What Is The Basis For The Good News?

[Republic]

Is the whole foundation of Jesus dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins based on the presumption that we are sinners and that death is the punishment or penalty of sin (Romans 6:23) and that this punishment can be paid by the shedding of sinless and pure blood (e.g. Romans 3:24-25)? Why or why not?

 

[Mallon]

Yes, and wrong forum.

 

[Silent Bob]

Is the whole foundation of Jesus dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins based on the presumption that we are sinners and that death is the punishment or penalty of sin (Romans 6:23) and that this punishment can be paid by the shedding of sinless and pure blood (e.g. Romans 3:24-25)?

I always found the Atheist argument that Jesus' sacrifice was a sacrifice of God to Himself to appease Himself about an apple eaten a long time ago, a quite valid argument. It illustrates a circular reasoning which makes believers seem silly.

Why or why not?

If you look at the story of Adam and Eve it is a story of awakening. The serpent plays its role and Adam and Eve acquire knowledge of good and evil which signifies the passing of these characters from the child like state of mind (naive) into the adulthood one (conscious).

For mankind this can be taken to mean the acquisition of mankind's conscience. Before we could tell between good and evil we where morally equivalent to beasts, we acted out according to our nature without being able to tell what sin is. Any layman can understand that in order for a sin to happen a person has to be able to tell what is and is not a sin in the first place. Perhaps God liked us like this, it surely explains Jesus' stance towards children who have a poor understanding of sin and notions of good and evil.

But in the end our fall (or rise) to conscious beings was inevitable and it did create a host of problems since it let people become wicked and cruel in a degree that apes, bees and bacteria will never reach. At some point there had to be some sort of order, a moral guide besides the voice inside our heads which we often choose not to listen or do not understand.

In the Bible this order first comes into being through Moses and the law (which according to our theology teacher was a needed ground work so that Jesus' teachings can be heard) but then it gets refined into the best moral code out there with Jesus' coming and His sacrifice. Which was not so that God could forgive (He could forgive us without the need of blood) but in order that we learn how to forgive and how to live ourselves.

In my view the sacrifice of Christ is not to correct the world from its fallen state because the fallen state is neither good nor bad, it just is. His sacrifice did not reverse God's supposed punishment for women, men or snakes. His sacrifice does something different it leads by example on how to live in the way God intended us to but could not force us to, because the whole idea is that we had to acquire conscience in the first place. It is through that conscience that we have the right to chose to sin or not and it is the only thing that separates man from beast and what makes us special.

Sorry if I see a lot more behind the Adam and Eve story than reasons for women to stay at home and obey their husbands. Even if there was no literal Adam and Eve the story told by the Bible is not to be discarded as superstitious mythology, myths after all are age old tools that are used to convey hidden meanings that literal history could never do. I believe that seeing the Bible as a either completely historical or completely untrue (was going to use fictional but some of the best books out there are fictional just because there was no literal Myshkin doesn’t take away from Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece) does the Bible a great injustice. When we try to simplify God’s word to a series of true or false statements we take away from His glory and even though simple minds can believe to better grasp His word that way what they actually do is miss the forest for the tree.

Just my two cents.

 

[Republic]

Silent Bob,

You said:

In the Bible this order first comes into being through Moses and the law (which according to our theology teacher was a needed ground work so that Jesus' teachings can be heard) but then it gets refined into the best moral code out there with Jesus' coming and His sacrifice. Which was not so that God could forgive (He could forgive us without the need of blood) but in order that we learn how to forgive and how to live ourselves. In my view the sacrifice of Christ is not to correct the world from its fallen state because the fallen state is neither good nor bad, it just is. His sacrifice did not reverse God's supposed punishment for women, men or snakes. His sacrifice does something different it leads by example on how to live in the way God intended us to but could not force us to, because the whole idea is that we had to acquire conscience in the first place. It is through that conscience that we have the right to chose to sin or not and it is the only thing that separates man from beast and what makes us special.

Now that is heresey if I've ever seen it. I suggest that you either read the Bible or take the Christianity Explained course at your local church.

To Mallon,
I'm glad that we can agree on the fundamental foundations of Christianity. I didn't ask the question in the origins theology section for no reason if I didn't have a route of inquiry that I intended to take.

I see from your profile that you are a theistic evolutionist. So, according to evolution, death has been around before sin entered the world, right? If this is so, then how can death be the punishment of sin? When followed through to conclusion, how did Jesus pay the penalty for our sin?

 

[shernren]

Silent Bob,
Now that is heresey if I've ever seen it. I suggest that you either read the Bible or take the Christianity Explained course at your local church.

Firstly, it is against the forum rules to directly and openly accuse another member of heresy. Take such accusations to the mods.

Secondly, it is a necessary corrective to the typical Protestant overemphasis on the penal substitutionary understanding of Christ's death. What Silent Bob is pointing out here is the Jesus Christ's death had a didactic element to it - and may I add that it also had a deeply sacramental element to it, and without both these elements the Crucifixion becomes nothing more than a slick little piece of bookkeeping to close a sordid account a certain man opened by swallowing some contraband carbohydrate some thousand years ago. This is strongly demonstrated for example where Jesus tells us that "There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for a friend". What basis or authority would Jesus have to say such things unless He actually practiced that love Himself? In giving His life for His friends, He showed us that it was the right thing to do, gave us an example of how to do it, and thus empowered us to do it in our own lives in our own little ways. Why else would the writers of the NT constantly ask "How, then, shall we live?"

Thirdly, isn't it disingenuous to simply tear into a person's beliefs without even a moment's thought or listening? Why not ask further to understand deeper what Silent Bob has to say about these things, instead of starting out with a public cry of heresy? I have no high respect for the way creationists mentally organize the world around them, but I don't let it get in the way of listening to what they have to say and acknowledging the good in it. If you already know that you are so right, why bother preaching to us? You clearly aren't interested in converting us since you aren't taking the effort to listen. The one who accuses without listening, condemns.

To Mallon,
I'm glad that we can agree on the fundamental foundations of Christianity. I didn't ask the question in the origins theology section for no reason if I didn't have a route of inquiry that I intended to take.

I see from your profile that you are a theistic evolutionist. So, according to evolution, death has been around before sin entered the world, right? If this is so, then how can death be the punishment of sin? When followed through to conclusion, how did Jesus pay the penalty for our sin?

Fourthly, it is not as if the issue hasn't been discussed here before. Go search for "death" at the "Search This Forum" button, there have been many discussions here on how animal death and the Fall might have been related. I myself have started a series of meanderings on what Job has to say about the Fall and theodicy: http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=27464842#post27464842 , or this essay done by another poster here, rmwilliamsll: http://dakotacom.net/~rmwillia/deathfall.html .

Of course, if you want us to explain it to you all over again, you're welcome to sit, ask, listen, and reply. But I hope you don't have any pretensions that we're thunderstruck by this sudden bold new revelation that all along our TE beliefs have been fallen and wrong. We've been here at the issue of animal death before, we will be here again, it's not the first time we've had to discuss it and as long as creationism is around it won't be the last time.

 

[Mallon]

I see from your profile that you are a theistic evolutionist. So, according to evolution, death has been around before sin entered the world, right? If this is so, then how can death be the punishment of sin? When followed through to conclusion, how did Jesus pay the penalty for our sin?

Oooohhhh... you were talking about animal death. Well then in that case, please give this a read:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2004/PSCF6-04Snoke.pdf
I don't believe animal death to be the result of sin. I believe spiritual death, that is, eternal separation from God, to be the result of sin. It's no less biblical than you might think, though I fear that may not keep you from thinking of me as a heretic blasphemer.

(And for the record, I am now officially voting "When followed through to it's logical conclusion..." as the most quoted phrase in the creationist vocabulary! )