Posted on 01/26/2015 7:58:42 AM PST by SeekAndFind
There's his first problem right there. Reading this, I know that there is no reason why I should grant this guy any credibility whatsoever.
Stephen Quayle is more helpful
Read the book of Hebrews, and you’ll see that Christianity’s only human sacrifice, Jesus Christ, is better.
RE: Stephen Quayle is more helpful
What specific work of his do you recommend?
RE: Read the book of Hebrews, and youll see that Christianitys only human sacrifice, Jesus Christ, is better.
That was God doing a SELF-SACRIFICE.
> RE: Read the book of Hebrews, and youll see that Christianitys only human sacrifice, Jesus Christ, is better.
>
> That was God doing a SELF-SACRIFICE.
In the person of Jesus Christ, who was/is a human, and therefore qualifies as “human sacrifice”.
some thoughts:
1) God’s response after stopping Abraham was, “Now I know that you fear me.” That would appear to be the purpose of the story, not the idea of human sacrifice that we think it is about. Fear of God is something we do not understand today.
2) I pray I am never put to that test but if so, I get the grace to what is right.
3) The story illustrates what God Him self did and completed for us.
4) Remember the procedure was to cut the throat and let the sacrifice bleed to death, a particularly gruesome process to teach us to respect life, and again illustrates the cross.
The point that gd was trying to make with Abraham was that He does not want human sacrifice. That He wouldn’t do that. That, if someone asks this of you, they are misleading you.
Abraham’s obedience was a good thing, but the larger point was that human sacrifice is not a part of gd’s thing.
“Having considered them within the broader context of Ayn Rands Objectivist philosophy for several years, I have come to question the manner in which Christian teachers...”
This is comedy not theology
He is talking about all types of sacrifice....your own personal interests, wishes, needs, desires, etc.
Another book in a similar vein: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Passages-Bible-Engaging-Scripture/dp/0813221560
This is a good but complex question.
First, we know that God is Good in His Essence.
Second, God is categorically different from us. IOW, God is not a larger version of man. While we have no right to take innocent human life, God does have that right, since He is the Author of life.
Thirdly, in the Old Testament, God acted in different ways, such as the Author of eternal Divine Law (the Ten Commandments) but also as the Author of temporal, pastoral laws that would pass away (dietary laws, etc.)
Finally, there is the issue of private revelation. How do I know if God is really issuing a private command to me? How do I know whether I’m delusional? For Catholics, this question is simplified, since a private revelation cannot contradict Church Teaching.
The question is worthy of a book-length response.
This is a fairly twisted example.
Abraham had previously received a promise from God that through his seed would come a people innumerable as the stars in the sky. And He had received the promise that Isaac was that seed.
So, Abraham did not know how God was going to do it, when he received the command to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac - but he knew that God cannot lie (The only thing that God cannot do).
Hebrews 11
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called:
19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.
So sure, there had to be apprehension, and uncertainty, but he knew God cannot lie, and that therefore he should expect some miraculous deliverance. This was hinted at on his walk up that mountain with his son Isaac:
Genesis 22
7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
And not only was there the deliverance that he fully expected, this was a telescopic view of 2000 years in the future when God would indeed provide Himself a lamb - His only Begotten Son - for a burnt offering, on that very same Mount Moriah.
The answer is the only sacrifice that God required was His own Son. The story of Abraham and Isaac just prefigured that great sacrifice, God never intended Isaac to be sacrificed.
Objectivism is simply another form of atheism.
Judging God by human standards...
so...
“you will know good and evil” of the author.
Semantic tripe.
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