What was the Death of Jesus about?

[Hermit Philosopher]

Do what, exactly? And if Man must do, what's the point of Jesus dying ─ indeed, setting out determined to die, and succeeding? According to the gospels, Jesus could be pretty selfish, and was. Think of his hostility (in all four gospels) towards his mother in particular and family in general; or his lethal sulkiness with the unobliging olive tree.

Dear blü 2,

The complexity in Jesus’ relation to particular individuals is due to him attempting to live a human life, free from ego (and therefore also from attachment). I do not see this as “hostility” however, but we appear to read the Gospel very differently.

On that note, there is something that I believe would be useful for you to reflect upon a little,@blü 2:

If you wish to understand Scripture and it is not making sense to you, perhaps an answer lay in how others read it...?

There are ways of reading the Gospel by which the questions you posted in your OP can be answered, but you will not find those answers in the way that you have been reading them so far, because if it were possible, I’m sure you would have done so already.

The true question is therefore: do you wish to find answers to your questions in Scripture, or do you perhaps only really wish to criticise Scripture?


Humbly
Hermit

 

[stvdv]

If I'm clairvoyant and I know the plane is going to crash, I (a) alert the airline and (b) get another plane, don't I?

You are not clairvoyant, so you don't know what you would do, right?
You are not a Jesus, so you don't know what you would do, if you were at the spiritual level of Jesus

Jesus is not the first Saint who just accepts that what has to happen

Alert the airline, you might do so, but maybe not IF you are clairvoyant or clairaudient

Once I knew there was going to happen a malaria outbreak where I was staying
I told nobody (people usually don't believe if I tell them such things anyway)
I heard a voice telling me to leave the place and return to my country
I did this immediately. A few days later malaria outbreak happened
Many Westerners ended up in hospital ... should I've told them?

NO. They would not have believed me, or they would have said
"Sai Baba will take care of us"

So, I don't agree with you "alert the airline"
IF you are clairvoyant THEN you know if they will believe you or not
So, why warn them IF you know they won't believe you anyway

 

[stvdv]

Instead the whole point of the mission was Jesus' death. The cross is his emblem. The story is always about his suffering.

And no one can tell me why it was necessary, given an omnipotent God.

The best I can make of it is that God is not benevolent; that part of [his] billing is at best a typo.

The "story" might not be the correct the story. Sometimes people make up a story
So, to conclude "God is not benevolent" is not proper deduction from such information
You could say "IF the story is true THEN God is not benevolent IMO"

But anyway, I never heard that God has the attribute of benevolent
That is something people tell us here on RF, I never read it in any Indian Scripture
So, I don't believe it. Does not make any sense to me "this omni benevolent"

 

[stvdv]

No, as I said in the OP, he made it plain at the start that it would have only one ending, and that the ending would be the point.

NO. As I said before "allegedly ... He made it plain....". Other people wrote the Bible, NOT Jesus. I remember the whisper game as a child. Within 10 minutes the whole story changed, sometimes 180 degrees. So, I don't believe blind, any verses that were not written by the Master (Jesus) Himself

At best I could say "IF true THEN .....", but that is about it. And because of all this uncertainty, I don't even go there, to try to interpret these verses, as if it truly happened that way. Too many variables that nobody knows for sure. For me, this all comes down to "looking into a crystal ball". I will never know for sure, even if I try for 80 years mentally understanding it. Its a good exercise to keep the brain cells sharp, but answers I won't find

That sounds right to me. It doesn't account for why he didn't leave Jerusalem while he still could, though; that only fits with wanting to die.

That is your interpretation. I interpret it differently

 

[PruePhillip]

So you think anyone can correctly be called President of the United States? Pope? Mayor of Castorbridge?
That is, on the messiah scale his score was zero.
The NT says nothing of the kind. And as I've mentioned, a messiah was a leader, rescuer, liberator of the Jews; Jesus was never any of those things; instead he unlocked the door to two millennia of Christian antisemitism.

Methinks there's been antisemitism long before Jesus. Two main reasons
1 - Jews insist on being different
2 - Jews are more successful

Anointed as in 'anointed by God' - a spiritual anointing
Jesus was the spiritual 'Great High Priest'
the spiritual 'lamb of God'
the spiritual 'king of the Jews'
the spiritual 'temple of the living God'
etc
In fact the New Testament was the spiritualization of the Old Testament.
This is why the Apostolic church had no temple, or altar, or high priest,
or holy days, or sacred symbols, of tablets of stone, or law etc.. These
things are in the Old Testament for symbolic purposes only.

Certainly this was not understood by the nascent Catholic Church.

 

[PruePhillip]

You may be right but it was another miracle that the powerful rich class, Jewish and Roman in His time, couldn't get rid of Him in a relatively short period of time when His message became rather clear to most people around Him. And Jesus needed just 3 years to reveal all spiritual truths that spiritual humans need to know about life. Jesus brought me what I may call Science of Reality... but this is off topic here.

Now, if, by a miracle, someone (including I) is allowed to repeat the crucial natural truths about life and the real world, clearly and openly as Jesus did, the world (actually, all formal/ruling systems in the world, including the Christian ones) won't let him stay alive more than a couple of days.

Please mote that I am not here to convince anyone about anything. I am just glad that Jesus was able to save me from my greatest weakness, ignorance, with which every human baby (including I) is born.
Since I am a mere independent powerless man who just gains his daily bread and of those who depend on him, no one in the world can have a good reason to listen to me to any level. And if it happened I tried to be rich and famous (by selling my soul and taking advantage of my professional knowledge in electronics, in programming and data communications), I would be interested only in gaining more and more money so that my flesh could live almost every pleasant sensation which is pre-programmed in its living cells. But selling my soul (actually, my time and will should be included in the deal) was always out of question no matter how good the offered price is (in the form of money or else!).

Don't get taken up with this 'powerful rich class, Jewish and Roman'
It was the Jewish people in general who were offended by Jesus.
There were a lot of proud poor Jews who despised Jesus. And there
were many wealthy Jews who supported Jesus. Indeed, I suspect a
cross section of the followers of Jesus were better off than a cross
section of Israelites in general.

 

[blü 2]

There were and are differing schools of thought among the Jews about their expected deliver. If you read the basis for for their varying concepts in the scriptures you will see that its not black and white. The kingdom of Jesus is spiritual, had the Jews interpreted it that way then they may have been more open.

Perhaps it's not black and white, but the very clear and central fact is that Christianity, having arisen as a Jewish sect, failed to grow in any significant way among the Jews, and owes its success to Paul and the big sell to pagans.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

What was the death of Jesus about?

Jesus, according to the gospels, sets out, not on a suicide mission (meaning a very dangerous mission), but on a mission to die, a seeking of death, a literal suicide.

In Mark he puts it on the table right near the start:

Mark 2:20 The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.​

and at the end he doesn’t take the midnight special camel train out of Jerusalem to points east, but deliberately avoids every chance to escape:

Mark 14:33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch." 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt."

Matthew 26:18 He said, "Go into the city to a certain one, and say to him, 'The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.'"

Matthew 26:29 “I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

Matthew 26:38 Then he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me." 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

Luke 22:22 For the Son of man goes as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!"

Luke 22:42 "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."​

The tone in John is different, but the determination to die is still foremost:

John 17:4 I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do; 5 and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.

John 17:11 And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

John 17:13 But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.​

I've never understood what's supposed to be going on. I'd be grateful for coherent answers to three

The first question is:
WHY was it necessary for Jesus to die?

What could the death of Jesus achieve that an almighty God could not have achieved without bloodshed, just with one snap of those omnipotent fingers?

The second question is:
WHAT did Jesus’ death actually achieve? What, specifically, was different afterwards, that wasn’t so before?

The third question is:
Since God had made [his] covenant with the Jews, and was the God of the Jewish nation, and the only God, and had never needed an intermediary,
why would God suddenly need an intermediary in the first century CE?

Grateful for illumination.

For myself, I have to say that Jesus's death wasn't about anything at all -- because Jesus did not die. More, Jesus could not die. Oh, yes, he may have suffered some sort of NDE, but you cannot actually sacrifice that which has an ironclad guarantee of being brought back. John 3:16 is thus, in my personal view, rendered void, since God did not "give" his presumed son. When we give something, we do not retain for ourselves the means of ensuring we get it back. That's just a loan.

 

[Colt]

Perhaps it's not black and white, but the very clear and central fact is that Christianity, having arisen as a Jewish sect, failed to grow in any significant way among the Jews, and owes its success to Paul and the big sell to pagans.

That’s true. But the original Gospel of Jesus was for all the world. The Jews rejected their calling to be the torch bearers of that Gospel.

 

[Bree]

Obviously Adam and Eve were not perfect because they did sin. They were human and were subject to temptation however and could have said no. They were going along fine till Satan came on the scene to do His deceiving and trickery. God did not send Satan to do what he did or God would not have condemned Satan for doing it.
There was no regret as God knew what would happen even before He made humans.
God could have made us more robot like I guess, but we would not have been human then.

Q1. But the Bible says that who repents will not die. That conflicts with your statement "penalty of sin is death".
Q2. Yet the question was "why couldn't God do it himself because he is powerful enough". Thus, are you contending that God is powerless to do it?
Q3. No. God in the Tanakh never had intermediaries as in a person like Jesus. He had those who carried his message up and down.

Q1. Plenty of people repent every day, yet they still die. Abraham and David and Joseph were all righteous in Gods eyes, yet they all died.
What are you missing?

Q2. God was the one who was demanding justice. God was the one who proclaimed the judgement on sinners to be death. He told Adam that disobedience would bring forth death. That is perfect justice. For God to overlook that sin and allow adam to live, he would be going back on his own word his own perfect standards. And worse, he would be proved a liar because it was God who said if Adam ate from the tree he would die.
God saw fit to provide a legal way to rectify the problem without playing into Satans hands.

Q3. Are you saying Moses was not a spokesman for God? He didn't speak for God before the isrealites? Thats what i would call an intermediary...someone who delivers the message for anther.

 

[Bree]

OK, so those who have died and will die until this event are actually dead now?

It makes me wonder why God created Satan in the first place. It sounds as if God just wanted the drama to entertain it, or it' doesn't know what it's doing and is trying to fix creation as it goes along, and still not doing a good job of it.

Yes, all who have died are in the grave, they have ceased to exist according to Gods Word the bible.
Psalm 146:4 His spirit* goes out, he returns to the ground;+ On that very day his thoughts perish

Eccl 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might, for there is no work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave,*+ where you are going

Satan was a perfect angle who rebelled. He was not created to be evil. He used his free will and chose to rebel against God. But God will remove him and all who choose to be like him.
And the best part of this story is that God will also bring all the dead back to life and give them another opportunity to learn the truth and live by means of his word and thus true justice will be served and all past wrongs will be made right.

The hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.”—John 5:28, 29.

 

[blü 2]

The Lord Jesus Christ was the only Being ever to walk the Earth who had the ability to die (inherited from His mortal mother) and also complete control of His own life (inherited from His immoral Father).

The "Let this cup pass from me" scenes in the synoptics don't suggest complete control. And God is his maker in the gnosticism of Paul and the author of John, his genetic father in the "virgin birth" of the respective authors of Matthew and Luke, and his adopting father according to the author of Mark.

Therefore - He could die whenever He chose - completely independent from outside sources. He could still be hanging from the cross today had He so chosen.

But that's not how th NT writes it up ─ only the account in John would come close.

The reason that the Lord Jesus Christ had to die in order to fulfill the Plan of God was because He needed to overcome it in a glorious bodily Resurrection.

Why was a "glorious bodily resurrection" necessary at all when you have an omnipotent being in charge of proceedings?

All Mankind became subject to physical and spiritual death when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and were expelled from the Garden.

I'm well aware that this is Christian teaching, but the Garden story in Genesis says nothing of the kind ─ not the tiniest hint.

Both of these deaths became obstacles that needed to be overcome in order for Mankind to return to live with God.

Mankind was living with its gods before and after. Christianity owes a great deal of its success to politics, to Constantine. And Christianity will have fewer followers than Islam in the next couple of decades according to statistical trends. And the Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists and many more will continue as at present.

Spiritual death (i.e. "sin") can be repented of because the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. He literally took upon Himself all the punishments of our sins.

I have no idea what that means. Are you saying that all sins are now forgiven and that Hitler went straight to heaven? Are you saying that all the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on have gone to Christian heaven willy nilly since 30 CE or so? If not, what?

With that - we can eventually be forgiven depending on our faith in Him, obedience to His commands, ability to resist temptation and overcome our sinful desires.

But isn't that exactly how it was in Jewish practice? In which case nothing changed.

Physical death - however- is something that no one could ever overcome. It was an insurmountable obstacle. An endless gulf that could never be traversed.

Ancient cultures are packed with stories of resurrections, both of gods ─ three in the Tanakh (1 Kings 17:17+, 2 Kings 4:32+, 2 Kings 13:21), three (Luke 7:12+, John 11:41-44, Acts 9:36-40 plus Matthew's zombies (Matthew 27:52-53), all apart from Jesus. Dumuzi in Sumer, Osiris in Egypt and Dionusos in Greece were put to death and came back to life. In the bible In Greece, Herakles, son of Zeus, died, was resurrected and became a god. Mortal Asklepios raised Lukourgos, Kapaneos and Tundareos from the dead, and Glaukos, Hippolutos and Orion were resurrected too – as indeed was Asklepios himself. Eurudike (and Scandanavia’s Baldr) nearly made it back. Persephone and Adonis had to spend only half their time in the Underworld.

Therefore - the Lord Jesus Christ "gave up the ghost" - because nothing in the world could have killed Him - and He did this so that He could rise up again in a glorious bodily Resurrection.

That again is John's version. Mark's version ─ the earliest ─ shows Jesus on the cross as a defeated, abandoned figure, asking why God had forsaken him.

One Man caused Death and another overcame Death - in order to bring Mankind back into the presence of God.

Why would that particular procedure be necessary, given God's omnipotence? Why the bloodshed and torment?

God is unwilling to do anything that goes against His nature. He will not do anything unlawful or evil.

This idea is directly challenged by [his] killing [his] own son as a sacrifice to [him]self. I don't know about you, but in my view, human sacrifice is morally vile.

 

[savagewind]

What was the death of Jesus about?

Jesus, according to the gospels, sets out, not on a suicide mission (meaning a very dangerous mission), but on a mission to die, a seeking of death, a literal suicide.

In Mark he puts it on the table right near the start:

Mark 2:20 The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.​

and at the end he doesn’t take the midnight special camel train out of Jerusalem to points east, but deliberately avoids every chance to escape:

Mark 14:33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch." 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt."

Matthew 26:18 He said, "Go into the city to a certain one, and say to him, 'The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.'"

Matthew 26:29 “I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

Matthew 26:38 Then he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me." 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

Luke 22:22 For the Son of man goes as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!"

Luke 22:42 "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."​

The tone in John is different, but the determination to die is still foremost:

John 17:4 I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do; 5 and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.

John 17:11 And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

John 17:13 But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.​

I've never understood what's supposed to be going on. I'd be grateful for coherent answers to three

The first question is:
WHY was it necessary for Jesus to die?

What could the death of Jesus achieve that an almighty God could not have achieved without bloodshed, just with one snap of those omnipotent fingers?

The second question is:
WHAT did Jesus’ death actually achieve? What, specifically, was different afterwards, that wasn’t so before?

The third question is:
Since God had made [his] covenant with the Jews, and was the God of the Jewish nation, and the only God, and had never needed an intermediary,
why would God suddenly need an intermediary in the first century CE?

Grateful for illumination.

Question one: My opinion is that with God there is nothing that is necessary. Jesus was a gift. Gifts are never necessary.

Question two: Jesus is a wake-up call. Do you not believe that we should wake up?

Question three: I think that God does not call him an intermediary. People do. Please know that I may be wrong.

 

[blü 2]

And the answer is: He Didn't

You are never going to accord conservative Christian dogma with modern reasoning and I'm sure you already realize that for yourself.

One starts threads like this hoping (against hope) to gain some understanding; even if it's only to confirm your words above.

 

[firedragon]

Q1. Plenty of people repent every day,

Very good. Thats because the Bible in this case is not speaking of a physical death but a spiritual death. Maybe you had not understood the Bible.

Q2. God was the one who was demanding justice. God was the one who proclaimed the judgement on sinners to be death. He told Adam that disobedience would bring forth death. That is perfect justice. For God to overlook that sin and allow adam to live, he would be going back on his own word his own perfect standards. And worse, he would be proved a liar because it was God who said if Adam ate from the tree he would die.
God saw fit to provide a legal way to rectify the problem without playing into Satans hands.

Q2. Yet the question was "why couldn't God do it himself because he is powerful enough". Thus, are you contending that God is powerless to do it?

Q3. Are you saying Moses was not a spokesman for God?

I didnt say that. Maybe if I cut and paste the sentence again.

Q3. No. God in the Tanakh never had intermediaries as in a person like Jesus. He had those who carried his message up and down.

 

[osgart]

As I understand it God has a nature and a truth. God cannot and will not violate his laws of His justice, nature, and truth. So snapping his fingers and instantly making everything supreme victory for all is out of the question. That would violate his nature, justice, and truth.

God must deal with man's hearts and minds in order to save humanity. That is why Jesus came in human form. God condescended to lowly, blind human kind.

God had to conquer death and hell, and the powers of Satan. Satan attacks God's truth, law, and justice at every point with lies and judgments, and accusations of his own. Satan was God's first creation, created powerful, with perfect wisdom.

The main law against the sinner is without the shedding of blood is no remission of sins. God by his own law requires justice, and that justice is that the wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth it shall die.

God's judgment is that there are none righteous, no, not one. God, by his truth, decided on making a way back to redemption. God chose to love humanity after all had sinned.

To redeem humanity God must satisfy his own judgment upon mankind. So Jesus became a sacrificial substitute to satisfy God's judgment.

Jesus thenceforth made a road back to the Father through his death and resurrection. He had to do it in weakness and not in power. Because the victory is for humanity. It's a rescue. Mankind cannot endure God's power. So the death on the cross satisfies God's law by overcoming the power of death, hell, and Satan.

If Jesus didn't die on the cross for sinners then God would have had to execute justice upon mankind. God won't compromise justice. So God chose a sacrifice of Jesus to fulfill the law with mercy.

So God had to deal with mankind in weakness with mercy. Jesus victory is to God's glory alone. Humanity has no ability to save itself according to God's laws.

That's what I have learned from Christians.

 

[F1fan]

Yes, all who have died are in the grave, they have ceased to exist according to Gods Word the bible.
Psalm 146:4 His spirit* goes out, he returns to the ground;+ On that very day his thoughts perish

Eccl 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might, for there is no work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave,*+ where you are going

Graves? So you're seeing the everlasting life as more than just spirit, but also corpus?

Satan was a perfect angle who rebelled. He was not created to be evil. He used his free will and chose to rebel against God. But God will remove him and all who choose to be like him.

Well not very perfect if it ends up being rebellious, right? Got to question why God designed that angel with a rebellious temperament. God should have just not created an angel that was going to cause problems, dion;t you think?

If this God really wants things a certain way why are things going wrong so often? Adam and Eve broke the rules. Satan rebelled. Sodom and Gomorra. Towel of Babel. At some point the buck stops at God.

And the best part of this story is that God will also bring all the dead back to life and give them another opportunity to learn the truth and live by means of his word and thus true justice will be served and all past wrongs will be made right.

The hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.”—John 5:28, 29.

I find this claim absurd. Why bother letting all these people live and die (some horribly), leave them is graves to decay, only to reverse the death later after some fixes occur in the creation that went wrong. It sounds like an incompetent God at work here. Or Rube Goldberg designed this theology, but still doesn't work.

 

[Fallen Prophet]

The "Let this cup pass from me" scenes in the synoptics don't suggest complete control. And God is his maker in the gnosticism of Paul and the author of John, his genetic father in the "virgin birth" of the respective authors of Matthew and Luke, and his adopting father according to the author of Mark.
But that's not how th NT writes it up ─ only the account in John would come close.
Why was a "glorious bodily resurrection" necessary at all when you have an omnipotent being in charge of proceedings?
I'm well aware that this is Christian teaching, but the Garden story in Genesis says nothing of the kind ─ not the tiniest hint.
Mankind was living with its gods before and after. Christianity owes a great deal of its success to politics, to Constantine. And Christianity will have fewer followers than Islam in the next couple of decades according to statistical trends. And the Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists and many more will continue as at present.
I have no idea what that means. Are you saying that all sins are now forgiven and that Hitler went straight to heaven? Are you saying that all the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on have gone to Christian heaven willy nilly since 30 CE or so? If not, what?
But isn't that exactly how it was in Jewish practice? In which case nothing changed.
Ancient cultures are packed with stories of resurrections, both of gods ─ three in the Tanakh (1 Kings 17:17+, 2 Kings 4:32+, 2 Kings 13:21), three (Luke 7:12+, John 11:41-44, Acts 9:36-40 plus Matthew's zombies (Matthew 27:52-53), all apart from Jesus. Dumuzi in Sumer, Osiris in Egypt and Dionusos in Greece were put to death and came back to life. In the bible In Greece, Herakles, son of Zeus, died, was resurrected and became a god. Mortal Asklepios raised Lukourgos, Kapaneos and Tundareos from the dead, and Glaukos, Hippolutos and Orion were resurrected too – as indeed was Asklepios himself. Eurudike (and Scandanavia’s Baldr) nearly made it back. Persephone and Adonis had to spend only half their time in the Underworld.
That again is John's version. Mark's version ─ the earliest ─ shows Jesus on the cross as a defeated, abandoned figure, asking why God had forsaken him.
Why would that particular procedure be necessary, given God's omnipotence? Why the bloodshed and torment?
This idea is directly challenged by [his] killing [his] own son as a sacrifice to [him]self. I don't know about you, but in my view, human sacrifice is morally vile.

I'm sorry - I thought I was answering your questions - not trying to convince you of anything.

Do you really want me to try and convince you of these things?

 

[blü 2]

Now anyone can have a relationship with God if they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who paid and was able to pay for all peoples sins.

Where does that leave the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Unbelievers, Others? In hell?

why couldn't God do it himself, using scriptures.

Why would an omnipotent being be bound by scriptures?

According to the bible God is spirit (John 4:24). I know of no way to distinguish 'spirit' from 'imaginary'.

So Jesus Christ was the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:13-15)

Adam and Eve sinned ~ Everyone inherited spiritual death - (Genesis 2:17)

I accept that this is a widely held Christian view, but it has zero support from the Garden story in Genesis, which never once mentions sin, original sin, the fall of man, death entering the world, spiritual death, the need for a redeemer or anything like that. Instead it states quite plainly why Adam and Eve were chucked out of the Garden ─ God gives [his] reasons ─ his only reasons ─ at Genesis 3:22-23. As I understand it, the 'sin' view was devised among Alexandrian Jews late in the 2nd century BCE, mentioned once by Paul, and was not an issue till Augustine of Hippo picked it up and ran with it c. 400 CE. (On a personal note, I think teaching children that they're sinners is not just false but revolting.)

Believers are baptized by Jesus Christ (Matthew 3:13-17) - by the spirit because of Jesus Christ and what He had done (paying for all the world sins)
God reconciled the world unto himself through Christ ~ No longer counting peoples sins against them (2 Corinthians 5:19). That would mean that everyone everywhere is already forgiven all their sins, whether they've heard of Jesus or not. Yet I understand that's not the case. If not, why not?

Because if it's not the case then people who've never heard of Jesus are unfairly in hell.

And if it were in God's mind to forgive sin, why make that forgiveness conditional? We're not making access to Covid vaccine conditional are we?

 

[blü 2]

To succumb to all things humans suffered from and to overcome them in resurrection so we could too.

And how would crucifying someone accomplish that?

Indeed, why would crucifying someone be the only way to accomplish that?