What kind of Father demands the blood of His Son?

[Elijah John]

Is the God of Jesus a merciful forgiving Father?

Or a bloodthirsty deity who must be appeased by the blood of animals, then later, by the blood of His favorite Son?

I realize these are loaded questions, and that my bias is apparent.

But which is it, merciful Father or Judge who demands blood?*

Which kind of God did Jesus himself teach? (not Paul, but Jesus)

What kind of Father demands the blood of his favorite Son in order to be able to forgive his other children?

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(note.. this thread is about forgiveness and atonement, not about the wars of YHVH's people etc.)

*if you answer "both" then please demonstrate how the two notions are compatible.

[Claire Evans]

In the spiritual world, Satan has been defeated because the victory is not subjected to time. The physical realm is different.

Since we occupy the physical world it is safe to say, as far as humans are concerned, evil has not been defeated. In the stuff of spirit worlds it may well have been, but that's got nothing to do with the mugging of some old lady or the murder of a child.

Yes, in this dimension, it cannot be said that evil is defeated yet. Evil is running amok. Yet it eventually will when Armageddon is manifested in this dimension.

And what makes you think Jesus committed suicide?

He had the power to walk away unharmed. He walked into his death quite determined to die. And he did - for a time.

Suicide is taking one's own life. He did not crucify Himself. He was killed at the hands of others. Laying down one's life for others is not suicide.

Jesus didn't have Twitter then. How could the gospel of Christ be taught around the world back then? What has happened is that the gospel of Christ is known now worldwide. Since when did God send Mohammed? It is blasphemous to call Jesus the Son of God in Islam.

Jesus is an Islamic prophet, like Muhammad. True, Jesus didn't have the Internet but God presumably isn't limited in what he can do by the inadequacies of humanity. Jesus managed to do the miraculous, without any Internet. If God''s way of sending a message was to place some individual in a remote region of the Roman Empire and have him travel on foot talking to a few people we must wonder at God's lack of imagination.

In Islam, Jesus is just a prophet but it's contradictory because Christians are deemed the enemies of Muslims. My mother was actually told that. So how can Jesus be a prophet for Allah? Why would He affront Allah by claiming to be the Son of God? He couldn't be a prophet of Allah because Allah as a monotheistic god didn't even exist then.

Do you think God should have to beamed Paul and the apostles across the world in a flying machine?

[Claire Evans]

Since when did God send Mohammed?.

Since the 6th century. Isn't it possible that God sent Mohammed to correct the errors of Paul and the Church? Namely, blood-atonement theology, and the idolatrous notion that "Jesus is God".

Well, God could have easily have squashed out Paul's attempts to spread Christianity. He didn't need to create another religion to do so. Allah is a moon god. That means He is not the Christian god. We can speculate and say maybe Satan created Islam to counter Christianity.

If not actually idolatrous (as it seems to be a clear violation of the First Commandment), then excessive hero-worship.

No one is meant to hero-worship Jesus. We are meant to love Him and accept Him as our saviour. Idolatry is fanatic. Since according to Christianity, God is Jesus, then it is not breaking the first commandment.

With Jesus considered "God" by so many, what attention does the actual God, (the "only true God, as Jesus says in John 17.3) the Father, receive anymore?

John 5:19

Jesus said, "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.


Jesus gave all the glory to the Father.

Far more Hymns have been written to Jesus' praise, then to the Father's. And that is a shame.

Hymns are made to express the gratitude for what God has done by sending His Son Jesus to save the world.

[2timothy316]

If I also was an all powerful father.. I'd think up another way... I'd save all those millions AND my kids.

Ok lets hear this wise and powerful solution. One thing you can't do as an all powerful being and that is force someone to love you.

Simple. Forgive the children. Waive the penalty. Do not demand that someone has to die in order to save others.
It really is quite that simple.

I await with bated breath your explanation of how God cannot or will not do the above, while still somehow being good/kind/loving/merciful/compassionate, etc.

So when do penalties start being applied? When do you finally take action? When do you finally start doing what you say you're going to do? Now that your creation are now sinners and one of their offspring kills the other, then do you apply a penalty? Raise the one killed so that his brother can kill him again and again?

Your 'simple' solution sounds like hell on Earth. There are places on Earth like what you speak of. Where in the majority of the land there are no laws and little government. Penalties are waived. Syria is one of them. Somalia is another. So tell me how yours is better solution?

To withhold punishment for gross misconduct is to invite more misconduct and rebellion. This is a failure in a leader to not follow through with their promises and enforce laws. Your solution is flawed and will end in failure like all other forms of government that have tried it your way. World wide and even in the United States people are sick of government not doing what they say they are going to do. Or are you fine with people not being served justice? Are you ok with people that are destroying the planet? I'm guessing your solution is to just let it go? Certainly you can see this is childish reasoning and that such lack of justice will bring mankind to it's end.

[marco]

Hymns are made to express the gratitude for what God has done by sending His Son Jesus to save the world.

People die horrendous deaths; horrible disasters happen. So people have not been spared the heartaches and misery we have here on Earth. The "saving" must relate to saving people from God's punishment. Is it not rather absurd to have God sending his "son" to die to "save" us from the punishment that he himself intends to administer?

[2timothy316]

Hymns are made to express the gratitude for what God has done by sending His Son Jesus to save the world.

People die horrendous deaths; horrible disasters happen. So people have not been spared the heartaches and misery we have here on Earth. The "saving" must relate to saving people from God's punishment. Is it not rather absurd to have God sending his "son" to die to "save" us from the punishment that he himself intends to administer?

Actually according to the Bible it is not God that administers that judgement. (John 5:22) Jesus will be separating sheep from goats. According to the Bible he is the only one that has that right. One possible reason being that he was once human.

[ttruscott]

Hymns are made to express the gratitude for what God has done by sending His Son Jesus to save the world.

People die horrendous deaths; horrible disasters happen. So people have not been spared the heartaches and misery we have here on Earth. The "saving" must relate to saving people from God's punishment. Is it not rather absurd to have God sending his "son" to die to "save" us from the punishment that he himself intends to administer?

You write as if there is only one kind of people, that both those HE intends to punish and those who HE intends to save are the same group. IF Calvin did nothing else at least he opened our minds to see that those HE intends to save from their addiction to evil and HIS judgement are not the same people who must face HIS wrath. No one can cross from either group to the other...

The Passover story teaches that we must sweep all leaven / sin out of our houses / lives as per Heb 12:5-11 AND put the blood on the door posts / accept Christ's death as our salvation to have the Angel of death / HIS judgment pass us by.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 95 by ttruscott]

IF Calvin did nothing else at least he opened our minds

I'll thank you for not speaking of all of us as though we believe what Person X from history said.
YOU may agree with Calvin on this, that or the other, but I do not.

The Passover story teaches that we must sweep all leaven / sin out of our houses / lives as per Heb 12:5-11 AND put the blood on the door posts / accept Christ's death as our salvation to have the Angel of death / HIS judgment pass us by

Is it one or the other? Can I kill a farm animal and put its blood on my door post? I of course can't make myself accept that Christ's death is my salvation, by sheer force of will, so I suppose that leaves me with only the one option then?

[Claire Evans]

Hymns are made to express the gratitude for what God has done by sending His Son Jesus to save the world.

People die horrendous deaths; horrible disasters happen. So people have not been spared the heartaches and misery we have here on Earth. The "saving" must relate to saving people from God's punishment. Is it not rather absurd to have God sending his "son" to die to "save" us from the punishment that he himself intends to administer?

God never promised that He would save us from suffering. He can get us through it, not that we will never go through it. Salvation is not saving us from God's punishment. He is saving us from Hell which would be our fate if we could not be redeemed of sin. Hell is the complete separation from God. If an evil person does not want to part with their evil, they separate themselves from God because God cannot be near evil. Since sin separates people from God, Jesus is the intermediary between God and humans who has taken on the penalty of sin that we would have faced if He had not died for our sins. We cannot say God punished Jesus when Jesus took on the sin of the world.

[Justin108]

Allah is a moon god.

What does that even mean?

We can speculate and say maybe Satan created Islam to counter Christianity.

We can also speculate and say maybe Satan created Christianity to counter Judaism.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 97 by Claire Evans]

God never promised that He would save us from suffering.

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Question:

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  What's all this talk about going to heaven, then?
  
  

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