Blood sacrifice...

[mkgal1]

Abel's offering to God, which was accepted, was animal, whilst Cain's (of vegetables) was not.

Which is odd, because bread and wine are more like Cain's than Abel's....

(blushing) That's right! I don't know why I was getting my timeline so messed up.

I still believe that was Abel's idea and not God's. To my mind.....it was that Abel was offering up his whole self to serve God that pleased God.

 

[Inkfingers]

(blushing) That's right! I don't know why I was getting my timeline so messed up.

Blame the weather or creeping decrepitude - that's what I do

I still believe that was Abel's idea and not God's. To my mind.....it was that Abel was offering up his whole self to serve God that pleased God.

Hmmm, not convinced by that.

 

[mkgal1]

I have a big problem with people punishing others to cover up their own crimes. That is not justice. It's abuse.

I get a lot of push-back from other posters around here whenever I post this...but I do agree with this (and it makes sense in my soul, that this is correct):

Jesus Reveals the Lie of Scapegoating
Thursday, October 13, 2016

If your ego is still in charge, you will find a disposable person or group on which to project your problems. People who haven’t come to at least a minimal awareness of their own dark side will always find someone else to hate or fear. Hatred holds a group together much more quickly and easily than love and inclusivity, I am sorry to say. René Girard developed a sociological, literary, and philosophical explanation for how and why the pattern of scapegoating is so prevalent in every culture. [1]

In Leviticus 16 we see the brilliant ritualization of what we now call scapegoating, and we should indeed feel sorry for the demonized goat. On the Day of Atonement, a priest laid hands on an “escaping” goat, placing all the sins of the Jewish people from the previous year onto the animal. Then the goat was beaten with reeds and thorns, and driven out into the desert. And the people went home rejoicing, just as European Christians did after burning a supposed heretic at the stake or American whites did after the lynching of black men. Whenever the “sinner” is excluded, our ego is delighted and feels relieved and safe. It sort of works, but only for a while. Usually the illusion only deepens and becomes catatonic, blind, and repetitive—because of course, scapegoating did not really work to eliminate the evil in the first place.

Jesus came to radically undo this illusory scapegoat mechanism, which is found in every culture in some form. He became the scapegoat to reveal the universal lie of scapegoating. Note that John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin [singular] of the world” (John 1:29). It seems “the sin of the world” is ignorant killing, hatred, and fear. As Blaise Pascal so insightfully wrote, “People never do evil so completely and so cheerfully as when they do it with a religious conviction.” [2] We see this in much of the United States in our own time, with churches on every corner.

The Gospel is a highly subversive document. It painstakingly illustrates how the systems of both church and state (Caiaphas and Pilate) conspired to condemn Jesus. Throughout most of history, church and state have sought plausible scapegoats to carry their own shame and guilt. So Jesus became the sinned-against one to reveal the hidden nature of scapegoating, and we would forever see how wrong power can be—even religious power! (See John 16:8-11 and Romans 8:3.) Finally Jesus says from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34). The scapegoat mechanism largely operates in the unconscious; people do not know what they are doing. Scapegoaters do not know they are scapegoating, but they think they are doing a “holy duty for God” (John 16:2). You see why inner work, shadow work, and honest self-knowledge are all essential to any healthy religion.~https://cac.org/jesus-reveals-lie-scapegoating-2016-10-13/​

 

[Dorothy Mae]

Abel's offering to God, which was accepted, was animal, whilst Cain's (of vegetables) was not.

Which is odd, because bread and wine are more like Cain's than Abel's....

The reason why Cain’s was rejected are not given. Bring grain cannot be it as Israel also gave grain. I think it’s really none of our business why it was rejected. Cain knew why and that’s what mattered.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

I've no problem with eating animals.

You realize they were innocent, right? Why do you have a problem with animal sacrifice the priests ate?

I have a big problem with people punishing others to cover up their own crimes. That is not justice. It's abuse.

An animal is not a person. Do you know that animals are sacrificed all the time in pursuit of understanding and improving medicine. Is that equally wrong?

The kingdom of God does not elevate animals to the value of man.

 

[Inkfingers]

The reason why Cain’s was rejected are not given. Bring grain cannot be it as Israel also gave grain. I think it’s really none of our business why it was rejected. Cain knew why and that’s what mattered.

Abel did not bring grain, he was a keeper of sheep (the 'also' does not mean grain and sheep together), but we digress on that point.

 

[Inkfingers]

You realize they were innocent, right? Why do you have a problem with animal sacrifice the priests ate?

I have no problem with eating meat.

I have a problem with killing others to cover your own crime - a justice issue, not a dinner time one.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

Abel did not bring grain, he was a keeper of sheep (the 'also' does not mean grain and sheep together), but we digress on that point.

Whatever Abel brought that Cain did not was not the point. Cain knew why it was not accepted clearly. We really shouldn’t guess.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

I have no problem with eating meat.

I have a problem with killing others to cover your own crime - a justice issue, not a dinner time one.

Then think of it as dinner time for the priests.

You know, for the animal, being a sacrifice so the priests can eat because it’s a sin sacrifice brought to the temple or your dinner or mine doesn’t make a difference.

 

[mkgal1]

Blame the weather or creeping decrepitude - that's what I do

LOL....I'll try that

Hmmm, not convinced by that.

I don't know if this will help convince you or not. We could say that Abel was the first martyr that died for his faith:

Quoting Paul Tripp:

Here's what Hebrews 11 says: "By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks."

I can't tell you how much I love the final words of Hebrews 11:4 - "And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks." You can physically murder one of God's children of faith, but you can't silence them.

For martyrs of the Gospel, their legacies of faith, hope and love live on for centuries after they've gone home. Their stories carry on through the lives of those they influenced, through the good deeds they did, and through the things they built. For Abel, his legacy lives in the words of this little verse that have encouraged people of faith for thousands of years.

Abel still speaks. In fact, he's speaking to us today with words we need to hear.~Paul Tripp

Quoting Fr Richard Rohr:

Both Jesus and Stephen are victims of the “sacred violence” that has been foundational to culture from the very beginning of human consciousness, starting with Cain and Abel. If it’s true, as René Girard and Gil Bailie both demonstrate, that all groups and ideologies are formed by an unconscious scapegoat mechanism [1], then we have to find a way out of this default pattern. Jesus replaces the de facto operating story line of “redemptive violence” with a new story line of redemptive suffering. There is the Gospel in one sentence! Unfortunately, only a minority of Christians got the point after Jesus and Stephen. To this day, most Christians still believe in the myth of redemptive violence. The church was supposed to be a “called out people’’ (ekklesia) who no longer believed the lie, which John the Baptist calls “the sin of the world” (John 1:29), using the singular word for sin. Ignorant hating, excluding, and killing is the universal sin of the world to this day.

Bailie calls the revolution of tenderness, which was released into common consciousness at the death of Jesus, “the virus of the Gospel.” In every age, denomination, and culture, only a few understood the message. By grace and conversion, they realized that they could no longer project their inner violence outward, either creating victims or playing the victim themselves for their own empowerment. They see the only way to be victim in a generative and healing way is as Jesus did, by forgiving and releasing his crucifiers and himself.~https://cac.org/changing-the-game-2016-12-26/

​

 

[Inkfingers]

Then think of it as dinner time for the priests.

You know, for the animal, being a sacrifice so the priests can eat because it’s a sin sacrifice brought to the temple or your dinner or mine doesn’t make a difference.

That's...just...erm...

So not only are the priests encouraging injustice (telling people to sacrifice another creature for your own sin) they also use it as a way of getting cheap meat to eat.

 

[Inkfingers]

He became the scapegoat to reveal the universal lie of scapegoating.

That at least has some merit, yes, dying as a martyr to illustrate the error of scapegoating.

I'm utterly convinced though that the idea of penal substitution is immoral unjust nonsense - so much so that I can no longer consider myself Calvinist (because penal substitution is central to Calvinism).

 

[mkgal1]

I'm utterly convinced though that the idea of penal substitution is immoral unjust nonsense

I absolutely agree with you.

 

[miamited]

I get that when its the guilty party, but when its the innocent sheep, or dove, or cow, or Christ, how then?

Well, what's your question? Why does it require a blood sacrifice? Or how can the innocent die in place of the wicked?

I work on the idea though that God gave us complex brains, as far as we know the most complex system in the known universe, to figure things out at a deeper level...hence wanting to understand what it is about blood that makes it the thing to use.

I'd be careful working on that assumption. It may not be correct. Using her own brain to reason is what got Eve in so much trouble. "Oh, it looks so pleasant. Ummm, it tastes so good. Surely, this serpent is right. I'm not going to die." God's command was that they not eat of the tree. He didn't really seem to leave open for them the choice of reasoning it out among themselves and deciding what 'should' be right about eating the fruit, even though He gave them the same complex thinking system as you have. Be careful.

How can the innocent die for the wicked? Because in this case God says so! It isn't some natural and logical conclusion that we can reason through. It doesn't make any sense to us, just as you have pointed out. But God has established that for all those who would believe in the testimony and sacrifice of His Son, that they might share in the promise of eternal life because the blood of His Son was reasonable atonement 'to Him' for our sin. You don't have to understand it or be able to explain it. You just have to believe it! That's what the Scriptures constantly impress upon us - believe, believe, believe. I don't read much in there about us needing to be able to reason it all out so that we understand all that God knows and understands and establishes as righteous. Sure, there are some things that we can pretty clearly see the reason for, but there are others that we can't.

Why did God part the sea for His people. Why not just raise them up in a cloud and carry them over to the other side? Why not just make them to walk on water like He did His Son? Why not just make them invisible to the Egyptian army so they could have just walked right past them?

Why did God kill every first born in Egypt? Surely they had suffered enough loss in dealing with the boils and the flies. Why not just kill the first born of Pharaoh? After all, he was the one that wouldn't let the people go.

God has said that blood is required for the remission of sin. God said that and so I believe that. Why does it require blood for the remission of sin? I don't know. I could offer up some guesses, but I can't tell you with any real certainty that I know why God requires blood to forgive sin.

How can the innocent die for the wicked. I don't know. I can make an educated guess about it, but I really don't know why God, in His divine wisdom declared that we could be innocent through the shedding of the Son's blood. But I know that God has said that it is the truth ---- for all those who, wait for it....believe.

Even if I were to tell you why God has determined that things are the way they are, what evidence would you have to know that I was right or not? Would you believe me on faith? Well, don't believe me, believe God. That's a part of what faith is. Even though we may not understand the 'why' and 'wherefore' of a thing, we trust by faith that if God says it, then it is a true thing.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

 

[Colter]

During the evolution of culture there was friction between the hunter and herder types (Able) and the agriculturalists, tillers of the soil (Cain). This can be seen in the story written long after Cain and Able lived wherein the claim is made that even God preferred the contributions of the hunter-herder of Cain's. Obviously the authors leaned more towards the macho hunters. LOL!

 

[Colter]

Where do you see that there was any animal sacrifice prior to Genesis 14 when Melchizedek offered bread and wine (unless you're assuming there was an animal killed when God provided "skin" for Adam and Eve)?

From Redeeming God:

So where did God get the skin in which he clothed Adam and Eve?
The text simply doesn’t say.

Maybe he made it.

The word for “skin” that is used can refer to either human or animal skin.

There have been some streams of Judaism and Christianity which believed that prior to the event described in Genesis 3:21, humans did not have “skin” the way we see it today, but existed in some other form. They believed that we were “clothed in light” like God (Psalm 104:2) and that when Adam and Eve sinned, the light left them and they tried to replace the light with leaves (Genesis 3:7), which was an insufficient covering, and so God gave them skin instead.~https://redeeminggod.com/first-sacrifice-genesis-3_21/​

This issue has already been addressed above by Inkfinger.

Blood sacrifices go back a long way.

 

[mkgal1]

Light Over Darkness: The Meaning of Christmas by Ken Overberg SJ ....

[...] What was the purpose of Jesus' life? Or simply, why Jesus?

The answer most frequently handed on in everyday religion emphasizes redemption. This view returns to the creation story and sees in Adam and Eve's sin a fundamental alienation from God, a separation so profound that God must intervene to overcome it. The Incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, is considered God's action to right this original wrong.

How did this view develop? Just as we do when we face tragedy, especially innocent suffering, so the early followers of Jesus tried to make sense of his horrible death. They asked: Why? They sought insight from their Jewish practices like Temple sacrifices and from their Scriptures. Certain rites and passages (the suffering servant in Isaiah, psalms of lament, wisdom literature on the suffering righteous person) seemed to fit the terrible end of Jesus' life and so offered an answer to the why question. Understandably, these powerful images colored the entire story, including the meaning of Jesus' birth and life.

Throughout the centuries, Christian theology and piety have developed these interpretations of Jesus' execution. At times God has even been described as demanding Jesus' suffering and death as a means of atonement—to satisfy and appease an angry God.

An interpretation that highlights the Incarnation stands beside this dominant view with its emphasis on sin. The alternate view is also expressed in Scripture and tradition. Nevertheless, the emphasis on the Word made flesh has remained something of a "minority report," rarely gaining the same recognition and influence as the atonement view.

What, briefly, is the heart of this alternate interpretation? It holds that the whole purpose of creation is for the Incarnation, God's sharing of life and love in an unique and definitive way. God becoming human is not an afterthought, an event to make up for original sin and human sinfulness. Incarnation is God's first thought, the original design for all creation. The purpose of Jesus' life is the fulfillment of God's eternal longing to become human ........

One of those mentioned in the above article was Franciscan John Duns Scotus. I have to like Duns Scotus, if only because Radical Orthodoxy so dislikes him . Here's an article on him and the Incarnation - Duns Scotus and the meaning of Love by Seamus Mulholland OFM, and here below is a bit from an article from Christianity Today about Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, and atonement - Ongoing Incarnation by Philip Yancey ....

More than two centuries before the Reformation, a theological debate broke out that pitted theologian Thomas Aquinas against an upstart from Britain, John Duns Scotus. In essence, the debate circled around the question, "Would Christmas have occurred if humanity had not sinned?"

Whereas Aquinas viewed the Incarnation as God's remedy for a fallen planet, his contemporary saw much more at stake. For Duns Scotus, the Word becoming flesh as described in the prologue to John's Gospel must surely represent the Creator's primary design, not some kind of afterthought or Plan B. Aquinas pointed to passages emphasizing the Cross as God's redemptive response to a broken relationship. Duns Scotus cited passages from Ephesians and Colossians on the cosmic Christ, in whom all things have their origin, hold together, and move toward consummation.

Did Jesus visit this planet as an accommodation to human failure or as the center point of all creation? Duns Scotus and his school suggested that Incarnation was the underlying motive for Creation, not merely a correction to it. Perhaps God spun off this vast universe for the singular purpose of sharing life and love, intending all along to join its very substance. "Eternity is in love with the inventions of time," wrote the poet William Blake.

Ultimately the church decided that both approaches had biblical support and could be accepted as orthodox. Though most theologians tended to follow Aquinas, in recent years prominent Catholics such as Karl Rahner have taken a closer look at Duns Scotus ..... ~https://corneliaconnellylibrary.org/library-materials/texts/TXT-42.pdf

 

[Inkfingers]

Well, what's your question? Why does it require a blood sacrifice? Or how can the innocent die in place of the wicked?







I'd be careful working on that assumption. It may not be correct. Using her own brain to reason is what got Eve in so much trouble. "Oh, it looks so pleasant. Ummm, it tastes so good. Surely, this serpent is right. I'm not going to die." God's command was that they not eat of the tree. He didn't really seem to leave open for them the choice of reasoning it out among themselves and deciding what 'should' be right about eating the fruit, even though He gave them the same complex thinking system as you have. Be careful.

How can the innocent die for the wicked? Because in this case God says so! It isn't some natural and logical conclusion that we can reason through. It doesn't make any sense to us, just as you have pointed out. But God has established that for all those who would believe in the testimony and sacrifice of His Son, that they might share in the promise of eternal life because the blood of His Son was reasonable atonement 'to Him' for our sin. You don't have to understand it or be able to explain it. You just have to believe it! That's what the Scriptures constantly impress upon us - believe, believe, believe. I don't read much in there about us needing to be able to reason it all out so that we understand all that God knows and understands and establishes as righteous. Sure, there are some things that we can pretty clearly see the reason for, but there are others that we can't.

Why did God part the sea for His people. Why not just raise them up in a cloud and carry them over to the other side? Why not just make them to walk on water like He did His Son? Why not just make them invisible to the Egyptian army so they could have just walked right past them?

Why did God kill every first born in Egypt? Surely they had suffered enough loss in dealing with the boils and the flies. Why not just kill the first born of Pharaoh? After all, he was the one that wouldn't let the people go.

God has said that blood is required for the remission of sin. God said that and so I believe that. Why does it require blood for the remission of sin? I don't know. I could offer up some guesses, but I can't tell you with any real certainty that I know why God requires blood to forgive sin.

How can the innocent die for the wicked. I don't know. I can make an educated guess about it, but I really don't know why God, in His divine wisdom declared that we could be innocent through the shedding of the Son's blood. But I know that God has said that it is the truth ---- for all those who, wait for it....believe.

Even if I were to tell you why God has determined that things are the way they are, what evidence would you have to know that I was right or not? Would you believe me on faith? Well, don't believe me, believe God. That's a part of what faith is. Even though we may not understand the 'why' and 'wherefore' of a thing, we trust by faith that if God says it, then it is a true thing.

God bless,
In Christ, ted

So someone has decided to interpret scripture as Penal Substitution and rather than think about it, and about how it is patently injustice that says its fine for the innocent to be executed in the place of the guilty, you say "just believe" in Penal Substitution interpretation?

No. God did not give us reason for us to ignore it. It's how we are able to understand words and read scripture in the first place.

 

[mkgal1]

This issue has already been addressed above by Inkfinger.

Blood sacrifices go back a long way.

The way I see it is: what people have done is one thing.....but what God has modeled for us (or asked for is something else entirely). IOW.....Abel's sacrifice that God was pleased with doesn't necessarily mean it was the slaughter of an animal that pleased God....but perhaps could have been Abel's full devotion to God (even to the point of his OWN death).

 

[Choir Loft]

Which does not address my point.

Now explain how exactly it is Justice to kill an innocent in order to let a guilty party get away with their crime.

Address THAT specifically.

Short and sweet your answer may be found in the spiritual principle of substitution.
Here's how it works...

First we must establish the nature of the concept of guilt and sin.
Then we'll see how God deals with it in the person of Yeshuah ha-mashiach (Jesus Christ as He is called in Greek).

Can a man guilty of murder incarcerated in a prison's death row escape justice by means of his own innocence? He can't because he isn't.

The concept of justice is based upon innocence and guilt. One who is guilty has no innocence. He cannot go before a judge and barter for acquittal or reduced sentence based upon something he doesn't possess - innocence.

But we're not discussing human Law here. We're discussing God's Law.

According to God's Law (10 Commandments) all humanity is guilty of sin and condemned to the Second Death. There can be no appeal to God for clemency or forgiveness or mercy based upon humanity's own innocence because such a thing simply doesn't exist. The Law condemns us all to death. None of us are innocent. We have nothing to barter with for forgiveness.

What shall we do?

Fortunately God's Law also provides an escape clause.

In order for God to grant forgiveness of sin to humanity, a guiltless innocent perfect human life had to pay the penalty. God's Law states the penalty for sin is death.

Since no man is without sin, God had to be born as an innocent man so as to die as one.

Nobody is forgiven so they can 'get away' with their sin.


THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A LICENSE TO SIN.

Those who are forgiven are expected to live lives that are without sin. When Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11) He forgave her, but qualified that forgiveness by telling her to "go and sin no more". He didn't tell her to go out and open a brothel. But church leaders today suggest to their gullible flocks that this very thing is possible. This type of lie even has a name. It's called Post Modernism and is a doctrine of demons.


Those Christians who commit willful sin can expect swift and sure chastisement from God. (1 Peter 4:17)

Finally it bears repeating that one cannot be forgiven unless one repents of their sin and asks for forgiveness.

that's me, hollering from the choir loft...