Unification
Well-Known Member
Very true, however it is true that there is the text that was attributed to that name.
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It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...
- Thread starter Mycroft
- Start date
psychoslice
Veteran Member
And it wasn't even three days.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
Ancient Greeks counted inclusively, so Friday was day one.
InChrist
Free4ever
Since my perspective is that God created human beings, then I believe they are very important to Him, yet the scriptures emphasis that the spiritual is more important than the flesh because the flesh is temporal, while the spirit is eternal.
As terrible as the physical suffering of Jesus was on the cross, this was minor compared to the infinite suffering He endured (and His Father endured) in separation as Jesus bore the sins of the world....Jesus' Death: Six Hours of Eternity on the Cross
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Yes I know, but the fact is he wasn't there for three days, at least literally.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
Penal substitutionary atonement? It's a truly awful theory, even by the standards of atonement theories, which is already saying something.
And what does the "spiritual" mean in this context—i.e. what does Paul mean when he says the πνεῦμα is unborn and undying?
Vishvavajra
Active Member
Not the way we reckon it in English, no.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
What on earth are you saying ?.
I will simply paste from my thread here:
Atonement theories. | ReligiousForums.com
"Personally, when I evaluate an Atonement theory, I look for two things:
First, that it factors in the whole of Christ's life in His saving work and doesn't obsess over the crucifixion to the point where everything else is glossed over or placed in the backdrop. After all, Christianity has always understood Easter to be the centerpiece of the liturgical calender, not Good Friday. Unfortunately, Western Christianity makes it a habit of focusing on the crucifixion to the point of nearly ignoring the Resurrection. This is not good. Our Eastern brothers and sisters don't do this and we would do much good to be like them in this matter. Eastern Christianity is much more optimistic and hopeful than Western Christianity tends to be and that is how it was in the early Church. I think it's past time to return to our ancient roots on this matter.
Second, the theory can't imagine God to be like some bloodthirsty, wrathful pagan god. That is obscene and offensive and an affront to the New Testament God of mercy and compassion, the God Who loves us so much that He would die to show us the depths of His love.
So, that in mind, the Satisfaction theories and the Penal Substitution theories are out the window. Both take a legalistic view of God as demanding a blood sacrifice of His Son. Both pretty much ignore the Resurrection and the teachings of Christ's life. Both make salvation into just being a legal transaction or even a financial transaction. So those two theories should be dismissed out of hand. All the criticism about it making it seem like God is demanding a human sacrifice is true. Even Benedict XVI made the same criticism of the Satisfaction theory.
To be honest, I don't recall ever being taught Anselm's Satisfaction theory or the Penal Substitution theory. (I never would've been taught the Penal theory as that is a Calvinist invention that is rejected by the Church.) How I always understood it is that Christ's sacrifice was one of limitless love to the Father, Who found this more pleasing than the imperfect animal sacrifices given. He did not have the sins of humanity laid upon Him, but rather became one with our sinful nature in a mysterious way while remaining sinless Himself. This ties into Christ being the New Adam Who succeeded where Adam failed (Mary is the New Eve who succeeded where Eve failed.) So already, my position is closer to the Recapitulation theory. There's nothing about a legalistic idea of God's wrath (such as in the Penal theory) or God's honor being offended (Satisfaction theory). 3 days after that, He triumphed over death, thus destroying the power of evil in the world. In this too, He reveals Himself as the New Adam Who makes humanity anew. So there's elements of the Christus Victor theory in my belief. As for Moral Influence, His life is one of perfect moral example to us that causes inner change when we meditate upon it and follow Christ."
Atonement theories. | ReligiousForums.com
"Personally, when I evaluate an Atonement theory, I look for two things:
First, that it factors in the whole of Christ's life in His saving work and doesn't obsess over the crucifixion to the point where everything else is glossed over or placed in the backdrop. After all, Christianity has always understood Easter to be the centerpiece of the liturgical calender, not Good Friday. Unfortunately, Western Christianity makes it a habit of focusing on the crucifixion to the point of nearly ignoring the Resurrection. This is not good. Our Eastern brothers and sisters don't do this and we would do much good to be like them in this matter. Eastern Christianity is much more optimistic and hopeful than Western Christianity tends to be and that is how it was in the early Church. I think it's past time to return to our ancient roots on this matter.
Second, the theory can't imagine God to be like some bloodthirsty, wrathful pagan god. That is obscene and offensive and an affront to the New Testament God of mercy and compassion, the God Who loves us so much that He would die to show us the depths of His love.
So, that in mind, the Satisfaction theories and the Penal Substitution theories are out the window. Both take a legalistic view of God as demanding a blood sacrifice of His Son. Both pretty much ignore the Resurrection and the teachings of Christ's life. Both make salvation into just being a legal transaction or even a financial transaction. So those two theories should be dismissed out of hand. All the criticism about it making it seem like God is demanding a human sacrifice is true. Even Benedict XVI made the same criticism of the Satisfaction theory.
To be honest, I don't recall ever being taught Anselm's Satisfaction theory or the Penal Substitution theory. (I never would've been taught the Penal theory as that is a Calvinist invention that is rejected by the Church.) How I always understood it is that Christ's sacrifice was one of limitless love to the Father, Who found this more pleasing than the imperfect animal sacrifices given. He did not have the sins of humanity laid upon Him, but rather became one with our sinful nature in a mysterious way while remaining sinless Himself. This ties into Christ being the New Adam Who succeeded where Adam failed (Mary is the New Eve who succeeded where Eve failed.) So already, my position is closer to the Recapitulation theory. There's nothing about a legalistic idea of God's wrath (such as in the Penal theory) or God's honor being offended (Satisfaction theory). 3 days after that, He triumphed over death, thus destroying the power of evil in the world. In this too, He reveals Himself as the New Adam Who makes humanity anew. So there's elements of the Christus Victor theory in my belief. As for Moral Influence, His life is one of perfect moral example to us that causes inner change when we meditate upon it and follow Christ."
InChrist
Free4ever
It's not "awful" if that is the way the Creator determined in His wisdom was the best way to accomplish justice and mercy. It mat seem awful from a limited human perspective, yet I believe God's perspective encompasses the whole picture over the finite human view. What verse are you referring to when you ask what Paul means?
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
Yes, Christendom.
There is no logical connection in any of it. People are so busy gorging themselves on chocolate and hot cross buns that they have no idea what it's all about.
I didn't even have a chocolate egg on Easter, no hot cross buns here! /Sounds good though/.
And here is the setup for a misunderstanding about the sacrifice of Jesus..
Nope. Because if this were the case, there would be no need to follow Jesus, or repent, so forth. In fact, it would make the entire Xian paradigm basically pointless, because it atones for all sin.
Time is our enemy here on earth. When we understand that the Creator and those who inhabit the spirit realm are timeless beings, not bound by earth's time limitations, we can begin to comprehend that because the first rebel was not human, that the issue is a universal one, fought on universal ground in universal time.
We are not the primary objects of this issue. The first rebel was a powerful spirit being who challenged God for sovereign rule over the earth and mankind. He claimed that God was not the right one to tell us how to live...that he would be the better choice as god and ruler. In order to settle the issue once and for all, God allowed the devil a free hand to prove himself as a god and also as a ruler over mankind, promoting independent thinking and self determination. We are living in the end result of the devil's rulership. Can we not see his stamp on everything? Can we not see the evil in the earth growing steadily as time goes on. Are we not appalled that the heinous acts of inhumanity are demonstrating evil on a scale that should not exist in this age of knowledge and civilisation?
At the end of this time period, all living beings who are endowed with free will, will have made their choices about who they accept as their god and who they will accept as ruler over them.
If you know what's going on, you can see clearly that now the world is in the same state now as it was in the days of Noah. Jesus said that just as people refused to listen to Noah's warning back then, they would do so again before he comes to end the devil's rulership once and for all. (Matt 24:36-39; Dan 2:44)
What is accomplished by God's permission of satan's rulership?
Humans get to see firsthand what happens to the world when they reject God's laws and refuse to surrender their own will to his. The abuse of free will is what got us into this mess. Doing things "our" way has never worked. We have tried every conceivable form of self rule, but none of them work for the benefit of all......why? Because power corrupts, every time. We are not designed to rule ourselves.....we are designed to be ruled by God. (Jer 10:23)
All intelligent creatures are given opportunity to make choices about whom they will obey and whom they will serve as sovereign over them....both in heaven and on earth. The outcomes for both positions is clearly stated so no one can cry foul. We are given the choice....obey God and live...disobey God and lose your life.
Legal precedents are created by allowing things to come to their natural conclusion. No one can accuse God of not allowing humans and angels enough time to see the folly of trying to do things their way. This will mean that no intelligent being will ever be able to rebel against the rightness of God's proven rulership, ever again. Precedents create the basis for all future judgment. No rebel will ever disturb the peace of others again.
Free will is retained as the wonderful gift it was meant to be, rather than the curse it became when humans and angels abused it....and God can get on with his purpose for the rest of forever unhindered.
JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
Yes, Christendom.....not to be confused with Christianity.
Did you celebrate Easter? Regardless of whether you celebrated with eggs or rabbits, the very celebration itself under that name is not Christian, and never was. Easter is supposedly the celebration of the resurrection, (but was originally a pagan fertility festival dedicated to a pagan goddess of Spring) but Jesus commanded us to memorialise only his death. It was a simple and solemn commemoration, not an elaborate four day choc fest.
The Easter sunrise service is a direct steal from Roman sun worship. It has nothing to do with the death of Christ.
Lent is another thing added to this time of year....what has Lent got to do with Jesus death?
Please enlighten us about the sacrifice of Jesus and what it means......
Sorry but this is a misunderstanding of Jesus' sacrifice. What do you believe that Jesus sacrifice accomplishes?
Jesus' death atones for Adam's sin, thereby releasing his children from condemnation because of inherited sin and death. (Rom 5:12) That does not cover wilful and deliberate sins committed by us. Jesus did not die to cover that kind of sin. Yet because of inherited imperfection we often make mistakes in judgment, but we can repent and alter our course. This is what Jesus death covers...and offers us forgiveness of our sins.
Regarding your second paragraph, not all Christians celebrate Easter in the manner you suggest. For example, my mother and her sisters and brothers all celebrate with solemnity and the days have absolutely nothing to do with chocolate, eggs, rabbits or the like. There are some who take the holiday, (they don't see it that way but it is considered thus)' very seriously. Just my two cents.
Mycroft
Ministry of Serendipity
Maybe as rubble. The Assyrians destroyed it in 720BC. And there has been a distinct lack of archeological evidence since.
Interesting. What is your source? I have read at least one source that stated that Nazareth did not exist until the 2nd century CE. (Price, 2008). Now admittedly, he is biased which I have mentioned before. Other authors (Geisler, 2006) argue for it but base that solely on the Bible, again biased. What is your source?
Vishvavajra
Active Member
The way people count like that is a function of the language, not an objective fact that exists outside language. In English people typically count days starting at the moment a thing begins, then counting all 24-hour periods until the moment a thing ends, even if it's in the late afternoon on both sides. In many languages, ancient and modern, that's not how counting works.
It's a question of whether a "day" is a movable unit of time or a fixed one. English-speakers are accustomed to talking of "days" that can begin at 4pm and end at 4pm the next day, if the context calls for it. In ancient Greek, that would be two days, since it includes a portion of two different calendar days. Those are both just practical conventions; neither is objectively correct.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
You know good and well that there is not a shred of evidence for this. The stuff about Easter being a goddess is flimsy but possible, as at least there is a kind of source for it, however sketchy. There is no way to support the assertion that Protestant churches reached across the millennia in their time machines to copy a hypothetical pre-Christian Roman ritual for which there is zero attestation. You're just making this stuff up and claiming it as fact—or parroting someone else who did the same.
Sunrise service is a Protestant evolution of the Easter Vigil in traditional Christianity. As with pretty much everything Easter-related, it can all be explained as a natural outgrowth of the tradition, without having to appeal to hypothetical pre-Christian practices for which we have no evidence. But when people get it into their heads that Easter is bad, they have a habit of seeing what they want to see, evidence be damned.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
I'll refer you to St. Frankenstein's post first. Then I'll point out that Penal Substitution has only been around for about 400 years and ask you if you think Christians for the first 1600 years had just got it all wrong. Thirdly, I'll assert that murdering someone, or arranging their murder, is incompatible with wisdom, justice, or mercy. And you don't get to cop-out with the "limited human perspective" business, since those are human words, developed by and for humans, that have no meaning outside of human experience. There's no exalted perspective from which things like murder, rape, or genocide are wise and compassionate acts. That kind of absolute relativism makes a mockery of the very concept of morality.
Then you have the problem of circular reasoning. If God is good, but only in a way that God understands (and contrary to our concept of good), then it's a meaningless assertion that robs "good" of any coherence. You can have an ineffable God or a good one, not both. And then there's still the problem that Penal Substitution is based on a concept of God that is no different from what you see in Greco-Roman paganism, for example. If Christianity is really just the same thing with a new coat of paint, then what's the point? Lastly, it turns salvation into a protection racket: if the one who's doing the saving is the same as the one responsible for the horribleness that you're being saved from, then he's not actually doing you a favor.
Basically, Penal Substitution entails a concept of God that is fundamentally depraved and impossible to admire, much less worship, and that displays considerably less moral development than most people I know. It only makes sense in light of the Calvinist doctrine of Total Depravity, which makes humans out to be even worse, to the point where any treatment of them is justified, no matter how horrendous. Without that misanthropic doctrine, the whole edifice comes crashing down.
As for the Paul stuff, it's really all over the place, but his discussion of the resurrection in the first Corinthian epistle is a good starting point. But my question was what you meant by the word, although you could take it as rhetorical if you wished.
outhouse
Atheistically
Sepphoris was also leveled in the beginning of the first century. Yet 20000 people moved in.
You may not know this but that usually brings with it satellite villages to help feed the people in the city.
Evidence does exist from the first century, you just don't know it.
Mycroft
Ministry of Serendipity
However, lack of archaeological evidence for Nazareth from Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic or Early Roman times, at least in the major excavations between 1955 and 1990, shows that the settlement apparently came to an abrupt end about 720 BC, when the Assyrians destroyed many towns in the area.
Nazareth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia