meli46 wrote:Sam1995 wrote:PaulSacramento wrote:Sam1995 wrote:PaulSacramento wrote: I think what is bothersome is the notion that the sacrifice was required to pay some "ransom" to a God that quite obviously didn't need it to happen in that way.
Could you elaborate on that? That to me, does not seem to be the case at all. It appears to me that the sacrifice was most definitely needed. Is our God not a God of justice as well as love?
SB
I am referring to how a skeptic/non-believer would view it.
It is an argument I have heard before.
If God is God why did His son have to die?
Ahh, I see.
He was fully God and fully man, the perfect blend for the perfect sacrifice. Jesus being fully man was perfect for Him to die for the sins of man, and His perfection from Him being fully God enabled Him to be the ULTIMATE sacrifice.
Also, God deemed Jesus to be a fitting way to end the need for sacrifices.
SB
Hello,
i see this from the man point of view , do you think this sacrifice was made for us because this is the only way a human in it's condition would see the significance of such sacrifice ?
Meli46, you are closer than you think...
Let's read several verses regarding this from the book of Romans and then explore these verses in greater detail...
Romans 5:6-11,
6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. NLT
First notice what the first part of verse 6 is saying:
When we were utterly helpless… Romans 5:6, NLT
How were we utterly helpless? Humanity through centuries does not like to think themselves as helpless. Look at the modern militant atheist and agnostics as an example of this. In Romans, Paul, does write that folks are enemies of God and have no thought or desire of become right with God in any shape or form. They need a rude shocking awakening...
How do you reach such people? Answer, wake them up – pure shock value that would transcend time and all centuries of time that would expose what the heck sin really is in the first place and bring healing and restoration after that.
So to help pinusresinosa with his (her?) question – I’ll ask a question – what do you think sin is?
Next in Romans 5:6 it continues,
...Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. NLT
How ‘was’ that accomplished and what for?
Jesus came for this purpose: reveal what sin is in a time, in a people chosen in one particular geographic location who God revealed himself too, at a time in history before populations exploded, to reveal what sin is, its effect on all humanity, and whom one's sins separated us from (God), in an act that would wake a person up for his/her need of the Good Shepherd.
Matt 9:35-36 NLT reveals part of this concept:
Jesus… 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Jesus saw what? People were confused/distressed/harassed and helpless/dispirited/cast helplessly about - without anyone to help them find another way to live…
Are you, reading this feel like this? Harassed by life – dispirited – feel cast helplessly about in the sea of life only to drown in the ocean of nothingness? Some folks even hedonistically proudly boast that they love the nothingness at the end of life, yet, the older they get…
What would it take for people wake up to see what truly makes such a harassing distressed life that also makes others proudly boast in nothingness? An act that transcends time and place in a manner completed in such a way that would wake people up to see the reason for their aloneness spinning upon this globe called the earth that separated them from this one and only true shepherd and overseer of the soul, would.
What shall such a wakeup call actually look like?
Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Romans 5:6-9, NLT
By dying and rising from the dead.
In dying, exposing what is truly in the heart of every man and woman on this planet. This is where folks miss the full impact of the gospel. They limited the gospel to only the legal requirements of Substitutionary Atonement, alone. Yes, Christ did that, but there is so much more that Jesus did as well too. He exposed and reveal what makes us helpless, harassed, proud, alone, dispirited, angry, bitter, smugly comforted in the solace of ideas and reason.
In Matthew 26:1-75 reveals this. People plotted against Jesus, who went about doing what? Doing good and setting free the oppressed (see Isa 61:1-4 on what he was doing). He shown the Father’s love to a lost humanity. Helped them find true solace of heart, soul, and spirit. Think of it as Jesus being the epitome of goodness.
What do human beings do to goodness? Seek to silence it, plan to kill it, take goodness out of the public square and replace it with their-own ways by any means possible. Matthew 26 is all about what people do with absolute goodness. Plan its demise, betray it, then desert it, place it on trial, provide false testimony against God’s Goodness, seeking to entrap and ensure goodness as being bad - Even going to the highest courts in the land for this purpose.
Jesus in another chapter of Matthew, spoke this principle:
When you have done it to the least of these…you done it to me…
Mat 27:1-66 goes on to explain what people do with true goodness and grace shown to them.
Seek to bind up goodness and lead it away to more show trials, goodness beaten, mocked, whipped, exchanged for the bad (people desire badness to be released to curse the land), dress up goodness in purple and show contempt toward goodness, force goodness to bear a splintered wooden cross wearing a crown of thorns unjustly planted upon his head, drive nails into goodness’s hands and feet in a hugging position so that goodness cannot embrace humanity again, divide goodness’ possessions, give goodness sourness to partake of…
Jesus in another chapter of Matthew, spoke this principle:
When you have done it to the least of these…you done it to me…
As he hung upon that cross, God’s Goodness fully exposed, in a hugging position, he took the wrath of God between God and man while suspended between heaven and earth. Before that on earth, He took on himself our sins by the laying on of humanities hands upon himself. In doing these two things, he exposed what we do to each other, God, and exposed who really harasses in a public display – defeating that adversary soundly.
Jesus spoke this principle:
When you have done it to the least of these…you done it to me…
Who have you betrayed, beaten with words or anger? Who have we murdered in our hearts with one-up-manship, self righteous justifications? Who have we put on trial in our lives? How have we mocked God and his goodness today? How often do we demand the freedom to release badness into the land to curse it thinking this is the right way? How do we seek control? Who have we nailed to cross?
Without this act upon the cross, we would never know what true sin is…
Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners….
…9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation.
…10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. NLT
So great is God’s love displayed by His Goodness, his Logos, Jesus Christ that he was raised from such a death for us to be justified in God’s sight as though we never have done these things to God and each other. He did this to reconcile us back into our true fold with him as the shepherd and overseer of our souls. All he ask is this...
“How are these things possible?” ...
10 Jesus replied, “You are a respected ... teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? 11 I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. 12 But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20 All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21 But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”
Note these things:
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. Luke 23:34, NASB
Jesus… When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matt 9:35-36 NLT
6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. Romans 5:6-11, NLT
"(The King) Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.' Mat 25:40 NKJV
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