OLDMAN

If Jesus was God and vice versa, then what was the big deal about Jesus coming to earth and being crucified?

A sacrifice would have to be a "giving up of something valuable". Jews sacrificed valuable animals and crops to their God, it was a giving back of part of what they received. It was meant to please God because it was of great value and importance to the worshipers.

Since Jesus supposedly knew he would simply return to heaven, and we assume he also knew he could die. Then we have to wonder what was it that Jesus actually gave up?

God allowed Jesus to be killed, in fact required it to fulfill prophecy. Is the sacrifice special because Jesus lived a sinless life? It seems to me that this is the nature of God and cannot be otherwise.

So what was the big deal? That he allowed himself to be sacrificed?

aa5874

The Jesus story really makes very little sense. There was no sacrifice just a show of SUPERNATURAL power.

A soldier may sacrifice his life, actually die, for others in danger of being killed but Jesus merely SLEPT for three DAYS under the pretense that he was dead.

Can a man kill a God? What absurdity.

JESUS WAS FROM HEAVEN'S HOLLYWOOD. He was a fantastic supernatural actor.

hisecret

Good question. Makes me wonder if he had died of cholera or a heart attack or some other "natural cause" he invented, would it still be regarded by the Xtians as a sacrifice.

Zeluvia

There is no good answer here, and keep thinking about it, cause the whole original sin/sacrafice/redemption paradigm has more holes in it than a Republican congressman's sex life.

The ONLY thing that makes any sense at all is that Jesus, with the power of god at his fingertips, chose to die rather than kill, proving that at least HE had faith in life after death, and demostrated the higher emotion of forgiveness over survival. Everything added after that is just tonypandy.

Keith&Co.

But if he had the power of God, using that to kill his tormentors would mean that he felt threatened by them.

If he had the knowledge of God, too, an understanding of his own nature and fate, then he'd know they couldn't do him any real harm.

Of course, this IS the god that knocked down a human construction so it wouldn't pierce his sky... Evidently he doesn't usually do real well with totally bogus threats.

judge

Even as a xtian i could never quite "get" the crucifixion.
However when we consider that the hebrews were a society based around sacrifcies to a god, then the idea probably had more meaning to them I presume.

Cege

The sacrifice I've been told about is the horrible suffering Jesus endured, both physically and spiritually; a suffering of the magnitude and result that only God Himself was capable of surviving.

aa5874

But, Jews did not sacrifice humans to their God. A human sacrifice was an abomination to Jews. The Laws of God as given by Moses did NOT incorporate human sacrifice at all.

The Jewish writers Philo and Josephus did not write about any Jew who worshiped a man who blasphemed the name of the God of the Jews.

If Jesus did exist he could have only been human.

And if Jesus was believed to be a God, then there was NO sacrifice.

A man cannot kill a God.


Examine the words of JESUS in Mark 5:39 - If Jesus was a God he was not dead but SLEPT "LIKE A BABY" based on his own words.

Petergdi

While I personally find the doctrine of the Trinity to be unnecessarily confusing, I don't think it is that difficult to get one's head around the idea that the Son and the Father are both one God, but that the Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son.

By his obedience he defeated sin, and by being raised to life he defeated death.

That's your meaning that you are inserting into the text. Don't start out by assuming what the NT authors understood by "sacrifice" if you actually want to figure out what they meant by "sacrifice". The idea of somehow appeasing God by giving up something of value is NOT part of second temple Judaism or the New Testament world view. If you insist that the meaning has to be that, then none of it will make any sense.

Peter.

Aquarius

I always thought the most confusing thing was that anyone had to be sacrificed at all. If God is all powerful, it seems like he could skip that part and just forgive everyone.

OK, if he wanted, send his son down to teach everyone handy things, but then not kill him maybe.