I appreciate your honesty. What is your understanding of Jesus Christ as the atonement and sacrifice for the sins committed by every human being--sins a Holy, Righteous, Just, and Merciful GOD is going to hold to account?
First, no--I know He did not torture and slaughter a sinless man so that I could be forgiven. Torture and slaughter was implemented by the religious leaders of Jesus day. Second, GOD Himself out of His great love for us, came to this earth in the form of a man--Jesus Christ--and sacrificed His life on my behalf; on behalf of the whole world.
Yes, I agree with you. GOD has the power to do anything He wants. No, He does not need someone else to die for me so that I can be forgiven. Out of love for me, HE is the one who died for me, paying the penalty of my sin, and giving Himself the right to forgive me. He was Merciful and Just at the same time.
Please understand, if the Creator of all things resorted to killing one of His creations in order to forgive sins, He would be the most evil of all. He did not kill any of His creation. He gave up His rights in Heaven, came to this earth, dwelt among people, and allowed people to kill Him through them crucifying Him on the cross. He rose from the dead, gaining power and authority to forgive His creation who sinned against Him. He showed His justice and mercy together. I do not have to work hard to get to heaven--I cannot, as hard as a try, match GOD's standard. I simply accept His love for me, expressed through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave.
. There are a number of issues we could discuss with respect to atonement.
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. What GOD did NOT do was the torturing and slaughtering. People--Pharisees, Sadducees, and Roman authorities in Jesus day did the torturing and slaughtering. GOD allowed this to happen.
Yes, you are very right. Jesus did not want to go through the torture and the slaughter that was coming. However, like you pointed out, He gave up His rights to Himself and prayed to His Father, "Yet not my will, but Yours be done" (Matthew 26:39). After His arrest a few verses later, in Matthew 26:53, Jesus says, "Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and He at once will put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?" In other words, Jesus was saying that if He wanted to, He could call on His Father to destroy those getting ready to crucify Him, and His Father would meet His request. I say this to point out that Jesus had as much authority as His Father. Why? Because Jesus was not just another man. Jesus was GOD in the flesh. Please know that I say that with respect for you as a Muslim.
If you want, we can start another thread concerning the Trinity. For now, let me say that born-again believers do not believe in three gods. We do not believe that Jesus is the Son of GOD in terms of the human definition of a child. We believe in one GOD who came to this earth in the form of the man Jesus Christ to pay the penalty of our sin.
Allow me to try and explain this again. GOD did not send an innocent person to his death. Someone who does that is a cruel murderer. GOD Himself came to this earth and paid the penalty for our transgressions against Him. It's like a judge who hands down a sentence to a criminal. The judge then steps down from his judgement seat and takes the criminal's sentence and serve the sentence he gave to the criminal, on behalf of that criminal. The judge did not take the sentence away from the criminla and give it to someone else. The judge took the sentence he served and paid the price. This is love beyond our comprehension.
If I may, allow me to quote a passage of Scripture written by the Apostle Paul. I know that Muslims have no respect for him. In his letter to the Philippian church, Paul makes a statement of truth about GOD. Please allow me to quote him: "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature GOD, did not consider equality with GOD something to be held on to, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant and being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death--even death on a cross! Therefore, GOD exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of GOD the Father."
I'm not sure what you understand about the Trinity. Please know, that the Trinity has nothing to do we three god's. Consider this example. The sun is a trinity. It is the sun, which does not cease to exist. The sun is also heat for the earth. The sun is also light for the earth. Neither the sun, heat or light exist apart from one another. While light and heat serve different purposes, they are an intimate part of the sun. Light does not come from some other son and heat from still another sun. All three of these are together; they are one. To the Christian, GOD is GOD. He is also light to the world through Jesus Christ. He is also warmth to the world through the Holy Spirit. They are all one in three; three in one. For right now, consider this verse of Scripture from the gospel of John 1:1-2, 14, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with GOD and the Word was GOD. He was with God in the beginning...The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us."
In the same way that the sun is not always seen, but continues to exist, GOD always exists, even though His light, to the world, Jesus Christ went through a time when he was not seen--he died on the cross. But as the light returns and the sun is once again seen, so Jesus rose from the dead. Even when light may not be seen, the sun coninues to provide what the earth needs to exist.
I understand that you have no respect for Paul, but for now, please allow me to quote from his letter to the Philippian church, chapter 2:5-11, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature GOD, did not consider equality with GOD something to hold on to, but made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross! Therefore, GOD exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of GOD the Father. We do not consider Jesus to be some god. To us, Jesus Christ was GOD in the flesh with a very definite purpose of redeeming man back to Himself.
I'm not sure I can answer this question. I do know that Jesus was on the earth amidst people. We know of leaders today, for eg., who may commit crimes but it may take several years before the country can hold them to account or bring them before some kind of judicial system. In the eyes of these early leaders, Jesus was commiting the crime of blasphemy. In the eyes of the people under the leaders, Jesus was committing no crime. If these leaders immediately took Jesus into custody, they would take on a battle with their community they would not be able to fight. With time, the leadership of Jesus day was slowly able to bring Jesus into custody, have him condemned and sentenced to death and then very quickly carry out that death sentence of crucifixion.
The best way to understand this is in light of what I have explained to be the Trinity. While Jesus was fully GOD, He was also fully human. He went through the pain and suffering of crucifixion on our behalf. He took the sin of the world upon Himself. GOD had to forsake Him. GOD could not sit there in the presence of evil. This was the most heart wrenching moment in History. In His pure and untainted innocence, the Creator of this world took upon Himself the penalty of the world's transgression. He had to be forsaken. Would you be willing to be forsaken by your family for the benefit of your worst enemy? This is what GOD did for us.
In GOD's eyes, there are no big sins or small sins; no good sins and no bad sins. GOD sees the sinful human nature that exists in all of us. Excuse this crude example, but just like you get blackheads and pimples of different shapes, sizes, and colors, they are come from an infected pore in the skin. We are all infected pores that manifest themselves in different ways. What does sacrifice accomplish? Sacrifice accomplishes the penalty. The penalty of our human nature as sinful people is hell. We all know that. If a sacrifice could be offered to ATONE for our payment, then one could be made. GOD sacrificed Himself (the death of Jesus Christ) on the cross to ATONE for our punishment. We can humble accept the gift of His atoning sacrifice or we can reject it. The choice is up to us.
Suppose you are caught speeding and are given a pricy fine. You do not want to pay it so you go before the judge. The judge can smile at you and tell you he loves you and he's not mad at you, but does that mean you will not have to pay the fine? You broke the law; you pay the fine. The payment--the fine of our sinful human nature is hell. The wonderful thing about GOD is His love for us. As the judge of humanity, He handed the "hell sentence" for our crime. Then he got up, came down and took the sentence from us and invoked our sentence on Himself. If you were a judge, would you hand a crimminal a death sentence that he deserved and then step down and serve that sentence on behalf of the crimminal. GOD served justice and therefore earned the right to forgive. Justice and mercy came to fruition.
Astagfurillah.
You will notice I never mentioned the trinity anywhere in the quote. I would have prefered to keep this debate centered on atonement itself as opposed to the trinity which deserves an entire thread on its own. With regard to the Trinity, I am more than familiar with the concept and the varying Christian explanations of it, having engaged in numerous debates over the subject with Christians.
The problem with this explanation is that light and heat can be considered attributes or actions of the sun, but they themselves are not the sun. Light and Heat are both forms of energy given off by the sun as they are given off by other bodies. On the other hand, Christians assert that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct entities and that the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. Yet, all together, they claim that there is still only One God.
The problem I have with using this as evidence is that what are we to make of similar passages in the Bible where others are referred to as God?
But you told me that God died for your sins. You didn't tell me that God hid or concealed or camouflaged Himself behind some clouds. When the sun passes out of our vision, that does not mean that the sun is dead, it just means that we can't see it. And when the sun is concealed it does not mean that it stops shining, it's just that we can't see it. But on the other hand, Christians say that God died (i.e. ceased to exist, became extinct) for their sins.
I don't mind that you quote Paul, but it still doesn't answer my question. You believe God is immortal yet you say He died.
But if the purpose of Jesus's coming was to die as God for the sins of man, then why didn't he materialise in front of the people and say something like, "Hello all. I am God. I have come to die for your sins so that I can forgive you. Please kill me." Why did he waste so much time beating around the bush?
Does that make any more sense than saying that earth is fully round and fully flat at the same time? If He was God, then He wasn't human, because by definition God is not human. And if he was fully human then he wasn't God, for the same reason. God is omnipotent, eternal, omniscient and a human is none of these things. How then are we supposed to understand Jesus? How is it conceivable that the same entitle can be fully God and fully human at the same time?
So God asked Himself why He had forsaken Himself? Reminds me of how God sent God to the Mother of God to allow her to give birth to God.
I understand that, but you said that God did this in order to gain the authority to forgive our sins. So now, which sins are forgiven? If it is every kind of sin, as you seem to suggest, then does that mean we can do whatever we want in the world?
Bro Ansar and peace POBook: Nothing is comparable to God. But, if you put away blind faith, and look at things with a complete open mind and logic, I am confident you will see that the idea of Atonement and trinity is totally fabricated by Paul and never taught by Jesus, pbuh, or God.
Good job PObook.
Good luck
Peace PrIM3:
If there is something you would like to add, please feel free
Hana
Peace PrIM3:
errrmmmm....the wages (payment) of sin is death and when christ died on the cross, the law was corrupted?
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for the example of this...
a machine right?
the machine can only take paper ( sinners ) but then someone put a coin in this machine which then the machine totally started going crazy ( then it broke )..
No need to dig big holes to bury sin when you just claim them and sincerely seek forgiveness. What is the purpose in allowing another man to carry sin? Jesus, pbuh, said you couldn't do that anyway.
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so your saying once you seek forgiveness your sins will never agian be brought up agian?
well that is what God did... God wrote a letter said this is what I want.. then He stamped it with approval ( which is Jesus Christ )..
PrIM3: Please explain WHY God would need to kill an innocent man....using logic, not analogy. We can create analogies for everything in life and eventually someon will just blindly accept it....but that doesn't make it truth. When answering, please keep in mind that God said He was not the author of confusion, so this should not be a difficult task.
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Jesus bears the penalty of sin in place of His people. He also redeems us from lawlessness and makes us long for good works in service to God and others...
The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
it is all because the LORD God Almighty loves us that He would do such a thing.
Don't get wrapped up in all this other stuff....just speak, plain and clear.....as it should be. Not everything needs an analogy.