Why is physical death needed for sins?

[TanNinety]

Hi unred, been a while. I would try to offend you but you take things easy so I would just be wasting my time

My thought process a few months ago was very much like what you have posted. But I've come to realize a contradiction of terms in my belief. Free-will and sin. If sin requires payment then the causation of this sin which was 'the exercising of free-will' isn't that free after all. It's like saying, "You have a free coupon for a car. But if you use your coupon you have to pay 25,000$." The coupon is free and it indeed is for a car, but the use of it necessitates payment.

Anyway, topic at hand.
Why do we get hung up on making Jesus' death a blood sacrifice that God required?
Psalm 51:16-17 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Even if blood atones for sin, OT is full of evidence that supports that blood is not the ONLY thing that atones for sin.

If I concede that God required blood sacrifice to atone for sin then it still is a far stretch to say that 'animal sacrifices' were ever replaceable with 'human sacrifices'. In fact God found the idea of human sacrifices disgusting.
Deuteronomy 12:31 "Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods."
Jeremiah 19:4-6 Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spoke it, neither came it into my mind: Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Eternal, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but The Valley of Slaughter.
When God hated the pagan practices He made sure He specially mentioned the human sacrifices as detestable. If the only defense for the above scriptures is that the human sacrifices were offered to other gods hence they were detestable then I have nothing but awe for the hypocrisy of the god being served.

Psalm 106:37-38 Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.
To say that God somehow requires the same kind of pollution to atone for sins is confounding to me.

Ezekiel 16:20 Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter?
Yet we believe God would want His Son sacrificed to appease Him.

The reason an animal works temporarily is because it is a foreshadow of Christ’s and it is innocent of sin.

This begs the question, Can animals sin? We are taking morality to the animal kingdom to justify the sacrifice of Jesus. What about a lion? Is a lion sinful just because it hunts for its survival? Is lion considered a murderer? So when you sacrifice an animal, it avails NOTHING because there is no 'sin/innocence' involved in the character of an animal. If animals were ethical beings then eating them would be considered unethical.

The reason that Christ can give his life is because he was not required to die for his own sin.

Let me introduce you to the biggest flaw in this reasoning and how the whole of christian community does a circular dance around it.

1. Christ died not for His own sin but for ours.
2. Our sin payment is an eternity in hell/annihilation. (depending on what you believe)
3. If Christ paid for our sins then from 2 why did He not spend an eternity in hell or get annihilated?
4. You may back peddle here and say, "Christ paid for our sins with the death of His sinless life, that's why He didn't have to spend an eternity in hell/get annihilated".
5. Then Christ never bore our sins in His death else it wouldn't be sinless and in this case our sins which He never bore are never atoned for by following the OT atonement sacrifice principle.
6. Can one bear our sins and yet be sinless? If yes, then we are sinless because Jesus is bearing our sin, He is sinless because you answered yes, then WHY need a sacrifice if we are all sinless. If no, then Jesus wasn't sinless at death and He should have paid the full payment for those sins which is eternity in hell/annihilation.

And so we dance.

 

[unred typo]

quote by TanNinety on Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:38 pm
Hi unred, been a while. I would try to offend you but you take things easy so I would just be wasting my time

My thought process a few months ago was very much like what you have posted. But I've come to realize a contradiction of terms in my belief. Free-will and sin. If sin requires payment then the causation of this sin which was 'the exercising of free-will' isn't that free after all. It's like saying, "You have a free coupon for a car. But if you use your coupon you have to pay 25,000$." The coupon is free and it indeed is for a car, but the use of it necessitates payment.

Thanks. No point in getting all riled up although I have been accused of it. I guess you can read anger or irritation into my posts if you are angry or irritated yourself. You always seemed to have a good sense of humor about you so you would probably take my writing in the spirit in which it was written.

I’m not sure what you mean by 'the exercising of free-will' isn't that free after all. The choices are ours to make, and they have consequences. You can choose to obey God and do good things of your own free will or obey your own evil desires and do wickedness and pay the price. “The soul that sins shall die†is as much a law to be enforced as the law of gravity. You are free to jump off a cliff but you may not like the result. You can make provisions to counteract the law of gravity and the death of Christ is a provision to counter the sin of Adam. I believe our understanding of all this is a little warped but about all we can handle from our human perspective.

quote by TanNinety:
Anyway, topic at hand.
Why do we get hung up on making Jesus' death a blood sacrifice that God required?
Psalm 51:16-17 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Even if blood atones for sin, OT is full of evidence that supports that blood is not the ONLY thing that atones for sin.

If I concede that God required blood sacrifice to atone for sin then it still is a far stretch to say that 'animal sacrifices' were ever replaceable with 'human sacrifices'. In fact God found the idea of human sacrifices disgusting.

God did accept other offerings from the hand of man. There were first fruit offerings and meal offerings and others I don‘t recall. I’m pretty sure that blood was the only offering specifically for sin though. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. (Some verse some where…) Human sacrifice was strictly forbidden in any case and the only place, to my knowledge, that God even hinted at it was the offering of Isaac, which God stopped as soon as he was sure that Abraham was actually going to go through with it.

You’re right that God found the pagan practices of offering children utterly loathsome to him.

quote by TanNinety:
To say that God somehow requires the same kind of pollution to atone for sins is confounding to me.

Ezekiel 16:20 Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter?
Yet we believe God would want His Son sacrificed to appease Him.

On the surface this does seem quite a weird contradiction. But I think if we readjust our thinking about what actually occurred, it will make sense again. Jesus was more than a son to the Father. He was the word of the Father made flesh in order for God himself to experience our humanness and live among us. It says that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. It also says that God is love, and if God is love, we can equate that to what Jesus said about ‘greater love has no man than a man lay down his life for his friends.’

quote by TanNinety:
This begs the question, Can animals sin? We are taking morality to the animal kingdom to justify the sacrifice of Jesus. What about a lion? Is a lion sinful just because it hunts for its survival? Is lion considered a murderer? So when you sacrifice an animal, it avails NOTHING because there is no 'sin/innocence' involved in the character of an animal. If animals were ethical beings then eating them would be considered unethical.

Only clean animals were used in sacrifices, not meat eaters or scavengers. Regardless, it doesn’t matter if animals can sin or not. They are not able to take away sin by their blood. It is not a compatible substitute for a man. An animal sacrifice is only an act of obedience to show remorse for a sin committed and repented of.

quote by TanNinety:
Let me introduce you to the biggest flaw in this reasoning and how the whole of christian community does a circular dance around it.

1. Christ died not for His own sin but for ours.
2. Our sin payment is an eternity in hell/annihilation. (depending on what you believe)
3. If Christ paid for our sins then from 2 why did He not spend an eternity in hell or get annihilated?
4. You may back peddle here and say, "Christ paid for our sins with the death of His sinless life, that's why He didn't have to spend an eternity in hell/get annihilated".
5. Then Christ never bore our sins in His death else it wouldn't be sinless and in this case our sins which He never bore are never atoned for by following the OT atonement sacrifice principle.
6. Can one bear our sins and yet be sinless? If yes, then we are sinless because Jesus is bearing our sin, He is sinless because you answered yes, then WHY need a sacrifice if we are all sinless. If no, then Jesus wasn't sinless at death and He should have paid the full payment for those sins which is eternity in hell/annihilation.

And so we dance.

No dancing. I think I want to sit this one out. (two left feet, usually in my mouth ) I think the concept is that Adam caused all descendants in Adam to die, because of his sin and disobedience, and all descendants in Christ will be made alive again, because of his sin free life and total obedience. Beyond that, I’d have to do some more study to unravel your riddle. I suspect there is a simple answer when the pieces are in the right places

 

[TRUTH over TRADITION]

I've been over and over with this in my mind. I'm trying to figure out how physical death is the wage for sin. Why is the act of the body dying so necessary, . . . the "shedding of blood", and how is that supposed to pay for sin?

Death is the price that must be paid for sin. The reason that death is the price I believe, is so that sin cannot endure forever by living on in the sinner who continues to live. Sin is like a disease and the universe uses death to attack this and eradicate this disease much like the body's immune system will attack a disease to cure the body. This process is really what epitomizes what entropy is as the law of sin and death.

Jesus, the Christ in a real sense is mankind's mulligan in that it is through Jesus that man has the hope of age lasting as opposed to temporal life.

 

[Godmanseed]

Physical Death is a result of Mankind's sins. When the Bible said that sin entered the world it meant on a molecular level. The second Adam and Eve sinned against God He changed their genetic coding. In every living thing is a clock that tells you when to get old and around what time to die of old age. Every living creature has a life expectancy. Thats why fruit flies live only a week and some tree can live for hundreds of years. Without the genetic code for life expectancy you would never get old. The code is passed down through the blood which is why blood had to save us, but not from physical death. In the past people were a lot more scared of Spiritual death than anything else. The wages of sin are spiritual death but God loved us to much to destroy our souls. So now no humans soul gets destroyed and people can choose to go with God in the after Life or be forever separated from His love.