Was Jesus sacrifice really a sacrifice?

jambon1

I would like to state firstly that I in no way intend to offend anyone.

Its just when I was in the org I had major problems with the blood issue/death because of persecution. Many times we were taught that God does`nt ask us to do anything that he has`nt done himself. Now imagine everything the bible says about Jesus really did happen.

We were taught that God must have suffered so much in seeing his son die - this was ULTIMATE sacrifice. But God knew he was getting Jesus back within a few weeks. He knew this for a fact.

In our case, we are asked to make sacrifices (ourselves/children) and we are assured that Jehovah has done the same thing himself in J.C.

But we do not know for a fact that we will ever live again or see our dead loved ones. Nevertheless, we were to go ahead and do it anyway. (holocaust/malawi etc etc)

My point is, Jehovahs sacrifice does`nt seem to me to be much of a painful thing. He knew Jesus was getting life again, almost straight away. Our sacrifices would be much more painful to bear if we went through with them.

Anyone else have this thought or is it just me?

dvw

its amazing how many people at this site have the exact same view that i do on all sorts of stuff. its like we are all reading from the same page. maybe because we WERE reading from the same page a while ago.

anewme

That thought occured to me at times too, but I never quite verbalized it like you have.

I always felt a little ripped off that we as the "great crowd" never felt assured of our safety in the future. It was always "maybe you will be saved" in the day of Jah's anger. Our future was always a little shaky whereas the anointed had the assurance of Holy Spirit and so did Jesus and the prophets of old heard the voice of Jehovah etc. We never saw any great "miracles" to help us, but we were expected to sacrifice and continue on in our mind numbing dull restricted lives and "maybe we would be saved".

jambon1

dvw

I found that as well when I originally came here last November.

It is liberating in fact when you consider that for years we told ourselves that the problem was ours, weak faith etc. The mind punishment of that gets unbearable 'I`m not good enough, I'm not good enough' - the JW mantra.

Keeps them all in check but makes for a bunch of miserable folk.

J

james_woods

Jambon1, you are so right about this subject having the power to pizz a lot of people off. But there is a great logical point to be made here if you look at things in an open-minded way.

I never got this either - not only was he going to come right back to life again, but why in the world was this necessary in the first place? It wasn't Jesus fault that Adam did what he did. I personally have never had a satisfiying explanation as to why murdering a god-prophet somehow washed away the sins of mankind. Couldn't we have just believed in his message without the blood rite? If proving resurrrection was the point, didn't the Lazarus story pretty much do that in a more direct manner?

Further, didn't God always condemn human sacrifice? Burning your children before Molech? Well, OK - he did kind of suggest a faith test human sacrifice, but stopped it before anything happened and provided an animal. Also, I don't know of anything in Jewish or OT thought that even suggested a ritual human sacrifice in this manner. I.E.: Animal sacrifice by priesthood = good worship. Human child sacrifice by priesthood = pagan false worship = murder. Passover = good worshiper sons spared, bad worshiper sons killed.

No disrepect, just don't get some aspects of this.

James

sir82

This is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around.

For an all-powerful God, how is anything a sacrifice?

"Sacrifice" implies irretrievable loss. Giving up something to gain something else. If you have all the power in the universe to "undo" any event that takes place, in what sense is anything a sacrifice? What exactly can God give up that he can never ever have again?

jambon1

anewme

Thanks. Phew, I though I was going to be stigmatised man!!!

The attitude of 'maybe we will be saved' is utterly self-defeating. JW`s live in a world of uncertainty & I think that affects people mentally. It did me.

When I think of it, I can only think of a few really, really happy JW`s and I know a lot of people.

RunningMan

Jesus didn't really die for our sins. He just had a really bad weekend for our sins.

jambon1

This is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around.

For an all-powerful God, how is anything a sacrifice?

"Sacrifice" implies irretrievable loss. Giving up something to gain something else. If you have all the power in the universe to "undo" any event that takes place, in what sense is anything a sacrifice? What exactly can God give up that he can never ever have again?

Narkissos

The notion of "sacrifice" was just one among many models of interpretation of Jesus' death in early Christianity. It only gradually became central, that is, realistic or non-metaphorical.

And you have well expressed the logical problems which arise when you cease to interpret it as a metaphor.

Was Jesus sacrifice really a sacrifice?

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