Good news, or better?

[marco]

I used to sing something about Jesus coming to give good news: to tell poor people they were rich, blind people were not blind and deaf folk could really hear. That would have been good to know. Another version of Christ's good tidings of great joy was the future estabishment of some parliamentary system, maybe like the English one, in a newly built city somehere, with Jesus Prime Minister. The waiting time was to be a few years, to get things in place, then a few centuries but the latest update seems to be a few millennia. Heaven's having technical problems. But that's good news for the remote future. Maybe.


Then as I read through the good news reports I learned the best news came from John.

John 3:16 :- "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life"


This says that a Father God had his son tortured and killed out of immense love for human beings, and having had him humiliated, he felt much, much better and forgave humans for something they didn't do, while still exercising judgment on them for what they did do. But maybe that's too simplistic.




Question: Where is the Good News in this? Or is there even better news?

[Don McIntosh]

I used to sing something about Jesus coming to give good news: to tell poor people they were rich, blind people were not blind and deaf folk could really hear. That would have been good to know. Another version of Christ's good tidings of great joy was the future estabishment of some parliamentary system, maybe like the English one, in a newly built city somehere, with Jesus Prime Minister. The waiting time was to be a few years, to get things in place, then a few centuries but the latest update seems to be a few millennia. Heaven's having technical problems. But that's good news for the remote future. Maybe.


Then as I read through the good news reports I learned the best news came from John.

John 3:16 :- "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life"


This says that a Father God had his son tortured and killed out of immense love for human beings, and having had him humiliated, he felt much, much better and forgave humans for something they didn't do, while still exercising judgment on them for what they did do. But maybe that's too simplistic.




Question: Where is the Good News in this? Or is there even better news?

Marco my friend, I think we all have felt the stinging disappointment due to heaven's apparent technical problems. But I also think the weight of those problems is resolved with the revelation of the kingdom as "already and not yet": having arrived in Christ but awaiting its full consummation in the future.

Yes, it's true that the Son of God was tortured and killed, but equally true that he did so, as you intimated (even if sardonically), "out of immense love for human beings."

As a Christian I naturally (but respectfully) take issue with the supposition that God thereby forgave humanity "for something they didn't do." I look around the world and have to agree with William Salter, speaking for Schopenhauer, that the fall of man is "a metaphysical and moral necessity" – not to mention an empirical fact as verifiable as any other. I mean, going through life without telling a lie or harboring a grudge seems simple enough, but from all indications none of us has ever lived such a life.

That admitted, forgiveness in the gospel is good news indeed. All the more so when we realize that Jesus, as John says elsewhere, laid down his life willingly. Theologically, then, there is no substance to the charge that Jesus was a hapless victim of meaningless violence. Nor did he regret his temporary humiliation, as it led to his eternal exaltation. The cross means atonement for the sins of the world, universal access to Christ's kingdom, and reconciliation with the Father for anyone who desires it; all of which in turn means that the God who created the universe really does love us, despite the sin-induced pains and sufferings that would tempt us to cynicism.

Granted, it's still not good news for everyone, but for those with ears to hear there can be no better.

[marco]

I look around the world and have to agree with William Salter, speaking for Schopenhauer, that the fall of man is "a metaphysical and moral necessity" – not to mention an empirical fact as verifiable as any other.
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The cross means atonement for the sins of the world, universal access to Christ's kingdom, and reconciliation with the Father for anyone who desires it; all of which in turn means that the God who created the universe really does love us, despite the sin-induced pains and sufferings that would tempt us to cynicism.

Imperfection is stamped on our foreheads. There is no need for theological gymnastics for reconciliation. It would be a tremendously silly God who felt the need for such apparatus before he could turn his head to man again. Life is falling and rising; Jesus as redeemer is incomprehensible. Simple earthly parents give their stray children a warm hug and love is demonstrated. The cross has nothing to do with somebody sinning in Switzerland; it was the Roman method of execution and Jesus, deliberately or mistakenly, fell foul of the law and was executed. If it was God's plan, then one cannot entertain a high opinion of this deity.

Christianity is obsessed with man's sin and fails to take note of the vast good man has done. It is wrong constantly to remind a handicapped child of his handicap; it is virtuous to commend the good that man does. In crucifixion theology all that is taken into account is the occasion of man's imperfection; the ocean of goodness he has done needs no redeemer, and it stands forgotten. We are not gods, therefore we make mistakes. We need no forgiveness for being human.