Redemption, Salvation, Atonement? The fly in the ointment

by SweetBabyCheezits 87 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  I posted this Paine quote in the middle of another thread but thought it deserved its own.

  This principle eluded me before reading The Age of Reason. It's such a simple, basic concept of justice and yet so many Christians miss it (as I did) or ignore it.

  "If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me; but if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed; moral Justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty, even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose Justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself; it is then no longer Justice, it is indiscriminate revenge."

  -Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

  What do you think? Do you...

  A. Strongly agree
  B. Agree
  C. Neither agree nor disagree
  D. Disagree
  E. Strongly disagree
• 

  james_woods

  Strongly agree - I never understood the vague "human sacrifice & cannibalistic" nature of this ransom doctrine in the first place.

  What I kept wondering was - if God had decided to forgive people, why not just look into their hearts and forgive them?

  What was with all this legalistic human sacrifice stuff, anyway?
• 

  PSacramento

  On the surface I would agree, certainly justice demands that those that commit the crime, due the time.

  But that is onlY PART of the picture.

  How is the criminal re-habilitaed then? what is done so that the crime is not commited again by said criminal? what is done so that the criminal doesn't WANT to commit the crime or need to?

  The carrying of our sins that Christ did was just PART of all he did.

  Christianity is unique in the aspect that, all other religions give you this "list" of what you have to do to be saved or to be part of those that "don't need saving", or whatnot. Christianity says that there is nothing you cna do because the sheer act of doing something shows you have ulterior motives, hence your act is tainted, you are trying to do soemthing without the one thing you need to actuall do it: God and Love ( one in the same).

  SO Christianity supposes this solution:

  God knowing that there was nothing that we can do to get "up there", came "down here" to Us and become the "unconditional sacrifice" to atone for Us and he did this through his only-begooten son Christ, the only person that COULD do this and in doing that, Christ became the mediator between Us and God.

  No more sacrifices or atonments to God because Chirst has done THE sacrifice and atonement for all and for all ages and in doing so has give us all the gift of God's grace.

  Another paid the price for our sin because only He Could.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  James: What was with all this legalistic human sacrifice stuff, anyway?

  Yeah, I remember in the old Live Forever book the picture of a set of scales with Adam on one side and Jesus on the other. One perfect life in exchange for another = justice?

  Boy, I really bought into that.. Of course... I was only 9 or 10 years old.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  How is the criminal re-habilitaed then? what is done so that the crime is not commited again by said criminal? what is done so that the criminal doesn't WANT to commit the crime or need to?

  Who's the criminal again? Adam, right?
• 

  PSacramento

  Who's the criminal again? Adam, right?

  If by Adam you mean ADAM the hebrew word for Man, yes, but I wouldn't use the word criminal, that was YOUR choice of words remeber?

  ;)
• 

  james_woods

  Another thing I never understood was the concept of sin versus the concept of free will.

  Apparantly, there is not much difference...Adam excersized free will, but that was a sin.

  If he had blindly obeyed not eating the fruit, (like a robot), then he would not have sinned - but he would not have displayed free will either.

  So, after the ransom, has man given up free will again?
• 

  PSacramento

  The sin wasn't the excercising of free will, it was the "tuning our backs" on God, the sin was arrogance and pride:

  "We can be like God, we don't need God".
• 

  james_woods

  The sin wasn't the excercising of free will, it was the "tuning our backs" on God, the sin was arrogance and pride:

  "We can be like God, we don't need God".

  But PSac - the "be like God" thing was only in the choice of right or wrong.

  Many, many religious thinkers believe that it is inextricably linked with sentient choice of free will. Note, for example, that they knew they were naked after making this choice.
• 

  PSacramento

  But PSac - the "be like God" thing was only in the choice of right or wrong.

  Many, many religious thinkers believe that it is inextricably linked with sentient choice of free will. Note, for example, that they knew they were naked after making this choice.

  The sin was not free will, in that they were already like God and in God's image.

  Nothing that they had before the "fall" was sinful, it was when pride came into the picture that the Fall happened.

  Free will was what they exercised of course, but it was pride that was the sin, it was their turning their backs on God and thinking they could do it without God that made them "broken" and caused the Fall.

  A car may be the instrument of an accident, but it is the driver that causes it.