Posted on 09/15/2003 10:38:48 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
– John 3:16
Most of the criticism over Mel Gibson's "The Passion" is based on concern over who is portrayed as killing Jesus in what is certainly the most controversial movie ever prior to release.
Some have expressed the worry that the film might blame the Jews, inciting pogroms and anti-Semitism as some passion plays of the past have.
Some of those fortunate enough to have seen the movie in early screenings have defended it by suggesting Gibson's masterpiece blames the Romans, rather than the Jews.
This is a knee-jerk response from well-meaning Christians who don't mind pointing the finger at a group of people who, for all intents and purposes, are extinct, shifting any responsibility from a group of people who are alive.
The church has been doing this for year. But this blame game is completely misguided.
Yes, it's true that crucifixion was a distinctly Roman form of punishment. Yes, it's true that Pontius Pilate has a special, personal kind of responsibility for the decision. But it is a mistake to shift responsibility away from anyone – including Jews.
There's no question that Jesus' death on the cross was an unimaginably horrible experience. If anyone doubts the suffering Jesus went through, "The Passion" will set you straight – and then some.
But the finger-pointing is strange, indeed. It's not Christian to shift blame to the Romans any more than it would be to shift it to the Jews. Followers of Jesus believe we are all responsible – all human beings, alive, dead or yet to be born – for crucifying Jesus.
That may sound weird to non-believers, but it is an absolutely essential tenet of our faith.
Even weirder is this: We celebrate Christ's agony on the cross. It's a good thing. He did it for us – all of us. He bore our sins and they were nailed to that tree the day He died. We don't blame anyone but ourselves. To do so would miss out on the grace He offered with His shed blood.
Do all people who call themselves Christian understand this? Of course not. Not all people who call themselves Christian are believers – not even saved by His sacrifice.
As Jesus Himself said in Matthew 7:21-23 (KJV):
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Many people – mostly non-believers – mistakenly believe the death of Jesus on the cross was only a tragedy. They miss the point that it was the greatest thing that ever happened in the world. They think, perhaps, that if He had lived beyond his 33 years, He might have gone on to do great things.
In fact, His death on the cross was the greatest thing He could have done for humanity. It was the greatest gift. And His influence on the world could not be greater than it is today as a result of His death and resurrection.
To be a Christian, by definition, you have to accept that Jesus died for your sins. You have to accept that He shed His blood willingly for you.
The truth is that Jesus died as the result of a heavenly plan. He died with the approval of God. His death not only allowed for an escape from all sin – but all blame and guilt, as well.
Beginning with the words, "The atonement that we are considering is...", I was quoting Ernest C. Reisinger from an article he wrote in The Founders Journal a while back.
My bad that, in my haste to copy and paste that excerpt from his article into my post I neglected to copy the credits at the end of it.
"When Jesus said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?", he was acknowledging God's protective hand being withdrawn so that Jesus sacrifice could be exacted by Satan, at Satan's hand or proxy."
With those words, he was quoting Psalm 22:1-2
When you read the context for the quotation, you will see that the sense of it is, "Why have you left me for so long?"
Jesus is fully God and fully man. God the Son, didn't give up his Godhood (as the second person of the trinity) when he became man.
I don't want to argue this point, but I would like you to consider these comments. If Jesus could come here as part of the Holy Trinity, then He would not have had to have been born here. He could have simply shown up lived and been crucified. It was precisely because Jesus was born as a man, and was nothing more than a man who lived a perfect life here that made his sacrifice viable. For instance, if it were not capable of Jesus to sin, what would the significance of Him not sinning be? If he were an active member of the Trinity here, what would the value of His not sinning be? In the New Testament Jesus admonishes the diciples that He had no powers available to Him that were not available to them.
Adam, the man, sinned. Jesus, the man, didn't sin. These were two men. While the significance of Jesus birth to a human mother is undeniably special, I do not believe it was indicative of a member of the Holy Trinity living within her. She was carrying a man child.
I do believe that Jesus returned to heaven and took up his position as the Son of God again after His resurection. I am still convinced that it is His humanity as much as anything that makes His intercession on our behalf that much more significant at this time.
I believe that Jesus gave up His heavenly form to be born of a woman from a race that had been affected by thousands of year of sin. Adam was created in God's image. It is clear that his being was vastly superior to the being of the lowly Mary (no offense intended), the common wife of a carpenter in a backwards civilization some 2000 years ago. Jesus was not born with superior intellect, a superior body or a superior connection to God.
Remember, Satan's big claim in heaven was that God demanded too much. He claimed beings could not live up to what He required. It was not possible. Adam buttressed that claim. It was Jesus living as a man and not sinning that put an end to that claim. Jesus had to do that as a man.
Jesus knew he would have to consciously bear the wrath of an infinite God for our sins - to suffer and die --- but in his *human consciousness*, he probably did not know how long this suffering would take. When would it end? Hour after hour it went on. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Why must this suffering go on so long? Oh, God, my God, will you ever bring it to an end? (Echoing the cry of desolation of the Psalmist in Psalm 22).
I am not convinced this statement is accurate. Our God is not a God of hate, wrath or animosity. I know that the writers of the scriptures refered to Him this way, but I also believe they were only writing in terms that they could understand. (Satan was God's enemy. Surely he must have the same emotions against his enemy that humans have against theirs.) I believe that when God withdraws His presence from Satan fully, and destroys him in a lake of fire, it will be with a deep sense of sadness, knowing what His hopes had been for a being He created in as beautiful a form as the original Lucifer. When it is fully revealed to us how magnficent Lucifer origionally was, I believe the evil effects of sin will fade in the sorrow that we will feel knowing what his choices made available to this being, and the domino effect that it caused in the universe. There will no longer be a need for hate.
Now imagine how God must have felt having to withdraw His presence from a sinless being. Describing this in terms of wrath is unconcionable to me. Jesus paid the price of our sins, but the wrath of God had nothing to do with His death.
Here on this earth we do not have ultimate power to eradicate sin. It is with vengence that we counteract it. When we take out terrorists we realize we are only steming the tide, we are not stopping it. Therefore vengence, wrath, animosity and hate are our tools. They get us by. With God comes absolute power. In an instant he can eradicate sin. With that power comes the understanding that hate, wrath and animosity are useless. There is no need for hate, wrath or animosity. Sin will simply cease to exist in that moment which sees it fully revealed not only to man, but the universe. In infinite terms, in a perfect being, there is no need for anything but love.
What are wrath, hate and animosity? In a perfect world, they are sins. God does not sin.
We have accepted that God let sin run it's course, because destroying sinners in the beginning would cause beings to tremble before God, obeying out of fear, not love. In the very end, I believe God must end sin in a loving way. The effects of sin will be crystal clear, but seeing God do something in anger would still have a chilling effect on His subjects. I believe it will be with great sorrow when God withdraws His presence from Satan and his legions, thereby allowing their choices and true evil nature to destroy them.
God is life. Sin is death. The absense of God's presence is death.
When at last he knew his suffering was nearing completion, he knew that all that remained was to yield up his spirit to his heavenly Father and die. Victoriously he cried, "It is finished! Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" [John 19:30, Luke 23:46].
I agree with you here.
And then he voluntarily gave up his life that no one could take it from him. [John 10:17-18] and he died.
I agree with this as well.
These are my thoughts. I hope they aren't offensive to you.
Since I'm an emotionally mature "grown-up" it is impossible for someone's expressed thoughts and personal opinions to be "offensive" to me.
That said, I hope you realize that those capable of critical thought will not give equal weight to all opinions.
Some opinions are objective, informed and learned, and some are merely subjective, uninformed personal opinion.
You have shown by what you wrote that yours is merely personal opinion, since the new-age, pop-culture-type unorthodox god you describe isn't the God of the historic, orthodox Christian religion. And since that is the case, it is impossible for you to be able to legitimately defend him as such.
In light of that reality, I hope you're not offended that I must tell you that your personal opinion in this matter carries no weight at all with me.
Sorry, that's a little too silly. Think about it ... taking your analogy a step further we know that God created Adam and Eve. So, then, is God to blame?
What are these proposed activities? Is there going to be some kind of pro-"Passion" grassroots action this coming Holy Week, or am I misunderstanding? And may I be added to the ping list?
Freeper ConservativeDude proposed the idea on that thread and we're in early planning stages. Some of us will start gathering a ping list for it, probably this coming week. Since I don't know yet who will be collecting the ping list, the best thing to do would be to post on that thread that you want to be added.
I see one of the culprits every time I look in to a mirror...
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