It is little understood by Christians what a difference there is between themselves and Judaism especially on the matter of whom God forgives and why.
A Christian expects to sin against many people in the course of their life, but proudly boasts that they aren't "perfect just forgiven." This is wrong by Judaism's ethical, moral and theologic standards.
Let me explain why.
In Judaism; only the person you sin against can forgive you!
If you steal from Bob; only Bob (the injured party) can forgive you. Or, not.
You cannot cut Bob out of the picture and go over his head, so to speak, and get your invisible buddy in the sky, God, to forgive ON BEHALF of Bob.
No, according to Judaism, the wronged party holds the key to your forgiveness and your obligation is to him.
The law of the Talon was a law of Justice because of the balance between the injury and the restoring of the injured party to equity. Fairness was key.
There was a system of fines, service and payback that would compensate a victim fairly.
In Christianity it is less clear and more murky.
You can steal, fornicate, lie, cheat and commit mayhem and then turn to God and be forgiven by displaying a penitent heart. Even so late as on your deathbed in many cases. Yet, the people who you took from, injured, belittled, wronged and destroyed have no say in this transaction! The suffer the wrongs and God makes it even-steven on the scale of justice!
In Judaism murder is the unforgiveable sin. Why? Because the injured party NO LONGER EXISTS in order to forgive you!
This is the mis-step in Christian theology as it exists today and has long been taught. The victim is a mere nothing and the welfare of the wrongdoer is more important to God!
Christian Justice is not well thought out by any stretch of the imagination.
For example, kindness which is NOT DESERVED (grace) is given, so it is taught, by God. The undeserving recipient gets the boon of grace without earning it, meriting it in any way or making restitution to the victims of his sins.
On what basis can this be called Justice? Why, none at all! It is a kind of inert magic trick. Do your wrongs, then; utter the magic words and all is forgiven!
Isn't it apparent that the justice of Judaism is more ethical than that of Christianity because of the balance of fairness as regards victims?
Not one person in 100 can tell you what the sin against the Holy Spirit is or even WHY it exists.
But, the unforgiveable sin in Judaism makes perfect sense.
I'm asking you to consider that Christianity is supposedly an improvement on Judaism; a more perfect realization of God's dealings with mankind and yet--makes no sense whatsoever in terms of equity, balance, fairness or goodness.
Judaism had to be practical because people were living close together in daily contact ethnically, nationally and religiously bonded by a common purpose. If the law did not solve daily problems and absolve the very practical nature of who is injured and who feels guilty it would have resulted in anarchy.
That the Jews survived as long as they did is a reflection of how well their sense of law, fairness, god, sin and forgiveness worked for them.
LUKE 5:
18Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.
20When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
21The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Then why did the Pharisses say to Jesus that only God can forgive sins?
Let us look at the situation and the context.
1.It was believed that physical infirmity (deformity) was caused by either a man's sins or his parents' sins.
2. A crippled man was brought to Jesus for healing under this premise.
3.Jesus granted the man forgiveness for that particularity of view.
4.The Pharisees saw that context. It would only be God's authority to forgive an "inherited" sin. They corrected Jesus by this understanding.
5. Jesus demonstrated that he could also HEAL the infirmity indicating a greater source authority than the Pharisees themselves.
14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.(Matt. 6)
Matthew 6:18 and the like rather make the point, at least on a superficial interpersonal level, as they actually require the victim to forgive the offender in order to be forgiven in turn. From a purely ethical standpoint this is scandalous, of course.
18"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
Another way to put it is that Judaism and Christianity have a lot of common as well as mutual contradictions
When we reduce "the essence of Christianity" to the pet teachings of one of its particular brands (e.g., popular American Protestantism) we tend to oversimplify and impoverish it dramatically. If all it is about is "salvation by grace through Jesus' sacrifice for our sins" then much of the NT sounds strangely "non-Christian". But it is only an optical illusion imo.
Just a side thought: I find it interesting that Paul in his generally-aknowledged "authentic" epistles avoids the notion of forgiveness of sins at a theological level (the verb aphiemi in this sense and context only appears in a quotation, Romans 4:7 -- this is, not Paul's own word but the LXX Psalter's) and rather uses the totally different concept of justification, i.e., a legal metaphor which is used in a "transindividual" way. Strictly the sinner is not "forgiven," he becomes (or rather is revealed as) someone else, i.e, righteous, "in Christ". The notion of "forgiveness of sins" comes up only in Colossians-Ephesians, which make up a different stage of thought and are commonly regarded as post-Pauline.
Judaism was shaped by opposing forces, surely and Christianity as well. So many opinions, theories and orthodoxies hung upon so unsteady a peg!
Christianity, it would appear, is a kind of hallucination brought on by whatever the individual was sniffing, imbibing, injecting or dreaming, yet; everybody seemed to rely on the misnomer/concept CHRISTIANITY as though they were all on the same page somehow.
As a Jehovah's Witness it seemed so clear cut and transparent because so much information about sources was kept invisible and no outside "authority" was tolerated. Moreover, so much of door-to-door rebuttal was so toothless and ill-informed it was easy to maintain the illusion that we JW's actually knew so much more!
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