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The Day they Killed God

W

warner

Guest
If Jesus is God then:

Pilate then took God and scourged Him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on God's head, and put a purple robe on Him; and they began to come up to God and say, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and to give Him slaps in the face. Pilate came out again and said to them, "Behold, I am bringing Him (God) out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in Him." God then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold, the Man!" So when the chief priests and the officers saw God, they cried out saying, "Crucify, crucify!" Pilate said to them, "Take Him (God) yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him." The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God." Therefore when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid; and he entered into the Praetorium again and said to God, "Where are You from?" But God gave him no answer. So Pilate said to God, "You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?" God answered, "You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin." As a result of this Pilate made efforts to release God, but the Jews cried out saying, "If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar." Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought God out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!" So they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." So he then handed God over to them to be crucified. They took God, therefore, and God went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. There they crucified God, and with God two other men, one on either side, and God in between. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, "JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS." Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, "Do not write, `The King of the Jews'; but that He said, `I am King of the Jews.' " Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written." Then the soldiers, when they had crucified God, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. So they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be"; this was to fulfill the Scripture: "THEY DIVIDED MY OUTER GARMENTS AMONG THEM, AND FOR MY CLOTHING THEY CAST LOTS." Therefore the soldiers did these things. But standing by the cross of God were His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When God then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, God said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then God said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. After this, God, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, "I am thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to God's mouth. Therefore when God had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And God bowed His head and gave up His spirit. Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him; but coming to God, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced God's side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe. For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, "NOT A BONE OF HIM SHALL BE BROKEN." And again another Scripture says, "THEY SHALL LOOK ON HIM WHOM THEY PIERCED." After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of God, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of God; and Pilate granted permission. So he came and took away God's body. Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. So they took the body of God and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where God was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid God there.

Courtesy of trinity on trial

http://www.angelfire.com/space/thegospe ... inity.html
 
Brutus:

What punishment did God (Jesus) take?

Before the he died, you hold he was perfect, omnipowerful, omnipresent and without flaw.

Now, after the cruxifiction, you hold that he is still perfect, omnipowerful, omnipresent and without flaw.

Since anything taken away from a perfect being would make it no longer perfect, what did God lose?

I'm not sure what warner's point is, but mine is that if Jesus is God (or part of god, whatever), then what exactly did he lose?

If he sacrificed, then by defintion he (God) has somehow been lessened or reduced, otherwise he actually made no sacrafice.

Any thoughts?
 
Thinkerman, this is a time where man's logic is too simple for truth. Christ died that day. He was dead, meaning he lost his earthly life. What the world forgets is that losses of this wolrd are not loses to God because he is still in control. This is something, I'm sorry my friend, an atheist will not be able to understand.
 
I think it would have been a better story if Jesus had died of old age. Would still have counted as a death, just less violent.

Quath
 
Well quath, I dont think that. Like, if a woman sacrificed her child to save the world shes a hero.. more than if she saved the world, and died of old age...

Humans need someone to sacrifice somethign to really truly like it.
 
Brutus/HisCatalyst said:
Thinkerman, this is a time where man's logic is too simple for truth. Christ died that day. He was dead, meaning he lost his earthly life. What the world forgets is that losses of this wolrd are not loses to God because he is still in control. This is something, I'm sorry my friend, an atheist will not be able to understand.

So you agree it makes no sense?

I agree. It makes no sense whatsoever.
 
ThinkerMan said:
I'm not sure what warner's point is, but mine is that if Jesus is God (or part of god, whatever), then what exactly did he lose?

If he sacrificed, then by defintion he (God) has somehow been lessened or reduced, otherwise he actually made no sacrafice.

Any thoughts?

God didn't lose anything and wasn't lessened by the crucifixion of Christ. Jesus bore the full force and consequence of all sin, of all men everywhere, at all times. God sacrificed himself as the perfect, spotless, once-and-for-all eternal sacrifice.
 
ThinkerMan said:
Brutus/HisCatalyst said:
Thinkerman, this is a time where man's logic is too simple for truth. Christ died that day. He was dead, meaning he lost his earthly life. What the world forgets is that losses of this wolrd are not loses to God because he is still in control. This is something, I'm sorry my friend, an atheist will not be able to understand.

So you agree it makes no sense?

I agree. It makes no sense whatsoever.

If you want to see through the eyes of man, then it won't make sense. You could always try to see it through the eyes of the eternal God. Think about it, my friend.
 
The view of Alan Watts-


"The formal teaching of the Church is that we are released from the sin of Adam by the incarnation, which is the assumption of our human nature by the Logos, God the Son, who as Jesus of Nazareth lives a life and dies a death wherein this human nature is perfectly surrendered to the divine will... The Incarnation is of effect for us men because Christ's human nature is our nature, and because Christ introduced a new life, a new power, into that nature which made it capable of perfect surrender to God. We become possessors of that power by incorporation into the new human race which he began, the race which is his own divinized humanity extended in his Mystical Body the Church. In Christ, God did for man what man could not do for himself: God as man offered our human nature to the Father in a perfect sacrifice which effected the union (At-one-ment) of man with God, making us heirs of his own eternal life and his adopted sons.

Generally speaking, the modern mind finds statements such as these almost wholly meaningless. They seem to bring a mythological complexity into the spiritual life which, even though it may have some deep meaning, is more of a nuisance than a help, and to involve the study and acceptance of a mass of historical details which we are in no position to verify. Surely, if God is in fact love and wills our salvation with his whole being, he could have contrived our redemption in a less tortuous way.

It is obvious, however, that in the past this same story has been of the highest significance for innumerable souls. The reason, as we have seen, is that at certain stages of his development and at certain levels of his nature man can only grasp spiritual reality in terms of mythos."


"The vast majority of human beings have always had very concrete and childlike minds, and there are levels at which even the most highly intelligent people are still children. To get an abstract, universal or spiritual truth into the understanding of a child one must make it concrete, and the best way to do so is to illustrate it with a story."


A.W. Watts, Behold the Spirit : A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion (Vintage books, New Ed edition 1972) page 71 and 78.



Watts does go on to provide the only good defence of the Atonement that I have ever seen, but its not exactly orthodox.
 
The View of Scripture:

Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Joh 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Phi 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
Phi 2:6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
Phi 2:7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
Phi 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Act 2:23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
Act 2:24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
Act 2:25 For David says concerning him, "'I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
Act 2:26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope.
Act 2:27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.
Act 2:28 You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.'
Act 2:29 "Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
Act 2:30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne,
Act 2:31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.
Act 2:32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.
 
Brutus:

What punishment did God (Jesus) take?

Before the he died, you hold he was perfect, omnipowerful, omnipresent and without flaw.

Now, after the cruxifiction, you hold that he is still perfect, omnipowerful, omnipresent and without flaw.

Since anything taken away from a perfect being would make it no longer perfect, what did God lose?

Where do you see the necessity of loss? The crucifixion was about God intervening in the natural end of man and mankind's rebellion.
What Jesus did is NOT resist the violence of man. He took upon Himself the logical outcome of man's rebellion, and overcame it through His resurrection. Yielding to overcome is not a philosophy specific to Christianity.

I'm not sure what warner's point is, but mine is that if Jesus is God (or part of god, whatever), then what exactly did he lose?
Again, He needn't lose anything. Receiving upon Himself vicariously the penalty due us is gain of love, not loss.
If he sacrificed, then by defintion he (God) has somehow been lessened or reduced,
The body of Christ died- or rather, He gave up His Spirit. This was the setup for gain, as in His resurrection became part of many, not just one.

otherwise he actually made no sacrafice.
Your assumption is the following: sacrifice/suffering subtracts from the individual who willingly embraces same.
But this is not true.
Suffering is sacrifice. I suffer for the sake of my children by working a stupid job I dislike. This has been to my gain, for I have "learned obedience through suffering."

Any thoughts?
I have a few more, but let's see if I have misunderstood you.
Be well
O.C.
 
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