However, the 'son' didn't die. And for whose sins was this sacrifice made?
Very much to the point “
God provided the sacrifice”! You say we have to provide the sacrifice but that is not always the case.
I forgot you do not accept Hebrews but in Hebrews we find: “By faith Abraham, when God tested him,
offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son,
Hebrews 11:19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and
so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
Do you also exclude James? James 2:21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when
he offered his son Isaac on the altar?
In some ways Abraham did “offer up Isaac” in that he gave him up to be sacrificed.
Were false prophets allowed in the OT?
Deuteronomy 13
1 If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder,
2 and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’
3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.
We know them as being false because scripture tells us, so how do you know what is false?
How is it Paul said he got this from Jesus, when Jesus didn't mention a sacrifice, as important as you make it? Show me any part of the Romans verse from the lips of Jesus. Could it be that God is testing you to know whether you will keep His commandments and obey His voice?
Jesus did go to Paul and Paul seems to have been give direct revelations, so do you think Paul could be lying to us?
So, who is your sacrifice, Jesus or you? Was Jesus' 'sacrifice' not enough, and now you have to be your own sacrifice?
A “sacrifice” does not have to be for sins, you can look at the Old Testament and find sacrifices done for lots of reasons. The giving of yourself to the “cause” is a sacrifice of yourself. I am not the atoning sacrifice for my sins.
John didn't use the word 'sacrifice'. He used propitiation, not the same as sacrifice.
Again, you are limiting “sacrifice” to one specific type of sacrifice done one particular way.
Many, many people wrote to others during the same time Paul did. Do you not know it was men who added the books they thought should be included? Did you not know they even had the apocrypha included in the Bible?
There were lots of other letters/books written in and around the same time the letters in the New testament were recorded, but there is a huge contrast between these other letters and what we find in scripture, in that the letters in scripture were protected and preserved by the Holy Spirit giving us 17,000 ancient handwritten manuscripts in 17 different languages that are 95+ would for word consistent and 100% consistent in doctrine (that is what counts) and these other letters only have very few copies (mostly one) and when there are multiple copies there is a lot of inconsistency which shows corruption. The “apocrypha” was never part of the New Testament, but letters written between the New and the Old with nothing significantly doctrinal to the Old Testament.
If anyone's words do not say what Jesus said, you should be aware. That's why it is so important to know and understand Jesus' words first, and put them in your heart. Only Jesus has the words of life.
How do you know for sure Jesus said these words recorded by men?
I may be wrong, but weren't all Levitical sacrifices burnt. What was an Levitical sacrifice to you? Was it hanging on a pagan cross? Here is what I meant by our sacrifice -
Matthew 10:39
He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
Matthew 16:25
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
Mark 8:35
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.
Luke 9:24
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
Luke 17:33
Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
OK those are examples of our sacrifice, so did Jesus do the same kind of thing and thus he made a sacrifice?
This is not how a sacrifice was made in the OT. No animals were tortured; they had to be unblemished.
So, when Jesus says whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it, does that mean we must be tortured and humiliated?
The Old Testament Atonement sacrifices were but a poor “shadow” of the reality we find with Christ’s sacrifice. A bag of flour was all that was need by some for an atonement sacrifice for an unintentional sin (really a minor type sin). A minor sins required some significant “sacrifice” by the sinner lamb, bird or bag of flour dependent on the sinners wealth (this helped to equalize the hardship for the sinner and did really nothing for God).
A full understanding of Christ’s atonement sacrifice takes lots of words and time. We can begin with the simple concept of the ransom being the atonement sacrifice and what that means.
Those only able to afford a bag of flour (Lev. 5) certainly would not have considered that bag of flour to be a “substitute” for them. There is nothing to suggest the Jewish people ever thought of any sacrifices to be substitutes for them. So what did they experience in this atonement process for unintentional sins?
If we could relate to their atonement experience for “minor” sins we might be able to extrapolate to what the atonement process would be like for intentional sins? (Read Lev. 5)
Forgiveness for unintentional sins came after the completion of the atonement process (Lev. 5), but did God need a bag of flour to forgive the person’s sins?
Would God need anything to forgive a person’s sins or is it the person needing something to accept that forgiveness as pure charity?
Is Christ Crucified described by Paul, Peter, Jesus, John and the Hebrew writer as a ransom payment (it is not even said to be like a ransom payment, but it was a ransom payment)?
I find the ransom description more than just an analogy to be an excellent fit and I am not talking about the “Ransom Theory of Atonement”
(The “Ransom Theory of Atonement” has God paying satan the cruel torture, humiliation and murder of Christ but: Does God owe Satan anything? Is there some cosmic “law” saying you have to pay the kidnapper? Would it not be wrong for God to pay satan, if God could just as easily and safely take back His children without paying satan?)
Would a ransom as those in the first century might understand it (it was well known Caesura at 21 had been kidnapped and a ransom paid for him) included the following elements:
1. Someone other than the captive paying the ransom.
2. The payment is a huge sacrificial payment for the payer, who would personally prefer not to pay.
3. Since those that come to God must come as children, it is the children of God that go to the Father.
4. The payer cannot safely or for some other reason get his children any other way than making the payment.
5. The kidnapper is totally undeserving.
6. The kidnapper can accept or reject the payment.
Go to Luke 15: 11-32 the prodigal son story to illustrate:
Who in the middle of the night snuck in and dragged off the young son, force the son to do evil stuff and finally chained him to a pigsty starving to death? (this is not the way it happened, but the child of the father was kidnapped.)
Who returned to the father, was it the son that rebelliously wished his father’s death so he could get his inheritance or was it the child of the father?
We can only come to our Father as children, so who is keeping the nonbeliever in the unbelieving state (who is this kidnapper)?
There is the one ransom, but could there be many kidnappers and many children?
Who are the kidnappers?