The mechanics of The Cross. How did it work?

[Orion]

Let's get into the topic of "how exactly DOES Christ's death on the cross remove sin".

If the sin of all men was placed upon Jesus, because the "wages of sin is death...", exactly how did Jesus' death accomplish this "satisfaction of God's wrath"? How was this sacrifice, and what Jesus did, taking our place?

If we die "in our sin", then we go to Hell. No way out. If we die in our sins, while still alive, we have no choice but to find ourselves in Hell...

How exactly did Jesus become our substitute?

 

[Catholic Crusader]

You may find interesting paragraphs 599 through 605 at this link:

http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1 ... p2.htm#598

 

[Orion]

That was a nicely layed out bunch of information. . . . . . that isn't really answering my question.

How was this "wrath of God satisfied"? And how is the death of Jesus able to "take our place" when OUR wages of OUR sin is not just an earthly and physical death, but one of everlasting seperation and torment in Hell? If Jesus took the payment in our place, then why wasn't the consequences the same for Jesus? The act of a physical death is true for anyone who lives, regardless of how pious they are.

 

[handy]

Orion, I too thought that the information CC gave was clear, so I guess I need to understand your question better.

Is your question more as to why Jesus would not have to suffer in hell for all time, like someone who isn't 'saved'? That the simple death on the cross isn't the same as suffering eternity in hell?

I'll let you answer before going on.

 

[JayR]

If the sin of all men was placed upon Jesus, because the "wages of sin is death...", exactly how did Jesus' death accomplish this "satisfaction of God's wrath"? How was this sacrifice, and what Jesus did, taking our place?

This following passage is called by many the acropolis of the Christian faith. I've heard a renowned Christian preacher say that if he had to lose all of Scripture and keep one passage it would be this. This following passage is the center of the Bible message, and it explains what Jesus did and how His death accomplished the appeasement of God's wrath.

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay: but by the law of faith."

To answer your question, focus on the italicized text for a minute. God set forth Jesus to die for our sins because if He hadn't then He wouldn't be just in justifying us. His Law and His just nature MUST send lawbreakers to hell forever. There is a passage in the Bible that assures this: "He that justifies the wicked, and he that condemns the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord." An abomination is the lowest and most vile word in the Bible. It is beyond words it is so loathsome. But what does the above "acropolis" state? God justified the wicked. That's wrong. You know that is wrong, and every man on this planet knows that it is wrong. Imagine for a minute that you came home one day and found a police car in your driveway. The policeman comes up to you and says, "Sir, I'm terribly sorry to inform you that we found the bodies of your parents slaughtered in the grocery store. We have video footage of the murder, and we have the criminal in custody." When it's time for the court hearing, you see the murderer who killed your parents standing before the judge, and the judge simply states, "Sir, I'm a very loving judge, go free, your case is dismissed." You would cry out in disgust at that horrible act of injustice. You would write the newspapers. You would call your Congressmen. You would tell the media and everybody you could contact that there is a judge on the bench who is more wicked than the criminals he sets free, because judges are supposed to execute justice. According to God that judge would be an abomination. So the great question of the Bible is how can God remain just and justify wicked men? The answer is a propitiation. A sacrifice to appease God's holy hatred towards evil men and satisfy the justice that calls our for the death and everlasting damnation of the wicked. So we see in the above passage that God set forth Jesus as a propitiation so that He would be just, and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus. Just for a minute, consider this. God calls that wicked judge an abomination, but will the Judge of all the universe not do right? Will He not execute justice to the most minute detail? Yes. God will satisfy justice and punish all sin perfectly without an once of mercy. He will by no means clear the guilty. So we see that this passage states that God set forth Jesus so that He would be a just justifier of the wicked. In order for that to be true, the sins of all His people MUST be punished absolutely without mercy to the full measure of justice that His nature requires. What does His just nature require? Death and everlasting damnation. Suffering under the fierceness of His wrath forever.

So we see in Isaiah 53 a messianic prophecy of Jesus, and what He would do. "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." By Christ's sacrifice, those who trust in Him have peace with God.

"The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all... He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter... for the transgression of my people was He stricken... Yet it pleased the LORD to crush Him; He was put to grief: when you shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed , He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He has poured out His soul to death: and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

Every ounce of wrath that His people deserved to drink for each of their sins for an eternity in hell, Christ drank, and when He poured that cup of wrath over there was not a drop left. His felt the pain of the cross, but the Father crushed His soul with ALL of the wrath that His people deserved to be crushed by. Remember, God is now just in justifying the ungodly, so that means that ALL of the just wrath that would have been poured out onto His people was poured out onto Christ on the cross.

So how does Christ's death on the cross remove sin? First of all, Christ paid for that sin by being crushed for it in our place, and so therefore there is no more condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. And secondly, He can now justify us as a legal declaration from His throne of justice because justice has been satisfied by Christ's death. And thirdly, He can take away our sin because He has the power to do so through the regenerating and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.

How did Christ become our substitute? The Law of God proclaims a curse upon every person who doesn't obey it down to every letter. Jesus became a curse for us on that cross. He redeemed us from the curse of the Law by become a curse for us. He became our curse, He bore our sin, and therefore He became our substitute, and died in our law place under His Father's wrath so that our sins could be paid for without us having to pay for them. He did it for us.

Jesus cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The Father abondoned the Son for the first time from all eternity when He was on the cross. Christ became a curse, He bore the abominations and the wickedness of billions, and therefore He became a vile thing when He was on that cross, and by nature His Father could not even look upon Him let alone be in fellowship with Him. Christ was abondoned as we deserve to be and are abondoned without Christ.

I hope that helped.

 

[Orion]

Orion, I too thought that the information CC gave was clear, so I guess I need to understand your question better.

Is your question more as to why Jesus would not have to suffer in hell for all time, like someone who isn't 'saved'? That the simple death on the cross isn't the same as suffering eternity in hell?

I'll let you answer before going on.

That's fairly close. Mostly, it's that physical death is the case for anyone, so why was a physical death of Jesus necessary?

Also, I've heard people say that "all of God's wrath was placed on Jesus", but I'm not sure where that comes from. Does anyone have where that's found at? Also, Ephesians 5 seems to indicate more of a "fragrance that pleases God", such as was the case with the Hebrew sacrifices.

Also, I've heard those say that God "turned his back on Jesus". . . . . but Jesus IS God. So how could God not feel the presence of God?

 

[JayR]

Mostly, it's that physical death is the case for anyone, so why was a physical death of Jesus necessary?

Well God had to satisfy justice, and His justice demands not only the wrath of God in eternal damnation, but also the physical death, and so Jesus had to suffer both.

Also, I've heard people say that "all of God's wrath was placed on Jesus", but I'm not sure where that comes from. Does anyone have where that's found at?

That was my point in the last post I made. I guess I didn't make it very clear. What I was trying to say is that God's just nature demands death and His wrath to be poured out onto the wicked for all eternity. If God is going to satisfy justice, then He must pour out the wrath that His people have pent up from all of their wickedness. The Bible says that we store up wrath for ourselves that God is going to unleash on the Day of Judgment, and therefore all of that wrath that had been stored up by God's people had to be appeased. It couldn't just float off into space somewhere, not only does God's just nature require that it come crushing down upon sin and sinners, but God is a person, and He really is angry with the wicked every day, and He had to appease that anger towards His people in order to justify them. He did that by pouring it out onto His Son.

Also, I've heard those say that God "turned his back on Jesus". . . . . but Jesus IS God. So how could God not feel the presence of God?

The Father forsook the Son. Jesus is God, but from all eternity the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, have been in perfect fellowship and unity. The Bible says that they are one, and yet they are distinct from one another. The Hebrew word for one is echad, which is a word used to describe the unity of more than one person. For example the Bible says of man and woman, "... they shall become one [echad] flesh." And, "...the people gathered together as one [echad] man." So for the time that Jesus was suffering on the cross, being crushed by His Father's wrath, the Father forsook Him and abondoned Him to Himself, and He was left in complete desolation, being crushed by His Father's wrath all the while.

 

[Drew]

I believe that there is a sense in which we can give an almost "physicalistic" account of what happened on the Cross. I would contrast such an account with the kind of abstract, purely judicial, "up there in the air" picture which many have of the atonement. I do think that this traditional concept of purely an abstract "legal" event disconnected to material reality is a little suspicious in its abstractness.

I would say the following things in respect to the "mechanics" of the atonement at the cross:

1. Sin is a "power" or "force" that moves and acts in the real physical world - it is not simply a "moral category". The power of sin has literally "damaged our DNA" so that we are all born as sinners.

2. God used Torah to literally "trick" the power of sin into concentrating itself in the nation of Israel. In some sense, Israel has been elected to the terrible yet important role of being a "sponge" to lure the power of sin out of all corners of creation and accumulate it one place - in the very flesh of Israel.

3. Jesus then enters history and sin is then further concentrated down and localized in the flesh of one person - Jesus. Through Torah and then through Jesus, the power of sin has literally been lured out of all wordly recesses and "tricked" into being cornered in the flesh of Jesus.

4. On the cross, this concentrated power of sin attacks the flesh of Jesus and "burns itself out" in the process. Jesus dies, but the power of sin is broken in the process. Remember that in Romans 8:3, we are told that God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus - he did not condemn Jesus.

Point 4 contains a subtle but important distinction. I think that Romans 8:3 calls into question the notion that God condemns Jesus instead of us. I am inclined to think that Jesus is instead the "vessel" into which sin has been cornered - and it is then the sin that is condemned, not Jesus.

Having said all this, I am not sure how to integrate such a view with the more traditional and more abstract model which seems to be based on a purely judicial concept where all our "sins" (as distinguished from the power of sin) are somehow "forgiven". However, I would appeal to readers to not demand that the atonment model be simple. If we need a complex model of the nature of the atonement to best describe things, so be it.

 

[Orion]

Well God had to satisfy justice, and His justice demands not only the wrath of God in eternal damnation, but also the physical death, and so Jesus had to suffer both.

That was my point in the last post I made. I guess I didn't make it very clear. What I was trying to say is that God's just nature demands death and His wrath to be poured out onto the wicked for all eternity. If God is going to satisfy justice, then He must pour out the wrath that His people have pent up from all of their wickedness. The Bible says that we store up wrath for ourselves that God is going to unleash on the Day of Judgment, and therefore all of that wrath that had been stored up by God's people had to be appeased. It couldn't just float off into space somewhere, not only does God's just nature require that it come crushing down upon sin and sinners, but God is a person, and He really is angry with the wicked every day, and He had to appease that anger towards His people in order to justify them. He did that by pouring it out onto His Son. [/quote]

But aren't you reading into that which isn't there? There is no place that states that "God's wrath was poured out on Jesus". Just a shout of "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" itself doesn't seem all that much of an evidence to me. I would think that even more than us, Jesus would have been wailing and sobbing uncontrolably on the cross IF there was this "separation and extreme wrath". Ephesians 5 doesn't seem to indicate any sort of "wrath".

So, when did this "crushing judgement" come down on Jesus?

The Father forsook the Son. Jesus is God, but from all eternity the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, have been in perfect fellowship and unity. The Bible says that they are one, and yet they are distinct from one another. The Hebrew word for one is echad, which is a word used to describe the unity of more than one person. For example the Bible says of man and woman, "... they shall become one [echad] flesh." And, "...the people gathered together as one [echad] man." So for the time that Jesus was suffering on the cross, being crushed by His Father's wrath, the Father forsook Him and abondoned Him to Himself, and He was left in complete desolation, being crushed by His Father's wrath all the while.

If you're still "all one God", as Christianity believes, than you can't have any separation. Is there only one God, or three separate Gods? I guess this is where you state that "we simple humans don't understand the Trinity." If Jesus IS God, than you can't have a separation from yourself as a divine entity.

 

[Drew]

What I was trying to say is that God's just nature demands death and His wrath to be poured out onto the wicked for all eternity.

I do not share your opinion here. I think it is more scriptural and correct to see death as the "natural" consequence of our fallen state and not as a judicial sentence carried out on people who are born with an irresistable urge to sin. Rather than making the incredibly dubious argument that we are morally culpable for being born sinners and then punished with death for something we have no control over, we conceive of our state of affairs as akin to a child born with HIV because the parent was sexually promiscuous. The child does not deserve to die at a young age, but he will unless a cure is found. Adam is like the parent and we are like the child. We are born destined to die, but that death is not properly conceived of as punishment for the rather obvious reason that it is non-sensical to be punished for actions that you cannot resist. And most of us believe that we are indeed born in a state that basically guarantees that we will sin.

 

[TanNinety]

Orion asks a simple question. If wages of sin is death, then we all die and pay the wages of sin. How is Jesus' death different from ours?

If burning in hell for all eternity is the wages of sin then why did Jesus not pay this since He paid for our sins?

The sacrifice has to be pure to cleanse sin. If Jesus was a sinless sacrifice then our sins have not been placed on Him. If our sins were indeed placed on Him then Jesus does not qualify to be sacrifice because the sacrifice should be without blemish (sin).

I've heard an explanation that Jesus did not pay for sins in eternity in hell because He paid it with righteousness. That is a good save but it goes against 2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin {to be} sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

[Orion]

TanNinety, you almost blew my mind! :o

Your post is a good one to go with mine, for sure!

 

[Drew]

Orion asks a simple question. If wages of sin is death, then we all die and pay the wages of sin. How is Jesus' death different from ours?

If burning in hell for all eternity is the wages of sin then why did Jesus not pay this since He paid for our sins?

The sacrifice has to be pure to cleanse sin. If Jesus was a sinless sacrifice then our sins have not been placed on Him. If our sins were indeed placed on Him then Jesus does not qualify to be sacrifice because the sacrifice should be without blemish (sin).

I've heard an explanation that Jesus did not pay for sins in eternity in hell because He paid it with righteousness. That is a good save but it goes against 2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin {to be} sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Hello Tan:

Long time, no see.

As you may know if you have read some of my protacted engagements with some rather colourful people in these forums, I do not believe that the Scriptures teach that the wages of sin is an eternity in torment in hell. The wages are death in the usual "lights out, its all over" sense.

What I am about to write may, at best, only address part of your question. God did not condemn Jesus at Calvary, He condemned sin in Jesus' flesh. I think this distinction is probably quite important. For some reason, I guess that Jesus' specifically sinless status qualified Him for this role. And, if you have read my previous posts, you will not be surprised when I assert that there may be an almost "physical" aspect to this qualification. I see the atonment as involving, at least, a "process" where the power of sin "attacks" the innocent "flesh" of Jesus and burns itself out in the process, thereby killing Jesus and breaking the power of sin in the world.

Do you not think this model satisfies the dictates of 2 Corinthians 5:21?

Re the animal sacrifices: I thought the whole concept was that the "sin" get transferred from the people to the innocent animal and then the animal is killed. So the animal is not killed in an unblemished state - it is killed carrying a big pile of sin.

 

[handy]

Hi Tan, nice to see you again!

You said, "Orion asks a simple question. If wages of sin is death, then we all die and pay the wages of sin. How is Jesus' death different from ours?

If burning in hell for all eternity is the wages of sin then why did Jesus not pay this since He paid for our sins?"

This is one of those simple question that has a very complex answer. I believe it to be found in Hebrews which extensively covers why the death of Jesus satisfied the wages of sin.

Hebrews 9:27 states: And insasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment..."

From this I see that there is a two-fold aspect of the wages of sin, death and judgment. If Adam had not sinned, then he would never have experienced physical death. So, yes, physical death is part of the wages. But then comes the judgment. Once we die physically, we are then judged as to whether or not we will live or die eternally. This is where the death of Jesus comes in, He died a physical death and took our sins upon Himself, He became sin on our behalf. But, that is only what was happening here on earth. In Hebrews we find that everything that was in the temple for sacrifices were but copies of the things in heaven. When Christ died, He did not die in the temple here on earth, but stood in the Temple in heaven as an offering on our behalf. He did voluntarily take our sins upon Himself, but as He stood in the Temple in heaven, He was without blemish, because although He took on our sins, He never sinned. Therefore, He did not suffer the judgement of eternal separation from God because of sin, the the sins were not His they were ours.

Now we need to get into the covenants. A covenant is a contract entered into by two parties, in the case of the 'wages for sin' the parties would be God and man. Once one party of the covenant died, then both parties were released from the covenant. The original "Until death do we part". The special thing about the death of Jesus was that Jesus was both the Man with the sin of the world upon Him, AND God. So, both parties in the contract were dead. End of contract. Christ then brought forth a New Covenant. Under the New Covenant, all who come before the throne of judgment who have placed their faith in God, and asked forgiveness of their sins will be have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, just as their sins were imputed to Christ. It's a trade- off, one sanctioned by God. The other alternative is to reject Christ's death and righteousness, and be judged according to their deeds here on earth.

This is getting really long, and I don't even know if I'm making it clear. It's like Spanish to me, a language I can understand far more readily than I can speak, and I don't even understand it all that much.

I do really encouage you Orion, Tan and everyone else to read through Hebrews 9 and 10. They're rather hard passages to understand, and believe me, I've only come to understand them as much as I have (which isn't to say much) through years of study. But, they are key to understanding why Christ's death was able to satisfy the wages of sin on our behalf.

 

[Devekut]

Hello to all!

This is a great topic and the replies so far have been excellent. I struggled with this same question for a long time. Perhaps, Orion, I can offer something of a different angle?

Now, all the above regarding "substitituion" holding true, I also consider the Crucifixion as salvific in terms of its unifying dimension:


The redemption offered in the suffering Christ is regarded as a mystery. It will never be fully understood.

If we think of the death of Princess Diana, the way the tragic end of this righteous person drew hundreds of thousands to the gates of Buckingham, thousands of flowers were lain and people all across the world, those who never even knew her, poured out their grief towards the image of her tragic end. In those few days after her death we saw a kind of community- a communion of people, emerge and congregate around her own suffering. A person that the vast majority of us never knew suffered and died and became the focal point of a visible unity. Of course the unity offered in her death did not persist because she is only a human being.

Yet this is something like what happens in Christ, who is the Sacrament of God and the sign to us all; the suffering man, who is at the same time God, who becomes the focal point of all of our grief, the visible object of human cruelty, disorder and injustice and the point to which we direct our sympathy and hope.

Christ becomes the archetypical focal point of the human experience. Around his suffering we congregate and in this oneward motion we enter into communion with another- a communion that stems out of the barest fact of our reality- suffering . Yet in him there is a hope that we did not see in the death of Princess Diana; he was raised from the dead. His suffering was not his end.

The teaching is that God became human and doing so has taken human nature up into himself. In order to redeem man God has become himself a man. He does not wish to ignore the suffering reality that is the human condition, he does not swipe away our fleshly bodies and grit details that make up our humanity- rather he redeems it by becoming it. By mingling his divinity in it. He gives dignity and sanctity to the human condition and he does so by becoming the worst of what it means to be human- to suffer and to face the terror of a lonely death.

Every human being knows suffering as the cruel reality of our humaneness. God becomes us in the most tragic and terrible sense so that our entire person can share in what he is.

This is why Christianity teaches the suffering God, the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ is an act of Divine Sympathy, a sign, a sacrament that is given hope and victory by the Resurrection.

 

[Vic C.]

Orion, I know we've been over this before and I will try to find the original thread. Anyway, I do realize we have new members who may offer up a different perspective.

From the very beginning, God needed to "cover" one's sins. Adam and Even sinned and God did this:

Gen 3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

He clothed them to cover their shame and sin. Notice HE sacrificed alimals for their skin. Hence the first animal sacrifice.

Then we have this:

The name "Yom Kippur" means "Day of Atonement," and that pretty much explains what the holiday is. It is a day set aside to "afflict the soul," to atone for the sins of the past year. In Days of Awe, I mentioned the "books" in which G-d inscribes all of our names. On Yom Kippur, the judgment entered in these books is sealed. This day is, essentially, your last appeal, your last chance to change the judgment, to demonstrate your repentance and make amends.

http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday4.htm

Sacrificed a bull for his sin and the sin of his family. (talking about the high priest)

Next the sacrificial goat would be killed. The blood of the goat would be brought into the Holy of Holies and the same ritual would be performed. This was for the sin of the people.

http://www.unionchurch.com/archive/101401.html

As it was noted in the first quote, this was only sufficient for a one year period.

All this can be found in Leviticus 16.

It was God who ordained the sacrifice. As with most rituals in the OT, this was a foreshadow of something much greater to come.

Malachi 3:1 says;

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

This was fulfilled with John the Baptist, when he said;

John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

Lamb of God... He takes away the sins of the world. How will He take away the sins of the world? By fulfilling the need for a blood sacrifice. But this time, because it is God's one and only begotten Son, sins were forgiven once and for all and forever for those who believe.

Heb 10:10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

John 3:16 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.

It is God who demands the sacrificial atonement, not us. It is His word and I take Him at His word. I can't, won't and shouldn't question His method of salvation.

Tan and Orion, I do understand your concerns about His death being a substitute for an eternal Hell or annihilation. His death was indeed temporary and I too struggle with this concept. The doctrine of a penal substitution is best discussed in another thread. I will say one thing; He was a substitute for the OT animal sacrifice. ;-)

 

[Orion]

Vic, thank you for stating that the concept of "Jesus not taking our place in Hell" as a tough one. It has been one of my struggles knowing that. . . if a sacrificial replacement steps in, then that replacement would be given my sentence, that being "an eternity in Hell". But Jesus spent zero time in Hell.

Your thread brought up a lot of "topics for other threads", not limited to:

1. The idea that God sacrificed the first animals to cover Adam and Eve. I don't recognize the first of Genesis as being at all literal.

2. The idea of the "Son of God", . . . . as if God created an offspring, who is the subordinant to "the father" (as is in any child - parent relationship). I see these as things thought up in a human mind which really makes no sense for an "eternal being". It seems more like a "pagan concept", a god and goddess who have a son.

These may need their own thread as it will definitely take this thread way off course.

 

[mondar]

Vic, thank you for stating that the concept of "Jesus not taking our place in Hell" as a tough one. It has been one of my struggles knowing that. . . if a sacrificial replacement steps in, then that replacement would be given my sentence, that being "an eternity in Hell". But Jesus spent zero time in Hell.

What is "Hell" and how do you know Jesus spent 0 time in hell?

Your thread brought up a lot of "topics for other threads", not limited to:

1. The idea that God sacrificed the first animals to cover Adam and Eve. I don't recognize the first of Genesis as being at all literal.

2. The idea of the "Son of God", . . . . as if God created an offspring, who is the subordinant to "the father" (as is in any child - parent relationship). I see these as things thought up in a human mind which really makes no sense for an "eternal being". It seems more like a "pagan concept", a god and goddess who have a son.

These may need their own thread as it will definitely take this thread way off course.

How does the bible claim Jesus is "subordinate" to the Father? In what sence does the term "son of God imply subordination? And how does that imply that this cannot be an eternal relationship? What is the difference between a son (uios) and a child (teknos) and a child (paida)?

 

[Orion]

Jesus told the thief next to him, "TODAY you will be with me in paradise". That doesn't automatically state "zero time in Hell", but close enough.

The whole "son of God" thing still makes no sense because a son, by definition, must be the product of the parentS, thus having a beginning. Again, it is a human term given to that which we don't understand, and may not have an understanding of at this time. Same with "the Father". These are metaphorical terms that were for a primative (and patriarchical) people.

 

[Vic C.]

Vic, thank you for stating that the concept of "Jesus not taking our place in Hell" as a tough one. It has been one of my struggles knowing that. . . if a sacrificial replacement steps in, then that replacement would be given my sentence, that being "an eternity in Hell". But Jesus spent zero time in Hell.

What is "Hell" and how do you know Jesus spent 0 time in hell?

A Biblical word study on the words Gehenna, Tartarus and Hades and how they are used in context should help answer this question. 8-) But I will add again, that my understanding of a true penal substitution dictates that Jesus would have needed to spend an eternity in Hell, if He indeed did go there.

I know I'm butting heads with reformed theology here on this doctrine and it's not my intention to engage in a argument. Like I said, this is a study and discussion worthy of it's own thread.