Carin Nel

If you understand the Trinity and you understand the Covenant, you will understand the sacrifice of the Son of God for the world.
It is FULL of deep, spiritual significance taken right through the Scriptures (from Genesis to Revelations), demonstrated by various symbols and rituals and fulfilled at the wedding feast of the Lamb of God with His Bride.
Humans cannot grasp the full meaning of this, so we cannot expect you to begin to understand it, let alone if you don't even really want to believe it.
If a lawyer had to have the chance to give God advice on the whole matter of the sacrifes in the stead of sin, he would have told God its a bad idea that could never work. But God does not think like us, and because He loves us so much, He wanted to give us a choice. Without a choice, we would not be able to love and then we would have been like robots.

Again, an aspect too hard for us to understand.
See, we have to come to point when faith must take over. That is the moment when God starts revealing the Truth to us and open our spiritual eyes.
To the natural mind, it's not possible to understand.
On this forum it will not work.

Regards
Carin Nel

Amaleq13

Were any of these permanent losses?

dzim77

On the contrary, because a human soul is eternal, life is incredibly precious in the view of the Bible.

The choices we make in this life will impact our whole eternity. The way we love, the way we live, affects our eternity. To say that God has the right to give life and take it away in his perfect sovereign will does not devalue life.

here's one of my all time favorite quotes from CS Lewis on the subject...

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

-CS Lewis, from the Weight of Glory

dzim77

so, does your definition of 'genuine sacrifice' include permanent loss?

Say a poor single mother, for the sake of her hungry child, does not eat for several days, knowing that in three days, she will receive a paycheck and be able to buy food. Is her fasting and hunger not a true sacrifice? Now let's say this mother, instead of going hungry, has to endure the infinite wrath of God, suffering total isolation and anguish of soul for three hours. Is that not a genuine sacrifice?

Also, just to point out, there is something about Christ's post-resurrection form that is, in fact, eternally changed. It is difficult to comprehend exactly what this means. Many theologians say that Jesus will remain forever in his glorified bodily form in heaven... thus, in his resurrected form we can see the holes in his hands and feet where the nails pierced him... the scars he showed to Thomas and the disciples while appearing to them in the upper room are the scars he will bear for eternity. Either way this actually works out, the Bible says that forever in heaven we will see and remember Christ's sacrifice on the cross and give Him glory for it.

Carin Nel

In my Bible it does. (KJV) Exodus 30:33," They shall eat those things with which the atonement was made...."
Heb. "kaphar" - to cover; expiate; placate; cancel; appease; cleanse; disannl;forgive; be merciful; pacify; pardon; reconcile; make attonement; purge.
This is the first of 69 times the word is translated attonement.
v. 35, 36-37; 30:10-16; 32:30; Lev. 1:4; 4:20-35; 5:6-18;6:7; 7:7; 8:34; …….2Sam. 21:3; 2 Chr. 29:24 etc.)

Very interesting to know, is that the plural for the word “kaphar” is “kippur”, atonements (Ex. 30:10)
It is translated “atonement”, but should be“atonements” in Ex. 29:36; 30:16; Lev. 23:27-28;Num. 5:8.)
In some verses both words are used together (30:16; Lev.23:28)

Very interesting: The first use of “kaphar” is translated “pitch” and gives the essential meaning in that it refers to a covering for the ark which made it safe from leaks, so as to preserve life (Gen. 6:14)

The plural “kippur” is also used in that verse. “Kaphar” and “kippur” are the ony Hebrew words translated “atonement”.

True, but then it will be a false gospel! AND not the one that Paul preached. Like the Trinity, atonement is very much found in the Scriptures and is preached by Paul.
In the New Testament the word atonement is found only once – Rom. 5:11. “…Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” Paul is the author of the Epistle to the Romans. The word “atonement” is translated “reconciliation” in the NKJV and should be”atonement”



We have to understand the spiritual significance of the OT sacrifices to understand the sacrifice of His Son as well as the Covenant.
(We have to establish first which books Paul is the author of, before we can argue what Paul said and did.)

In 1 Cor. 10 he gives clear examples of how God took care of the Israelites in the Wilderness (Old Testament) and how they drank from the Spiritual Rock, which was Christ, and how we should follow their example by NOT complaining and be involved in idolatry.

He even compares the sacrifices with our taking communion (18-22)
Paul makes sure his readers remember and understand the OT rituals, symbols, sacrifices and their significance for us today.

Regards,
Carin Nel

greyline

I didn't mean to imply that the only purpose of the OT was for the writers to glorify themselves. I also said "OT God reads exactly like an invented being that was used by priests to keep the Hebrews in line". Showing how God punishes those who disobey him is an example of this.

If Hebrew "heroes" were perfect, no one would buy them. The best fictional heroes are never perfect, because we're supposed to identify with them. Furthermore, showing their foibles is a great way to illustrate the various "lessons" God apparently wants to teach us.


Much of God's personal intervention relates to giving rules and instructions for building things and doing rituals. Regarding morality, the OT reveals nothing that mankind hadn't already worked out for himself. Regarding factual information about the world, the OT was plain wrong in many cases.



See above. Also, I wouldn't deny that there are some authors of the OT who showed wisdom - that's surely one of the reasons the books were revered. But there's no evidence it's not purely human wisdom.


Considering he has his "chosen people", I have to disagree with this. Biblegod began very much as a local entity - it's just that he became the most popular one thanks to historical circumstance. Not that his Word reached the four corners of the globe in time to stop other religions becoming firmly entrenched. And, of course, unbelievers were slaughtered.


Well, yes, of course his followers would write such a verse! There's no shortage of "my god is better than your god" in the OT.


Not relevant. The point is that there's nothing about the OT that indicates it's not written by men, regardless of how other religious texts also fail in that regard. It appears the Hebrews hit a chord (or a nerve) with a certain portion of humankind, and their God won (in the middle east and eventually the west). History is written by the victors.


Everything happens according to God's will, does it not? God put the tree there. God made the snake crafty. God created man without the ability to understand right and wrong. God decided we would inherit the consequencs of Adam & Eve's act of disobedience. Yes, the Fall was engineered by God.


Well, speak for yourself. But this kind of everyday sinning is irrelevant to Christianity. We're condemned to hell for our inherited sinful nature, not the everyday stuff. We ask God to forgive us for those sins and poof, it's done. As a humanist I would say the best way to rectify those sins is to take action to put things right with the person who was "sinned" against.


I can't "choose" to accept Jesus. This isn't a choice. If faith in this clearly mythical entity makes no sense, I have no choice but to reject it. To do otherwise would be supremely dishonest.

Amaleq13

It is arguably implied in the dictionary definition ("destruction" tends to be permanent) but, to qualify as "the greatest sacrifice", I would say that the loss must certainly be permanent and extremely significant.

I think it has to be qualified as "temporary". Interestingly enough, a "temporary sacrifice" in chess is also called a "sham sacrifice".

Then, like all the "mysteries" which are rationally incoherent, it cannot be understood but must be accepted on faith.

Julian

You're wrong. Again. I wish you wouldn't comment on the use of Greek when you clearly don't know the language. The word as used in Romans 5:11 is καταλλαγην from καταλλαγη, a noun which means 'reconciliation' and never atonement, it also appears as a verb καταλάσσω, 'reconcile.'

Since you say that you use the KJV we can look at the 1550 Greek edition by Stephanus, one member of the published family of Erasmus' Greek versions, and there we find the exact same word (καταλλαγην) as in WH and NA27 and UBS4 and...

Sorry, 'atonement' is just wrong which is why NKJV was corrected. Do you really think they would have corrected it if the original translation was correct?

Julian

dzim77

At any rate, it seems that we understand eachother, but disagree.

I say that Christ's death on the cross is the greatest sacrifice because of it's infinite worth... that he is God and chose to endure the wrath of God the Father so that sinners may be saved.

You assert that it is not a 'real' sacrifice because though Jesus' suffering was unmeasurable in degree, it was indeed temporary in the human space/time continuum.

greyline

If something has infinite worth, you could argue that it's the greatest gift (although when one has an infinite amount to give in the first place, any gift is somewhat less valuable), but that doesn't make it a sacrifice.