Paul is using legalistic ways of explaining Jesus` sacrifice to those who still thought legalistically and in black and white about God. The more accurate and deeper meaning of Jesus death has nothing to do with sin payments in reality but to do with the human issue of being able to love oneself, via an ultimate demonstration. The contradiction arises because law is thought to achieve righteousness but it doesn’t but it is needed for obvious reasons, so legalistic ways of thinking serve as a beginning of understanding to hopefully lead to more mature level of comprehension. I.e a child will often be told to obey some rule in the house for its safety. A black and white understanding is all that required for a child, but as it gets older it is hoped that maturity will lead to the child becoming a person who does good and does sensible things, not because it is told to or has a black and white legalistic understanding still, but because it wants to do so because it cares about itself and others. Love is the key to this, and unless one loves oneself one cannot love others. So Paul is feeding theological milk but wants to feed solid food. So there is not really a contradiction here.
Jesus sacrifice and animal sacrifice contradiction
by trackregister99 43 Replies latest watchtower bible
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trackregister99
Seraphim23, really your explication is not convincent for me.
In summary: Romans 3:25, 26 says that Jesus sacrifice was applied before it be realized, because the Jehovah promises always met.
Then the contradiction problem is similar to this in monetary values:
adam sin inherited:us$900000000000
jesus sacrifice: us$900000000000
animal sacrifice: us$100
Then if jesus sacrifice was applied as retroactive that is the problem:
adam sin inherited:us$900000000000
- jesus sacrifice retroactive: us$900000000000
= debt: us$0
then with a debt of us$0 Jehovah request pay many animal sacrifice (us$100 * many) for a debt of us$0.
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Seraphim23
Well it is because I don’t believe in inherited sin. So the contradiction comes about through taking Paul too literally without seeing the deeper points he makes. He picks his audience and says what makes sense to them with the deeper points coming out in other texts. One can call it a contradiction if one wants to which is fine, or one can see other ways to understand it.
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Nathan Natas
The animals were roasted and could satisfy the preists' "Que cravings" in the Wholly Of Whollies.
Jesus was way underdone because no solar reflectors were properly deployed around the roasting stake, an error that shall not be made again.
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caroline77
trackregister, I believe that Christ's sacrifice gave forgiveness of sins only after his death, but at that time also became valid for those who had already died before his death. The animal sacrifices were needed before he died, because there was no other way at that time.
When Christ died, the curtain in the temple separating the holy place from view was torn from top to bottom, showing that man could now go directly to God without the need for mortal priests.
adamah, re Jephthah's daughter, God did not ask him to sacrifice her. He thought of that himself. He probably lived in an area where such things were normal.
Abraham was prevented from killing his son. God clearly did not want him to do it.
The incident with Saul's 7 descendants.. God did not ask for their deaths, and decided enough was enough only when they were given a proper burial.
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Shanagirl
IMO blood sacrifice was a practice that was never demanded by the True God. It was a practice that ancient Jews adopted from other surrounding cultures in their god worship and attributed to their Yahweh god. The spilling of blood is not from True God, but demanded by lesser dark gods that were worshipped.
JW's today still follow blood sacrifice in their worship to their Jehovah god thru blood transfusions. It's a sick ungodly practice the killing of life for blood to appease a god that I believe is nothing more that ancient ritualism passed down and has nothing to do with what the True and Loving God would demand. In fact the True God demands no service from mankind, rather that man serve one another in love. That is the principle of what Christ spoke of. The law of love.
Shana
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adamah
Caroline77 said-
are Jephthah's daughter, God did not ask him to sacrifice her. He thought of that himself. He probably lived in an area where such things were normal.
Study the Bible and ancient history deeper (no offense, but your knowledge of both is clearly superficial), and you'll learn that the OT is full of accounts of those living in a culture where individuals were encouraged to ask for God's assistance in various ventures in exchange for offering a sacrifice: Jephthah is no different, since he asked for God's assistance in battle where he made a hasty ill-prepared vow without considering the consequences. That is the ENTIRE MORAL of the account of Jephthah: think about what you pledge to God BEFORE you do so, since you don't want to over-promise and then be forced to sacrifice to Jehovah, rather than piss him off.
Fortunately, one's children (esp daughters) were considered mere possessions of the familial patriarch, so it wasn't any big loss. That's why it wasn't seen as shocking in the original cultural context; children and wives were seen as easily replaceable (eg Job, where his loss of his sons and daughters was compensated by being given TWICE the head count, at the end of the parable of Job. The individual worth of their lives didn't matter, only the total head count).
Abraham was prevented from killing his son. God clearly did not want him to do it.
No? Then why did Jehovah ORDER him to kill Isaac?
Just playing practical jokes, or just joshin'?
No, the moral of the allegorical account is that Jehovah demands COMPLETE LOYALTY from humans, as a test of their FAITH (AKA blind unthinking obedience). The account says that if God tells you to jump, you JUMP, without asking questions. The account works well for high-control groups, since it teaches blind obedience to authority.
Paul's explanation in Hebrews 11 is post-hoc rationalization, saying that Abraham remembered God's eariler promise to bless his offspring, and passed the test by showing his WILLINGNESS to follow orders by showing faith in God's ability to resurrect Isaac (an odd claim to make, since belief in resurrection was a much-later development in Judaism, which was introduced after influence from syncretism from Zoroasterian fusion, and about 2,500 years AFTER the time in which the account is set). So Paul's post-hoc explanation is anachronistic (out of time) for the time Abraham was supposedly alive.
The whole stunt ram being provided by God is a minor detail that gives a happy ending, since God MAY in fact demand you to die in his name: have you not heard about JWs who die while refusing blood transfusions?
The incident with Saul's 7 descendants.. God did not ask for their deaths, and decided enough was enough only when they were given a proper burial.
No, per the account, Jehovah supposedly threw a temper-tantrum for 3 years by causing a drought which made King David ask him if there was some problem?
Then Jehovah told him about the prior offenses committed by King Saul. So King David put two and two together and asked the Gibeonites what they needed to consider the prior acts of Saul as Even Steven, and they said the execution of 7 descendents should work fine (who weren't even born yet, when the prior crimes were committed, since Saul was dead). 7 humans were sacrificed, and Jehovah supposedly ended the drought!
The Bible contains accounts of ancient men who had very brutal concepts of justice, and hence their depiction of their God Jehovah is similarly brutal; frankly, it should be embarrassing and shameful to admit to believing in such a being, especially in 2013! Why not just throw young virgins into a smouldering volcano to keep the Volcano God happy?
Adam
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adamah
Shanagirl said-
IMO blood sacrifice was a practice that was never demanded by the True God. It was a practice that ancient Jews adopted from other surrounding cultures in their god worship and attributed to their Yahweh god. The spilling of blood is not from True God, but demanded by lesser dark gods that were worshipped.
No? So Abel, the son of Adam and Eve, didn't just get a wild hair up his behind and decide for no good reason to kill one of the first-borne of his flock and offer it to God?
Well, that explains alot, since otherwise it would be a pretty-bizarre thing to do (esp since this was BEFORE God had given permission to eat animal flesh, which was AFTER the Flood!). Maybe Abel figured Jehovah might enjoy the smell of BBQ, although no human was permitted to eat it for another 1,000 yrs!
And actually, you're arguing with the Apostle Paul now, since he listed Abel as one of the "heroes of faith" in Hebrews 11, who although he wasn't explicitly taught by Jehovah what to sacrifice, apparently was a good guesser: the Genesis account says God favored Abel's sacrifice.
I talk about it in this article:
http://awgue.weebly.com/why-did-god-seemingly-allow-cain-to-get-away-with-murder.html
IF that's not enough, maybe you didn't catch the little detail that your ENTIRE RELIGION and belief system is BASED on the polluting and cleansing power of blood sacrifices, AKA Christianity? Did you miss that JEsus was the perfect blood sacrifice to atone for the sins of Adam? For Jehovah not approving, he sure had a way of demanding it of the Isrealites in Levitical Code, using it as the basis of Jesus' redemption, etc.
So for God not demanding blood sacrifices, you sure have a bloody religion!
JW's today still follow blood sacrifice in their worship to their Jehovah god thru blood transfusions. It's a sick ungodly practice the killing of life for blood to appease a god that I believe is nothing more that ancient ritualism passed down and has nothing to do with what the True and Loving God would demand. In fact the True God demands no service from mankind, rather that man serve one another in love. That is the principle of what Christ spoke of. The law of love.
While I agree with your conclusion, the REAL PROBLEM is failing to throw out the bloody baby with the bloodied bathwater, and get people to WAKE UP to the complete lack of any semblance of logic found in the Bible, both OT and NT.
Adam
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Cold Steel
TrackRegister99: ...if Jesus sacrifice was considered realized in the past, why [was] animal sacrifice was requested? That is the contradiction in my question.
In baptism, we are lowered into the water to symbolize the death of Jesus and his going into the grave. When we are brought out of the water, it represents Jesus coming forth from the grave in his resurrection. Even though there’s nothing special about the water, baptism itself is for the “remission of sins.”
Baptism, alone, cannot remove sins. It is a work, and we’re told that works cannot save. On the other hand, we cannot be saved without it. The efficacy of baptism is in the death and resurrection of the Savior, and baptism, like animal sacrifice, is symbolic. And, again, though neither will save on their own merits, obedience to them will save.
Recall Naaman, the leper, great captain of the armies of Syria. Naaman came to the prophet Elisha to be healed and was told to bathe in the Jordan River seven times, and that his leprosy would be gone. Naaman was outraged. First, Elisha wouldn’t even come out and meet him personally, but sent his servant to meet them. And why the Jordan River? Weren’t there better rivers in Syria, from whence he came? As he was preparing to return to his own country in a huff, his own servant checked his anger and urged him to be obedient to the man of God. Had this servant of the Lord told him to do some great thing to be healed, would he not have done it? So Naaman was obedient and washed seven times in the Jordan and came out clean of the disease. (See 2 Kings 5)
Naaman was right. There were larger, more impressive rivers in Syria. But it wasn’t the water that healed Naaman; it was obedience to the prophet’s directions. He could have bathed in the Abana and Pharpar rivers, in Damascus, for seven years and he would not have been cleansed.
Adamah: Teaching what, exactly? How to slaughter sentient beings? Did anyone inform the animals that they're on the Planet simply to be “teaching devices”?
What animals knew before coming to Earth is immaterial to the discussion. No flesh was ever wasted, and as for the animals themselves, they were not harmed in any way. Like humans and wild animals, they have spirits that survive death and return to God, who gave them life. It also may be that the animals themselves are made to understand the law of sacrifice before coming into mortality. God ordained the use of animals for the benefit of man, and sometimes that includes teaching. As someone rightly observed above, when Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit, God gave them animal skins to cover their nakedness.
Adamah: ...the Bible features human sacrifice, or have you forgotten about the Binding of Isaac (willingness to sacrifice his son), Jephtha's daughter running out of the house to greet him (who WAS sacrificed), and King David's execution of the seven descendents of Saul to counteract God's anger that resulted in a long drought (and their killing appeased God's vengeance, AKA served as a human sacrifice)?
We all know the story of Abraham’s binding of Isaac, and how the Lord stopped him. Again, it was a teaching aid, and binding his only begotten son, he prepared to sacrifice him to God. In other words, it was in the similitude of the binding and sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son. According to some extrabiblical accounts found in the last hundred years or so, Abraham doubted the Lord would let him go through with it. And still another account has him ready to sacrifice Isaac, but that he had faith that God would subsequently bring Isaac back to life. As for Jephtha, let’s stay real, here. What makes you think this is the type of sacrifice approved by the Lord? Jephtha didn’t even have the priesthood, which would have been required to offer sacrifice. Jephtha was of the tribe of Joseph, through Manassas. The story’s legitimacy also has been questioned by biblical scholars and historians. What is agreed on, however, is that human sacrifice is in no way condoned by God.
The word of the Lord was very specific on this. Even though the wandering Israelites had seen God’s presence on Sinai, the thundering command of Jehovah underscored the ever-serious nature and threat of the Canaanite atrocities: “And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.”
He also stated:
Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land...hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not; then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.
Molech’s profligate priests were little more than pagan pimps, and here the Lord says it’s not enough to simply not engage in these practices; if a man witnesses someone else engaging in them, “and kills him not,” then the Lord will curse that man and his family. The reference to the Lord cutting someone off is very much like excommunication, or being disfellowshiped. It's a cutting off from the people of God. If it's a stranger who transgresses, he is killed. If a local engages in the sexual rites of the Molech cult, he, too, is killed; and if Person A knows that Person B has engaged in Molech worship, he and his family are cut off from the people.
This cult was one of the most wicked in world history. Not only did they engage in degenerate sexual practices with prostitutes who acted as priestesses, they heated idols into red hot furnaces, then put infants into the arms of the idol and by means of a device attached to the contraption, delivered the screaming child into the belly of the furnace. And they used drums to drown out the cries of the infants. Yet atheists never fail to label the wiping out of such cults as "genocide."
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Cold Steel
Shanagirl: IMO blood sacrifice was a practice that was never demanded by the True God.
And just who is this "True God" you're referring to? Everyone is entitled to their opinions, even people who believe the earth is flat; however, historically the facts are against you.
When discussing theology, there are people who believe that God made man in his own image, after his likeness. And he gave commandments to mankind through prophets, and people freely decided to comply with God's will and receive knowledge through revelation. Then there are the people who create God in their image. They decide God must be like them, have their political and social beliefs and values and, alas, it's difficult to discuss anything with them because their opinions are not based in historic facts.
Based on all the scriptures we have, the history of Josephus and the writings of prophets, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did demand blood sacrifice. Not because he delights in the blood of animals, but because sacrifice means something. It points the way to his Son dying for mankind, after taking their sins upon himself.
Having said that, you do raise an interesting question. Why did God need to offer his Son as a sacrifice for sin? Why didn't he just say, "I'm God and can do anything...so you're forgiven!" Interesting question. Also, why did it take God six "days" or eras to create the earth? Why didn't he just speak and have the world appear fully ready for human habitation? He can do anything, right?
Actually, it's a false doctrine. God has all the power, glory, knowledge and intelligence that it's possible to have. But nowhere do the scriptures say that God can do anything. He doesn't speak and have something appear out of nothing, and if he could have spared his Son the "bitter cup" of death and suffering, he would have done so. Also, I don't think this is his first rodeo. I think he's created many millions, or trillions, of worlds and that we humans are going through a process that many other worlds have gone through. If God creates man in his image here, why wouldn't he do so throughout the Universe? As the supreme creator of all things, he takes matter and organizes it into worlds. And if you think that's hard to fathom, try this: this universe may be one of trillions of other universes, some much larger than ours. This universe just happens to be our fish tank...our bubble. As one of my professors of Ancient Scripture related to us: "Everything is a system in the midst of like systems." I don't know what he was quoting, how old it is or who wrote it, but it's been rattling around in my noggin ever since the mid-70s. And whether you're an astrophysicist or a microphysicist, that one observation holds true in every sense. So the next question is, does the same God oversee these googolplexes of universes, each with its trillions of galaxies?
Well, this is off the beaten path, but suffice it to say that God seems to be following a very old formula with our world. He knew Adam and Eve would "stumble" (can't get enough of that word!) and need a Redeemer and Savior, and it just so happened he had one all lined up and ready to fall into place. And everything in scripture and eschatology points to him, especially animal sacrifices, baptism. Those animals don't cease to exist just because someone uses them to illustrate the sacrifice of the Son of God, the mighty Jehovah, the great intercessor between the Father and all mankind.
So again, do we learn about God and comply, or do we fashion him in our image and have him comply? And we have to accept the fact that Jesus died because, to redeem mankind, he had to. The Father, if he could have found any other way, would have. Which begs the question of whose sense of justice did God have to satisfy. But that's one of the great mysteries. It's fairly evident that animal sacrifice began with Adam and that the practice was corrupted and subverted during the passage of time.
