What is The Atonement?

alright, i'm gonna lay this on herem because this has been my crisis of faith for the last two years or so. it's something i can't work out, and fails to make sense to me at all. so be nice people. this is a geniune concern of my personal faith, something i'm very touchy about. the more i study the bible, and more i look into judaism, i've realized that christianity has very little basis to stand on.why does this tie in? it's about atonement.according to the levitical standards, when a jew sins, or makes some kind of tresspass against god, there is a ritual involved. they would offer something of theirs, so that they lose something. for certain things, it was a lamb. for others, it oculd have been bread. but something physical. today there is still a ritual, but yearly. (yesterday/today, right?)the major realization i had came when i was looking at what was required, and what it was used for. sacrifices had two purposes in ancient israel. the first was to feed the preistly caste. they didn't work, only serving in the temple. offerings and sacrifices provided for them. the second purpose i realized when i looked at the flexibility of what was required: if you didn't have a lamb, find two turtledoves. if you couldn't do that, give some flour.flour.it's not that god requires sacrifice. it's partly that the priests need to eat, and partly that when someone feels bad about something they have to do something to make it right. atonement is the process by which right is made -- even without the sacrifice itself. the ritual itself provides psychological comfort. one makes a sacrifice voluntarily, of their own good will and duty. they make it of their own flock, and for themselves and no one else. i cannot sacrifice something of mine for my brother.now, look at christianity. we're told "the wage of sin is death." clearly, even according to leviticus, it is not. flour will do just fine, if it's all you have. so we are told that we are wretched and deserve to die -- where jews start out as god's beloved without requirement. ...but all we have to do is believe. that's the catch. we don't have to do anything. so when we sin, and we feel bad about it, there's nothing for us. so it builds, and builds, and builds. we don't have to sacrifice anything; it's been done FOR us, so our guilt has nowhere to go. when a jew sins, he atones, and moves on knowing that god still loves him. this is the origin of the christian guilt complex, the relapse, and the revival. christians here, you know what i'm talking about. we all do it.but, simply put, the fundamental christian belief, that the death of a person (something abhorent to jews) atoned for sins of other not yet committed is both psychologically damaging and without foundation in judaism.i do not know how to reconcile this.

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personally i will always fundamentally be a christian in some respect, and i think i always have been. there are those who believe in jesus for his life, and those who believe in jesus for his death.i think his teachings are the most important part of it. i think i should have been jewish. no, i don't either. i consider apologetics a compromise, and i don't compromise in anything except my personal relationships. even in my photography, i find myself doing both extreme of the spectrum.i think that attempting to reconcile one extreme (the bible) to the other (history/science/whatever) is only damaging to the integrity of both. and i think that's what jesus would have said too.

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blasphemy.god is not a cog in some greater machine, or a robot, or a mathematical function. god can do whatever he pleases, however he pleases, and to whomever or whatever he pleases. god can do a lot more than just nod and wink at sin, god can FORGIVE sin.and he does.and you know it. impossible, especially by your own standards. that would not be just -- punishing another for someone's crimes. so basically, god sets the standard, sets the law, prosecutes, judges, convicts -- and then, because he's nice, creates someone to punish instead. or heck, according to some people, sacrifices himself.that doesn't make any sense. why would god weight everything against us, demand death, and then kill himself just to let us go? it's a very loving gesture, i agree. but it's also making god out to be incredibly stupid.why not just say "your sin is forgive, go your way and sin no more," and skip this whole phony trial/mistake death sentance bs? your problem is that you think god is a machine. he's a big black box. we put something in, we get something out. we put something else in, we get something different out.why does god need to judge all sin? why does god need to punish all sin? this a pretty stupid, mechanical, and downright childish picture of god you're painting here. how does one atone for sin not yet committed? "god, i'm really sorry, but i'm gonna go do this bad thing." doesn't that make it worse, not better?

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God [...] MUST [...]

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god doesn't have to do anything. see, look, you do it again: yes. god can ignore sin. god can do whatever he wants. sure he can. jesus seems to do it pretty easily:

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Mat 9:2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.

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Luk 7:48 And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.

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what, you think something needs to die for someone to forgive?

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Psa 40:6 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

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i'm saying it doesn't make sense. if god is just, and somehow forbidden to do things unjust (like forgiving people on a whim, like jesus does), then he is forbidden to do the unjust deed of punishing an innocent man.so the justification of a just god doesn't line up. either god is just, making the sacrifice of another impossible, or god is unjust making it unneccessary. take your pick. seems kind of silly, doesn't it? i said "according to some people." i don't believe jesus to be god, although divine in origin. self-sacrifice at the hands of your own rules makes even LESS sense. uh, you're saying we're being damned because of the sin of another?

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Deu 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

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yes, that is the logical conclusion. but that's not what i'm asking. we're talking about death, sacrifice, atonement, and why defining god to be a machine doesn't work. so god must have been pretty pissed off when jesus walked around galilea saying just that? surely you realized i was paraphrasing jesus himself, right? the above verses and this one:

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Jhn 8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

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so, what? god has to take out his anger on his kid? are you saying that god's an abusive parent?seriously now. cut it out with the blasphemy.

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because YOU said so:

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The Law. The Legal Law that must be kept perfectly if one is to have a right to be declared righteous.

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the law, ha-torah, is the collection of the first five books of the bible. not the old testament, i might add. just genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers, and deuteronomy.now, where does it say in these books that you must keep the entire law, all the time, in order to be righteous? where does it say the law applies to anyone besides descendants of the 12 tribes of israel? where does it say that no man is righteous on his own?i can show you that two out of those three are patently false with just the torah. if we want to include the nevi'im and the ketuvim (the rest of the ot) i can show you all three are false.paul can say the law damns everyone all he wants, but the rest of the bible seems to disagree. leviticus even provides us with standards to atoning for sin, according to the law.

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so, if i sin once today, someone paid the price 2000 years ago. if i sin twice today, the price is still paid. no more harm is done when i sin more, and no less harm is done when i sin less.if we're essentially free from sin, and from the law, why not just do whatever you want?

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doesn't follow. christ has already died, he can't die less or die more.aside from that, christ spent about 3 hours on the cross is memory serves. if you know anything about roman executions, it normally takes a LOT longer to die that particular way. guards would come by to give the criminals water so they would die of their punishment, not dehydration.if a guard took pity, they would break the criminal's legs so they could no longer stand on them, forcing them to suffocate under their own weight. christ, instead, was stabbed in the side. this is called the "why should i bother voting?" principle. christ died for all the sins of mankind, right? so i make up maybe one trillionth of that suffering, little as it was. and an individual sin an even smaller fraction.what does one sin matter?

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Rom 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Rom 6:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

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romans is a fun book indeed. funny, christ spoke of life, not death.the point is that it totally neglects what a proper faith should be. paul paints the law as a burden, something demanding our punishment and execution. same chapter:

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Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin [is] death

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and this is the point i addressed from the start. paul is wrong. we are not free from the law, are we? not if we're still being judged, and sin still being added to christ's burden on the cross. that's not freedom. that's skirting the rules and exploiting loopholes.if we are free from the law, and from sin, it shouldn't matter what we do. if it does matter, we are not free. why can't i do anything i like?well, frankly, i can. we should keep to the teachings of christ because they are RIGHT, and we should uphold the law out of duty to and respect of god. threats and punishments and bribes are for gradeschoolers.jesus came to correct that very issue. his message was one of hope, and love, telling us that god isn't keeping score, and it's not about lip service and offerings, but what in our hearts.if jesus died for anything, it was to show us that. god sacrificed him by giving him to us. we killed him, not god. remember that.

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god can choose to not exist if he wants. maybe he has. certainly not the faith in jesus's death -- just in who he was. here's some forgiven for LOVE, not faith:

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Luk 7:47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, [the same] loveth little.
Luk 7:48 And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.

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here's how to be forgive: forgive others.

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Luk 6:37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

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where is faith mentioned? not so. god cannot act counter to himself any more than you or i can. something can only act in counter to something ELSE. if i do something, it was obviously not contrary to my nature, was it?but yet what you're proposing is that god DID act counter to himself. you're arguing that he is just and upright, but punished an innocent man. you're arguing that god cannot not-exist, but that he killed himself. pick an argument. remember the passage i posted above?

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Jhn 8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

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what did he ask of her before he forgave her? he told her to sin no more after saying he did not condemn her, not before. no conditions, no faith, no love. nothing. for god to work against himself. if he's gonna forgive, just forgive. why would he have to skirt his own rules? are god's rules more powerful than god is? ok let's play this one out.i trip, and fall, and while i'm off balance and flailing for something to steady myself on, i accidentally clock you and break your noise.i say "gosh, iano, i'm sorry. i didn't mean to inflict such bodily harm on you."you say "that's ok really. it's an accident, could have happened to anyone. i forgive you."then, what. do you go off and whip yourself a few times? do you give me your coat? where's the self-sacrifice?...in the broken nose, the original infraction. the sacrifice is NOT demanding anything in return. what am i gonna do, give you my nose? whoah, whoah. wait. you're giving me an analogy when i gave you a bible verse that says that no man can be put to death for the sins of his father? look, here it is again:

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Deu 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

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i can do this all day. posturing, apologism, interpretation, and analogy don't change what the bible says. no, try this one. we're born with blood. that makes us susceptible to aids. the ability to catch aids is a human condition. tendency to sin is a human condition.it is totally possible to never sin. enoch and arguably job never sinned. jesus never sinned. justifaction under the law IS possible, without sacrifice, just incredibly unlikely. "president bush eats babies" grabs our attention too. doesn't make it true. you wanna look at that statement closely?some sins in leviticus demand death. most do not; they demand sacrifice. some of the sacrifices that would have been acceptable were flour and oil, if you're too broke to afford a flock.so tell me, if the lord accepts the sacrifice of a poor man that doesn't remotely involve killing something, where does paul get off saying god want's us to die?

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Psa 40:6 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

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especially when, according to the psalmist, it's not even required.

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"The Law" = The Torah. the law is the mosaic code, given in exodus and leviticus, and again in deuteronomy. that's what the word means when used in this context.jesus delivered beatitudes and blessings, and interpretted parts of the law. but the law itself is the law of moses.and jesus did not speak of following the law to the letter; jesus spoke of having your heart in the right place.

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yes, that's true, and where the focus should be. but we were talking about his death.

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... that's what we're asking. because THAT bit doesn't make sense. god may be eternal, but we are not. we see time sequentially. check. so far i'm not not missing anything -- death, suffering, we suck, god hates us.i still say paul is wrong. yes, i've read romans. christ didn't promise that i would die and someone new would be born. he promised that i would live forever. i still fail to see the "death, suffering, god hates us" part of jesus's message in the gospel.where does paul get it from? it's not the ot. because it's based on a LIE.not all men are sinful, some do not sin according to the bible. not all sin demands death. not all sin demands sacrifice. sacrifice is not demanded, it's OFFERED. one cannot atone for another. one cannot atone before sinning.paul's view is that god hates his children, and has rigged a cruel game against them. we are to follow a law he put in place, contrary to our nature which he created. even if we do follow the law, we're still sinful, and every minor misdeed demands our death.paul's implications about god's character, frankly, are blasphemy. god's love for his children, god's forgiveness and compassion are spoken to throughout the entire bible. men are described as perfect and sinless -- a few of which clearly sinned prior to that description. how can that be? david says that god doesn't require sacrifices.why then does paul think god is some evil clockwork fixated on damning his own creation?

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did god always exist? how did he come to be? i suspect these have the same answer. uh, no. there was nothing in that passage about death at all. no condition of death. nothing. just faith in christ's ability and personage. it's not Law, capital L. we've been over this. the Law, capital L, is ha-torah, the five books of moses, or the code contained there within, depending on context. jesus speaking it does not make it law -- read the other books of the prophets. they all sound abotu the same. no. no. no. still not the Law. no, you read it again, and read the rest of it this time too. you're saying that god has a nature that clearly defines what he is, and if he could act contrary to that nature he would not be god.i'm saying that nobody can act contrary to their nature becuase whatever they do is by definition in their nature. god acting contrary to his nature makes his nature contrary. which, if you've read the bible, is no suprise.wrath and compassion? that's a pretty wide swath of a nature. god killed an innocent man, his own son even. that makes him not just. if justness is defined according to your particulary view -- that sin must be punished -- then it follows that god must punish sin if he is to be just.punishing an innocent bystander and letting the criminal go free is NOT justice. ever. this is based on a mistaken assumption that laying the hands on your sacrifice according to levitical standards is transfer of sin. if that's the case, alot of sin ends up in the levites, who eat certain kinds of sin offerings.really, it's the other way around.

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Lev 6:25 Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This [is] the law of the sin offering: In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the LORD: it [is] most holy.
Lev 6:26 The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it: in the holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation.
Lev 6:27 Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy:

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strange, no? if i sell an undercover cop some rock, but i don't have any left when he arrests me, do you think "but i don't have any now, the cop has it; arrest him!" would fly in court?i don't think so. possession is not 9/10th's of the law.

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certainly not "dead guy nailed to a peice of wood." wait, so, accidents can happen, and everybody knows this, therefor nothing is an accident? since you keep using the teachings of jesus as "the Law" no, you're not:

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Mat 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
Mat 5:39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

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technically, under "the Law," you're required to provide me with something else on your body to harm -- especially if it wasn't really an accident like you said it's not. then the sacrifice in god forgiving is him sacrificing his right to justice. "predisposition" sounds more accurate i think. but presumably, then, if i don't ever sin, i'm justified by the law and don't need salvation in christ, right? if it's just the sin that's punished...

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Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name [was] Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

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Job 1:22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

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what do you suppose perfect means? normally, it means "without flaw" as in "following the law without flaw" so says st augustine, yes. he was convinced that original sin is delivered through sperm.but take note -- eve was the mother of all mankind, including jesus, who was at least half human. eve was the first to sin, though possibly in ignorance. if the tendency and predisposition to sin is part of human nature, jesus had it too.examples don't work well when held to different standards. if jesus's LIFE meant anything, it was an example. it was god showing us he understands, and demonstrating how to overcome things like our nature. without that little bit, most of it's meaningless. jesus might as well have been a noncorporeal spirit, like the gnostics believed. his physical human existance would have been meaningless.

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you've quoted some of it yourself.remember. when jesus was alive, he never spoke of being saved by believing in his death, except maybe in the gospel of john. the other three are filled with lots and lots of other advice about how to think and how to feel, and how to treat others. don't believe me?

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Luk 19:8-9 And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore [him] fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham.

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salvation by giving away your wordly possesions seems to be a theme. think rich man, camel, eye of the needle.

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Mat 19:21-26

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Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go [and] sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come [and] follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. When his disciples heard [it], they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? But Jesus beheld [them], and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

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here's some more of how JESUS says you get saved:

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Mat 10:22 And ye shall be hated of all [men] for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

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Mat 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

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we mentioned this before, and how it doesn't refer to anythign relating to death, but love:

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Luk 7:47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, [the same] loveth little.

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Luk 7:50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

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this one's a little cryptic, but i think it's talking about that proper mindset thing, being upright and honest:

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Luk 13:23-24 Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able

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no death here, just faith in jesus's healing powers:

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Luk 18:41-42 Saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.

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here's the preists mocking jesus:

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Mat 27:42 He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

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note that jesus dies 9 verses later, yet saved is in past tense. though the priests are making fun of him, it's evidence that he was walking around during his life, calling people "saved."now, i don't like the book of john much, but it does sum up my point nicely:

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Jhn 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

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and here's the single salvation-by-death (actually, salvation by resurrection) mention made by jesus, post-death. note that baptism is half the requirment, not faith alone:

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Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

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so. where does this whole death fascination come from?

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no, it is not. the jews have a hierarchy of laws. the torah, the Law, capital L, and the mosaic code within, are the highest law, and the ten commandments the top of those. below that there is the talmud and the oral law, and the midrashim and various other commentary.jesus's words are in line with the midrashim and the nevi'im (prophetic books: isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel, and the 12) some cursory understanding of the bible, what it is, and what's in it are generally good things. see my post above. given the choice between what jesus says saves, and what paul says saves, who would you choose to put your faith with?

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