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Why did Jesus have to die?

antireconciler

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Hey. I have a question.

What is this guy talking about?

I can't make sense of it. God of love? Check. God of justice? You've lost me.

Why is there not forgiveness of sins without punishment of sins?

Why is it bad if Jesus is just a therapist?

Even if you don't agree with it, maybe at least we can figure out what this guy is trying to say. What exactly is going on inside his head? How are the ideas connected together? Even if it's wrong, at least we should understand his position. Otherwise, how are we to know were we need to disconnect misconnections inside his head to make it work right?

Or if you think he IS right, explain yourself. Please.
 

Valiant

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WHY DOES EVERYONE SEEM TO THINK I'M DEAD!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!
 

heart

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The Christ of the Bible died because it is all a metaphor. Christ tells us he is the truth and then we witness what humans do to the truth. He tells us no one comes to God except through him, he has already told us that he is truth.

I don't know what your guy in your video is talking about.
 

INTJMom

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This isn't really the appropriate place for that.
You don't have any qualified theologians here,
but rather there is a plethora of people who are trained up in anti-Christianity.
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.
 

Valiant

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But anyways, God had to put me down because I was, in his eyes, missusing my position. And before word spread about my ESTP'ish wild behaviour, the dude up there put some poor drunk that somewhat resembled me on a cross to make people think I was dead. Then he hid me in some kind of hollow to starve to death, but thankfully, my mother is a corpse-hugger so she went out to get me from my grave... And there I was, alive!

Anyway. People thought I had been resurrected, and after a little while, God discovered that I was alive and made Judas rat my location out. But anyway, I outsmarted the old skydwelling dude by making a drunk that looked vaguely like me eat a lot of crappy food with my desciples. He was kind of bizarre, apparently he talked about them drinking my blood and stuff. O.O Party-crasher. But anyway, God didn't seem to notice the romans had killed off a drunk guy instead of me. I shaved off my beard, colored my hair, and took a hike. The guy hasn't bothered me since. :D And nobody seems to believe that i'm actually Jesus :coffee:
 

Totenkindly

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This isn't really the appropriate place for that.
You don't have any qualified theologians here,
but rather there is a plethora of people who are trained up in anti-Christianity.

Honestly, I'm not very much impressed by people with a theology degree either. Their education tends to be just as biased, just in a different direction... and so I'm not sure how anyone can aim to have a handle of truth. No one steps outside their natural framework, to look at it from the outside.

I don't think the people here are trained in anti-Christianity. There are a few strong cynics who just tend to give kneejerk reactions to these discussions, so they can be ignored. The rest are either learning or are old enough (and been part of enough religious experience) to have gone in their own directions, for valid reasons.

Thankfully, salvation is by faith, not by logic.

I agree with that thought. There's no way to truly 100% understand something, so it's got to be based on something other than knowledge/logic.

Hey. I have a question. What is this guy talking about? I can't make sense of it. God of love? Check. God of justice? You've lost me.

Why is there not forgiveness of sins without punishment of sins? Why is it bad if Jesus is just a therapist?

Even if you don't agree with it, maybe at least we can figure out what this guy is trying to say. What exactly is going on inside his head? How are the ideas connected together?

Well, he's not really saying anything that's out of the ordinary. This is very basic Christian theology that you'd hear in Sunday school or even in church itself.

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.

In the OT, people would offer blood sacrifices (and it had to be blood -- an animal life) as temporary covering for their sins, and God would be graceful enough to look at this sacrifice as the intention to make reparation and thus offer forgiveness... in a sense, just like when people offer heartfelt apologies and mean it. So the wronged person can then offer forgiveness and the relationship is fixed.

[But yes, there's a sort of metaphysical strand running through it all, a mystical thing where blood is almost magical or at least given that sort of power.]

According to Christian thought, though, the sacrifices were only temporary. They couldn't truly cover up/repay for one's sins against God. This is where Jesus came in: The unblemished sacrifice, and God's own son, who said he would step in and take the place of all the other.

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."

(Put in human terms, if you have a murderer, for example, and the judge convicts and murders a willing innocent man in his place, why on earth would this make the bereaved family feel that justice was truly done? Would justice have been done? No, it seems like more injustice on the part of the judge. The only "innocent" who could sacrifice something here would be the family itself, sacrificing their need for reparation in order to forgive the murderer and restore relationship, if the murderer was truly sorry.)

One can try to say then that "logic" won't explain it and you just need faith to accept it... but I think if the whole scenario seems insensible, then one has to weigh carefully what ideas are worth putting faith into.

There are basically a few ways that Christianity views Jesus' sacrifice, then. There's the Reparation/Scapegoat version this man is describing, where there is injustice caused by humanity's sin and Jesus died and somehow "paid for it" and now everything can be better.

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.

(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.)

Those two positions have been around for centuries. There's at least one more main approach but I can't recall it right this moment.
 

sassafrassquatch

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As I was taught...

0. In the time before time Lucifer/Satan/The Devil/Old Scratch is God's right hand man and the most powerful created being. He gets a big head about it and rebels against God. He is supported by 1/3 of the angels in heaven. God creates Hell and casts Lucifer and the fallen angels into it. This is all necessary and part of the plan to provide humans with a choice so they can either follow God or burn in hell forever.

1. God is love and love must be expressed, the ultimate expression of love is to die for someone.

2. God creates everything including humans who are to be his best friends forever

3. Humans are perfect, sinless, immortal and vegetarian as is all life on earth. They have no freewill and can only obey and worship God.

4. Enter Satan and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God tells Adam not to eat it's fruit, if he does he will die. (When God speaks of death he is not referring to physical death but separation from God in hell.)

5. Eve, who apparently did not get the memo about the tree and its fruit is talked into having a bite by Satan the talking limbed snake. Adam follow suit and also eats the fruit.

6. God is cheesed off even though he knew this would happen and is all according to his plan. He kicks them out of the Garden of Eden, all life is cursed, carnivorous and mortal. Everything is still in its initial state of perfection until the Great Flood.

7. Fast forward through and lot of tribal bullshit with the Hebrews and we arrive at the 1st Century A.D. According to God's plan (God being the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three and yet one, one and yet three in some crazy M.C. Escher type thing.) is to send the Son to earth, live as a man, preach and do magic tricks. Then when he is 33 he is crucified as a sacrifice. The penalty for sin is death and the only death which can pay for all of humanity's sins is God's. The crucifixion of Christ is God's grand expression of love to humanity.

8. So now everyone must choose to either accept God's love or burn in hell forever. Eventually, soon according to some, Christ will return and end creation. Apparently he has a quota of souls to fill. Once all the willing souls are in heaven God will hug them and squeeze them and pet them and call them George.

So that's it in a very large nutshell. Christ died because he is God, God loves humanity and the greatest expression of love for someone is to die for them.
 

Valiant

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People like to be right, and everyone is in a way. At least from their own point of view, for a while. But that might be a philosophical discussion best saved for later. Dammit kiddo :D
 

INTJMom

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Honestly, I'm not very much impressed by people with a theology degree either. Their education tends to be just as biased, just in a different direction... and so I'm not sure how anyone can aim to have a handle of truth. No one steps outside their natural framework, to look at it from the outside.

I don't think the people here are trained in anti-Christianity. There are a few strong cynics who just tend to give kneejerk reactions to these discussions, so they can be ignored. The rest are either learning or are old enough (and been part of enough religious experience) to have gone in their own directions, for valid reasons.

...
You're right.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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Hey. I have a question.

What is this guy talking about?

I can't make sense of it. God of love? Check. God of justice? You've lost me.

Why is there not forgiveness of sins without punishment of sins?

Why is it bad if Jesus is just a therapist?

Even if you don't agree with it, maybe at least we can figure out what this guy is trying to say. What exactly is going on inside his head? How are the ideas connected together? Even if it's wrong, at least we should understand his position. Otherwise, how are we to know were we need to disconnect misconnections inside his head to make it work right?

Or if you think he IS right, explain yourself. Please.

Short answer:
This is God's way of telling us that he is assuming responsibility for everything that has happened.


Longer answer:
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be President? It would kinda suck in a lot of ways because no matter what you did some people would complain. And every time something went wrong you'd get the blame.

Well this is what it's like to be God only on a much larger scale. Everyone who ever lived in the whole world dumps all of their baggage on God. "God I wanted to go on a picnic today, and you made it rain. I hate you and also I don't believe in you so there!" Actually there is a lot of worse things out there than canceled picnics. War, poverty, rape, child molestation, etc.... When people see all of the evil in the world it's natural to stop and ask, "Doesn't God care?" and "Why does God let people do all this evil stuff?" And hey they have a point. All of this evil should be punished shouldn't it?

Well before you go too far down that path there is the other side of the coin. At some point a person realizes that they have skeletons in their own closet, and if they want bad deeds to be punished then that will include our own too. In the end we all would have quite a bit of punishment headed toward us, and that is not cool either. And here is the problem. Bad deeds should be punished, but when you add up all the cumulative damages then the whole human race is totally hosed. So how do we solve this problem? Fortunately we do not have to.

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.
 

Grayscale

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duh, to pay for everyones sins... i imagine it went something like this:

cashier: do you have a safeway club card?
god: uhh... no?
cashier: would you like to sign up fo-
god: i'll pass, thanks
cashier: alright, then, sir, your total comes to the eternal sins of humanity, are you paying with cash or credit?
god: actually, i have a gift card for the crucifixion of my one and only begotten son
cashier: oh ok... *scans giftcard* so, what does that mean anyways?
god: eh?
cashier: begotten
god: how the fuck should i know
cashier: *shrugs*

*clerk looks at the ceiling, mildly annoyed at the sluggish receipt printer*

cashier: thank you for shopping at safeway, mr... *looks closely at receipt* god, have a nice day
god: it's gonna hail later, ill try :dry:
 

Nocapszy

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duh, to pay for everyones sins... i imagine it went something like this:

cashier: do you have a safeway club card?
god: uhh... no?
cashier: would you like to sign up fo-
god: i'll pass, thanks
cashier: alright, then, sir, your total comes to the eternal sins of humanity, are you paying with cash or credit?
god: actually, i have a gift card for the crucifixion of my one and only begotten son
cashier: oh ok... *scans giftcard* so, what does that mean anyways?
god: eh?
cashier: begotten
god: how the fuck should i know
cashier: *shrugs*

*clerk looks at the ceiling, mildly annoyed at the sluggish receipt printer*

cashier: thank you for shopping at safeway, mr... *looks closely at receipt* god, have a nice day
god: it's gonna hail later, ill try :dry:
This is the only appropriate response to this thread.

I've got an interesting question;

If a christian is one who is certain there's a god,
an atheist is one who is certain there's not,
agnostics aren't sure,
what do they call the people who don't care?
 

antireconciler

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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 :coffee:

:nice:

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!
 

zarc

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This is the only appropriate response to this thread.

I've got an interesting question;

If a christian is one who is certain there's a god,
an atheist is one who is certain there's not,
agnostics aren't sure,
what do they call the people who don't care?

Evolved.
 

Bluesman

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May I humbly suggest those who want to know the traditional teaching on why Jesus had to die read St. Athanasius (4th c.) On the Incarnation, which is freely available on the web Here or Here.
 

INTJMom

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...
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....
Sorry.
Liquid Laser gave a great answer.
Your OP assumed the guy was wrong and you wanted to disabuse him of his thinking.
With such a hostile stance, you would never be satisfied until the entire thing was explained from beginning to end.
And as I said, though you refuse to agree, faith is how we comprehend God, not logic.
God did it that way on purpose "to confound the wise" as the scripture says.
If you refuse to engage your heart in addition to your head, you will never know God.
 

nottaprettygal

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Your OP assumed the guy was wrong and you wanted to disabuse him of his thinking.
With such a hostile stance, you would never be satisfied until the entire thing was explained from beginning to end.

I think you may be putting your own spin onto the OP because it didn't seem hostile to me at all. She seemed confused and wanted a sense of understanding. Nothing wrong with that.
 

INTJMom

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I think you may be putting your own spin onto the OP because it didn't seem hostile to me at all. She seemed confused and wanted a sense of understanding. Nothing wrong with that.
And perhaps you are putting your own spin on it, for certainly, it can be truly said of everyone that we all see things in a certain way, which is our own.

...
Even if it's wrong, at least we should understand his position. Otherwise, how are we to know where we need to disconnect misconnections inside his head to make it work right?

Or if you think he IS right, explain yourself. Please.
 
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