There are some excellent responses here. I did not mean to sound closed-minded to any of these ideas. I genuinely wish to understand.
Also, I understand that this is hardly an original topic, hardly an original idea I'm trying to wrap my mind around. But if I can understand it, well, that will be quite original in my life. I've been pitted against the idea of God as a God of Justice for just years and years. But never have I really taken the time to try to understand what it is that makes it so compelling to people. If I can't simulate it in my mind, then I have no method of talking to these people. We'd be talking different languages. You see, I feel a strong desire to understand every conceivable position, and simulate it even if it is not complete in itself, at least so I am not an alien to it and so I can see people who do hold these notions as fellow like-minded, reasonable human beings. I need to be able to communicate with them.
[...]That video is one of a 15 week series.
Unless people were to attend all 15 classes,
there's no way they could get the full picture
of one of the most complex theological questions of all time.
You must know and understand the nature of God,
the nature of sin, God's purpose for creating mankind, etc., etc.
before you can understand - logically - why Jesus had to die.
There are libraries of books that address the subject.
An online forum can hardly do the question justice.
Thankfully, salvation is by faith, not by logic.
It is complex, but there's a kind of despair I think people fall into when they back away from a question and say "it's just too complex for me to explain it to you". Think you that I am an alien to complex expression? Listen, if you understand it yourself, do not be miserly with your wisdom, but share it as you were meant to. Do not have so little faith in your ability to express the truth as you understand it in a form that another could easily grasp. What's this? Think you that truth is so complex? No God who wished to share with us would create us with an inability to understand Him and share in His Mind. Truth is simple, or not at all. Yes, in the course of our discussion we may need to reign in the complexities the mind has forged, but do God's will and you cannot fail. Be patient. Be faithful. I will listen. I will strive to understand.
I understand that salvation is not BY logic, but it is after all logical. It does make sense, and you know it. Faith must make sense, or it is not faith at all, but insanity.
[...] And nobody seems to believe that i'm actually Jesus
Basically, if God is holy, then anything that is unholy (i.e., sin) has to be eradicated or punished. And is he is a just God, then he has to balance the scales -- all wrong has to be punished/righted.
Jennifer, I want to thank you for your insightful reply. I'll try to take it in pieces, since I seem to do best that way, although that's not to stray from the big picture.
I seem to follow the general story of the history of blood sacrifice. I just can't get the whole thing off the ground. When people say that Adam an Eve sinned, I can understand this as some sort of failure on Adam and Eve's part to understand or know God or themselves, some failure in perception, but to say that Adam and Eve ACTUALLY went against, seriously and literally went against an all-powerful being FLAT OUT doesn't make any sense at all. I see perfectly no point of entry into such a position because my automaic response is:
P1: God is all-powerful.
P2: God is consistent.
C: God's power is self-consistent.
P3: Adam and Eve had power.
C: Adam and Eve's power was consistent with God's power.
P4: Anything that opposes x is inconsistent with x.
C: Adam and Eve cannot oppose God.
BUT, a lot of things are possible if we modify our discussion to what Adam and Eve THOUGHT, NOT what really happened. (My thoughts on this,
here and
here.) Because to say that Adam and Eve opposed God IN REALITY, is simply bogus, and I see no way around it. The premises aren't premises you can simply add or subtract. Their negations have pretty dire consequences for any thiest.
However, yes, like you seem to be suggesting, I don't see why this changes anything at all. Why would punishing/killing Jesus -- actually an act of injustice, since Jesus was innocent -- somehow magically mean that suddenly the rest of us sinners were now seen as "clean."
Exactly.
There's also Christus Victus (or some similar phrase), where Jesus showed God's power in overcoming death as well as his willingness and desire to forgive despite us having offended him. I personally lean more in this direction as I age, having been a parent.
There's always that way of reading "Jesus's death". One can say that he simply didn't die at all, and that his death is only important in the context of his OVERCOMING death. Then, one can say that Jesus didn't die at all for our sins, even if he died TO our sins. Now THAT's something.
(After all, if "hell" is separation from God because we are self-centered and not moving towards God -- the result of our sin -- then Jesus' sacrifice is a wake-up call showing, yes, God is not keeping us locked in hell, actually loves us and wants us back, and the only thing stopping a restored relationship is US.)
I see it similarly. "Sacrifice" is a challenging word for me because I don't think love has anything to do with sacrifice in the sense of "To gain, something of equal value must be lost." There's nothing cool about giving up something you love for something else, but if you WANT to give it up, if that is your will, because of your love for something, THEN you're cool. As long as it's something you WANT, then you're not really losing anything, and if you're not really losing anything then you're not really sacrificing anything ... you're making a decision, a change of mind, but not losing, ONLY, and I emphasize this, ONLY gaining.
1. God is love and love must be expressed, the ultimate expression of love is to die for someone.
If I have strong opinions about other things, this is one I seriously can't approach. Is what you say true? Is it? I really want to know, but I don't know the answer.
I found your post insightful, and I thank you.
Short answer:
This is God's way of telling us that he is assuming responsibility for everything that has happened.
[...] See, God knew all this was going to happen. When you give every one free will, then sometimes people will chose to do the wrong thing. And because of this God is taking responsibility for the whole thing. Basically God is saying this:
"Hey everyone when I gave you free will I knew that all this bad stuff was going to happen. While I don't regret giving you free will, I'd like to take responsibility for all of the bad stuff that has happened afterward. I'm taking the punishment myself. If you want me to take the punishment for you, then just fess up to your part and we'll forget the whole thing."
So the sacrifice of Jesus is God's way of letting us know that he's not ignoring all the bad stuff that has happened in this world. He doesn't like it, but He does care about us and He is taking all the responsibility for it as long as we are willing to let Him.
Holy cow. There's a lot going on here. I think this is almost exactly the kind of thing I was asking for, but ... can't ... interface.
I'm going to have to give this more careful consideration later, though. Thanks for now!