(May 26, 2013 at 5:12 pm)Origen Wrote: First, Jesus did not become man to be killed. The crucifixion was a result of the rejection of Jesus' message by his people. If Jesus' message had been accepted salvation would have come to humanity in another form. God is not a blood diety, this was revealed in the story of Issac and Abraham, when God stops the killing of Issac; this was a big step forward in an era when human sacrifice was the norm. God did not want the blood of Issac, he certainly did not want the blood of Jesus.
Jesus became man to bring us the kingdom of God, he did this through preaching, through example, through bodily and spiritual healing. A consequence of his ministry was rabid rejection of him by the powerful in his society, this led to his execution. So what's the big deal you ask, if he knew he was going to resurrect what kind of a sacrifice was it. Well, Jesus was not a super hero, he was as truly human as any of us, he felt the fear, the pain and the abandonment each of us would feel in that situation. He also had to struggle against the temptation to skip the whole thing and ask God to rescue him. He tells Pilate "my kingdom is not of this world, but I am a king." So his death was not a walk in the park, there was fear, there was anguish. There was the added burden of being rejected by his own creation. There was the pain of knowing in a way he had failed, his teaching wasn't enough humanity ultimately needed his death. Painful enough for you.
Let me give you small example from human experience. Take someone who has a curable cancer, but has to go through a harsh treatment to get there. Does this person suffer any less because the odds are in her favour? Do you say to this person, you're not really suffering because chances are you will live?
Your approach involves making Jesus look like an innocent little child who suffered a a whole lot. This is unimpressive and greatly undermined by the attribute he allegedly possessed: divinity. So back to square one we go: God sacrificed himself to himself so that he could convince himself to forgive his creation which he knew would rebel from the moment he willed this universe.
Where is the deposit? Whom is it that has been paid at the expense of someone else's sacrifice? Where is the flow of money? The net effect is zero, zilch, nada because the Christian god is playing with itself. Feel free to interpret that in more than one way...
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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
