Jesus' Sacrifice. You call that a sacrifice?

by ThomasCovenant 85 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cameo-d

  The sacrifice Jesus made was in giving his time while he was here to crusade against the oppressive lying scribes and pharisees. There were probably many things he could have done to enjoy life, but he forfeited those things to do for others. He tried to free people from the oppressive Iron Hand that was ruling them with nit-picking rules and laws and clobbering them with guilt and sorrows.

  Just like The JC has added onto many of those rules and laws. Moses never mentioned rap music. now it's a felony offense at the KH. Scribes are like that. The whole system has been contrived for the purpose of controlling people and using them.

  Same sort of thing. Jesus tried to wake people up to the hypocrisy of it. When he called his people 'sheep' it was another parable...trying to tell them the scribes (religious leaders) and pharisees (political powers) were "pulling the wool over their eyes".

  Now, considering the "blood sacrifice"....these things were written into stories many years after the events. "Jesus died for your sins" was a way to throw the guilt back on the people and to get his murderers off the hook. These blood drinking symbols in the church are no different from the blood drinking ceremonies in the death cults still prevelant today.

  One author mentions something called Star Fire that is interesting if you wish to pursue more reading. Basically that the angels who portrayed themselves as gods drank blood to sustain themselves and this is why humans had to sacrifice blood to them, but were not allowed to drink it themselves.

  We have much evidence today that "holy scriptures" have been contrived and probably re-written to serve the vatican's purpose. after all, it was the vatican who approved what was allowed to be given to the people as far as biblical knowledge. There was a time when people were not allowed to read scriptures and were privy to know only what the priest or pope allowed them to know verbally.
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  snowbird

  That ransom thing is so bogus. I mean I struggled to try and explain that when I gave the memorial talk. Never could get it right. In fairness to JWs though that's a Christian belief. And it makes no sense there either.

  Isaac

  I agree that it's bogus the way JW's explain it.

  For the WT, the ransom is simply a legal, dry way of God's bailing Man out of the mess he's in.

  To the Christian, it's God Himself who came as a human in order to do the Godly and humanly work of redemption.

  At one time, I struggled with this also. The more I tried to understand it, the more questions were raised.

  1. Why would God send an outsider (Michael the Archangel) to reclaim His creation that had gone astray?

  2. How could an archangel-cum-human's blood pay the price of redemption?

  3. To whom would the ransom be paid?

  The answers as far as I have been able to determine with the aid of Holy Spirit:

  1. He didn't send Michael the Archangel. The Father God "sent" the Creator God in the sense that the Creator God willingly gave up His Godship (being born as a human) and His humanity (really and truly dying) by entrusting both to the Father. He didn't have to do either, but out of love, He did both. What a sacrifice!

  2. The blood price had to be that of a righteous man, not a freakish hybrid, as would have been the case if Michael the Archangel's life was transferred from Heaven to Mary's ovum. A righteous man recovered what a once-righteous man lost - the whole human race!

  3. The ransom, the spotless, unblemished Blood of the Lamb, was not paid to any individual. It was "paid" once the atoning, redemption work was over. This was as soon as Jesus of Nazareth cried out triumphantly, "It is finished!" In other words, PAID IN FULL.

  In answer to your question, I do indeed call it a sacrifice. The greatest sacrifice of all.

  Thank you.

  Sylvia
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  Mary

  Regardless of whether or not Jesus was the Messiah, I think it's a pretty low blow to belittle anyone who died the way Jesus did. How many people would be willing to be whipped on their bare backs with something like a Cat of Nine Tails, let others beat the holy shit out of you, starve you, humiliate you and then watch as you died an agonizing death? The Roman method of execution was horrific and I felt sick to my stomach when I first started researching it. Would you belittle the Jews who were tortured and murdered during the Holocaust?

  Was Jesus the Son of God who died for mankind? I don't know. But all I know is that it's easy for any of us to sit here and claim that it 'wasn't much of a sacrifice', when we haven't a clue what it would really be like to go through something like that.
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  PrimateDave

  Such ungrateful unbelievers! Don't you know that that God wants to reward you after you die! He says so in the book he himself wrote. (Actual authors and content may vary depending on your choice of religious affiliation.)
  
  Kiss Hank's Ass
  
  Dave
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  ThomasCovenant

  Thanks for replying.

  Re MARY'S REPLY

  Who can deny that the torture and death of Jesus as reported in the Gospels was an horrific way to go. For any 'normal' man (or woman) to willingly 'sacrifice' himself in this way on behalf of those he loved would truly be outstanding.

  However, I cannot seem to accept that that it is the same scenario with a supposed spirit being taking the temporary form of a human male dying a horrible death knowing full well he's going to get brought back to his former life, if not actually a lot better off.

  A man willingly giving up his life in total self annihilation for loved ones

  does not equate ( in my limited personal experience)

  to the 2nd in command of the universe temporarily giving up his stint as a human albeit a very painful and humiliating last couple of days of it.

  No offence is meant to those who believe otherwise, I just can't see it myself.

  Thanks

  Thomas Covenat
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  WTWizard

  Besides that, it was a pay one price for all you can waste. They harp on the value of that sacrifice, guilting people into doing more field circus and going to all the boasting sessions because of that "high" price.

  Now, not only was that price not as high as was once thought, but the marginal price is, and always has been, zero. The full price, low as it was, was paid for the first person to be saved under that arrangement. After that, no further price was paid. So much for that guilt.
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  oompa

  Thomas Covenant.....I THINK I LOVE YOU!!!!!........not only did i nearly piss myself laughing at that AWESOME video....but this bit you wrote is just priceless:

  I got to thinking too that if 1 day is as a 1000 years then Little J was on earth for about the equivalent of 48 minutes of our time (helluva an ordeal)

  and was dead for about 7 seconds.

  I have gone round and round with my dad over this non-issue of the sacrifice. I remember one DC where this dramatic bethel speaker had the goal of moving everyone to tears describing the horrilble death of Jesus and what a huge sacrifice it was....it was over the top dramatic........and i looked around and saw some tears....and there was ooohhhs....and ahhhhs and i just sat there and felt........NOTHING!.......it just never moved me................so thanks...but that clip has dead audio in it after about ten seconds or so...how can i find it? or is it at their website?....and how did YOU find it!....it was a lmao for me..................oompa
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  Satanus

  No denying that jesus' purported death was agonizing. However, many thousands were killed by the romans in similar ways. Many thousands of people have died worse deaths that were much slower; worked to death, rotted alive in cold dark dundgeons, etc, etc. People used to be very creative in ways of making people suffer for extended periods of time, the chinese, assyrians, jews, christians, etc. Many died for causes, many incurred the disfavor of some person in power, and many were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  
  Then, there is the unheard, unseen and untold agonies of unknown numbers of animals which died of many causes, and generally being eaten alive.
  
  Kinda makes jesus' 'sacrifice' pale by comparison. As well, his sacrifice is supposed to have changed everything. However, nothing has changed. Oh, it has eased to guilt of believers, who have had guilt inflicted on them by other believers or done it to themselves. All needless, really, as both original the guilt and its removal are imaginary.
  
  S
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  oompa

  Thomas i so love your math part in this....did you really do the actual math?...but i have now watched all two season of that video series of Mr. Diety....that is some of the best comedy i have seen in years!...everyone on jwd should check it out........igor does not lie....................oompa

  Thomas you still have not told me how you found that video.........
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  watson

  Sylvia,

  I don't understand how a deity letting himself die, then resurecting himself is an equal or greater sacrifice than a man losing his life with no chance of forgiveness or resurection.