Atonement

[dairygirl4u2c]

im reminded of a quote i read, before i ever knew much about nonwest views, even though i knew of them at least intuitively. i didn't have it all sorted out as much then, but the truth of the quote struck me enough, with its simplicty being enough, regardless of my abilty to argue the details of it.

St. John Chrysostom
"hell was taken captive by the Lord Who descended into it. It was laid waste, it was mocked, it was put to death, it was overthrown, it was bound." Homily to Pascha

[dairygirl4u2c]

the idea. we have free will. god wants us to choose him. we eat of the apple of knowledge, which creates the basis for sin, given we have the requisite knowledge and intent to sin, using our free will. without that apple, we'd not die in the garden, we'd go on living forever. but with free will necessarily comes sin. it's more that sin of its nature is something that causes death- it's not that God wills us to die per se. but, even though we disoby God by sinning, and we deserve death-- God with his immutable mercy gave sinners life, and even came, and despite the rules, and again with his immutable mercy, he conquered death. he's not one to hold people to the letter of the law, free will and what we know to be sin. and now, with our free will, and albeit with the imperfections of sin, we can still choose God and not die from our sins in the process.

Romans says that God was just letting it all go, and as the saints said, though, he did come to conquer death formally, for and by those who join with him.

Edited October 15, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[OraProMe]

Woooah, calm down.

[dairygirl4u2c]

'It should be clarified that from a Jewish perspective the purpose of the sacrifices was never to appease God, which is a Pagan concept, but to cleanse us (cf. Heb 9:13-14) and draw us near to God.'
"God is the initiator of forgiveness. God does not respond to what we do, we respond to what God does. Our repentance is in response to God’s love not the condition for it . The idea of appeasement is based on a pagan concept of god-like power - on a hurtful conception of what power and greatness are."

"The multitude of your sacrifices- what are they to me?" says the Lord . "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats… Stop bringing meaningless offerings!... wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow". (Isa 1:11,13,16-17)

Jesus did not lay down any doctrine here, but stated,"'Go learn what it means that, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,"
(Matt. 12:7-8, Mk 2:23-28, Lk 6:1-5).

"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; And the knowledge of God, more than burnt offering". (Hosea 6:6)

"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". (Psalm 51: 16-17)

Yahweh does not need a bribe to convince him to be just or merciful because he is the very definition of justice and mercy. God does not need an appeasement to forgive. On the contrary Jesus tells us that Yahweh is our model for loving our enemies:
" But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous… Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. " (Math 5:44-45, 48)


"The atonement is the incarnation, the transforming or being the 1st born of many brethren. The purchase or ransom is His life, lived as a son of man, a sacrafice as I might sacrafice for my wife and children. "
The true gift to God is to “wash and make yourselves clean” and to seek justice by defending the oppressed and the broken. The Hebrew word translated as "sacrifice" is korban. The root karev means to "draw close." Sacrifices are to help us draw close to God. The New Testament understanding of sacrifice as an act of self-sacrificing love traces back to this Old Testament understanding of the korban. There is certainly here the concept of vicarious atonement, meaning that through the sacrifice we are reconciled to God, but not understood in the legal context of a requirement or an appeasement but as an act of communion.

"Jesus would not back down. He stood up for love, for the small, for you and me. even though he knew that it would cost him his life. So the Powers stripped him naked, exposed him and shamed him. They crucified him as a common criminal to show that no one can oppose the System. But when the people saw that the Powers had killed Love, they realized what a travesty of justice this was. The people realized what a sham the oppressive System was. As Love hung on that cross the authorities were exposed, unmasked in their hatred. The illusion was lifted."

"And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15)

By the cross God triumphed over the System and crucified it, he nailed the law to the cross.

"Having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross" (Colossians 2:14)

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:1).

"He crucified what would condemn us and keep us captive, he took the monopoly away from the temple, tearing the curtain in two. He took away the power of condemnation to keep us oppressed. He broke the vicious cycle that death had us in. God in effect said to the Powers and Authorities: "Death, this child is mine, you have no rights over her. You will not define who she is anymore. She doesn't belong to you" ."

----------------

"Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Eph 6:12)

"to escape that enslaving destructive "world" we are trapped in, we must mirror Christ's death and resurrection: we say to that old identity of hurtfulness and victimhood "I am dead to you. I don't belong to you anymore" and we are raised to a new identity as God's loved children. By dying to what has killed us we say to that abusive system, to that hatefulness in us, that we will no longer be its victim. Thus Paul writes, "
"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world".(Galatians 6:14)
"Having died to the grip of that hurtful identity, we are then are "resurrected", raised up into a new identity - born again. Practically, that means we let God's love into our lives in a personal relationship, and as we grow in that relationship with God, learning to open our lives to his love, God's love forms how we see ourselves. Through experiencing and living in the love of God we replace the hurtful identity of estrangement and learn to see ourselves as God sees us: as his beloved child. "

------

"I realize that this may seem threatening for some readers, so I want to clarify that these conditions can just as easily describe someone inside the church as someone outside. This is not a matter of being converted to a religion, but being reconciled to Life. Many people inside the religion of Christianity still are estranged from life and alienated from God's love, God does not need the cross to forgive us. But some of us needed the cross to be able to really accept that forgiveness. God does not need the cross to love us. But many of us needed the cross to really grasp that love.
often times precisely because of a toxic faith environment encountered in the church. God seems distant to them; they feel condemned and unfulfilled. I know many people like this, people who are trying to break free from the yoke of legalism and spiritual abuse and enter into a grace-oriented understanding of Christianity. Whatever religious credentials we possess, whatever our condition is, God looks at our hearts and encounters us individually, personally, just as we are. "

per the self defense stuff. all the talk about the law, and not holding people to it. id say again, enforced more clearly by the tangent of this thread, that perhaps jesus could have engaged in self defense, he was entitled to, but he didn't do it.

Edited October 17, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

http://www.therebelgod.com/

[dairygirl4u2c]

"Although Jesus' life and death was not the fulfillment of a legal system [DG, semantics per the author's intent here, but jesus said he came to fulfill the law], it was the fulfillment of the relational model of love. Jesus fulfilled the true law by modeling perfect humanity. Jesus shows us what it means to be truly human by modeling what a life lived in submission to the God of love looks like. Jesus' way was the way of love, and Jesus knew full well that if he stayed on the road he was on, defending the poor and confronting spiritual corruption and evil, that this course would inevitably mean his death. The cross was no accident. God had a plan. God did not require Jesus' death. Hate killed Jesus when he stood up for love. But God used this tragedy to bring about life. Through the way of suffering, Life overcame Death. Jesus was not just a martyr for a cause, his death was the way that led to resurrection - the restoration of all things. It was the way of the cross that led to life and the resurrection and victory. In Aikido one uses the force of an attacker's blow to throw them, and God did exactly this on the cross. In God's economy, evil was defeated not with violence but with nonviolence, not with the power of hate but with the power of love. Life defeated Death. God raised Jesus from the dead so we could see that in the final analysis love is stronger than hate and death. It is this way of the cross that leads to our being liberated from the trap of the Powers - raised up out of a life governed by Death to a new identity ruled by Life. We enter this liberation as we embrace God's gift of grace and enter into Life by following the way of the cross - dying to what has killed us and being raised to a new identity - seeing ourselves through Jesus' eyes."

Edited October 17, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

"I will ransom them from Hell. I will redeem them from Death
O Death I will be thy plague. O Hell I will be thy destruction" (Hosea 13:14)

"Unlike Satisfaction-Doctrine which focuses on the death of Jesus, the pivotal event of Christus Victor is the resurrection. It was through the resurrection that death was overcome and where love emerged as victor. It was in the power and hope of the resurrection that the first-century church set their hope that they too would be raised up. That it was worth it to believe in love in a world that could be so loveless; to fight for justice and reform in a world that could be so unjust, to believe in yourself in a world that calls you the least. The resurrection was God's definitive yes to life. It said that in the final analysis love conquers all, and nothing, not death or hell or trouble or persecution or sword can separate us from that love. This is Christus Victor. It is about liberation. It is about revolution. It is about God's battle to break through to us with his love."

Edited October 17, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

"We know that, in the final analysis, love is stronger than death, so we can have the courage to risk loving scandalously in a dark world. Our eyes are opened to see the whole picture - enabling us to live fully and freely. It is not escapist but fully life-embracing. It is a faith that does not take us out of the world, but overcomes the world, and places us in that world fully engaged, daring to care for ourselves and others, working to alleviate suffering and fighting injustice. We live between the "already" and the "not yet" of the resurrection. We see in Christ the first fruits of the victory of the resurrection and have hope in a world at war still very much subject to sin and suffering. It is like a letter received behind enemy lines saying, "You have not been forgotten. I love you. I am coming to get you out. " (compare Jn 14:18-20,27). We long for the resurrection of all things, the transformation of our lives and of society into God's reign of compassion, for an end to suffering and death. But we do this knowing the outcome is clear. Satan has been dealt the death blow on the cross. Love is stronger than death. That is the hope of the resurrection."

"The hope of the resurrection is a protest, a declaration for life - and that requires courage. The courage to embrace life with both hands, to risk caring, loving, reaching out. It is a holding on to hope in spite of our brokenness, in spite of trouble or hardship or doubt, because we realize how incredible this love is that has taken hold of us. The hope of the resurrection is the hope that comes when all hope is gone. As Peter Gomes writes,

"Genuine belief is maintained in spite of circumstances that would undermine belief and not simply because of circumstances that would confirm it. It takes a great deal of courage to believe in love in the face of hatred, life in the face of death, day in the dark of night, good in the face of evil".

That is the bold hope of the resurrection. It is the courage that Jesus demonstrated when he, on the cross, abandoned by his friends, mocked and misunderstood by the onlookers, overwhelmed with pain and torn with sorrow called out in despair, "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" and heard nothing - the heavens absent of comfort, as black as night. And there, in that darkness, Jesus, in one final act of courage and trust, set his hope on grace and cast his spirit into the mystery of God: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit"

It was that sacrifice, that faith, that holding on to love in the blackness of night that defeated death and raised Jesus from the grave. Sown in weakness, raised in power. This is the way of the cross, and there is power there. Nothing, not even death, can stop that kind of power. It is the power of love. The victory of God."

Edited October 18, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]I've been spending a lot of time lately looking at the way the Old Testament is quoted in the New, and I've found something pretty surprising: 9 times out of 10 the New Testament citation completely flips the original meaning of the Old Testament passage on its head! Take for example Paul's Easter message in 1 Cor 15 where he writes that "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Cor 15:26). Paul then quotes the familiar line "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" and declares that "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 15:55-57). As Paul is using the phrase, Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? is addressing a defeated death: where is your sting now, O death? For you have been defeated by Christ! But take a look at the original passage in Hosea that Paul is quoting from:

"Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death?
O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction?
Compassion is hidden from my eyes." (Hos 13:14 NRSV)

The sense here is the opposite of what Paul is saying. It is about inviting death to come and destroy Israel in punishment. The NET translation makes this difference quite clear:

"Will I deliver them from the power of Sheol? No, I will not!
Will I redeem them from death? No, I will not!
O Death, bring on your plagues! O Sheol, bring on your destruction!
My eyes will not show any compassion! (Hos 13:14 NET)


Now in both Hebrew and Greek there are no question marks (or any punctuation at all), so you can't really tell whether it says "Shall I redeem them from Death?" (a question) or "I Shall redeem them from Death" (a promise), but it is pretty significant that most English translations (NAB, NASB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT, NET) read this as a rhetorical question that implies a negative answer "Do you seriously think I will rescue you from death!?" The only exceptions to this reading are the NIV and KJV. Similarly, most English versions translate the part quoted by Paul to mean "What's keeping you death? Come!" meaning Hosea is not mocking death, but calling for death. Now how do we know that this is what Hosea meant? Context. Look at the last line: "Compassion is hidden from my eyes" and then read the whole chapter too and you'll see it ends by saying,

"They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open." (Hos 13:16 NIV)

This was not good news when Hosea said it, but Paul has turned it around. He has taken a passage which in its original context was about death being poured out on people and made it about humanity being liberated from death because of the Resurrection where Christ overcame death. Again, if you look at how the NT quotes the OT you will find that most of the time it is reversing the original context, subverting it, redeeming it. It takes the original context which says "I hate my enemies and want to destroy them" and makes it about redemption, forgiveness, and making things new again. I love that.

I could go on for pages and pages with other examples of this. If you want to see for yourself, just pick any passage from the NT that is quoting from the OT and then read the whole OT chapter to see what the original context was. You'll see that over and over the NT turns the original meaning around. If you ever wondered why it was that the disciples were so shocked that Jesus had to die on the cross, it's because this was a complete reversal of everything they had learned about the messiah from the prophets. They had learned from reading the OT prophets to expect the messiah to come as a warrior and kill all the bad people. The NT takes all of these messianic prophesies that are about violence and destruction and reverses their meaning. Instead of being about an oppressed people getting revenge, it makes it into a story where all of us need mercy and grace.[/quote]

[dairygirl4u2c]

yeah i'd say now that ive been thinking about it. per the 'self defense' question.
jesus could have legitimately engaged in selfdefense. and i doubt God would hold it against him. but, he chose not to hold them against what he was 'entitled' to. it would have been 'ungodly' of him, sure, to attack, per God's love and given the situation of being cornered and at the end of his rope. but not 'held againt him' at all.
i could be wrong, and that radical pascifism is what Jesus practiced, such that self defense wasn't even an option. i do think it was an option, though.

as one of many examples for why. jesus said if his kingdom were of this world, those of hte kingdom would be up and arms in saving him. but on the other hand, he said not to attack when he was being arrested 'those who live by the sword will die by the sword' he told his friends. and he also referred to judas 'friend, do what you came to do' per turning him in... indicating he wasn't holding against anyone. we also see jesus saying to go get a sword, if you dont have one, at one point... indicating it's not inherently wrong
we do know that jesus ran away before, when they were going to try and kill him. but i wonder if this time he didn't, cause they came as a mob, and perhaps it wasn' possible to run away. he just gave in.
and it helps to think about the fact that they didn't even know what they were doing, in a deeper sense 'father forgive them, for they know not what they do'

so all this 'he committed suicie' stuff, with either throeies i have, not at all. one isn't required to do self defense. that's the onlyu way it might even remotely be suicide, is if it was required for him to attack back.

Edited October 23, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

it's also interesting, per why they decided to kill him. part of me sympathized with the killers, actually, cause jesus was jewish, so if he was, and everyone there was, what are they to make of a guy claiming to be God in violation of the law (which probably said to kill those who claim to be God, not that that was or was not the real law or the law of man. it was jewish in any case so.)? not that that justified them, cause even if he did claim that.... they need to consider whether he is, etc, espcially a miracle performer etc. (not that there weren't other performers i guess but...)
the only thing he did, was refer to himself as 'the son of God' and 'the son of man' when confronted on the issue. and when he admitted that, he quoted the old testament which said 'we are all gods', indicating it's hard to be against him when the old testament says that.
the only times he mightve been said to admit it, is not when he was in front of the jews, but in front of his friends in private. 'have i not been with you long enough for you to have seen God?' etc etc. i always say it's more complicated than 'jesus is God' but only cause we usually approach the trinity as a paradox, so that statement is loaded to some extent. (eg, jesus is God, the father is God... but jesus isn't the father-- that sorta paradoxy stuff)
the only thing he did admit, is to being the messiah, the one to come. they wouldn't havet hat, though. apparently they were like everyone else, thinking the messiah would be a guy coming in flames takiing justice out on everyone. that wasnt teh case at all, and so they wouldn't have it. not that they should have held it against jesus, when he didn't meet their expectations. haha
even pilate said that he could find no fault in him. the people didn't care though, and seemd to act more irrationally, out of hate, than anything. that's why they were ready to kill him, instead of a convicted criminal, barabas.


it's easy in all this, to see how jesus probably felt misunderstood, and how the people probably didn't fully grasp what they were doing, it's hard to just come into a realizatio of everything im sayibng, except in retrospect or over time like the apostles. not that they didn't act irreationally and out of hate, though.

Edited October 23, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning." "and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us"

even bible references that refer to jesus as god, are usually mystical. 'with god' and yet 'was god' as if it's conflicting, yet not. like the trinity.
jesus is the word.

Edited October 25, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]What was the point of the sacrifices, if it was not to appease?


There are in the Old Testament many types of sacrifices, only a few having to do with atonement for sin. There were sacrifices of thanksgiving, there were sacrifices of first fruits, there is was the passover sacrifice, and so on. In all of the sacrifices, the central theme is not appeasement, but representational consecration. That is, symbolically through the offering the worshiper says “this offering represents my giving to you my life”, or as you might hear in a love song "God I belong to you, here is my heart". It is not a statement of placation (as if God needed to be bribed into loving us), but an act of devotion, entrusting oneself to God, giving your life into God's hands. In the case of the thanksgiving and first fruits offerings it means that all that we have comes from God and so with these first fruits we acknowledge that it all belongs to God. The passover offering was about the birth of the people of Israel and marked the time of the exodus of God's people out of bondage, so the passover offering was about committing and aligning oneself on God's side against oppression. Finally along with all the other sacrifices the sacrifice of atonement for sin was saying “Here is my life, I want to live it for you Lord. I die to the sinful in me and give my life to you”.



In the same way blood was sprinkled to dedicate the temple, and dedicate the law to God. This was the case with the Passover sacrifice which originated as the people marked their house door showing their allegiance with God, consecrating their house as belonging to the Lord. Thus Jesus when he connects his death with the Passover speaks of a “Covenant” being established by his blood “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Lk22:20). It was the sealing of a promise, like signing a contract in blood. We can see here that whether a sin offering, or a thanks offering, or a dedication that in every case there is the common theme of consecration – dedicating to God. This sense of consecration is conveyed in the Latin root of the word “sacrifice” which means “to make sacred” or "to consecrate". We give ourselves, our lives, our need, our thanks, our allegiance to God vicariously through the ritual of sacrifice.



There is here the aspect of identification with the animal – you bring a part of yourself to the altar, in many cases laying a hand on the animal's head before it is slaughtered. Specifically in the case of the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement we can see also an aspect of transference as the scapegoat was sent off bearing the sin away (Lv 16:21-22). And as previously mentioned there is here a clear aspect of vicarious atonement specifically with the sin offerings - that animal that died was you. The consecration here meant that the sinner brought their broken life to the altar Yet in all of this the writers of the Old Testament are emphatic that the main object of sacrifice is not about a mechanical transaction detached from relationship, but the outward ritual effecting inner change, devotion, and repentance. As David says


“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean wash me, and I will be whiter than snow...Create in me a pure heart, O God..." (Ps 51:7,10)

David's prayer here is that the outward cleansing of the hyssop would go down and cleanse his inmost being. God, David says, is not interested in outward actions, but in the state of his heart. This is a relational exchange not a legal one.

"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” (Ps 51:16-17).[/quote]

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]We left off last time with God saying through Isaiah "I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats". With that in mind, we turn to deal with the popular misconception that the saying “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” in Hebrews 9:22 means that God needs blood in order to be able to forgive, as if it were some sort of magical incantation or legal requirement. However reading the entire verse we see it says


“The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb 9:22)


Here the stated purpose of the blood is not to appease through punishment, but to be “cleansed with blood”. Cleansing, or purifying as it is sometimes translated, is associated in this verse with forgiveness. The full formula of Hebrew 9 is that without being cleansed with blood there is no forgiveness. God does not need a sacrifice to forgive us or love us, we need to be made clean inside. Notice below how the writer of Hebrews continually draws a connection between blood and cleansing,


“The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,so that we may serve the living God!” (Heb 9:13-14)


What does it mean to be purified by blood? In the Hebrew thought, purifying, or sanctification (making holy), involved a purging of what is impure “You must purge the evil from among you” (Dt 13:5 et al). The blood represented, in the Jewish thought, the life of the animal “For the life of a creature is in the blood (Lev 17:11) So the temple sacrifices involved ceremonial act of purging oneself of sin, as Paul says by “dying to sin in us” (Ro 6) vicariously through the death of the animal on the altar. This is understood more broadly, again in terms of consecration, giving over to God “The blood... sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them”. The function of blood here is not to appease, but to “purge out evil” - to sanctify. A similar thought today would be the idea of removing a cancer from our bodies. The two ideas of consecration and sanctification are in fact closely related because the concept of “setting apart” (consecration) is similar to the idea of “purging out evil” (purification). This idea flowed over into their understanding of health conditions and the idea of a person being “unclean” or of certain foods as “unclean”.



This idea of devotion and purification through blood is still of course quite foreign to us today, yet it is a practice found in nearly every ancient culture and one that predates the Jewish temple sacrifice. Unless we want to write all these cultures and people off as “primitive” we would need to assume that there is something reflected in the practice that connects to a fundamental part of our shared human experience. The word “atonement” literally means “made at-one” and generally speaking, all of the various sacrifices can be said to be about connectedness. The first fruits offering expressed an acknowledgment that what we had was not ours alone. The Passover sacrifice expressed a solidarity with God's people in times of trouble. The thanksgiving offering expressed in gratitude an acknowledgment of our connectedness to others. Specifically in the case of the sin offering it was a sense of restoring a broken connection that had been severed by sin. Sacrifice was a ritual that allowed people to work through the very real guilt they felt and their desire to atone for it, not understood in the legal context of a requirement (as if God really needs a cow) or an appeasement (as if one could bribe God or buy his love) but as a way provided by a loving God to work through our guilt and restore our lost connection to God, ourselves, and others. Again, not in the sense of dealing with mere “guilt feelings” disconnected from reality, but of dealing with the alienating reality of a stained conscience. It enacted symbolically the faith that God could make us clean again, mending the bond we had severed.[/quote]




[quote]In the previous installements I've tried to explore how we might understand the Temple Scarifices by understanding mor about the culture they came out of and the meanings they connected to them. We need to keep in mind though that it is vital to understand the meaning and drama behind the Sacrifices rather than their functional mechanics. Being a part of the actual experience of the drama of temple sacrifice effected a person much more deeply that any explanation that can be given for it. In the same way, the crucifixion story can effect and move a person in a way that mere explanations of the atonement cannot. In watching Jesus carry that cross through spit and mud, in seeing the nail scarred hands, we become involved in his story, understanding it on a level that is often outside of our words to express.

Story and ritual have an ability to immerse and involve a person that no analysis can capture. In trying to understand the rites of a culture long ago, it can be helpful to explain the meanings and motivations of the sacrifices; but at their core, they were likely understood in the wordless language of drama, just as we today connect to both ritual and story on a gut level. We are moved by it, but do not have words. No amount of musical theory can explain why a Bach recital will move a person to tears, or for that matter what it it's like to be in the middle of a mosh pit at punk rock concert. To truly understand we need to be immersed in it. Understood in this way, the ritual of Sacrifice enacted the drama of re-connection. It was more than anything understood on a gut level, not on a mechanical one.

The drama of the Temple Sacrifices - like all story - spoke to people a the core of who they were. It acted out the profound longing in the worshiper for connection. The book of Hebrews tells us that the temple sacrifice was a “copy and shadow of what is in heaven” (Heb 8:5). The true picture is found in Christ who is both the perfect mediator, and the perfect sacrifice. In other words, the reality that the story of the sacrifices pointed to was the cross. The cross is, in the words of C.S. Lewis “a myth which is also a fact” that myth - meaning a story that defines us as people - has “come down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history”. The story of our deepest yearnings rooted in the reality of who we are, came and lived among us, died on a cross, and rose again. The temple sacrifices were an earthly symbol for the heavenly reality enacted on the cross. God in Christ takes our place, does what we could not do, breaks us out of the grip of guilt, and makes our hearts clean again.

As much as we can try to understand the Temple Sacrifices, the fact remains that it is still pretty upsetting to think about. Perhaps this gut reaction we have tells us something important. Quite plainly, we are reminded in Hebrews that in the temple sacrifice a real animal was slaughtered and died. In the same way, the fact of the crucifixion was that Jesus really died a horrific death. We should be wary of any theory of the cross that makes the death of Jesus either “self-evident” (like a rational legal theory can), or “romanticizes” the crucifixion into palatable and noble metaphors (as a Christus Victor theory can). Any metaphors and meaning we might see in the cross are not abstract images, but refer to the real and bloody death of Jesus on the cross. Yes it was necessary, and yes it is about God's love, but it also is a shock. When we today find the idea of animal sacrifice to be something shocking and primitive, this is in fact exactly the reaction Paul describes to his preaching of the crucified Christ by both Jews and Greeks who saw the cross as “a stumbling block” and “foolishness”.

The cross as practised by Rome was by no means a symbol of the “fulfilment of justice”, it was a symbol of great shame and failure. If we want to understand the cross, that is where we need to begin – in its shame and failure. The cross was to the people of Jesus' time something horrific, and one cannot get around that by trying to frame it in detached legal terms that call a scandal “reasonable”. Likewise, as much as we may be tempted to have a “bloodless cross” and only focus on God's love and good news, this we also must not do. Life begins at the cross. One must face its horror dead on, one must have the courage to look at its ugliness and at our own ugliness. There, in the shadow of the cross, we will find life. [/quote]

Edited October 30, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

at the most basic level of my understanding... i always understood the sacrifice of animals back when i was younger, in the same way we see 'first fruits' sacrificed, or 'guilt sacrifices'. people are trying to give to God what they have, they're trying to do what they can. 'i offer you my heifer because i can'. also 'my sins and life are represented in this heifer' also, and that part of me is slayed and given to God to deal take and/or deal with.
it doesn't 'vibe' with anything ive ever felt intiutively, until i started hearing that's teh way it was by legalists, that they and we are 'doing a legal exchange' for the sake of appeasing justice.

[dairygirl4u2c]

this concept is clarified when one thinks of a priest walking down the aisle sprinkling everyone with holy water. back in those days, they did it with blood. the point is about cleansing though-- the life of the animal to cleanse, the life of the people will be cleansed. this is being said in terms of cleansing and relatinoship uilding and sanctifclessation, not really about appeasement for legalistic justice.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]Propitiation is a word that in not in common use today. Proponents of Penal Substitution use it frequently, primarily referring to Romans 3:25

"(Christ Jesus) Whom God hath 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"

This is the passage that Luther was struggling with in yesterday's post and begins with Paul's statement "Now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known... This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe". We saw that this righteousness "apart from law" was about God setting things right when we trust in him to work for us and in us. It involves a fundamental change in how we understand righteousness and justice, not as performance, but "apart from law" as something God does for sinners. But how does that work? All are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" but how did it come? In the next verse (3:25) Paul says it was through the cross. And here we find that word (at least in King James) "propitiation".

Propitiation literally means "to make favorable". It is similar to words like appeasement (Lit "to make peace") and Pacify (again to bring peace). However with all of these the context is placed on the idea of turning aside another's wrath usually through a gift or offering. The immediate difficulty with such as idea is that God does not need to be "made favorable" since he is the initiator of reconciliation. God is the one who "first loved us". It is vital to note that virtually no major proponent of Penal Substitution sees the cross as God's favor being purchased through sacrifice (which is what propitiation means) since this represents a pagan idea of sacrifice. John Stott writes that propitiation "does not make God gracious...God does not love us because Christ died for us, Christ died for us because God loves us" (The Cross of Christ p.174) Calvin writes "Our being reconciled by the death of Christ must not be understood as if the Son reconciled us, in order that the Father, then hating, might begin to love us"(Institutes II 16:4)

Secondly, since it is God who makes the propitiation this amounts to "God paying God". You cannot propitiate yourself any more than you can steal from yourself or bribe yourself. What it amounts to is a word being stretched beyond the breaking point until it no longer fits. Propitiation is a concept that comes from a pagan understanding of the sacrifices where the sacrifice purchased the gods favor and humor. That is not the case here since it is God who makes the offering of himself.

So how did the word "propitiation" get into Romans 3:25? The original Greek word is hilasterion. Hilasterion is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew kapporeth which refers to the Mercy Seat of the Arc. Luther in his translation of the Bible renders Hilasterion as "Gnadenstuhl" which is German for Mercy Seat. In context this means that "God has set forth Jesus as the mercy seat (the place where atonement and expiation happen) through faith in his blood". Jesus is thus "the place where we find mercy". Many new translations render Hislateron for this reason as "expiate" because the Temple Sacrifices to not have an element of appeasing of wrath in them and thus this seems to be a more fitting translation if it refers to the Mercy Seat in the Temple. Expiation literally means "to make pious" (similar to sanctify) and implies either the removal or cleansing of sin.

The idea of propitiation includes that of expiation as its means. We are "made favorable" (propitiation) when our sin is removed (expiation). The problem is not that God is unwilling or unloving (propitiation), but that our sin causes a real break in relationship. As with any relationship, that break must be mended. This is what expiation refers to. Expiation is about cleaning or removing of sin and has no reference to quenching God's righteous anger. The difference is that the object of expiation is sin, not God. Grammatically, one propitiates a person, and one expiates a problem. You cannot expiate (remove) a person or God, nor can one propitiate (make favorable) sin. Christ's death was therefore both an expiation and a propitiation. By expiating (removing the problem of) sin God was made propitious (favorable) to us. Again not because God then suddenly loved us, but because the break in the relationship was mended.

Theologians stress the idea of propitiation because it specifically addresses the aspect of the atonement dealing with God's wrath. Leon Morris for instance argued for the translation of "propitiation" in Romans 3:25 because he said the thrust of Paul in Romans up til then had been on God's wrath. This is true. However the way that that wrath was dealt with was not though the anger of God being pacified through a gift (propitiation) but rather though God actually solving the problem by removing our sin as a doctor remove3s a cancer (expiation) thus making us "right".

Given then that virtually no proponent of Penal Substitution uses the word propitiation (or appeasement) as it is actually defined in English, it seems a bad word to use that leads to a false understanding of God as one who demands to be paid before he will love us rather than a God who pays what he does not owe because he loves us so much and gives his own life for us. God is not "made favorable" to us through a gift, rather God makes us favorable by giving his life.[/quote]

[dairygirl4u2c]

"(Christ Jesus) Whom God hath 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"

read, 'expiration' or 'removal of our sins', instead of 'propiation' in a legal sense.

[dairygirl4u2c]

from the above quotes.
not appeasement, which is a pagan concept. it was a sacrifice of consecration. jesus consecrated himself to God, on the cross.
this avoids all the confusion like, 'so the people weren't intending the sacrifice, so how could it count?'. per legal type thinkers.
i'm not sure what to make of the fact that the people also were not like old testament folks, who at least also intended the sacrifice. maybe it was just jesus' sacrifie, his consecration, not so much what we had to do with it. and, as said before, those who consecrate themselves to him also consecrate themselves to jesus' life and death, and then will become part of hte body of christ, and like jesus be resurrected.

Edited October 30, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c