This is a continuation of first God is Love; Christ is Pain, and then Why did Christ have to sacrifice himself?
Below is part of how, in my book “Penguins Pain, and the Whole Shebang: Why I Do the Things I Do,” by God (as told to John Shore), I have God himself answering the question, “What does the whole ‘Atonement’ thing actually mean?” So (literary device-wise) this is God speaking:
The At One-ment (Hey! I’m hooked on phonics! Wait—no I’m not) refers to that act in which I allowed myself to get brutally murdered so that all humans could be forever cleansed of the guilt associated with the things they do or think that do not, shall we say, represent their finest moments.
I let myself be tortured to death so that you could live free of pain.
But, hey, no pressure or anything. I don’t want you worrying about it. I was glad to do it. Seriously. No problem. It was a Friday. I really didn’t have all that much to do but hang around anyway.
For three days.
I was just killing time.
Oh, don’t I just slay you?
Cuz I sure do me.
Speaking of which, why don’t we revisit the final moment of my human life as recorded in the Bible? Here’s the last of that experience, as remembered by that prophet to end all prophets, the inimitable John:
Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
So. There’s that.
You know, when you’re dying from a prolonged beating while nailed to a giant wooden cross by steel spikes hammered through your hands and feet, nothing says “refreshing” like a filthy sponge full of wine vinegar being smeared all over your face.
And it leaves you feeling so dignified, too.
Ahh. Not good times.
Still, there was a job to do, and I was the man to do it. And so I did: The “it” in “It is finished” refers to the establishment of the means by which all people, forever, could have access to real and lasting salvation. I know I just said this, but if anything in the universe bears repeating, it’s that what my dying on the cross secured was the means by which, from that point on, any human being could have rinsed from their hearts and minds their guilt (however “naturally” they acquired it), which, without my divine intervention, must otherwise fester inside of them, where at best it severely undermines the quality of their lives and at worst compels them to contribute to that wretched, twisted cause which seeks to drag all of humankind down into the pits of degradation.
Do you see? I won the battle between good and evil by paying, in full, with my body, any and all karmic debt that might ever be incurred by anyone doing evil.
You might owe the phone company, the electric company, the credit card company, and your landlord. But you don’t owe me, or the world, anything. I’ve already totaled you out.
I’ve already atoned for your sins.
Which means that you and I, forever, are copasetic.
As long as you believe in me, that is. As long as you believe that as the Christ I took human form and stepped into human history for the specific purpose of removing from all people—by which I most definitely and forever mean from you personally—the debt incurred by any and all sin.
Believe that, and it’s all about you and I, friend.
Don’t, and you’re on your own.
But you believe it. You have to. Cuz you know who’s on your side, don’t you? You know who’s got you covered, don’t you? You’re feeling the love. You know you are. C’mon. Admit it. Who loves you? Who? Who cares about you? Who gave his all so you could delight in life instead of being bogged down by true existential angst?
Who’s your daddy?
That’s right: Me. The Father. Jesus. The Holy Ghost.
Us.
I.
And what do really good fathers do? That’s right: They fork over the big bucks to cover the cost of every single thing their kids could ever think of doing.
Do you really wonder why such infinite numbers of people have always signed on for Team Jesus? Do you really think they’re all just lazy, shallow simpletons?
Well, they’re not. What they are is debt-free. Which is to say that, spiritually-speaking, they’re forgiven.
Forgiven!
By God Almighty!
Forever!
Man, I just don’t know what else you could possibly want from me.
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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I wonder if the concept of blood atonement, i.e., requiring the innocent to shed blood for the sins of another, is a holdover from bronze age morality? God has had a close relationship with me since before I even knew anything about Christ or Christianity. And that spiritual closeness continues even now. I’m not sure.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest that your interpretation was invalid or that it shouldn’t work for you. It’s just that for me (as you mentioned) the entirety of the chronicles of Jesus were written well after his death. That and it is uncertain that the authors that we attribute to certain books actually wrote them. And even if they did, their own interpretation of old testament scripture was worlds different then their Jewish contemporaries or the orthodox today. In judaism the messiah is a warring king like David and an infidel slayer like Moses and Elijah who will give peace to the Jews. This idea of human sacrifice is anathema to Judaism, let alone calling a man god…Did I digress?
I think what I’m saying is, for me, I can’t find an anchor to hold on to Christianity because there are an abundance of inconsistencies, errors, contradictions, holes and unanswered questions. I feel like belief in any religion is an all or nothing thing. And with all the basic issues of the faith being disagreed upon (and with some either ethical or logical failings) I can’t get the conviction to believe. And I really want something to believe in…:-(
Keep in mind, though, that much of what we consider to be Christianity was a much later development, and that includes the “traditional” view of the atonement. Also, though I respect some of what Paul has to say, not all of the letters attributed to him were actually written by him. Also, he was writing well after Jesus died; scholars think he wrote his letters a good 20 years or more later. So there’s a lot of room for changing interpretations of his death and resurrection in that time. Same goes for the Gospels; they were written long after Jesus died.
I’m not saying others can’t hold to the traditional interpretation, but it doesn’t work for me.
The traditional view of the atonement is a biblical one. The earliest new testament writings are attributed to Paul who generally agrees with (and is likely the progenitor of) this view.
I’d hardly call the bible inerrant, but it is certainly a guide post for Christian theology as there is little written about Jesus outside of the biases of new testament authors (Flavius Josephus being the only one I can think of, whose work probably had Christian interpolation on the subject of Jesus).
I would likely agree with your assessment that Jesus was executed as a socio-political threat. But then there ends the story. Many a prophet were even threatened or killed before him, so why treat this prophet especially well by raising him from the dead? Is it that he is god? If so, what did he come here for in the first place when he had a message supposedly identical and fulfilling of the law and prophets? What was accomplished then? Why call him god? Why base and change the Jewish faith into something solely about this Jesus (whom I might add is not the only one in the bible to be called messiah or Christ)?
See my comment on the page…
See my comment on the page…
This is the part of Christianity I really have a problem with. Seems to me like the traditional view of Jesus’ death on the cross is just cosmic child abuse. How can you reconcile the idea that God loves us all unconditionally with the idea that “sin” is such a problem that God is helpless in the face of it, and the only way it can be dealt with is through a horrific “blood sacrifice”?
I prefer to think that Jesus was killed *not* because God wanted it to happen, or planned for it, but because the political powers-that-be were terribly threatened by Jesus’ message of radical equality and justice. So, they condemned him to death as a revolutionary, a political threat.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. God took what should have an awful moment, and instead turned it into one of the great triumphs of history, basically flipping the bird to the earthly powers-that-be, showing that injustice and violence and death would *not* have the last word in reality. *This* is the “good news” that God has for us!!
I really wanted to ask this same question. But I still feel like it’s not answered. The ‘why’ part is still missing to me.
Engaging in a cute way, then dramatically undermined by the seriousness of the people posting comments to it.
“And, to fulfill scriptural prophesies, he had to go out persecuted, so he did.”
He did it so as the prophecies were fulfilled, but that is not *why* He did it so. Rather, because He was to do it that way is why the prophesies happened to say so, not the other way around.
Jesus’ birth would not have any great significance for man except as a part of a chain of events that leads through His death—with which all that had to be done was accomplished—to the resurrection—with which begins the revelation of all that He had accomplished.
Of course, disagreeing doesn’t make you or me hell-bound!
EM writes -
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I’m going to be flippant for a moment, and say this: my dad spent 2 years dying of lung cancer. Jesus had a really bad weekend. Same end result. same loss of dignity. Dad suffered longer, if not as intently. How is it, being divine, and essentially immortal, Jesus managed to atone for all of humanity, and yet the death of my dad and the deaths of soldiers and those who died in service to humanity don’t count for that much?
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Good question! VERY good question.
Is 53 says that as the Messiah "He took the stroke of justice for US to WHOM the punishment was DUE".
In Hebrews 2 we are told that "HE tasted the sufferings of death" for everyone of mankind.
In 1John 2:2 "He is the Atoning SACRIFICE for our sin and NOT for our sins only but for the SINS of the WHOLE World".
You are right to conclude that what we see Externally in Christ's sufferings is NOT the "payment made" for sin. It is simply the outward physical form — the nexus/intersect in the Ven diagram in physical form that we can see.
In the book of John we are told that BEFORE being crucified Christ stated that His soul was in supernatural agonay and torture "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" and the supernatural agony was so great that by the time He reached the garden – and while in prayer "He sweat great drops of blood" — on the cross He died "and both water and blood flood" showiing that the pericardium had burst around His heart due to the extreme suffering in paying for the sins of the world.
So "IF" you are asking for the Christian "reason" as to why the sufferings of Christ are in fact that sufferings OWED by all mankind in the lake of Fire for all sins committed in all time — and yet to physical appearances – this is "a bad 2 days" — that is the rationale given.
"God so Loved the World that HE Gave HIS only begotten son that whosoever Believes on Him might not perish but have ever lasting life".
There is an interesting follow-up reading for this in John 11 where Mary and Martha come to Jesus in tears with the bitter lament "IF you had been here my brother would not have died" — might want to look that one up.
in Christ,
Bob
Em,
Words fail to grasp the pain of losing loved ones.
The pain and death on this earth is awful and it doesn't give me hope of anything better but when I look at Jesus — I get a different picture — the hope (faith) that all this misery will come to an end.
John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
For me it boils down to hope — hope(faith) that because Jesus died for this world's sins — I have the great hope of going to heaven.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life
John 14:"Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2"In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3"If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
Jesus came so to take my sin so I can become the righteousness of God. I can truly say “In Jesus I am the righteousness of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:21God made him(Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him (Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God.
Just a couple words of HOPE in a world of pain.
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LCR asks -
"By whose “authority” is the Bible an accurate definition of God?"
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Well it's a no-brainer to see it as the authorotative definition for "the Christian God".
But if you are not talking to a Christian – but to a Hindu — then I think you are going to have to speak in terms the Hindu documents for God.
If you are trying to get to "IS THERE a GOD no matter Christian or Hindu" the answer is pretty obvious from nature – "Yes".
The architecture and design for encoding, transmitting and decoding DNA has put that question to rest.
But it does not tell us "whose God" – Hindu or Christian.
If you start by asking the question "WHY would God allow…." or "Why would God do such-and-such" to a Christian – then you are going to "fully expect" an answer from "the Christian Text".
Because (obviously) IF you got an answer "off the top of somebody's head" in response that flatly contradicted the Christian Bible – the next "obvious question" would be – "Well then why does the Bible say that God…" etc.
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LCM -
"I assume you wrote the post itself but all of your comments are unsubstantiated claims that I would wager to have their origin in the Bible, such as:
“This is why God allows Earth to suffer the consequences of sin – the misuse of freewill on humanity’s part – for a time. He knows it is best.”
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The fact that an atheist would not accept the Bible as "his authority" is not too surprising. The fact that an atheist would imagine that a Christian 'has another source the defines God as well as the bible" IS -
Bob
Second Michelle -
You are absolutely correct to claim that the Bible IS THE authorotative source for "defining the Christian God" — Christians have no other book for doing that very thing so Christians call it "the WORD of God".
So no matter if one is atheist or Christian IF the context is to "discuss the Christian God and ask why he would or would not do something" – THEN the source text that defines him is "logic to consult" —
Impossible to escape your logic there. You are absolutely correct.
Also you made a very good point that GIVEN a "free will" construct for the Christian God's creation according to the Bible – we would expect some of the same limits as we see today in our own justice systems. As the bible speaks about not removing the weeds from the wheat until the harvest "lest you destroy some of the wheat" so our Justice system might give a criminal more lattitude than "he deserves" to preserve our democracy.
Good points all – thanks for sharing that logical presentation.
Bob
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