Kenny

Hello Sapient,

Since this question concerns itself directly with the Gospel, I will be glad to do my best to answer it.

First, however, the wording of the question itself needs to be addressed, especially with reference to the pronoun, “himself.” It must be remembered that God’s redemption of humanity involves the work of the entire Trinity, that there are three distinct persons involved in bringing about our salvation, not just one. Consequently, the repeated use of the pronoun “himself” as though there were only one person involved is somewhat misleading. Christ did not sacrifice “himself to himself;” rather, Christ, as God the Son, offered Himself up as a sacrifice to God the Father to deliver, from the wrath of the Father, all those who would put their faith in that sacrifice by means of the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Second, we must keep in mind what God’s “wrath” involves. God’s wrath is not just some arbitrary or irrational burst of anger, God’s wrath is God’s just disdain for sin, the reaction of repugnance of a good and holy God to ugliness of human evil. It is God’s just resolve not to allow evil to go unexposed for the horror it is by merely passing it by. To do so would be an affront to God’s character.

Third, though God’s holiness and justice demanded that the ugliness of evil be exposed, God didn’t need to bring about the incarnation and atonement to expose the ugliness of human evil. He could have merely exposed it by justly punishing all of humanity for the evils it had committed. However, God did not choose to deal with human sin in this way.

In addition to God’s justice, God also wished to demonstrate His mercy, His compassion, and His love by providing a means through which certain human beings – those who by the Holy Spirit would place their trust in God’s means of salvation – could receive forgiveness for the sins they had committed, but not in such a way that God’s justice is compromised -- not in such a way that God simply passes over human evil without exposing its ugliness. God chose to deal with the sins of such individuals, not by exposing the ugliness of such sins by punishing those individuals themselves, but by -- in the person of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity – becoming a human being and thereby identifying Himself with those persons and identifying the sins of those persons with Himself. Consequently, God’s attitude towards the sins of those persons who become united to Christ by faith, is demonstrated not by God’s punishing those individuals, but by God’s exposing the horror and ugliness of those sins through Christ’s atoning suffering and death on the cross.

Thus, the incarnation and atonement of Jesus Christ is a way that God can be merciful to human sinners without compromising His justice. If God had simply been merciful and passed over sin without dealing with it or exposing its ugliness, then God’s holiness and justice would have been compromised. However, in the wisdom of the cross, God has provided a means by which He can deal with humanity both in accordance with His justice and in accordance with His mercy and love.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ November 16, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Bible Humper

Hi Kenny, I've got a question about something.

But Jesus is Yahweh's avatar, they are both the same being so how can it not be a sacrifice made "from himself to himself"?

This is like slapping my own hand in order to forgive one of my employees for something his great-grandmother did that angered me, which I knew she was going to do because she didn't know any better, but just waited for it to happen.

Kenny

They are both the same being; that is true. It is appropriate, if a bit awkward, to speak of the atonement as “God sacrificing Himself to God.” However, it is also important not to lose sight of the fact that the Father and the Son are two distinct persons. Thus, the Son does not offer a sacrifice to the Son. Christ does not offer a sacrifice to Himself. Rather, God the Son offers Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ November 16, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Amos

Easy, we nail our ego to the cross and walk away from it.

Sabine Grant

Amos you just earned a big hug for that answer!

((((((AMOS))))))

Amos

Read close and you will find that Jesus died and Christ had nothing to do with it. In fact Christ never enetered the scene until after crucifixion (Mark 16, the Freer Logion).

Amos

Love you girl, good for you.

Synaesthesia

We can't really come up with a better answer than this. "Well, that's just what God decided to do this week." Any rationale or interpretation provided by mere mortals really cannot look any deeper.

Well God can easily expose the ugliness sin without subjecting anyone to torture or threats. If God so choose to take such a course of action it would be, by definition, just and holy.

We are really left where we started. God's behavior, whether he brutalizes humans or rewards them, remains utterly inexplicable. We really have no answer to question of "why" God does anything. We only have 'God planned it, and it is good.'

As inspiring and interesting as such accounts are, they are philosophically unsatisfying. This, more than any other factor, is why I have found myself unable to accept God as an explanation for anything at all.

Synaesthesia

Although I reject religion as an answer to question of 'why', Amos provides here a good example of what I like about religion.

Jobar

Sapient, although Amos' mystical interpretations of Christian myth are sometimes- usually- opaque, he is never sarcastic. Weird maybe...

I count myself an atheist/pantheist. Amos is one of the very few posters here that I think understands the pantheist aspect better than the atheistic aspect. I answer his wonderfully terse theology here by reminding him that the everyday mind (ego) is the Buddha mind (God). Also vice versa. Crucifying it, or worshipping it, are both foolish.