Where is the sacrifice?

[Incariol]

Okay if I am understanding you correctly you are saying that the people who sacrificed the animal didn't loose out because they were able to eat the animal as well; right?

No, you aren't understanding me. I didn't say anything like that. I responded to your objection that priests eating the sacrifices was immoral by pointing out that it was ordained by God.

But the people aren't the sacrifice; the animal is! And the animal didn't get his life back like Jesus, thus the animal sacrificed his life. Because Jesus got his life back and was completely restored, how can you call him the sacrifice?

K

Because Jesus is God and the animals weren't. I guess if any of the sacrificial lambs turned out to be God, they could have overpowered Death and shattered the "everlasting bars" themselves. But they didn't. This complaint of yours is bizarre. Just because the sacrificial victim is more powerful than Death doesn't make the sacrifice any less meaningful.

 

[Iakobos]

No, you aren't understanding me. I didn't say anything like that. I responded to your objection that priests eating the sacrifices was immoral by pointing out that it was ordained by God.



Because Jesus is God and the animals weren't. I guess if any of the sacrificial lambs turned out to be God, they could have overpowered Death and shattered the "everlasting bars" themselves. But they didn't. This complaint of yours is bizarre. Just because the sacrificial victim is more powerful than Death doesn't make the sacrifice any less meaningful.

I think thats exactly what the issue is. It's as if Jesus was inconvenienced for a few days while slapping satan around in hell. Now he's just right back in heaven in all the glory and splendour for eternity. People have suffered for their entire life without any hope of becoming a God after death. So it's difficult to have sympathy on that front.

It's also not as if He was forced to die on the cross in any case, His God, He can do whatever He wants! Thats also why i don't understand why He prayed that the cup might be taken from Him, it was His idea wasn't it? He never faced any actual threats, only those which He imposed upon Himself. If you could even consider man, satan or death a threat, I mean He knew there was nothing that could ever stop Him.

 

[crimsonleaf]

The argument is this:

It all comes down to an understanding of the incarnation: that God the Son became man in his entirety. Trinitarians (and I'm one of them) believe that God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons in one Godhead, co-existant from all eternity. God the Son became Man (Jesus), sent by the Father in order that His death should have real meaning, not as God dying on the cross, but as Man dying on the cross. His prayers to the Father are the prayers of a man facing a desparate situation, not those of God praying to Himself as some people will mistakenly assume. Here we have to face the mystery of Jesus being on the one hand 100% the Son of God and on the other being 100% Man. Paul says that He gave up his equality with God to become man.

We then have to decide whether he truly died on the cross. Of this there is little doubt; Jusus Christ the man died on the cross. His death was real, in fact just as real as yours or mine would be.

God the Father then raised him from the dead, as he will all believing Christians. Jesus didn't raise Himself from the dead, so his sacrifice was total. His Father gave Him new life and a new body, distinct in essence from His old one. This is why the destinction between the three persons of the Godhead is (in my view) essential.

When a Christian dies, he dies. He is later resurrected to new life in the same way that Christ was. Nevertheless his death is real. The soldier analogy works well, in that a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his friends will not be watching TV with his family three days later in his old body. His OLD life is gone, but he will be resurrected to NEW life as a believer (if he was).

Hope this helps.

 

[Iakobos]

The argument is this:

It all comes down to an understanding of the incarnation: that God the Son became man in his entirety. Trinitarians (and I'm one of them) believe that God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons in one Godhead, co-existant from all eternity. God the Son became Man (Jesus), sent by the Father in order that His death should have real meaning, not as God dying on the cross, but as Man dying on the cross. His prayers to the Father are the prayers of a man facing a desparate situation, not those of God praying to Himself as some people will mistakenly assume. Here we have to face the mystery of Jesus being on the one hand 100% the Son of God and on the other being 100% Man. Paul says that He gave up his equality with God to become man.

We then have to decide whether he truly died on the cross. Of this there is little doubt; Jusus Christ the man died on the cross. His death was real, in fact just as real as yours or mine would be.

God the Father then raised him from the dead, as he will all believing Christians. Jesus didn't raise Himself from the dead, so his sacrifice was total. His Father gave Him new life and a new body, distinct in essence from His old one. This is why the destinction between the three persons of the Godhead is (in my view) essential.

When a Christian dies, he dies. He is later resurrected to new life in the same way that Christ was. Nevertheless his death is real. The soldier analogy works well, in that a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his friends will not be watching TV with his family three days later in his old body. His OLD life is gone, but he will be resurrected to NEW life as a believer (if he was).

Hope this helps.

Yeh, it just seems impossible to be 100% man and still kinda God at the same time. He knew that God would deliver him though right? So some of my other points still stand. This stuff is wierd to make sense of.

 

[crimsonleaf]

Yeh, it just seems impossible to be 100% man and still kinda God at the same time. He knew that God would deliver him though right? So some of my other points still stand. This stuff is wierd to make sense of.

Nobody said it would be easy!

All Christians know that God will see them through. We're no less dead when we die as a result of that knowledge.

And remember, it's a new life we're raised to, not the old one. Jesus gave up his 30-40 or so years of His earthly life never to see it again. You might sacrifice a week's wages to a favourite charity. That money is lost to you forever, but it doesn't mean you won't get paid next week.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

Yeh, it just seems impossible to be 100% man and still kinda God at the same time. He knew that God would deliver him though right? So some of my other points still stand. This stuff is wierd to make sense of.

Not still kinda God, 100% God. This is known as the Hypostatic Union, it was fully defined at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

It's not really that difficult, can a rock be both hard and smooth? Hardness and smoothness as belonging equally to the reality we call "rock" is hardly difficult to grasp. It should be no more difficult to say that Jesus, the individual and real person, was/is both wholly God in nature and wholly human in nature. "God" because He has without beginning or end shared in and with the nature of His Father in whom and with whom He has always been; as Son of the Father, "Light of Light" and "God of God". "Human" because He assumed and united Himself entirely to the essence and nature of human being, being the biological offspring of Mary, with all the fragility, weakness, and frailness that comes with being an ordinary, mortal and flesh-and-blood human being.

There was nothing magical or mystical in His flesh, His flesh was as our flesh, when He bled it was as our blood, when He stubbed His toe or caught the sniffles it was just like any of us. He sneezed, He had His diapers changed by His mom, He stubbed His toes, He felt joy and sadness, despair and fear just as any one of us. Jesus was perfectly ordinary in His humanity, which is why the Incarnation is so important in Christian theology. And un-ordinary humanity is meaningless, if Jesus were a super man, or something closer to the angels in glory, or anything fundamentally and intrinsically more than all the rest of us then the entirety of the Christian message crumbles into meaninglessness.

It is precisely God's full union with our humanity in Jesus that makes the crucifixion and resurrection of any meaning whatsoever.

I say this, because this seems to get missed so often, as though Christians believe in a Christ who is somehow only partially human, a Hercules or demigod of some sort. If we did believe that way, then everything written in the New Testament and in our Creeds would be utterly meaningless.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Incariol]

I think thats exactly what the issue is. It's as if Jesus was inconvenienced for a few days while slapping satan around in hell. Now he's just right back in heaven in all the glory and splendour for eternity. People have suffered for their entire life without any hope of becoming a God after death. So it's difficult to have sympathy on that front.

It's also not as if He was forced to die on the cross in any case, His God, He can do whatever He wants! Thats also why i don't understand why He prayed that the cup might be taken from Him, it was His idea wasn't it? He never faced any actual threats, only those which He imposed upon Himself. If you could even consider man, satan or death a threat, I mean He knew there was nothing that could ever stop Him.

So the issue is that people are jealous of God's capabilities? Ok.

 

[Ken-1122]

Yup. And quite different from His abode in heaven - therefore His life here was a sacrifice. The Incarnation will teach much, if you let it. (It works even just as a thought experiment, even without believing it occurred)

Going from "streets of gold" to dirt roads is not sacrificing your life; that's inconveniencing your life. Ikaboas made an excellent point.

K

 

[Ken-1122]

No, you aren't understanding me. I didn't say anything like that. I responded to your objection that priests eating the sacrifices was immoral by pointing out that it was ordained by God.



Because Jesus is God and the animals weren't. I guess if any of the sacrificial lambs turned out to be God, they could have overpowered Death and shattered the "everlasting bars" themselves. But they didn't. This complaint of yours is bizarre. Just because the sacrificial victim is more powerful than Death doesn't make the sacrifice any less meaningful.

Yes it does because when you overpower death, you overpower sacrafice as well thus are no longer one. You can't have it both ways; you can't be a martyr and continue living; you gotta choose one or the other and stick with it.

Ken

 

[Ken-1122]

The argument is this:

It all comes down to an understanding of the incarnation: that God the Son became man in his entirety. Trinitarians (and I'm one of them) believe that God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons in one Godhead, co-existant from all eternity. God the Son became Man (Jesus), sent by the Father in order that His death should have real meaning, not as God dying on the cross, but as Man dying on the cross. His prayers to the Father are the prayers of a man facing a desparate situation, not those of God praying to Himself as some people will mistakenly assume. Here we have to face the mystery of Jesus being on the one hand 100% the Son of God and on the other being 100% Man. Paul says that He gave up his equality with God to become man.

We then have to decide whether he truly died on the cross. Of this there is little doubt; Jusus Christ the man died on the cross. His death was real, in fact just as real as yours or mine would be.

God the Father then raised him from the dead, as he will all believing Christians. Jesus didn't raise Himself from the dead, so his sacrifice was total. His Father gave Him new life and a new body, distinct in essence from His old one. This is why the destinction between the three persons of the Godhead is (in my view) essential.

When a Christian dies, he dies. He is later resurrected to new life in the same way that Christ was. Nevertheless his death is real. The soldier analogy works well, in that a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his friends will not be watching TV with his family three days later in his old body. His OLD life is gone, but he will be resurrected to NEW life as a believer (if he was).

Hope this helps.

But Jesus was initially God right? He was given a body to come to earth and do what he did, then when he died, he was returned to what he initially was! Didn’t Peter say something about a thousand years being the same as a day with God? Jesus was in this body for only 30 something years and was returned to his former self. I think that’s different from somebody loosing the only life they know.

Ken

 

[GA777]

Jesus returned as more important than he was after the suffering.



And as I previously said,that's a sacrifice,because no spirit is ever lost, whether it's an animal or human spirit.

 

[Incariol]

Yes it does because when you overpower death, you overpower sacrafice as well thus are no longer one

TROLOLOLOL, that doesn't make sense. You just made that up.

. You can't have it both ways; you can't be a martyr and continue living;

Jesus didn't continue living. He died, remember?

you gotta choose one or the other and stick with it.

Ken

Again, you just made that up. Unfortunately, all of the Christian martyrs are going to be following Christ's example. "Death" for them is nothing more than bodily repose. They are still alive in Heaven, and after a certain amount of time, their bodies will be raised up as well...

So... You apparently think that all those killed in the Roman persecutions aren't martyrs? Ok. Ridiculous assertion, but oh well.

 

[crimsonleaf]

But Jesus was initially God right? He was given a body to come to earth and do what he did, then when he died, he was returned to what he initially was! Didn’t Peter say something about a thousand years being the same as a day with God? Jesus was in this body for only 30 something years and was returned to his former self. I think that’s different from somebody loosing the only life they know.

Ken

I understand your point, but it wasn't Jesus God who died, it was Jesus Man. Hypostatic Union is difficult, if not impossible for us to fully understand. But the Jesus who died, lived, loved, was tortured to the point of near death and finally nailed to a cross to die from a mixture of fatigue, pain and suffocation. His death was as real as any man's has ever been.

 

[Ken-1122]

Jesus returned as more important than he was after the suffering.



And as I previously said,that's a sacrifice,because no spirit is ever lost, whether it's an animal or human spirit.

I see what you are saying. It just seem to me that it's different. Jesus was always God and was given a physical body for the sole purpose of living on earth for a short moment (compared to eternity) then returning back to what he was before. Where as an animal or human (like the soldier mentioed) they have no recolection of what things was like before they were born in their physical body; all they know is their experiences of the physical world and when they give it up, they are giving up all they know.

I just think it's asking more to ask a person to give up everything they know for a cause (like a human or animal) than to ask somebody to give up something they had no intention of keeping in the first place. (as with Jesus).
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this one huh?

Ken

 

[Ken-1122]

TROLOLOLOL, that doesn't make sense. You just made that up.



Jesus didn't continue living. He died, remember?



Again, you just made that up. Unfortunately, all of the Christian martyrs are going to be following Christ's example. "Death" for them is nothing more than bodily repose. They are still alive in Heaven, and after a certain amount of time, their bodies will be raised up as well...

So... You apparently think that all those killed in the Roman persecutions aren't martyrs? Ok. Ridiculous assertion, but oh well.

So the physical bodies will rise as well? Where will they go? Will they join the spirits they were attached to? Will everybody in heaven have physical bodies like here on Earth?

K

 

[Incariol]

So the physical bodies will rise as well?

Already answered this.

Where will they go?

Specifically, no idea. Does it matter?

Will they join the spirits they were attached to?

Of course.

Will everybody in heaven have physical bodies like here on Earth?

K

Of course. With the small difference that they will be glorified, incorruptible and immortal. This is one of the exciting things prefigured by the incorruptible relics of Christendom.

 

[Ken-1122]

I understand your point, but it wasn't Jesus God who died, it was Jesus Man. Hypostatic Union is difficult, if not impossible for us to fully understand. But the Jesus who died, lived, loved, was tortured to the point of near death and finally nailed to a cross to die from a mixture of fatigue, pain and suffocation. His death was as real as any man's has ever been.

Yeah; but like I told Ga777, I think it is asking more for someone to give up everything they know for a cause, than to ask someone to give up something they had no intention of keeping in the first place.

If Jesus was given his physical body for the sole purpose of comming to earth and eventually getting cruxified, obviously he had no intention of keeping this body that he gave up, it was just a temporary thing; where as an animal or human sacrifice is giving up everything they know for the cause because their physical life is all they know.

I guess we can agree to disagree on that one huh?

Ken

 

[Incariol]

If Jesus was given his physical body for the sole purpose of comming to earth and eventually getting cruxified, obviously he had no intention of keeping this body that he gave up, it was just a temporary thing; where as an animal or human sacrifice is giving up everything they know for the cause because their physical life is all they know.

Jesus didn't give up His physical body. The hypostatic union of the Godman is eternal.

 

[Ken-1122]

Jesus didn't give up His physical body. The hypostatic union of the Godman is eternal.

So Jesus still has his physical human body? Where is it?

K

 

[Incariol]

So Jesus still has his physical human body?

Yes. You would know this if you'd read the Bible, or heck, even watched some Jesus movie.

Where is it?

K