Did Jesus sacrifice really mean anything? (page 5)

2tone

A sacrifice would be giving himself to death and not be resurrected ever. Instead it was to put himself in a position of power for his so called sacrifice. His supposed sacrifice let him take the throne in 1914 over us. He has a supposed second throne that he will soon take in the next couple generations.

SweetBabyCheezits

His supposed sacrifice let him take the throne in 1914 over us. He has a supposed second throne that he will soon take in the next couple generations.

Jesus ain't got nothin on me. I took the throne a couple of hours ago and it was the second time in one day.

2tone

I threw up in several more than once

SweetBabyCheezits

Ding: My point is that according to the scriptures, that's not all that happens.

Granted. But if we set aside presuppositions of the Bible being holy, this is a perversion of justice, not a higher form of it.

And if you're right, how unfortunate for the poor soul who relies on logic, reason, and evidence in his search.

TimeBandit

If god really want's his son's death to be a ransom that’s MEANINGFUL, then he ought to MAN UP! Kill him again and let him stay dead; that would be a REAL sacrifice.

Ding

No one could ever live up to God's standards. Isn't that what the law was for? Why does God expect us to live up to unreasonable standards (or at least did, in the case of Israel?)

You're right!

In fact, often we don't even live up to our own professed moral standards.

In Acts 15:10, Peter called the law a yoke that neither they nor their ancestors had been able to bear.

Fallen man cannot meet God's standards, yet somehow legalistic groups like the WTS teach that we can do so if we just attend enough meetings, follow the rules, do enough field service, etc. That's the opposite of the gospel message.

In John 3, Jesus marveled that Nicodemus, one of the key teachers in Israel, didn't understand his need to be reborn spiritually, a change that only God can give us. John 3:10: "Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?"

Why should he have understood that? Because of Israel's long experience with the law.

Galatians 3:24 says that the law was intended as a schoolmaster to show us our need for Christ. Like a cancer screening test that gives us very bad news but can't do anything to cure us, so the law gives us very bad news about our fallen condition but is powerless to cure us. No amount of attempted law keeping will make us righteous. We can't do it. We can't live up to it.

Galatians 3:15-16: "We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, 16 yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified."

So God provided a cure.

God's provision is to give us Christ's righteousness as a gift, received by faith. 2 Corinthians 5:21: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

Romans 8:1-4: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

I believe this is Paul's point in Romans 3:19-28: "Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the
law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; 26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. 28 For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law."

Of course, no one here is required to believe this, but it is what the New Testament teaches.

By contrast, the "good news" of the WTS is really a works righteousness system in which you are always trying in your own strength to prove yourself worthy to survive Armageddon and make it into a paradise earth. The WT system has no remedy for our fallen condition and leaves JWs feeling constantly unworthy and condemned. The law always leaves us feeling unworthy and condemned.

It is grace that sets us free.