No, for killing his daughter.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Why Is Jesus As A Sacrifice OK?
- Thread starter Rival
- Start date
But here is the point:
1) Abraham was never actually allowed to kill his son. He was stopped.
2) Prior to any of this, G-d had promised Abraham many descendants through his son, Isaac. This sets the premise that Isaac has to live in order to have children.
So long story short, there was no human sacrifice. Thus Jesus as a sacrifice is still not O.K.
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
I think any worthy god would've valued principled defiance over blind obedience.
You're calling it human sacrifice.
Is there a precedence in the Tanach for a servant of God being killed for the sins of Israel?
For example?
For the record, I point out your religion plaque at this time says 'Noahide'. That can change in future and leave future readers (should there be any) clueless about who is posting what challenge.
Its an interesting challenge. I think Metis makes an interesting observation, but I have another angle.
There is more than one sense that something can be a sacrifice. Hebrews 13:15 alludes to this: "By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name." In what way, one might ask, could praise be a sacrifice; and if that can be a sacrifice then why can not a selfless life of obedience to higher principles be one? The idea of the sacrifice of praise is not from Christianity and appears in Jeremiah 33:11
The takeaway I think is that a selfless life obedience to high principles is a formidable sacrifice of praise. Since that is true and clearly does not break the law or any principle found in Judaism that I know of there is no problem with calling Jesus death a sacrifice, albeit not the same kind of sacrifice as the sacrifice of an animal. He isn't sacrificed in some ritual on an altar, because he makes a sacrifice of a different kind. Its not his death but his entire life right up to the manner of his death.
Why is good Friday called good Friday? It should be called bad Friday good Sunday.
A sacrifice needed to be performed by priests in the Temple according to a prescribed ritual and it was supposed to be as painless as possible. Part of the ritual is what becomes of the sacrificed animal, Buried is not one of the options.
And that crazy a@# prophet in Judges that sacrificed his own daughter.
Funny how God didn't eat the sacrificed animal, but the priests sure got fat on them. Ever wondered why they demanded the best animals?
Just playing devils advocate here. but why did God rescue the boy but let the girl get her throat cut? And did not punish that crazy father as a murderer.
Isaiah 53 comes to mind.
I'm certainly no biblical scholar but I think anyone could see the parallels there.
He was punished.
Isaiah 53 is about the Nation of Israel, not an individual.
I have heard that take on it. Hope that is correct. But a person needs to use their imagination to come to that conclusion.
Agree
I hope not. Humans are way to quirky to be held to that.
According to you. According to Christians, this would be the Messiah.
And granted, not to say your interpretation is wrong, However this is the Christian interpretation and the justification you asked for.
God's law was designed to offset any wrong committed with an equivalent.
Deuteronomy 19:20-21...."And those who remain shall listen and fear, and they shall no longer continue to commit any such evil thing among you. 21You shall not have pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."
Adam paid for his own sin with his own life, but there was no 'equivalent' life to offer for the perfect life he lost for all his children.
Jesus came to pay that debt with an 'equivalent' life. No human on earth as a descendant of Adam was 'perfect', 'sinless'.
Jesus' birth and sacrifice was that of a redeemer, according to Israel's law. Those sold into slavery could be redeemed by someone offering to pay a debt and thus canceling it, freeing the slaves from bondage. Adam's children were in bondage to sin and death through no fault on their part, so God provided the ransom price to free them and get back what Adam had lost for them. It wasn't a human sacrifice just to appease a capricious god...it was the legal means to free those in bondage.
Abraham was not supposed to say "no". It was a command...not a option. The very fact that Abraham unhesitatingly followed through on what we can only imagine was the most difficult decision of his life, showed his implicit trust in his God's ability to prove true to his word. Why could Abraham offer his son in this way? Because he knew that all the promises made concerning the future of mankind had to come through Isaac. He had faith that if God required Isaac's life, then that life had to be restored in order for God's promises to be fulfilled. That is true faith.....absolute trust in his God and in his promises. He believed in God's ability to raise his son back to life.
It was a test however, and one that was passed with flying colors. Isaac was about 25 years old at the time, so his aged father would not have been able to offer him as an unwilling sacrifice. Abraham got to putting the knife to Isaac's throat before God stopped him. The willingness of both father and son to go through with such a painful and difficult thing was pictorial of the Father in heaven offering his willing son. May we all appreciate it from that viewpoint. Abraham is the only man in the Bible described as God's "friend". We now know why.
Judges 11: 30-31.....
"And Jephthah vowed a vow to the Lord, and said, "If You will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand,
31And it will be, whatever comes forth, that shall come forth from the doors of my house towards me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall be to the Lord, and I will offer him up for a burnt-offering."
It was a vow made to God out of gratitude to offer to him something he valued....that is what a sacrifice is. Any person in his household would have been someone he valued. But since human sacrifice (as in putting someone to death to appease an angry god) was not practiced in Israel (though it was in the pagan nations) the "burnt offering" was figurative.
The story continues....
"And Jephthah came to Mizpah, to his house, and behold, his daughter was coming out towards him with timbrels and with dances, and she was an only child, he had from her neither a son nor a daughter.
35And it was, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have made me fall and you have become one of those that trouble me; and I have opened my mouth to the Lord and I cannot go back."
Upon hearing of her father's vow, his daughter was not angry, but appreciated why he had made it.
36And she said to him, "My father, you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to that which has issued from your mouth, since the Lord has done for you vengeance from your enemies, from the children of Ammon."
37And she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me, refrain from me two months, and I shall go, and wail upon the mountains, and I shall cry over my virginity, I and my companions."
38And he said, "go," and he sent her away two months; and she went with her companions, and she cried over her virginity upon the mountains.
39And it was at the end of two months, that she returned to her father, and he did to her his vow which he had vowed; and she had not known any man, and it was a statute in Israel."
What a woman! Jephthah had made a vow that would change his daughter's life forever. Serving in God's Sanctuary as a virgin for the rest of her life, all hopes of marriage and children were now gone, and with it all hope for any future grandchildren for Jephthah.....so she requested a period of time to come to terms with this situation. A vow to God was viewed as a very serious commitment and she honored it, demonstrating her own love for her father and for their God. (Deuteronomy 23:21;23; Psalm 15:4)
The last verse here is proof that Jephthah's daughter was not put to death.
"40From year to year the daughters of Israel went to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in a year."
She was visited by her friends for 4 days every year.
This refers to monetary payments. Not literal tit-for-that.
Jesus, as a human, could not be a sacrifice or a redeemer. He could also not be sacrificed according to other laws because he was blemished and, you know, a human. Only kosher animals and grain could be sacrificed according to Torah Law.
The point is that G-d stopped him. The death part did not happen. Therefore it cannot be a precedent.
What about the time that Abraham argued with G-d about the destruction of Sodom? G-d agreed not to destroy it for the sake of so few righteous people. Or what about the time when Moshe argued with HaShem not to destroy the Israelites? Trust me, G-d can take it.
Some were burnt sacrifices that nobody got to eat. But God liked the aroma. Some sacrifices were eaten by everybody like the Passover Lamb.