may

JESUS HE GAVE HIS LIFE A RANSOM

The word “ransom� is often used when there is a kidnapping. After a kidnapper captures a person, he may say he will return the person if a certain amount of money is paid as a ransom. So a ransom is something that brings the deliverance of a person held captive. It is something that is paid so that he does not lose his life. Jesus’ perfect human life was given to obtain mankind’s release from bondage to sin and death. (1Peter 1:18,19; Ephesians 1:7) Why was such a release needed?

This was because Adam, the forefather of all of us, had rebelled against God. His lawless act made him a sinner, since the Bible explains that “sin is lawlessness.� (1John 3-4; 5-17) As a result, he was not worthy of receiving God’s gift of everlasting life. (Romans 6:23) So Adam lost for himself perfect human life on a paradise earth. He also lost this prospect for all the children he would produce. ‘But why,’ you may ask, ‘did all his children have to die, since it was Adam who sinned?’

This is because Adam, when he became a sinner, passed sin and death on to his children, including all humans now living. People, therefore, have been dying because of the sin that was inherited from Adam. How was it possible, then, for the sacrifice of Jesus’ life to free all people from bondage to sin and death?

By his disobedience the perfect man Adam lost perfect life on a paradise earth for himself and all his children. Jesus Christ gave his own perfect life to buy back what Adam lost. Yes, Jesus “gave himself a corresponding ransom for all.� (1Timothy 2:5,6) Because he was a perfect man, even as Adam had been, Jesus is called “the last Adam.� (1Corinthians 15:45) No human other than Jesus could have provided the ransom. This is because Jesus is the only man who ever lived that was equal to Adam as a perfect human son of God.—Psalm 49:7; Luke 1:32; 3:38.

HerrAxel

I understand that Jesus is God. Are you saying God paid a ransom to himself?

Would you favor setting up our society to mirror this kind of "justice"? In other words, if one of you ancesters stole horses during the Civil War, should the police be able to arrest and punish you for the crime today?

How can it be said that Jesus sacrificed himself? I would claim that if I died for Adam that would be a sacrifice, since I am not coming back.

If Jesus was equal to Adam as a perfect human son of God and Adam sinned, does this mean that Jesus could sin also? Does this mean there will be sin in heaven?

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Hyndis

How am I responsible for an act done before I was born?

Its assumed that small children are innocent, for they do not fully comprehend what is right and wrong until a certain age. If they commit a crime before this age, nothing is done. How do you punish a 4 year old for playing with a gun and accidentially shooting someone?

Now, lets consider even younger ages. Like, before the union of sperm and egg. And before the union of a sperm and egg that eventually made that sperm. And so on and so forth.

Blaming me for an act that happened when I did not exist is just silly.

mindovermyth

If christ dying for our sins was the only possibility to allow humans to get around the problem with "tainted blood" carried down from Adam and Eve, god must have realised that the flooding of the world to kill all people but Noah and few other was doomed as a resolution to the "sinful" humans, as the survivors were still tainted. It would have saved a lot of trouble (and dead people) to have gone directly to the "christ solution" and skipping the flooding. I think god would have done well to hire a human management consultant in an early stage if he was committed to his humanity project.

Hyndis

Or, if God is so big on the vengeful punishing and smiting dealy, why not get rid of humans when there were only two of them and start over from scratch?

Unless of course there were more than two humans from the start and the whole Eden story is bunk, since Cain somehow managed to find a wife.

LeeBuhrul

In suggesting the jewish way worked you vacate Jesus' role

:banghead: trying to make sense of religion? :banghead:

capsaicin67

I also have a problem with the notion that Jesus "knew" a priori that there was a god, that he was the son of said deity, and that the final outcome would be that he would get a cush gig in the Company as God's right hand man and #1 son if he followed through and delivered the corpse.

That's already a more reasonable deal than humanity proper have been given.

Any doubt that he himself may have had about the arrangement merely tells me that should an historical Jesus have existed, he was just some guy who was on a headtrip and improvising as he went. His uncertainty tells me that the script was not necessarily dictated by a supernatural entity at all, otherwise there would have been little reason to hesitate or doubt. Apparently the instructions and script were a work in progress inspired by internal dialogue in his own head, like any number of other delusional or grandiose humans.

I'm not saying that to be a smartass, I'm saying that because that seems the most reasonable explanation short of it not having happened the way the story is depicted, at all.

And if God gave him all of the info upfront, then Jesus required far less "faith" than what the bulk of humanity is expected to muster and shoulder.....

mindovermyth

Hyndis, I think the management consultancy position rightfully is yours. Don't forget to ask for a huge paycheck and ask to be paid (in advance) in gold as it is waterproof (one never knows when your employer decides to shower us again, he's pretty unpredictable).

llamaluvr

That's exactly right. Having Jesus die was the only way God could have his cake and eat it, too. If God forgives sin but doesn't satisfy his wrath* against mankind for sinning, he's a pushover- he's no longer preserving justice. If he satisfies his wrath but doesn't give people a way out, he's hardly loving. And, finally, if sinning isn't a costly transaction deserving of wrath, you can't even consider it to be sinning at all- who would you be offending?

Jesus allows him to satisfy his wrath and pardon all sin. And it's done in the most efficient way possible, and completely at his expense, by taking the life of the one man who could bear it all and still come out on top. In the end he comes out just and loving, and even moreso regarding the latter, considering he threw 1/3 of the godhead to the dogs.

Regarding the issue of how this worked with Jewish sacrifices, the best one-stop resource is still the book of Hebrews. It explains that the Jewish sacrificial system was only a "shadow" of what was to come later (the sacrifice of Jesus). In other words, it was an act of worship, a proof of the desire for God to remove you sins, and a demonstration of the cost of sin, but never the vehicle of atonement. That was Jesus back then, as well (the entire OT is built on the foundation of the messianic figure, who is repeatedly refered to as having the power to forgive sins). From this vantage point, it serves as a couple-thousand-year example of how big of a pain in the butt it would be to even try to atone for your own sins. The point with Jesus was that it wasn't even possible to do such a thing, but, if you were to try your hardest at it, you'd do about what the Jews did.


* "Wrath" in the modern connotation of the word doesn't fit this. If a being is by definition completely righteous and just, any wrath poured out by him is execution of that justice. And the execution must be perfect, too, or else the being's sense of justice wasn't perfect to begin with, either. It can't be too little, and it can't be overkill.

mindovermyth

I think your explanation is clear and to the point within the context you are describing, and the best description of the rationale for the sacrifice of christ from a christian perspective in this thread sofar. But, (there is always a but in these discussions isn't there?) I disagree with the validity of the conclusion however, this being that the dilemma god obviously found himself in could only be satisfactory (for him and man) resolved by his course of action. I think your scenario presents a rather simplistic legalist approach to god's resolution of his dilemma (a dilemma which was created by himself or the devil, but not man, to start with). The solution itself did not really live up to its promises. If it was "the only" and "most efficient way", "perfectly executed", the result was rather disappointing. God, being the omnipotent future seeing being that he is, knew that if he reproduced on earth, his reproduction would be killed, which was the idea, he had forseen this. He also most have foreseen the results of the sacrifice of his earthly reproduction both short and long term (unless he is limited to forseeing short term). These results proved to be the rise of christianity, a number of religious wars and eventually a fall back of the percentual number of humans believing in god (through christ) to what I would guess is not that much larger than it was about the time for the actual sacrifice of christ. The argument that the whole project would have been more successful if the devil wouldn't continously screw things up can not be correct since the devil according to the NT was even giving input (tempting of the christ) in the project and the devil's future actions also must have been foreseen by god (iif god is omnipotent and not just another being of of great potential) .

I am an agnostic. I can not even imagine a omnipotent, benevolent creator of this entire universe being so severly limited in his options for course of action as to be satifsfied that the sacrifice of christ would be the optimum solution to his (I would argue, if anyone is interested) self imposed dilemma.

Erhmm, this response to llamaluvr should logically come after the inserted quote from llamaluvr, but I do not know how to work the buttons so I am sorry if my reply will seem confusing.