St. John Paul II teaches that through our suffering we can share in Jesus' redemptive suffering and thereby help others achieve salvation.
J. Sollier defines redemption as either 1) paying a ransom price for sin or 2) atonement for an offense.
Together this raises two questions:
- How is redemptive suffering not an unjust whipping boy (punishing one person for another man's sin)?
- How are we to understand redemption?
Regarding #1, my impression is that an all-powerful being who knows everything is refusing to provide more assistance until he's made someone suffer: This being does not appear to be a loving Father as Jesus declares, but rather vindictive and capricious as Mohammed declares.
Regarding #2, both of Sollier's definitions contradict the faith:
1. Viewing redemption as "paying a ransom price for sin" implies Satan is a powerful King of Hell who owns sinful souls and is able to withstand God such that God has no choice but to give him tribute (namely, suffering) in exchange for our souls. Yet the Church teaches that Satan is merely a fallen angel who cannot withstand God.
2. Viewing redemption as "atonement for an offense" appears to imply that God was somehow harmed or offended by our sin in a way similar to how we can damage a human's property or social standing. Yet the Church teaches that God is both perfect and impassible: God cannot be offended or harmed.
So I am left bewildered by this apparently incoherent and contradictory teaching of "redemption" and "redemptive suffering". Would you please clarify these matters?
You do good to see just some of the issues with most people’s ideas on Atonement.
The Greek word used for redemption carries with it the idea of no small act and usually refers to being set free from a kidnapper after a huge ransom payment.
Atonement is a huge misunderstood topic which all the theories do a poor job explaining, look at just one aspect they do not address:
The Bible refers to Jesus’ sacrifice as a
literal ransom payment:
Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many.”
1 Timothy 2:6 who
gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time
Heb. 9: 15…now that
he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
We do have the blood specifically mentioned in Revelation 5:9 They sing a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,
for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;
We should agree on:
1. Jesus life and death is the unbelievable huge ransom payment?
2. The ransom payment was made to set children free to go to the Kingdom and be with the Father?
3. Deity (Jesus and God both) made this unbelievable huge payment?
4. All these fit perfectly a ransom scenario?
5. The scripture is not describing Jesus’ cruel torturous death on the cross as being like a ransom payment, but as being a ransom payment?
Now think about this:
If it is not a kidnapping then it is no “ransoming”, but the Bible tells us there is a ransom payment at least being offered and definitely made for “many” and “God’s saints” and there is a redemption redemption (setting free).
Peter even helps us out more by contrasting the unbelievable huge payment of Christ to just a payment of silver and gold. Who might take silver and gold, so it can be a good analogy for Peter? 1 Peter 1:18
You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold,
A kidnapper, in general, holds back the parent’s children awaiting an acceptable ransom payment, so who do you blame for keeping children out of the Kingdom?
The Kidnapper cannot be God since He is not an undeserving criminal kidnapper holding His own children back.
Also the Kidnapper would not be satan, since God has the power to take from sayan, without paying anything to satan. There is no cosmic Law saying you got to pay the kidnapper and it would be wrong to do so, if you could get around it and satan is fully undeserving.
We know death, sin and evil were concurred with Christ’s death and resurrection, but those are not tangible things needing to be paid anything.
So who is the kidnapper?
When you go up to a nonbelieving sinner, what are you trying to get him/her to accept: A doctrine, a denomination, a book, a theology, or something else. NO, you want the nonbeliever to accept “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified” and if he does a child of God is released to enter the Kingdom and be with God, but if the sinner rejects “Jesus Christ and Him crucifies” a child is kept out of the Kingdom.
Does this not sound very much like a kidnapping scenario with a ransom being offered?
“Jesus Christ and Him crucified” is described in scripture as the ransom payment?
Would the sinner holding a child of God out of the Kingdom of God describe a kidnapper?
“Jesus Christ and Him crucified” is a huge sacrificial payment, like you find with children being ransomed?
Parents will make huge sacrificial payments to have their children released.