I agree. But this idea of kidnapping is not Scriptural. It is a conjecture based on history. I render to Caesar what is Caesar's (taxes only) , and to God what is God's (in this case, His Traditions in understanding the word "ransom").
The audience being addressed in the first century (the context) knew about kidnapping, it was standard practice at the time. The writers and Jesus would use the very best words to communicate to their first century Jew/gentile audience. The last entries to the OT happened 400 years earlier.
The OK let’s leave the word “kidnapping” to the side. The idea is
Revelation 5:9 And they *sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and
purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation
1 Peter 1:18-19 knowing that you were not
redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold
from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but
with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
The question is still: who was holding you back, who was paid, and why was the payment unbelievably huge. Christ is not paying God, but the person is purchased for God. The person is not redeemed (set free) from death (they died spiritually already under the Law and will die physically), but from their worthless pursuit of salvation by the Law. Continuing to pursue salvation through the Law is a choice on their part. The Prophets and John the Baptist taught salvation through repentance, seeking God’s Love and God’s forgiveness, but without Christ going to the cross it was hard to change our ways.
We are not told we will be free from sin and death, but we are free from the worthless pursuit of salvation through trying to obey the Law, but who is holding us back forcing us to try and pursue salvation by the Law?
Christ has set us free from our own worthless pursuit, if we will accept what He has done over the Law.
A payment is definitely being made by Christ and since God is receiving the children that come as the result of the payment, God is not the one receiving the payment. We also know not all people are purchased, but they do come from all groups of people. The cause for the lack of all being purchased is not Jesus’ fault, he would want to buy everyone, so that leaves the seller not selling. The seller is not accepting the payment.
If the seller is sin, death, evil or some other intangible, those things are not capable of accepting or rejecting the payment.
Christ is offering to pay all sinners to become slaves of God, if they are willing to take the payment.
Intellect is important to the human experience. However, intellect and imagination with repect to the Scriptures may make idols of the mind by which we give
belief. Hence worship. The intellect constrained by Scripture will produce truth. Intellect without constraint will produce magic. I prefer the tree of life than the
tree of knowledge of what is up and down and all around.
Is knowledge bad in and of itself?
To grow we need knowledge, which can also be translated experience. Faith and Love grows with use.
Sacrifice means (Merriam-Webster) "an act of offering to a deity something precious". It could be for a penalty (sin offering - female lamb). It could be for
redemption/ransom (Passover - male lamb). It could be for a daily sacrifice (bread). It could be for a holocaust (male lamb).
We are talking specifically about sin offerings and what the Bible says, Webster is not a good source since it includes pagan sacrifices.
I am sure you have. But saying every sacrifice is "penalty" takes away the meaning from Passover and the holocaust. Cain had his own understanding of a sacrifice and look where it ended.
I never said all sacrifices are penalties because they are not and the Bible points that out, but sin sacrifices were penalties as the Bible points that out and you can realize from your own experience.
I agree context is important. But what is the appropriate context to compare the NT. The law and history of ancient rome or the law and history of the OT. Jesus specifically asked that a donkey be purchased so He can fulfill an OT prophecy. It is written that the interpretations of the NT must conform with OT.
I am not having any issue conforming the OT and NT, but the words spoken to first century non-Christian Jews, Christians (Jew and Gentile) and non-Christian Gentiles has to take into consideration how they would understand the verses at the time. They might only understand the earthly Story from Jesus’ parables at the time they heard them.
To assume all gentiles and Jews used only the Old Testament meanings to word would be a huge assumption. The 12 seemed at the time Jesus spoke lacking a lot of knowledge of the OT.
There is something missing with your recipe. It needs a dash of repentance..make that tablespoons..er..cups...barrels? Sins will be forgiven because we have accepted Christ in our hearts and mind, thus we have a huge capacity to truly repent. Repent and sin no more. We are not the little princelings and princesses of King Jesus inheriting his Perfection by some magical genetics. We are temples so He may dwell in us. Without Him, it is just another body waiting to be a corpse. Sin is not transfigured, our resistence to sin has increased. There is only one sin that is unforgivable, that is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
A hell bound sinner does not personally have the power to repent (stop sinning) within them, but after receiving Godly type Love and the indwelling Holy Spirit they can stop sinning. “If you Love me you will obey me”, but the Love comes first. Repentance comes after the person does what little He can do (really nothing of value), but a sinner can humbly accept pure undeserved charity (Christ) as charity, for selfish reasons.
Death is "as if you were never born". The book with your name on it will be toss into the eternal lake of fire. All information of you will be destroyed. The pages will be ash. The file of your life will be deleted, contents will be overwritten with FF, all links will be overwritten.
Jesus is Perfect and was made flesh. Jesus placed Himslf on the line - His Potency and Majesty - for the sake of humanity. He endured His existence as a defilable creature and still remained without blemish. It is not that the flesh is blameless but the spirit is indomitable. The Holy Spirit and sinning are contradictions in terms. They cannot coexist in logic. They can only coexist in the hearts of humans for a brief period when one shuts the door on the other. Quenching of The Holy Spirit implies sinning in actuality or in potentiality. Sinning means there is no spirit of holiness. Sinning and quenching..., they mean the same.
Why do we quench the Spirit?
No pearls before swine, as it is said. Apologetics with atheists and agnostics use metaphysics and logic to argue. There is no need to share the Scriptures until their worldview is shown to be absurd and cannot survive genuine scrutiny. The food that is the Scriptures is meant for the few that sit at the table of the Lord, not the dogs around the table and especially the swine outside of the courtyard.
Scripture is written not in a vacuum, it was written with the Holy Spirit. It is inerrant. Amen.
I set the seed with agnostics and atheist, but if they are happy with their life at the time it is extremely hard to make inroads. I have one example, where I was repeatedly put down/mocked by an agnostic coworker who had it “all” together, but years late driving him home from a trip (he had to much to drink) he opened up about his marital problems at the time an want a Christian perspective, we had some really good talks after that and he was open to change.