Redemption, Salvation, Atonement? The fly in the ointment

by SweetBabyCheezits 87 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  PSacramento

  One must always keep in mind that the bible is a progressive revelation of God and God's will, cumulating in The Word of God incarnate among us, Jesus Christ.

  God doesn't change, but our understanding of him does, hence the supposed contridiction at times or differences between God in the OT and God as revealed correctly in His Son Jesus Christ.

  I am not saying that the NT superceeds the OT, just that the NT "clears" up many of the erronesous man-made views in the OT.

  And one of those views was that God was full of wraith and hate and vengenace.

  IN the OT the prophets spoke in a way that they could speak in realtion to WHO they were speaking too, withen the context of the genre they were writing, some of it was historical, some was rhetoric and some was revelatory.

  But these issues were present even in the earliest stages of the Chucrh, to say that it is nouvec-christians interpreting things their way is showing lack of understanding about the history of the church.
• 

  superpunk

  And one of those views was that God was full of wraith and hate and vengenace.

  That's not constricted to the OT. Paul's entire explanation of propitiation in Romans is based on the premise that God hates us and needed to be appeased.
• 

  PSacramento

  That's not constricted to the OT. Paul's entire explanation of propitiation in Romans is based on the premise that God hates us and needed to be appeased.

  Well, I certainly don't agree, how do you see that?
• 

  superpunk

  Did you miss the scripture above (Romans 5) that declares that Jesus blood is saving us from God's wrath?

  Hebrews 9 without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

  The bible writers were clear about the bloodthristy nature of their Lord. They understood that he hated them, he hated their sin, and the only way to be saved from his wrath was blood.

  So why are new-age Christians seemingly so ashamed of the bloodthirsty nature of their Lord?
• 

  Giordano

  The fly in the ointment is that Jesus got seriously crucified something the Jews were not looking for in their Messiah. They had it figured out that their Messiah was going to be a warrior king. So since early Christianity was Jewish his believers had to come up with a reason for his death and manner of. With need being the mother of invention.........they invented a story. See they said this is why it happened. You know it would have been a better story if he had lived. Jesus we hardly got to know you.
• 

  PSacramento

  Did you miss the scripture above (Romans 5) that declares that Jesus blood is saving us from God's wrath?

  Yes, I did sorry.

  Paul was a Jew and Jews, even reformed ones, believed in a wrathful God but Paul also states that God is Love and goes on to show, in Corinthians, the characterstics that are quite far from wrath.

  Hebrews 9 without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

  A letter to the Hebrews would be speaking in terms that they understood, namely atoning sacrifice.

  The bible writers were clear about the bloodthristy nature of their Lord. They understood that he hated them, he hated their sin, and the only way to be saved from his wrath was blood.

  I disagree.

  So why are new-age Christians seemingly so ashamed of the bloodthirsty nature of their Lord?

  Not ashamed, but enlightened in knowing that is NOT how he is and that is not his true nature.

  Of course this is opinion and if one takes the OT as literal AND concrete one will have very hard time reconciling YHWH with our beloved Abba.
• 

  superpunk

  Not ashamed, but enlightened

  Tomato tomahto in this case. The shame/enlightenment has lead you to decide that the early church fathers were either completely wrong, or were too stupid to get their point across to their audience without making their god look like a hateful, bloodthirsty monster. Ta-dah! It's new Jesus! Re-invented for your 21st century pleasure. And he's ribbed.
• 

  PSacramento

  Tomato tomahto in this case. The shame/enlightenment has lead you to decide that the early church fathers were either completely wrong, or were too stupid to get their point across to their audience without making their god look like a hateful, bloodthirsty monster. Ta-dah! It's new Jesus! Re-invented for your 21st century pleasure. And he's ribbed.

  LMAO !

  Nice one.

  Thing is, Paul and John clearly state that God is love and that love is not vengeful or angry and that God is Light and that there is no darkness in Him.

  God so loved us that he became Man though His son so that WE could have His Grace given upon us, through His SOn we are given the Holy SPpirit to strengthen Us with His Love.

  That was written befoe ANY of the church fathers were saying what you think meant that God was this and that.

  Why did some of them make God out to be angry and hateful?

  Truthfully I don't know, probably because of the erroneous belief liek the JW's have that fearing God keeps people in line, which it doesn't.

  Loving God and feeling God's Love is what drives us to Love each other and to good works for each other, not fear.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  Not ashamed, but enlightened in knowing that is NOT how he is and that is not his true nature.

  Have you seen the news today? Watched any videos of tsunami waters consuming everything in their path? What part of God's true nature allows him to sit and watch silently while people in Japan are drowning and being crushed to death? I'n starting to think we'd have more reason to worry if god does exist than if he doesn't. What kind of parent would that make him? Any other parent who shows such a degree of negligence goes to jail and get their kids taken from them.

  It's no wonder the OT authors painted their god as wrathful towards man.

  “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
  Then he is not omnipotent.
  Is he able, but not willing?
  Then he is malevolent.
  Is he both able and willing?
  Then whence cometh evil?
  Is he neither able nor willing?
  Then why call him God?”
  
  -Epicurus
• 

  superpunk

  Well I don't think you can beg off to some sort of timeline (John wrote all the lovey-dovey stuff first!) because it's not like the Church Fathers just pulled angry God out of thin air. They were going off of plenty of years of history and written and oral tradition up to that point.

  I guess it's just picking and choosing which of these scriptures you want to be emphasized in your faith, if you don't want to admit that the picture of God as an entity who hates us all is accurate, placed right alongside the God loves us all and wants us to be reconciled (to himself, again because he hates us by default).

  I'll have another sweet sweet helping of cognitive dissonance, thank you.