Undecided, Gumby, others who have posted to this thread, I'm with you on the lack of continuity in the nature of God represented by this "sacrifice" He required of Jesus to get us into a state where he could accept us - creations of is own doing.
This barbarous idea of appeasing an angry God, of propitiating an offended Lord, of winning the favor of Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by the shedding of blood, to me represents a religion wholly puerile and primitive, a philosophy unworthy of the enlightened age of science and truth in which we now live. I think that such beliefs are utterly repulsive to the celestial beings and the divine rulers who serve and reign in the universes. It is an affront to God to believe, hold, or teach that innocent blood must be shed in order to win his favor or to divert the fictitious divine wrath.
The Hebrews believed that "without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin." They had not found deliverance from the old and pagan idea that the Gods could not be appeased except by the sight of blood, though Moses did make a distinct advance when he forbade human sacrifices and substituted therefor, in the primitive minds of his childlike Bedouin followers, the ceremonial sacrifice of animals.
What a travesty upon the infinite character of God! this teaching that his fatherly heart in all its austere coldness and hardness was so untouched by the misfortunes and sorrows of his creatures that his tender mercies were not forthcoming until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon the cross of Calvary!
This teaching presuposes an absence of unity in the mind of diety: that the Love & Mercy of God is incompatible with the Justice of God; that God experiences a species of internal civil war within his makeup. And so, in order to resolve his warring internal natures, He elaborates the atonement doctrine in order comport these conflicting elements of his nature. I do not believe there is any such conflict in the nature of God. In designing such a barbaric conception of God, man has indeed recreated Him in man's image, complete with the primitive belief in the necessity of spilling blood before forgiveness is forthcoming.
I don't buy it. I believe forgiveness is ours before we even think to ask for it. And it is ours without the need for the innocent blood of someone else to first be spilt. How could it be otherwise with a God that is "One" God, undivided by conflicting demands made upon him by conflicting elements within his own nature?
Is this not so?
francois
