Board index ‹ Jesus

[Himmelheim]

If Jesus came to Earth only to return to Heaven, what did God lose? I often heard the phrase God gave his only begotten son, however he never really lost him if he simply returned to God's side after his physical death.

[jimwalton]

The Bible never says God lost anything. That's not a biblical concept. When God gave Jesus, it was considered a gift, not a loss.

[Himmelheim]

The original sin of Adam & Eve created the need for sacrifices to God. Several thousands of years passed before Jesus's sacrifice was gifted to humanity. Why were the thousands of years necessary?

[jimwalton]

There are sometimes good reasons to allow time to pass, so that people can learn by experience, they can figure things out, there is time for failure so that the lesson about success gets paid attention to, and there is time for history to play things through. We humans are people who learn in the course of time and progress or regress also along a timeline.

There are values, for instance, that people are not born like other animals or mammals that are born "ready to go." Instead, we are born helpless and fairly clear-slated (tabula rasa), and we spend 14-30 years learning how to function in life. This is not wasted time.

So also, the many thousands of years that passed before Jesus's sacrifice teach us a lot about civilization, morality, human nature, law, philosophy, and religion. It's just possible that those lessons help us understand and appreciate the work of Christ.

[Dude]

In the common, everyday use of the word, when someone sacrifices something, they are giving something up, or losing something.

In the case of an omnipotent god, Jesus isn't a sacrifice in this sense.

[jimwalton]

Even in the Old Testament, when a family brought an animal for sacrifice, often they got to eat it afterwards. The sacrifice was an act of love and devotion, or inquiry or thanks, but not one of loss.

[Dude]

The animal lost it's life...

It was killing something to appease the rules god set up.

[jimwalton]

Now you seem to be changing the subject. Yes, of course the animal lost its life, but in the Old Testament, the nomenclature points to the idea that it's the people making the sacrifice even though the animal was fatally involved.

I don't agree that "it was killing sometime to appease the rules god set up." This is where you have turned the conversation. The principle behind sacrifice was that life was in the blood, and the sacrifice was cleansing away death.

The antithesis of the Egyptian god of the dead is the holy God YHWH who is separated from death. The blood of the animal—the life force of the animal—is used to cleanse away death. The Purification Offering: Extract the life of the animal to cleanse away any association with death. It was not appeasing the rules God set up. Death was a reality on Earth, not just a rule God set up.

Even in the OT, the sacrificial offering (Lev. 1.2) applied to any sanctuary gift. The idea was gift, not loss.

[Dude]

I'm sorry, if it's not being done to appease a rule god set up, why are you doing it?

Why then are the details laid out in the OT? Why is it done by a priest?

[jimwalton]

All was done to manage sacred space, sacred status, and sacred times. Sacred times must be identified, maintained by the priests, and observed by the people. Sacred space must be delineated and its sanctity preserved. Status of priests and people must be regulated by specific guidelines. These guidelines enable the priests to determine who has access to sacred time and sacred space and how particular levels of status can be achieved or maintained. The sacrifices were not for appeasement. Even atonement (Lev. 16) was not appeasement. Atonement was a covering. It was the contamination of the tabernacle that was being purified, not the sin of men. The blood—the life force—purifies the “death” that entered the temple. By virtue of the death of the animal, the blood accomplished the ritual role of a deterrent to expunge anything that would desecrate the sanctuary (whether unacceptable behavior or ritual uncleanness). Exodus 30 commands atonement even where there has been no preexisting offense.

There's no sense of appeasement. In preserving sacred space, God's presence could remain in their midst. The sacrifices were relational, not redemptional.