Was Jesus' Sacrifice Meaningful?

[JoeMama]

Jesus spent some unpleasant hours on the cross, and a couple of days in a tomb, but he is still alive today, 2,000 years later, sitting forevermore in heavenly bliss at the right hand of God. If the price for living forever is being nailed to a cross and being shut up for a short while in a tomb, who wouldn't take that bargain? So why do people think Jesus made such a great sacrifice?

[boatsnguitars]

[Replying to brunumb in post #13]

Rather than a sacrifice, wasn't it a reward he received? In return for enduring a few painful hours on the cross having to sleep in a cave for two days, he was ushered into a state of eternal bliss beside God. What believer in this forum wouldn't happily accept such a bargain?

Wouldn't you?

So are you saying unless the pain is eternal and any rewards withheld it does not meet the accepted definition of a sacrifice? Is that your point?

You know when a religious person answers a question with a question, you've stumped them. They want to answer, but they know they have no good one.

This particularly is a question that Christians like to deflect. They can see the obvious problem. How can they reconcile the problem? They can't.

The best they can do is assert their dogma is true, and that God works in mysterious ways. And that's exactly what the clergy wants them to say - and keep filling that collection plate!

[boatsnguitars]

For to this end Christ died, rose, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
Romans 14:9

So he had a lust for power. That's what you'd say about me if I said the same thing. Isn't it the same thing Satan wanted? Didn't Satan make the true sacrifice?

And, honestly, the whole thing is childish. There are millions of people around the world who have suffered greater than Jesus, and they asked for nothing in return. Certainly not omnipotence.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to boatsnguitars in post #50]

The contradiction the Faithful run into every time they try to clain the high moral ground over the secularists. "But you only do this because you expect to get a heavenly reward for it?" "No, no, that's not why we do it!"
"You don't think you are going to get a heavenly reward?" "Well of course we hope we are." "Then that's why you do it - supposing you actually do."

If Jesus knew he was going to be raised from the dead and live like like a king for eternity, he sacrificed nothing. Sure, he taught and he healed and lived on the money of the women that accompanied him according to Luke (1), but this was no sacrifice as he knew if he stuck it out for a year, living off dinner invited from Pharisees, whom he then denounced and abused, just a day of torture and pain, and he'd got it all. But Nooo - that wasn't why he did the selfless stuff. It was out of pure seflessness.

(1) but since i don't trust Luke any further than I could spit a depleted uranium shell, I won't plant Jesus and the 12 with that.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to brunumb in post #13]

Rather than a sacrifice, wasn't it a reward he received? In return for enduring a few painful hours on the cross having to sleep in a cave for two days, he was ushered into a state of eternal bliss beside God. What believer in this forum wouldn't happily accept such a bargain?

Wouldn't you?

So are you saying unless the pain is eternal and any rewards withheld it does not meet the accepted definition of a sacrifice? Is that your point?

You know when a religious person answers a question with a question, you've stumped them. They want to answer, but they know they have no good one.

This particularly is a question that Christians like to deflect. They can see the obvious problem. How can they reconcile the problem? They can't.

The best they can do is assert their dogma is true, and that God works in mysterious ways. And that's exactly what the clergy wants them to say - and keep filling that collection plate!

It is actually a good discussion -point but not as framed, which is a strawman. The argument is not that the torment was only short and sharp - that might be enough to earn remission of sins for everyone (though last time i looked, we still had the same sins) but that Jesus knew that he was going to get an eternal reward for it; that is the argument, not that it has to be eternal torment. After all if Jesus got nothing through crucifixion it would not be an effective sacrifice, either. Just as if Abraham knew God would not let him kill his son and God knew that he wouldn't, the whole Isaac thing would prove nothing. Abraham had to think he really would sacrifice his son and Jesus had to think he would die and stay dead, but the Bible says he knew that he would be eating a fish dinner three days later. It scrubs any real sacrifice.

[Miles]

I think the sacrifice Jesus made was that he lived for us, served others and didn't live selfishly. All the kingdoms were offered for him and he could have had very nice and easy life. But he didn't choose that. Instead he chose to declare the message and serve people. I think that is a great sacrifice, not many do the same, especially if it means they will be tortured and killed for doing so.

No sacrifice. It was all part of the plan.

That is a non-sequitur. Plans often involve sacrifice.

A "non-sequitur"?

non se·qui·tur
noun
noun: non sequitur; plural noun: non sequiturs; noun: nonsequitur; plural noun: nonsequiturs
a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.

Care to explain how "It was all part of the plan" qualifies as a non-sequitur?

Plans often involve sacrifice

And often they don't. Correct?

.

[TRANSPONDER]

Correct. Of course the salvation -plan could have included a genuine sacrifice, but the argument is that because Jesus would be restored to life within a day or so and rewarded with heavenly Learjets and Miami beach condoes for eternity, and hekKnew it beforehand, in that case it wasn't actually a sacrifice. It only works as a fabricated pretext for God to make a loophole in his Law of Sin -death imposed on Everyone, including the people of Nod supposedly not related to Adam and so arguably cursed unfairly with Original Sin....but then so were the carnivores who had apparently only eaten grass before the fall.

But anyway, God could have had Jesus make a loophole in the Law of sin by sending him out for a couple of polystyrene boxes of Chicken filo for all the actual alteration of cosmic law it involved. It only works as an excuse for God to make a get out clause for Christians (alone) in His own Law. It makes no sense as a sacrifice that provides an exit - door from Sin (only if one has the Christian swipe - card) even if sacrifice itself, in the days when God liked sacrifice of animals, was anything other than buying God's forgiveness from a sin or so with the smell of roasting lamb.

It does follow that the crucifixion and resurrection was Not actually a sacrifice, but it does not follow that it achieved anything by itself, but was an excuse for God to do what He could have done anyway.

How does it make any sense? Christians; tell me. With something better that 'God knows best'. To me the best explanation that fits the facts is that an execution of one Jesus was recast by Paul as a way to make Gentiles by Jesusfaith as much God's people as the Jews and it caught on big time because it is a very persuasive tale - if one doesn't ask too many questions.

[1213]

So he had a lust for power.

Sorry, I don't think that is true, because of his teachings.

Isn't it the same thing Satan wanted? Didn't Satan make the true sacrifice?

By what the Bible tells, Jesus did what God wanted.

Again, a second time he went away, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cup can’t pass away from me unless I drink it, your desire be done.”
Matt. 26:42

What sacrifice did Satan do and for whom?

... There are millions of people around the world who have suffered greater than Jesus...

I don't think it is really about suffering, but about doing the right thing. But, I would like to know, who has suffered more and how do you know that?

[1213]

... but now he is the ruler of the Universe with more power ...

By what the Bible tells, God is the ruler. Jesus does what God tells him to do.

I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous; because I don’t seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me.
John 5:30

[TRANSPONDER]

... but now he is the ruler of the Universe with more power ...

By what the Bible tells, God is the ruler. Jesus does what God tells him to do.

I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous; because I don’t seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me.
John 5:30

That was the Man Jesus, not the God that was in him. It is evidence (see the evidence ) that Jesus only knew what God wanted him to know. He knew that he would die and be resurrected on the third day. He knew about the destruction of the Temple. He knew about the Samaritan woman's five dudes. He didn't know who touched him. Thus the best guess is that he really didn't know the Lebanese woman would talk him around, thus one has to assume that he really didn't know that disease is not down to evil spirits and that Noah was a made up tale, rather than fitting his teachings to the beliefs of the time.

Thus, although Jesus (man and god) knew he'd be killed and resurrected the man still didn't quite get the full ramifications, any more than the million of believers and thousands of preachers, Theologians and Bible - experts who never twigged in 2,000 years of study that Judas, the Sanhedrin and the Jews were the ones doing the work of God and Pilate was trying to ruin God's plan. Thus Jesus the man even though he knew what was coming and he slams Peter for saying that it should not happen to Jesus. Jesus says that Peter is thinking like man, not God, just as the millennias of experts who didn't see who was actually going with God's plan (Satan for instance; often seeming to be God's gofer), and who wasn't. Jesus as Jesus the man, still hopes that he might be excused, even though Jesus the god would know better.

So, for the Believer (that's you 1213, friend ) Don't confuse Jesus the man and Jesus the spirit, as one knew it all and the other only operated on a need to know basis.

For the unbeliever, it's simpler as I don't believe any of it and don't see theological questions but confusion of human writers at cross-purposes.

[JoeMama]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #54]

Well put.