnated as Jesus in main to die for man's sins. After that was accomplished the Son returned to god where he now sits on his right hand. As sort of an analogy, it's like an American going to France for a year where he expends his energy working for the the government, and then returns to the USA to resume his life. Essentially no change in the guy from before he went to France to after he came back.

As a form of god Jesus certainly had to know what he would be doing on earth, including orchestrating events so as to be crucified. So, my question is, where is the sacrifice Jesus was supposed to have made? Everything went as he wanted them to go: swimmingly.


So, is this about it, Jesus's death was no "greatest act of sacrifice in the history of the world," or even any sacrifice at all, OR have I missed something here?



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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #11

Post by Miles »

Overcomer wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 7:27 pm Miles wrote:
So, is this about it, Jesus's death was no "greatest act of sacrifice in the history of the world," or even any sacrifice at all, OR have I missed something here?
It was the greatest sacrifice because:

1. It was done for the redemption of all of humankind (John 3:16: For God so loved the world). No one else can make that claim.

2. It was done for people who were unworthy of it (Rom. 5: 7, 8: Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us).

3. He took the punishment for ALL the sins of humankind and incurred God the Father's wrath, something that I don't think we can even begin to imagine (Rom. 3:25: For God sent Christ Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to end all God’s anger against us.)

4. He did not deserve to be sacrificed (Heb. 4: 14-15: He knew no sin).

5. He bore all the sicknesses that anyone in the world has ever had (Is. 53: 4: It was certainly our sickness that he carried.) I heard one pastor put it this way: Imagine someone giving you 100 gallons of diseases including the bubonic Plague, all kinds of cancers, AIDS, etc. and you had to drink all of them and feel the effects of every single one of those illnesses. How horrible would that be?

6. He was cut off from God the Father on the cross (Mark 15:34: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?). I have been in the presence of God by times and I can tell you that it is glorious. Imagine how devastating it must have been for Jesus to lose that connection. His was a far longer and deeper intimate relationship than what we mere mortals can experience while still on this earth. Because he became sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21), he experienced separation from God, a kind of agony that people will know in hell, and he went through it so that we don't have to if we choose not to.

That's why there has been no greater sacrifice than that which Christ gave. It has to do with the depth and horror of its intensity, its incomparable redemptive purpose, the number and kind of people for whom he gave his life entirely out of love, the fact that he was innocent and undeserving of such treatment, and, ultimately, the unparalleled extent of its effect -- no one else could bring people dead in sin to life again. Only Jesus can do that and it was only through his sacrifice that it could happen.
Keeping the definition of "sacrifice" in mind:

Sacrifice
verb
1. to willingly give up something one would otherwise rather keep.

The "why" has nothing to do with it. All you have to do is describe those things Jesus willingly gave up, and evidence showing they were things he would rather have kept.

What ya got?

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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #12

Post by tam »

Peace to you,
Miles wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:08 pm


In several threads I've seen here it's been said that Jesus sacrificed his life so that those who "believed in him" would gain salvation.

That a person will gain salvation is not in question, but rather the claim that Jesus, the Son of god, sacrificed, his life.

Sacrifice
verb
1. to willingly give up something one would otherwise rather keep.
On the night He was arrested:

He (Christ) took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38Then He said to them, My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me. 39Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.


Doesn't sound to me like He wanted to go through what was about to happen to Him. But He still did it, putting His Father's will before even His own will:


He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”





Peace again to you!

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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #13

Post by Tcg »

[Replying to Miles in post #1]

When those who talk of the result of Jesus' sacrifice speak of Jesus in the present tense overlook an obvious problem in logic.


Tcg
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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #14

Post by Miles »

tam wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:16 pm Peace to you,
Miles wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:08 pm


In several threads I've seen here it's been said that Jesus sacrificed his life so that those who "believed in him" would gain salvation.

That a person will gain salvation is not in question, but rather the claim that Jesus, the Son of god, sacrificed, his life.

Sacrifice
verb
1. to willingly give up something one would otherwise rather keep.
On the night He was arrested:

He (Christ) took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38Then He said to them, My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me. 39Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.

Doesn't sound to me like He wanted to go through what was about to happen to Him. But He still did it, putting His Father's will before even His own will:

He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
Out of curiosity, where does he say this?



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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #15

Post by Miles »

Tcg wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:33 pm [Replying to Miles in post #1]

When those who talk of the result of Jesus' sacrifice speak of Jesus in the present tense overlook an obvious problem in logic.

So they do.


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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #16

Post by tam »

Peace again to you,
Miles wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:37 pm
tam wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:16 pm Peace to you,
Miles wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 4:08 pm


In several threads I've seen here it's been said that Jesus sacrificed his life so that those who "believed in him" would gain salvation.

That a person will gain salvation is not in question, but rather the claim that Jesus, the Son of god, sacrificed, his life.

Sacrifice
verb
1. to willingly give up something one would otherwise rather keep.
On the night He was arrested:

He (Christ) took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38Then He said to them, My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me. 39Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.

Doesn't sound to me like He wanted to go through what was about to happen to Him. But He still did it, putting His Father's will before even His own will:

He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
Out of curiosity, where does he say this?



.

Sorry, Matthew 26:38, 39, 42

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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #17

Post by Miles »

tam wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:03 pm Peace to you,
Miles wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 8:52 pm
JehovahsWitness wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 5:55 pm Jesus was the Messiah and had every right to reveal himself as such. No single action or group of actions on his part merited death except in the perverted minds of his enemies.
And having an essentially divine mind, Jesus was aware of this and used it to his advantage to provoke them into him plotting a punishment, which would ultimately be his crucifixion.
JehovahsWitness wrote: Speaking truth did indeed infuriate the Jewish leaders of his day but this no more amounted to planning his own murder, than speaking out against racism meant Martin Luther King arranged to have himself shot.
Of course not, the planning had already been done by Jesus, and part of that planning was to establish his claimed Messiahship among the Jewish population, which would have spread to the ears of the Jewish authorities, including that of the High Priest. Something needed to get Pilate in on the plan. Jesus knew what would be needed to effect his crucifixion and took all the necessary steps to insure it. Think he wasn't aware that claiming to be the son of god was blasphemy, and deserving of punishment?


How is claiming to be the Son of God blasphemy?
It was against Judaic law. Jesus was a threat to Jewish authority. From Wikipedia.

"According to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus referred to himself obliquely as "the Son" and even more significantly spoke of God as "my Father" (Matt. 11:27 par.; 16:17; Luke 22:29). He not only spoke like "the Son" but also acted like "the Son" in knowing and revealing the truth about God, in changing the divine law, in forgiving sins, in being the one through whom others could become children of God, and in acting with total obedience as the agent for God's final kingdom.[42] This clarifies the charge of blasphemy brought against him at the end (Mark 14:64 par.); he had given the impression of claiming to stand on a par with God. Jesus came across as expressing a unique filial consciousness and as laying claim to a unique filial relationship with the God whom he addressed as "Abba".[50]

Even if historically he never called himself "the only" Son of God (cf. John 1:14, 18; John 3:16, 18), Jesus presented himself as Son and not just as one who was the divinely appointed Messiah (and therefore "son" of God). He made himself out to be more than only someone chosen and anointed as divine representative to fulfil an eschatological role in and for the kingdom. Implicitly, Jesus claimed an essential, "ontological" relationship of sonship towards God which provided the grounds for his functions as revealer, lawgiver, forgiver of sins, and agent of the final kingdom. Those functions (his "doing") depended on his ontological relationship as Son of God (his "being"). Jesus invited his hearers to accept God as a loving, merciful Father. He worked towards mediating to them a new relationship with God, even to the point that they too could use "Abba" when addressing God in prayer. Yet, Jesus' consistent distinction between "my" Father and "your" Father showed that he was not inviting the disciples to share with him an identical relationship of sonship. He was apparently conscious of a qualitative distinction between his sonship and their sonship which was derived from and depended on his. His way of being son was different from theirs.[42]"


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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #18

Post by Tcg »

Miles wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:38 pm
Tcg wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:33 pm [Replying to Miles in post #1]

When those who talk of the result of Jesus' sacrifice speak of Jesus in the present tense overlook an obvious problem in logic.

So they do.


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Yes, and any discussion of the result of Jesus' sacrifice is meaningless if Jesus is still alive as many who discuss his sacrifice claim. If Jesus is still alive, he sacrificed nothing, nada, zilch.
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #19

Post by DavidLeon »

Tcg wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:51 pm Yes, and any discussion of the result of Jesus' sacrifice is meaningless if Jesus is still alive as many who discuss his sacrifice claim. If Jesus is still alive, he sacrificed nothing, nada, zilch.
Tell us what he was supposed to sacrifice and why? Can you at least do that? You can not for if you could you wouldn't make the mistake of saying his sacrifice was for nothing.

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Re: Jesus Sacrificing His Life

Post #20

Post by Tcg »

DavidLeon wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:56 pm Tell us what he was supposed to sacrifice and why?
You'll need to address this question to those who claim he sacrificed something. I'm not in that crowd.


Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

- American Atheists


Not believing isn't the same as believing not.

- wiploc


I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.

- Irvin D. Yalom

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