Did the ransom sacrifice even work?

by Sharpie 58 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  peacefulpete

  It's complicated but from earliest days of the Jewish people they granted their God power to forgive much like people can forgive others. It is repeatedly stated so. Forgiveness was granted when repentance and change took place. It gets complicated as the cult services at the temple involved gifts of thanks,purification rites and covenant investment (eg. each person had to give half shekel to the priests as a cover price each census). In some instances, these rites are described in a way that many perhaps thought of the animal sacrifices as being a free pass, a mechanism resulting in forgiveness. Reformers like Jeremiah saw the system of animal sacrifices as being in a large way to blame for the 'lack of repentance' as he saw it. He goes so far as insist the whole idea of animal sacrifices was a scheme of lying priests/scribes

  Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! 22 For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, 23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people....actually the lying pen of the scribes.

  Anyhow, his efforts were not successful for as soon as they could they returned to animal sacrifices.

  It was a Christain innovation to connect a distorted view of animal sacrifices with the idea of a suffering/dying Messiah. It is true that the idea of a suffering messiah was established in Hellenized Jewish circles distanced from the Temple, before the assumed time of Christian origins. But the full development of the doctrine of God deliberately having his son killed for sins was a new idea best received by those Hellenized circles who laid much of the groundwork.
  
  
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  truthseeker

  The problem I have with the ransom sacrifice is that if Jesus died for our sins why do we still grow old and die? The Bible says the wages of sin is death.

  If someone kidnaps someone's child and the parent pays the ransom they are supposed to get their kid back yet Jesus paid the ultimate price with his death and nothing has changed for the human race.

  I'm not understanding what the ransom sacrifice is all about.
• 

  Sea Breeze

  If someone kidnaps someone's child and the parent pays the ransom they are supposed to get their kid back yet Jesus paid the ultimate price with his death and nothing has changed for the human race.

  If all we are is physical, then you have a point. The problem is that modern thinking is infected with Naturalistic Materialism. However, most cultures especially prior to the 20th century believed (as the bible teaches) that man also has an immaterial consciousness (soul).
  

  There are many scriptures that describe salvation for a believing Christian in all three tenses - past present and future.
  
  Here's how it works. The moment a person surrenders to Christ:

  1. They receive a new spirit which cannot sin. (They have been saved) They are Justified. Sinless people get to interact with God. God personally interacts with the believer in their new spirit because righteousness has no fellowship with unrighteousness,and light no communion with darkness. The salvation of a persons spirit is immediate. It is a "downpayment" (earnest) on the full restoration to come.

  2. Through Sanctification (being set apart) they "prove to themselves what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God". (They are being saved). This corresponds to the soul or mind and is an experiential process where the believer gets to know God and his ways over time.

  3. When the redeemed are finally resurrected, they are reunited with bodies in Glorification. So, they will be saved.
  
  So, each part of man is saved at different times for the believer. Each part of man is characterized as personhood in the bible... spirit, soul, & body... saved in that order. However, if a person is stuck in a materialism worldview, which the WT partially promotes, salvation will not appear as anything spectacular from this unbiblical worldview.
  
  
  
• 

  Sea Breeze

  Charles Kelly talked on the subject of Salvation at a recent XJW conference:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6t2NybZJ48&t=2s
  
• 

  truthseeker

  Seabreeze,

  Thank you for your reply and the video - certainly food for thought.

  So basically we have to die first to experience the benefits of the ransom sacrifice as a new creation or spirit.
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  Sea Breeze

  Just having a new spirit in the here and now is enough to radically change a person's life.
  
  1. You can know (not just hope) that you are saved.

  2. The power of sin is broken in a person's life. (You can still sin in the flesh though)
  

  3. A person can interact in a sinful environment and intellectually grasp the superiority of righteousness without having to personally be condemned for such sinful interaction.

  4. Sweet fellowship with God in your spirit is beyond description.
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  cofty

  If humans are spirit, soul, and body (something completely unknown to Israel) how can you reconcile that with the fact that we evolved from non-human ancestors?

  Or do all living things have this tripartite existence?
• 

  Sea Breeze

  @Cofty,

  spirit, soul, and body (something completely unknown to Israel)

  I think that is a pretty big overstatement. Saduucees didn't believe in a resurrection and may have had some ideas that correspond to materialists today. But certainly the Pharisees and Essenes believed man had a soul that departed (not was annihlated) at death.
  

  Gen. 35: 16-19 - Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also. And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin. And Rachel died, and was buried.
  
  Clearly, biblical history records that a separation of soul and body happens at death. Of course, this predates Greek thought. So, it cannot be attributed to Plato like the WT tries to make people believe.
• 

  cofty

  Sea Breeze - nephesh ion Gen 35 refers simply to life. It is idiom for 'Rachel was dying'. There is absolutely no concept of a soul in terms of a conscious part of the person that survived death prior to the Babylonian exile. In the OT the soul IS the living person.

  This is beyond dispute as I'm sure you know well.
• 

  peacefulpete

  There is absolutely no concept of a soul in terms of a conscious part of the person that survived death prior to the Babylonian exile

  Cofty, I believe you are in a bit of a shady gray area there.

  However, most cultures especially prior to the 20th century believed (as the bible teaches) that man also has an immaterial consciousness (soul).

  Sea Breeze, Maybe the explanation for that lays with human psychology more than divine revelation. It's not difficult to understand really. We to speak to ourselves with an inner voice without moving our lips. Voila inner soul.