Why did Jesus need to die?

Nihilist Virus said:

What a bizarre thing to say. Owning a slave is a biblical right. Leviticus 25:44-46. Also if you read Exodus 21 you see how racist it is in that Hebrew slaves are treated differently than Gentile slaves.

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So let me get this straight . . . . you think slavery is not a sinful institution? You would be comfortable with owning slaves if they were . . . . gentiles?

Paul of Eugene OR said:

So let me get this straight . . . . you think slavery is not a sinful institution? You would be comfortable with owning slaves if they were . . . . gentiles?

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I explained exactly why it's not a sin. And no, I would not own slaves. The fact that it is not a sinful institution is precisely the problem. You don't have it straight because you conflate immorality with sin. You think that if something is not a sin then it's morally acceptable. Let me put it straight for you:

As a person who cares about morality I couldn't care less about the moral edicts put forth in a book authored by men who regularly engaged in racism, sexism, slavery, rape, genocide, or otherwise maniacal behavior. I would sooner mine Mein Kampf for moral nuggets than the Bible.

ViaCrucis said:

By high Christology I mean the identification of Christ as divine. For example He is called the Logos who is "with God and ... was God", in Colossians He is described as "being the fullness of Deity in bodily form", He is called "the express image of God's Being", "our Great God and Savior", etc. That same language continues in the writings of the fathers, such as St. Ignatius, "the blood of God" in reference to Christ's blood, saying also, "our God, Jesus Christ" etc.

It's not jumping to conclusions, it's really just a matter of consistency. Christ's divinity, from the perspective of the apostolic Church, was never in doubt, the chief issue was what it meant to call Christ divine, what it meant to identify Christ as God. That's where the various Christological controversies arise--Sabellianism, Adoptionism, Arianism, Apollinarianism, etc. None of these denied the Deity of Christ, on the contrary they all asserted He was divine.

So when I say the writings of the New Testament present a high Christology, I mean they present a view of Christ which identifies Him as divine, Jesus is unique in His relationship to the Father, and is frequently described in terms as being God, and in several places rather explicitly identifying Him with YHVH, as St. Paul does in Philippians 2 where the language is too similar to not be on purpose (in the Greek) with the text of Isaiah where YHVH says He is God and every tongue shall confess it.

That Christians, historically, believed Jesus to be divine is a matter of the historical record and is found in the earliest Christian writings there are--the [authentic] Pauline epistles and the four canonical Gospels.

-CryptoLutheran

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You're cherry picking. Like I said, Jesus is placed below God quite often.

Nihilist Virus said:

You're cherry picking. Like I said, Jesus is placed below God quite often.

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Not cherry picking, pointing out the lofty statements which Christians have used of Christ from the earliest years of the religion.

It might be cherry picking if I wanted to avoid the places where Christ is spoken of as subject to God, such as Jesus saying, "The Father is greater than I" or where St. Paul says that God is the head of Christ. But that wasn't really germane to my point, my point was to address the high Christological statements present in the New Testament and how the language of the Church remained consistent in that regard. That Christ is spoken of as subject to the Father doesn't cause any injury to my argument.

-CryptoLutheran

Nihilist Virus said:

Nothing you have ever said to me is remotely germane to the post you are quoting.

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You want to justify your personal position

But you won't be able to before GOD

To do so is to exalt oneself above GOD and men

As if GOD provided ONE WAY for everyone else but oneself

All mouths will be silenced

One will not be able to point out GOD's dealings with David

GOD has dealt graciously and blessed all men because the curse of not following GOD fell on all

And CHRIST came into the world and laid down the flesh for the sheep so as to bring them back to GOD

And HIS SHEEP testify to this

There's ONE SHEPHERD over THE HOUSE for GOD

We are not our own personal shepherds and there is no other shepherd and will be no other shepherd

Nihilist Virus said:

I explained exactly why it's not a sin. And no, I would not own slaves. The fact that it is not a sinful institution is precisely the problem. You don't have it straight because you conflate immorality with sin. You think that if something is not a sin then it's morally acceptable. Let me put it straight for you:

As a person who cares about morality I couldn't care less about the moral edicts put forth in a book authored by men who regularly engaged in racism, sexism, slavery, rape, genocide, or otherwise maniacal behavior. I would sooner mine Mein Kampf for moral nuggets than the Bible.

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Well, you found me out, I indeed conflate immorality with sin.

doubtingmerle said:

We are told that Jesus died for our sins, because otherwise God could not forgive us. That makes no sense to me. If God wanted to forgive, why doesn't he just forgive? Why does he need the death of his son in order to forgive us?

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This is a blind post so maybe you've dealt with a response like this already.

There's a few different legitimate ways to answer this question. I'll start with just one approach.

1. All wrongdoing causes harm.
2. Wrongdoing also causes a breach of relationship and the harm caused creates enmity within the relationship.
3. The only ways for reconciliation to occur are:
   1. If the harm is rectified through the wrongdoer's restitution.
   2. If the harmed party forgives the wrongdoer.

I'll give a concrete example of the above principles. If I steal a TV from you then I harm you to the effect of, say, $500. Knowing that I have harmed you would cause a breach in our relationship and create enmity between us. The only way for me to return to good relationship with you would be for me to restore what I've stolen - let's say $600 for good measure - or for you to forgive my offenses and release me from my obligation to restore.

Please note here that it will cost you at least $500 to forgive me and to reconcile our relationship through forgiveness. An important point to note here is that, while forgiveness is "free" for the offender it is never free for the offended. When forgiveness occurs it's the offended that pays the price.

Now lets turn to our situation with God. In our sin we have harmed God's creation to an effect that is much greater than we can possibly pay back. We cannot restore to God what we owe to him. As a means of reconciling us to himself God offers us forgiveness. But this means that he personally pays for our sins. How does God pay for our sins? The cross of Christ is the answer.

One could go on to ask: "exactly how does Jesus' death on the cross pay for our sins?" This is a good question, but it is another question. For now I'm just trying to answer: "Why can't God simply forgive us? Why is some payment necessary?"

Again, this answer does not exhaust the possible answers to this question. It is just one approach.

doubtingmerle said:

But why did salvation require a dead body? Why cannot he forgive without first demanding a dead body?

I can forgive without demanding a dead body. Why cannot God?

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Another way to approach this question is by looking at the covenantal context of the cross. I understand your confusion because we don't understand the ancient concept of "covenant" in the modern world. And without the covenant the cross is fairly incomprehensible. Let me take a stab at this second approach:

In the ANE there was something called a Suzerain Treaty. This is when a powerful, conquering king would assert his sovereignty over a lesser, vassal king. They would enter into covenant relationship with one another.

A covenant relationship has been defined by some scholars (O Palmer Robertson, namely) as "a bond in blood sovereignly administered". The relationships is a bond between two parties. It is a life or death bond (a relationship that cannot be violated except on pain of death). And the terms of the covenant were set by the greater party.

So the Suzerain would impose terms on the vassal and would promise certain benefits to the vassal. The vassal must obey the Suzerain in XYZ and the Suzerain promised certain protections and provisions to his vassal king in return for allegiance. The two parties would them "cut a covenant" by slaughtering various animals, setting their parts in rows and making an aisle, and the parties would walk together between the animal parts. In this ceremony each party was saying: "If I violate the terms of this covenant then may I become like these slaughtered animals". It was a self-malediction. And in this way the bond was life or death.

The Bible says that our relationship with God is a covenant relationship. He is our Suzerain king and we are his vassal kings who rule over creation under his authority. He promises to provide for our needs by maintaining the cosmos. Our obligation in the covenant is to obey his commands (10 commandments). Our problem is that we have violated the terms of this covenant and now are under the penalty of death.

Jesus Christ has been put forth by God as our covenant mediator and representative. So that we might experience forgiveness and have life, Jesus' body was ripped asunder (as it were) in our place as covenant breakers. Furthermore, Jesus (as our representative) was the perfect covenant keeper. So not only has he taken the curse of the covenant for us, but he has also earned all the covenant blessings for us. For this reason we have the promise of eternal life by virtue of the obedience of Christ.

All this made perfect sense to the ancients who understood what a covenant was. It takes a long time for us modern folks to wrap our minds around this concept.

Tree of Life said:

This is a blind post so maybe you've dealt with a response like this already.

There's a few different legitimate ways to answer this question. I'll start with just one approach.

1. All wrongdoing causes harm.
2. Wrongdoing also causes a breach of relationship and the harm caused creates enmity within the relationship.
3. The only ways for reconciliation to occur are:
   1. If the harm is rectified through the wrongdoer's restitution.
   2. If the harmed party forgives the wrongdoer.

I'll give a concrete example of the above principles. If I steal a TV from you then I harm you to the effect of, say, $500. Knowing that I have harmed you would cause a breach in our relationship and create enmity between us. The only way for me to return to good relationship with you would be for me to restore what I've stolen - let's say $600 for good measure - or for you to forgive my offenses and release me from my obligation to restore.

Please note here that it will cost you at least $500 to forgive me and to reconcile our relationship through forgiveness. An important point to note here is that, while forgiveness is "free" for the offender it is never free for the offended. When forgiveness occurs it's the offended that pays the price.

Now lets turn to our situation with God. In our sin we have harmed God's creation to an effect that is much greater than we can possibly pay back. We cannot restore to God what we owe to him. As a means of reconciling us to himself God offers us forgiveness. But this means that he personally pays for our sins. How does God pay for our sins? The cross of Christ is the answer.

One could go on to ask: "exactly how does Jesus' death on the cross pay for our sins?" This is a good question, but it is another question. For now I'm just trying to answer: "Why can't God simply forgive us? Why is some payment necessary?"

Again, this answer does not exhaust the possible answers to this question. It is just one approach.

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That's not a very good explanation for Christ having to die. Because the analogy for having lost the value of the TV that was stolen is for God to suffer the direct result of our sin when we sin. For example, if I sinned by murdering you, God would mourn the loss of His servant and that would be the loss He suffered, not an additional death on the cross. (Relax, I have no such plans.)

Paul of Eugene OR said:

That's not a very good explanation for Christ having to die. Because the analogy for having lost the value of the TV that was stolen is for God to suffer the direct result of our sin when we sin. For example, if I sinned by murdering you, God would mourn the loss of His servant and that would be the loss He suffered, not an additional death on the cross. (Relax, I have no such plans.)

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God does not suffer loss. But he is an avenger of wrongdoing. If you murder me it is God's creation that suffers harm. And God, being just, will avenge this harm upon you or upon the covenant mediator Jesus Christ (provided that you are in him).

doubtingmerle said:

The same thing could happen in human affairs where one could never pay back what he owes. You could, for instance, carelessly light a rich friend's house on fire by mistake, with a loss of millions of dollars. For the sake of argument, your friend has no insurance. Now how would you restore your relationship with your rich friend? I don't think killing the rich man's son would be on your list of options. That does nothing to make it better. You might try doing what you could, doing all you can to help your friend get back on his feet, even though you could never pay back everything your carelessness cost. If the victim was a true friend, he would honor that.

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You're trying to answer two questions with an analogy designed to only answer one. My analogy answers the question: "Why can't God simply forgive? Why is payment necessary?"

If I were to pickup on your version of my analogy then we must say that there's nothing you can do to make things right with the rich man. The only way for reconciliation to be possible is if the rich man forgives you or if another arises who will pay to restore what you destroyed. Let's say that this rich man's son is your dear friend and he decides, out of pity, to pay your debt to his father out of his own inheritance.

Again, this is an analogy. Stretching it to talk about "killing the rich man's son" would miss the singular point that the analogy is trying to make. Forgiveness always costs the offended party something.

How the death of the son of God could be a payment for our sins is a different question.

doubtingmerle said:

Got it. You gotta wear the right clothes.

So why does God need a dead body and blood, in order for you to get the right clothes?

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Because HE is HOLY
and there is only one way back to THE FATHER

And that is through CHRIST

doubtingmerle said:

OK. But that is the question of this thread: How can the death of the son of God be considered a payment for our sins? If your analogy does not address that, it is not very relevant to this thread.

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It appeared that the thread was asking a prior question regarding why "pure forgiveness" without any sort of payment couldn't be given by God. I've sought to address that.

Jumping straight to this second question would require a covenantal perspective as I sought to lay out in my second post. The death of God's son pays for our sins because we've violated our covenant with God which puts the curse of death over us. Jesus was put forth as our representative in the covenant and his death substitutes for ours.

doubtingmerle said:

Miknik5,

I had asked, "So why does God need a dead body and blood, in order for you to get the right clothes?"

You reply:



So we need the right clothes, and since God is holy, the only way he can give us right clothes is through a dead body and shed blood?

Is not your God ominpotent?

I see no reason to say that holy beings need a dead body before they can give a person "right clothes". Can you explain why not even an omnipotent God can give a person "right clothes" unless there is a dead body?

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Yes HE is sir. Omnipotent

That's why it's a

WEDDING!

Most often (well in truth it should be all the time) a covenant relationship such as this is based solely on

looooooooooove