Did Jesus save us from God?

MMXX said:

It seems to me that many if not most say this life is the only chance we get. After that it's too late and there's no hope. Hebrews 9:27 is the chief citation for that widely held view.

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Right. Which says nothing about salvation. Only assumed.

But I suppose you were addressing the comment about reincarnation?

Clare73 said:

Oh, wow!

Hell is not a place, it is simply a state of being where there is no good, creating a vacuum which sucks in evil, so that only terrifying evil dwells there.
Now that's scary.

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That's kinda what I think. The absence of God equals the absence of all we know as good. A vacuum is a good description.
No beauty or color or any of the sensations we enjoy on earth and take for granted.

Fervent said:

This sounds like the way hell is often discussed in Eastern theologies that approach it. As hell is not so much a place, but an internal reaction to being in the presence of God. It is not that God torments them actively, but that their hatred of God creates an experience of pure malevolence and torture by virtue of being in the presence of unadulterated holiness. For both heaven and hell it is the disposition towards God that determines whether it is pleasurable or torment, and the refining fire draws each into their purest form burning off the imperfections in those who have submitted to Christ and stripping those who continue to rebel of the imago dei. So God saves us from God, in the sense that He reforms us so that being in His presence our experience is not one of wrath. In each case God loves the individual exactly as they need to be loved.

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Yes, for an unrepentant individual being in the presence of God must be hell.

Saint Steven said:

I think it is a fallacy that God's "nature can't cohabit with unholiness."
Does he not reside in our sinful, wayward hearts?
Did not Satan come before him in the book of Job to speak with Him?
How can Satan be the accuser, if God never listens to him?

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You're right. As St Anthony said,

"Thus to say that God turns away from the wicked is like saying that the sun hides itself from the blind."

Hmm said:

I find it hard to visualise a wrathful lamb!

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As Saint Isaac the Syrian says: “He who applies pedagogical punishments in order to give health, is punishing with love, but he who is looking for vengeance, is devoid of love. God punishes with love, not defending Himself — far be it — but He wants to heal His image, and He does not keep His wrath for long. This way of love is the way of uprightness, and it does not change with passion to a defense. A man who is just and wise is like God because he never chastises a man in revenge for wickedness, but only in order to correct him or that others be afraid” (Homily 73).

Fervent said:

Sin creates a real loss, but God seeks to be merciful. So how is the real cost that sin incurs covered while offering mercy to those who recognize the depths of their violation? God must pay the price in order to show us mercy, as our ability to pay it is insufficient. In this way the sanctity of creation remains, for to forego the price of sin would undermine creation itself as an objective reality. The cost of sin, and the willingness of God to pay it are both for our own benefit.

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According to theories of justice, it was necessary for God to punish man’s disobedience. It was impossible for Him to pardon; a superior Necessity demanded vengeance. Even if God was in reality good and loving, He was not able to act lovingly. He was obliged to act contrary to His love; the only thing He could do, in order to save humanity, was to punish His Son in the place of men, and by this means was Necessity satisfied.

Andrewn said:

According to theories of justice, it was necessary for God to punish man’s disobedience.

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According to God's own tutelage in the OT sacrifices, it was necessary that sin be paid for with death; i.e., shedding of the blood.
Acording to God's NT tutelage, the wages of sin is death; i.e., physical death and spiritual eternal death (the object under discussion).

Andrewn said:

According to theories of justice, it was necessary for God to punish man’s disobedience. It was impossible for Him to pardon; a superior Necessity demanded vengeance. Even if God was in reality good and loving, He was not able to act lovingly. He was obliged to act contrary to His love; the only thing He could do, in order to save humanity, was to punish His Son in the place of men, and by this means was Necessity satisfied.

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God did act lovingly, though, as it is not some disembodied principle that necessitates the punishment. We need accountability and objective standards, God wasn't bound by anything higher than His loving nature as if there is some law of justice that God is beholden to. The punishment Jesus endured was not an empty act of wrath at some sense of honor or dignity or even justice as a principle. It fulfilled a need in creation, not a need in God.

Clare73 said:

According to God's own tutelage in the OT sacrifices, it was necessary that sin be paid for with death; i.e., shedding of the blood.
Acording to God's NT tutelage, the wages of sin is death; i.e., physical death and spiritual eternal death (the object under discussion).

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You say that sin is paid for with death. But this is not the implication of Rom 6:20-23, to which you refer.

The passage indicates that a person is either enslaved to the power of sin or to the power of righteousness.

Being enslaved to sin results in death. Sin, as master, pays death to its followers.

Being enslaved to God, on the other hand, results in being holy. God, as master, gives the free gift of eternal life to His followers.

I'm not going to dwell again on the word "eternal." You know how I understand it but this is not the issue I'm discussing here. You can understand it anyway you like. This thread addresses the question, "Did Jesus save us from God?"

As far as OT sacrifices are concerned, you know that they were not payment for sin. Did God need a payment of lambs, rams, and calfs? He owns everything as the OT repeatedly reminds the readers.

The book of Hebrews abundantly explains that OT sacrifices were types for Christ's sacrifice.

Christ's atonement should be properly understood in this context.

Fervent said:

God did act lovingly, though, as it is not some disembodied principle that necessitates the punishment. We need accountability and objective standards, God wasn't bound by anything higher than His loving nature as if there is some law of justice that God is beholden to.

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Yes, I agree. What I wrote to you, which you have quoted, I wrote with a tongue in cheek to show the error of theories of justice.

Fervent said:

The punishment Jesus endured was not an empty act of wrath at some sense of honor or dignity or even justice as a principle. It fulfilled a need in creation, not a need in God.

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@The Liturgist expressed the error of theories of justice well as he wrote:

"The error of penal substitutionary atonement, which did not exist prior to John Calvin, or satisfaction atonement, which was created in the late 11th century by Anselm of Canterbury, is that it ignores the unity of the Trinity and suggests the Father is enraged at us; wrath is a sin, and God is incapable of sin, so St. Paul uses it figuratively to refer to being in a state of opposition to God and thus experiencing his love, which is a consuming fire, as torture."

Early Church Soteriology: The Old-new Way Of Evangelizing

I hope that @Confused-by-christianity is still watching this thread.

Andrewn said:

You say that sin is paid for with death. But this is not the implication of Rom 6:20-23, to which you refer. The passage indicates that a person is either enslaved to the power of sin. Being enslaved to sin results in death. Sin, as master, pays death to its followers.

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Precisely. . .that's what "the wages of sin is (eternal) death" means.

Being enslaved to God, on the other hand, results in being holy. God, as master, gives the free gift of eternal life to His followers.
I'm not going to dwell again on the word "eternal." You know how I understand it but this is not the issue I'm discussing here. You can understand it anyway you like.

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This thread addresses the question, "Did Jesus save us from God?"
As far as OT sacrifices are concerned, you know that they were not payment for sin.

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Actually, what I know is that God said they were (Leviticus 5:6-7, 15, 6:26, 26:41, 43). Trespass offerings were penalties for sin.

Got something vested in the sacrifices not being penal and substitutionary?

Did God need a payment of lambs, rams, and calfs? He owns everything as the OT repeatedly reminds the readers.

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You somewhat surprise me with not understandong the OT sacrificial system, which system Christ came to fulfill (Matthew 20:28).

But no, God doesn't need anything. . however, in order to be God he must be just, and divne justice requires death as penalty for sin, just as our justice system requires death for some crimes. Therefore, God ordained that the death (blood) of absolutely perfect animals would substitute for the death of the sinner, covering his sin temporarily until the absolutely perfect sacrifice of Christ actually paid the penalty for him (Romans 3:25b).

The book of Hebrews abundantly explains that OT sacrifices were types for Christ's sacrifice. Christ's atonement should be properly understood in this context.

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Agreed. . .and indeed it is.

So, specifically, why did Christ have to be a blood sacrificed?

Andrewn said:

Yes, I agree. What I wrote to you, which you have quoted, I wrote with a tongue in cheek to show the error of theories of justice.


@The Liturgist expressed the error of theories of justice well as he wrote:

"The error of penal substitutionary atonement, which did not exist prior to John Calvin, or satisfaction atonement, which was created in the late 11th century by Anselm of Canterbury, is that it ignores the unity of the Trinity and suggests the Father is enraged at us; wrath is a sin, and God is incapable of sin, so St. Paul uses it figuratively to refer to being in a state of opposition to God and thus experiencing his love, which is a consuming fire, as torture."

Early Church Soteriology: The Old-new Way Of Evangelizing

I hope that @Confused-by-christianity is still watching this thread.

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Oh, well thank you for clearing that up. It seems to me a lot of the confusion comes from a hermeneutic that approaches the Bible backwards. Rather than beginning and understanding what is happening in the Old Testament so the arguments presented in the New Testament may be understood, New Testament arguments are interpreted using medeival/modern concepts and then those concepts are read into the Old Testament. As an example, the Levitical sacrifices were not payment for sins committed but thanksgiving offerings for God's mercy towards them. Atonement was in the blood, and the blood was provided by God to cleanse them of sin. Rather than seeing the theological cycle in Leviticus of unclean-clean and common-holy and connecting it to Paul's arguments, substitutionary themes are read into Leviticus.

I rewrote this post as #439, so please see that

The Liturgist said:

That being said, I do support both an Alexandrian typological method of the Old Testament, where we read it in the context of the New as Christological prophecy and allegory, and an Antiochene fundamentalist-literalist approach. And I think based on the ending of the Gospel of Luke, the Old Testament must be seen as being about Christ, and this justifies reading it in light of the New Testament.

I like the lectionaries of the ancient Gallican, Mozarabic and Ambrosian Rites and the East Syriac Rite, where the Old Testament lesson, or two lessons in the case of the East Syriac Rite which follow the Jewish Synagogue tradition of a Torah lesson followed by a corresponding Haftarah from elsewhere in the Old Tesrament,* followed, in all of these rites, by the standard Christian practice, inspired by Judaism, of an Epistle followed by the Gospel; in the four specific rites I mentioned, all the lessons are connected and related.

*Some Old Testament lessons in the East Syriac Liturgy used by the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syro Malabar Catholic Church, correspond exactly with Torah/haftarah pairings from the one year lectionary found in the Babylonian Talmud, which most synagogues used, which is unsurprising, as the Church of the East was historically headquartered in Seleucia-Cstesiphon, the city built to replace Babylon when a shift in the Euphrates made Babylon uninhabitable; another shift rendered Seleucia-Cstesiphon uninhabitable and resulted in the construction of Baghdad, which is almost on top of old Babylon. Most Rabinnical Jews use the one year lectionary in the Babylonian Talmud, vs. the three year lectionary in the Jerusalem Talmud, which is generally regarded in Judaism as incomplete and less important than the Babylonian. In addition, I believe the lectionary in the Babylonian Talmud is probably much closer to the original lectionary established when St. Esdras (Ezra) the Priest and St. Nehemiah the Prophet established synagogues throughout Judea after the end of the Babylonian Captivity and instituted the continual reading of the Torah and Haftarah in these and in the Temple, with both following a thrice daily worship pattern of morning, noon and evening worship, which the Jews still use, and Christians based their services on (albeit due to Roman persecution, the three main offices tend to be Matins, said just before dawn, Vespers, said just after dusk, and Compline, said at night before bed, or the Midnight Office, because it was the custom of Christians to secretly celebrate the Eucharist on the graves of martyrs in Rome and elsewhere, and in the catacombs, or in houses, until the faith was legalized; consequently, midday prayer has been less important to us, because of that, and also because the most important service, the Eucharist, is now usually celebrated in the late morning, ending at or before noon, although the Orthodox churches, except for the Armenians, do celebrate it at midnight on Easter Sunday and in monasteries).

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Certainly the New Testament sets the Old in a new light, the issue I'm highlighting though is that a book like Romans is dependent on an understanding of the Old Testament for the arguments to be understood. Using a foreign strata to understand Romans and then read that foreign strata into the Old Testament context Paul was drawing on is what is problematic, not recognizing the new clarity brought about by the full revelation of Christ.

Clare73 said:

Actually, what I know is that God said they were (Leviticus 5:6-7, 15, 6:26, 26:41, 43). Trespass offerings were penalties for sin. Got something vested in the sacrifices not being penal and substitutionary?

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Clare73 said:

Therefore, God ordained that the death (blood) of absolutely perfect animals would substitute for the death of the sinner,

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I don't see the word or the concept of substitution or that people were supposed to die if they neglected sacrificing in these verses.

Clare73 said:

You somewhat surprise me with not understandong the OT sacrificial system, which system Christ came to fulfill (Matthew 20:28).

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A ransom, yes of course, absolutely. But a payment to appease an angry God who is unable to pardon mankind, absolutely not. Sure Christ became a sin offering but we must be careful not to separate Christ from the Father (Rom 3:25; 2Co 5:21).

Clare73 said:

however, in order to be God he must be just, and divne justice requires death as penalty for sin, just as our justice system requires death for some crimes.

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Where is this written in the Bible?

Clare73 said:

So, specifically, why did Christ have to be a blood sacrificed?

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Early Church Soteriology: The Old-new Way Of Evangelizing

Fervent said:

Certainly the New Testament sets the Old in a new light, the issue I'm highlighting though is that a book like Romans is dependent on an understanding of the Old Testament for the arguments to be understood. Using a foreign strata to understand Romans and then read that foreign strata into the Old Testament context Paul was drawing on is what is problematic, not recognizing the new clarity brought about by the full revelation of Christ.

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Well, because God is eternal, I think all books of Inspired Scripture relate to all others, as opposed to a forward progression in time. By the way, I just rewrote the post you replied to and @Andrewn liked, so please take another look at it, as I provided substantial additional information.

Edit: I am going to blow that post away and repost, so the change is more obvious.

Note: this was originally post #436, but I substantially rewrote and expanded it to cover more material.

Fervent said:

Oh, well thank you for clearing that up. It seems to me a lot of the confusion comes from a hermeneutic that approaches the Bible backwards. Rather than beginning and understanding what is happening in the Old Testament so the arguments presented in the New Testament may be understood, New Testament arguments are interpreted using medeival/modern concepts and then those concepts are read into the Old Testament. As an example, the Levitical sacrifices were not payment for sins committed but thanksgiving offerings for God's mercy towards them. Atonement was in the blood, and the blood was provided by God to cleanse them of sin. Rather than seeing the theological cycle in Leviticus of unclean-clean and common-holy and connecting it to Paul's arguments, substitutionary themes are read into Leviticus.

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That being said, I do support both an Alexandrian typological method of the Old Testament, where we read it in the context of the New as Christological prophecy and allegory, and an Antiochene fundamentalist-literalist approach. And I think based on the ending of the Gospel of Luke, the Old Testament must be seen as being about Christ, and this justifies reading it in light of the New Testament.

I like the lectionaries of the ancient Gallican, Mozarabic and Ambrosian Rites and the East Syriac Rite, where the Old Testament lesson, or two lessons in the case of the East Syriac Rite which follow the Jewish Synagogue tradition of a Torah lesson followed by a corresponding Haftarah from elsewhere in the Old Tesrament,* followed, in all of these rites, by the standard Christian practice, inspired by Judaism, of an Epistle followed by the Gospel; in the four specific rites I mentioned, all the lessons are connected and related.

But I think we need both the literal Antiochene and the typological Alexandrian approach, named for the ancient catechtical schools; the Alexandrian method was exclusively used by Origen, who was very much influenced by Alexandria but set up his own catechtical school in Caesarea, in which Eusebius of Caesarea, a bishop famous for his Ecclesiastical History, who was also sympathetic to Arius and the Arians, may also have been a successor to Origen, which if true would have fueled the fires of people like St. Epiphanios, who held Origen responsible for having inspired Arius (I disagree, and so did the Cappodacians, St. Basil the Great, his best friend St. Gregory Nazianzus, his younger brother St. Gregory of Nyssa, his older sister St. Macrina, and arguably his youngest brother St. Peter of Sebaste, for they compiled an anthology called the Philocalia** of Origen’s best writings, which omitted the controversial material that eventually caused the Chalcedonian churches to possibly anathematize him at the Fifth Ecumenical Council).

Theodore of Mopsuestia, still venerated as a saint in the Assyrian Church of the East, was also possibly anathematized at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, making him and Origen the only people widely venerated as saints who were later anathematized***, followed the opposite approach to Origen, and was famed for his strictly Antiochene literal-historical interpretation, which is nonetheless different from contemporary literal-historical interpretations by many Protestants.

I think it is telling that the early church was, to say the least, not unanimously in favor of Origen or Theodore of Mopsuestia shows that a balanced approach is required, with more Alexandrian interpretation used in the Old Testament, and the New Testament read in a primarily Antiochene context with Alexandrian interpretation restricted to complex portions such as the Revelation and other eschatological prophecies, and as a means of understanding apparent contradictions. In the Old Testament, the specific amount of optimal Alexandrian vs. Antiochene interpretation varies from book to book I would further argue.

We see this hybrid approach in St. Athanasius the Patriarch of Alexandria, who was educated by the Alexandrian School at the insistence of St. Alexander of Alexandria, who later made him his Protodeacon, and as Protodeacon, St. Athanasius was the chief advocate in defense of the actions of the Church of Alexandria in anathematizing Arius for heresy at the Council of Nicaea, and is credited**** with the victory of Christianity over Arianism at that council, and also as one of the main contributors to the triumph of Christianity over Arianism in general; on his death, one of the Cappodacians, St. Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzus) I think, said “To praise Athanasius is to praise virtue.” He developed our modern NT canon, which was similar to, but more inclusive than, the canon proposed by Eusebius of Caesarea, and lacked the graded canonicity of the Eusebian canon, with books either being allowed to be read in church, with two other books, including the Shepherd of Hermas, allowed for catechesis but forbidden from being read in the church and thus not canonical; his promulgation of it via an encyclical to all bishops in his very large jurisdiction, along with Pope Gelasius promulgating it, albeit with a prohibition of any use of any books not listed by Athanasius as canonical, including the Shepherd of Hermas, in a Decree in 490, the Decretum Gelasianum I think it was called, ensured the Athanasian New Testament canon was universally adopted. His book, On the Incarnation, in which he explains the Nicene theology of the divinity of Christ and His status as God incarnate, is hugely important, and his interpretation of the Old Testament shows use of Antiochene interpretation alongside his native Alexandrian method.

St. John Chrysostom, a priest in Antioch, later the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the best friend of the aforementioned Theodosius of Mopsuestia, also used both methods in his famed exegetical homilies on the books of the Old and New Testament. He is widely regarded as the greatest preacher of all time and the probable author of the recension of the ancient liturgy of Antioch, the Anaphora od the Twelve Apostles, that is now the main liturgy in the Eastern Orthodox church, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom; the hagiographic appellation Chrysostom means “Golden Mouthed.”

In the aforementioned Cappodacians, we see a good Antiochene-Alexandrian balance, and by the time of St. John Damascene writing the Fount of Knowledge, which included his famous Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, in the eighth century, a full harmony between the two approaches was de rigeur, and indeed, both the Alexandrian and Antiochene Schools themselves were gone, replaced with monasteries which took up the task of preserving the faith and gradually morphed into the oldest universities, like Oxford and Cambridge, which were previously monastic centers like Mount Athos or Meteora Valley in Greece, and then seminaries appeared, as departments in universities and as standalone entitiesm taking us somewhat full circle.

*Some Old Testament lessons in the East Syriac Liturgy used by the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syro Malabar Catholic Church, correspond exactly with Torah/haftarah pairings from the one year lectionary found in the Babylonian Talmud, which most synagogues used, which is unsurprising, as the Church of the East was historically headquartered in Seleucia-Cstesiphon, the city built to replace Babylon when a shift in the Euphrates made Babylon uninhabitable; another shift rendered Seleucia-Cstesiphon uninhabitable and resulted in the construction of Baghdad, which is almost on top of old Babylon. Most Rabinnical Jews use the one year lectionary in the Babylonian Talmud, vs. the three year lectionary in the Jerusalem Talmud, which is generally regarded in Judaism as incomplete and less important than the Babylonian. In addition, I believe the lectionary in the Babylonian Talmud is probably much closer to the original lectionary established when St. Esdras (Ezra) the Priest and St. Nehemiah the Prophet established synagogues throughout Judea after the end of the Babylonian Captivity and instituted the continual reading of the Torah and Haftarah in these and in the Temple, with both following a thrice daily worship pattern of morning, noon and evening worship, which the Jews still use, and Christians based their services on (albeit due to Roman persecution, the three main offices tend to be Matins, said just before dawn, Vespers, said just after dusk, and Compline, said at night before bed, or the Midnight Office, because it was the custom of Christians to secretly celebrate the Eucharist on the graves of martyrs in Rome and elsewhere, and in the catacombs, or in houses, until the faith was legalized; consequently, midday prayer has been less important to us, because of that, and also because the most important service, the Eucharist, is now usually celebrated in the late morning, ending at or before noon, although the Orthodox churches, except for the Armenians, do celebrate it at midnight on Easter Sunday and in monasteries).

** Not to be confused with the Philokalia, an anthology of texts on mystical theology, prayer, monastic living and Hesychasm, compiled by the Greek Orthodox monks Saints Nicodemus the Hagiorite and Macarius of Corinth. St. Nicodemus also compiled the Pedalion, the nomocanon, or compilation of canon law as received by the Eastern Orthodox, which I regard as the most reliable view of the canons of the early church to exist in the English language, because we lack translations of the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopian and Assyrian nomocanons, and the Roman Catholic Church changed its canon law completely a few times with the Decreetals and the contemporary Code of Canon Law and Canon Law for the Eastern Churches. And the Anglicans and other Protestant denominations who have canon laws, like the Episcopalians, defined their canon laws anew.

*** I myself regard both Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia as saints worthy of veneration, but I also venerate their opponents Saints Jerome and Epiphanios in the case of Origen, and St. Cyril of Alexandria and his allies and defenders against Nestorius in the case of Theodore of Mopsuestia. I think if we compare the errors they made and the impact they had, they were minor and accidental compared to the devastation unleashed by Arius and Nestorius, who allegedly took inspiration from them, but this is not proven in the case of Origen, and debateable even in the case of Nestorius, because the central thrust of Nestorianism was that it was wrong to venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary as Theotokos, as a distraction to worshipping Christ (sound familiar?) and the idea of Christ having two hypostases in a personal union or two persons in a union of will was a theoretical concept that Theodore reflected on, without an agenda, and Origen likewise reflected on the possibilities of transmigration

**** Together with the Holy Spirit, who is regarded as inspiring Athanasius.

Fervent said:

God did act lovingly, though, as it is not some disembodied principle that necessitates the punishment. We need accountability and objective standards, God wasn't bound by anything higher than His loving nature as if there is some law of justice that God is beholden to. The punishment Jesus endured was not an empty act of wrath at some sense of honor or dignity or even justice as a principle. It fulfilled a need in creation, not a need in God.

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MMXX said:

I have no argument with any of that personally.

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Indeed, this is very close to my view. My view on soteriology is best summarized in these two lectures by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, and his former pupil and recent successor at Oxford, who also served as the dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary since Fr. John Hopko, memory eternal, retired, Fr. john Behr:

Andrewn said:

Sure Christ became a sin offering but we must be careful not to separate Christ from the Father (Rom 3:25; 2Co 5:21).

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That makes no sense. . .

The whole Trinity is involved in the sin offering (sacrifice) of Christ:
"The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God." (Hebrews 9:14)
God is the one who presented him as a sacrifice to himself.
Christ's sacrifice was both penal substitutionary and redemptive/restorative.

I don't see the word or the concept of substitution

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Why did the animal, and then Jesus, have to die as a blood sacrifice?
Why do you not answer the question? Because it would refute your assertion.

Substitution is clearly seen in the Day of Atonement ceremonies for the sins of the people, where it takes two animals to pattern the meaning of blood sacrifice (Leviticus 16:7-8).
The first animal is sacrificed (Leviticus 16:9) showing what is necessary to remove the sin of the people--their death, for which the the animal's death is substituted,
and the second animal is then presented live (Leviticus 16:10), where the sins of the people are transferred to it, and substituting as their sin bearer, the animal is released into the wilderness to die in their place (Levitius 16:20-22), clearly demonstrating the animal bears their sin and dies in their stead; i.e, as a substitution

A better acquaintance with the OT sacrificial system and what it patterned regarding the meaning of the NT sacrifice would be most "helpful" here.

A ransom, yes of course, absolutely.
But a payment to appease an angry God who is unable to pardon mankind, absolutely not.

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What do you mean unable to pardon sin? He did pardoned sin, didn't he?

And so we're to back to the question you won't answer:
why did the animal, and then Jesus, have to die as a blood sacrifice?

The NT answer is Romans 3:25, which you reject:
Jesus, "whom God set forth to be a propitiation (Gr: hilasterion) through faith in his blood."

Propitiation = what propitiates, appeases and renders favorable; SYN: pacify.

And these unanswered questions are also still on the table:

1) For what, and to whom was the ransom owed which Jesus paid?

2) Why did Jesus have to die as a blood sacrifice? (Romans 3:25)

3) Why did God present him as a sacrifice to himself? (Hebrews 9:14)

4) What is God's penalty for sin?

5) Having agreed that wrath means anger, what is the meaning of the following:

John 3:36 - "Whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for Gods wrath remains on him."

Romans 5:9 - "Since we have not been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him?"

1 Thessalonians 1:10 - ". . .whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath."

Ephesians 5:6 - "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient."

Colossians 3:6 - "Because of these, the wrath of God is coming (on those who are disobedient)."