Thoughts?

Rethinking the Death of Jesus: Cross Purposes

by David Heim

Mr. Heim is a Century assistant editor. This article appeared in The Christian Century, March 22, 2005. pp.20-25. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation; used by permission. Current articles and subscriptions information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.



Is the story of Jesus mainly about his death and a life that leads to it, or is the story of Jesus mainly about his life and a death that flows from it? On one view, it hardly matters: these are just two ways of looking at the same thing. On a more combative view, the difference is as great as night and day. Does the cross belong on the sleeves (and hearts) of Christians, as the glorious core of their faith, or does it belong in the repair shop, in need of drastic repairs, the primary Christian embarrassment for believers and an offense to outsiders?

The disagreement is not over Jesus’ death as a fact. Both sides largely agree about the reality and circumstances of the crucifixion and, for that matter, of the resurrection. At least, the disagreement within one side on these issues is as great as the disagreement between the sides.

No, the conflict revolves around a theology of the cross, a theology that says Jesus’ death is the supreme saving act, and that the equation of guilt, punishment and grace worked out through the execution of the innocent, divine victim in place of a rightly condemned humanity provides the essential sum of Christianity itself.

This theology is composed of many elements in scripture and tradition -- references to Jesus’ death as a sacrifice, ideas of redemptive suffering, and a deep tradition of eucharistic remembrance that Jesus died "for us." These elements appear in all branches and eras of Christian tradition. But the organization of them into a complete substitutionary view of the atonement is much less universal, Such a view has never been prominent in the Eastern Christian church, and it was not the dominant view in the Western church for the first half of its history.

Many think the rise of atonement theology represented a terrible wrong turn, plunging Christian spirituality into a toxic brew of idealized masochism, authorized violence and social domination. In Proverbs of Ashes, two feminist theologians make this case. They make it not with heated rhetoric but through a narrative intertwining their searing personal histories of abuse, depression, ministry and loss with reflections on where Christian beliefs have abetted the destructive forces in their lives and where they have been part of the healing.

Unlike many first-person approaches to controversial issues, the book’s net effect is neither bitter nor dogmatic. The authors’ honesty and vulnerability invite a genuine dialogue. Anyone who thinks there isn’t a problem should start here.

If Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker make a case against atonement in experience, Denny Weaver complements it with a case drawn from history. The Nonviolent Atonement is a full-scale attack on St. Anselm’s and others substitution theologies of the cross, and it also spells out an alternative, which he calls "narrative Christus Victor." The saving work of Jesus is his struggle against and victory over the structural evil powers of this world. Weaver adds "narrative" to the phrase Christus Victor because some might focus this battle entirely on Jesus’ death. Weaver’s point is that the saving work is one continuous story, in which the cross is just one moment.

A Mennonite, Weaver associates the elevation of the cross with the fall of the church. The rise of a theology of God’s redemptive use of punishment goes hand in hand with a church that learns to endorse the military force of a Christian state. His book also includes an impressive review of recent treatments of this topic by feminist, womanist and African-American theologians, perspectives that he weaves effectively into his argument.

If these two books call for a root-and-branch excision of atonement, The Glory of the Atonement is a collection whose writers bring a "don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater" caution. The former writers see the idea of atonement itself as an error. The latter collection see destructive effects sometimes flowing from faulty theological expressions. On the doctrine itself, the introduction quotes Emil Brunner: it is "the Christian religion itself; it is the main point; it is not something alongside of the center; it is the substance and kernel, not the husk."

The essays are careful studies of scriptural texts that bear on the topic and of major theologians who have developed it. The book is a handy way to engage the truly monumental tradition of substitutionary interpretation and a summary of the arguments for its prominence.

Robert Sherman and JoAnne Marie Terrell work carefully in the tangled ground between these two parties. Since criticism of atonement is often made in the name of the oppressed or marginalized, the African-American experience is of particular importance. In Power in the Blood? Terrell patiently works through the place of the cross in the history and faith of the black church.

This is an ambiguous story, for the theology of atonement was at times deployed with an intent or effect of inducing complacency among those in bondage. But at the same time slaves and their descendents passionately appropriated the story of the unjustly crucified Jesus as their story too. Many of them found in it the power they needed to survive, a power that "affirmed their innocence, refuted the claims of white supremacists, sanctified their own suffering and situated them within the cosmic drama as victims-becoming-victors."

If Terrell demonstrates that reality often gives a more complicated verdict than "guilty" or "not guilty" regarding the doctrine of the atonement, Sherman reminds us that from a systematic theological perspective, the doctrine was never meant to stand alone. King, Priest, and Prophet reviews the substitutionary approach to Christ’s death along with other major historical options -- those that see it as an exemplary illustration of God’s love, those that see it as a victory over evil powers. He concludes that the faults of any one are addressed when they are coordinated together, and an explicitly trinitarian theology is the framework necessary to do this. Theology, liturgy or devotion narrowed to the resources or images from only one of these approaches will necessarily be distorted. Someone who wants a map of the entire landscape would do well to start with Sherman’s book and then go on to some of the others listed.

Stepping onto this well-muddied field of discussion is Stephen Patterson. Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and L4fe of Jesus definitely belongs to the atonement-was-a-wrong-turn school. His very thoughtful and readable book contends that the real meaning of Jesus’ death, for the first Christians and for us, is the challenge to live as he lived and taught. He would he happy to summarize that teaching and example in terms of Weaver’s "victory over the powers" -- the powers being understood very concretely as the Roman Empire, with the oppressive social-religious conventions of that time, and the American Empire, with the oppressive social-religious conventions of our time. Jesus pointed a way to an alternative empire of God and demonstrated in his own life that you could live as though you already belonged to it. His death showed that you could follow that path through, without retreat, to the very end. Knowing Jesus had done it, his disciples had hope that they could too.

Patterson is a New Testament scholar. Though the touch of that learning is pleasantly light, he scatters many historical insights along the way. Using three categories (victim, martyr and sacrifice), he marshals early Christian materials under each heading to support his argument, which points followers of Jesus "back to his life -- to his words, his deeds and his fate -- as a life to be embraced as the life, and a fate to call one’s own."

To take just one example, Patterson deftly interprets the treatment of sacrifice in the letter to the Hebrews in the context of practices in the surrounding Roman world. He demonstrates in the process how Christians’ affirmation of Christ’s death as the sole sacrifice amounted to a powerful political statement, since in that culture sacrifice was understood as the very glue that held together the existing social structures. To attach such a view to Jesus’ death was really to confirm the revolutionary practice of Jesus’ life.

The book’s theological reflection on Christ’s death is set in the context of the John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg strand of New Testament scholarship (on which Patterson plays his own variations). If we ask which life of Jesus the death points back toward, it is the life of one who practices open table fellowship, who has a message of divine favor for the least and the outcast, and who gives the Romans and their puppets good reason to suspect that a peasant-worker awakening is under way.

Patterson points out that belief in resurrection or translation into heaven was not uncommon in the hellenistic world, but the expectation was associated with emperors and the like. Jesus was a nobody, a visionary martyred for a cause. His followers believed in him and his cause. Since his cause was just, they believed a righteous God ought to raise him if he fell to his enemies. He deserved to be on the same plane with the Caesars (or higher). The scandalous thing about claiming resurrection for him was not that such a thing should happen at all, but that it should happen to this nobodies’ somebody. The point was not that sins had been removed or that a dead person was alive: it was that Jesus message was right. "This is why, when at last he was killed, they proclaimed his resurrection. They could have done this on the day he died, and probably did."

I don’t know too many New Testament scholars who think the disciples probably proclaimed the resurrection the day Jesus died. One of Patterson’s prime objections to traditional doctrine is that it does not fit with the historical facts as he reconstructs them. But at points his theological proposal seems linked to historical assumptions that are as problematic as any made by traditional theories.

Though most of the book coheres smoothly with the other anti-atonement works noted, Patterson diverges somewhat at the point of Jesus as model. He unequivocally affirms that Christians should embrace Jesus’ fate -- his life and suffering death -- as their own. Some critics regard this response as one of the most destructive features of traditional theology, especially as an ideal propounded to the weak, and take special pains not to commend imitation of Jesus’ fate. In some ways the substitutionary teaching, that Christ has done once and for all what no other need or can do, is less liable to this application than a teaching that puts its weight on Jesus’ example for us.

In contemporary discussions of the cross, the topic of violence is never far from the surface. Patterson is clear that Jesus’ death is the work of an evil empire and that God had nothing to do with it. One of the most consistent criticisms of atonement theologies is that they portray a God who endorses violence (affirms penal suffering as the remedy for guilt) and practices it (God orchestrates Jesus’ killers in the grand salvation plan). Such criticisms typically take it as self-evident that we need to entirely dissociate God from violence. In Violence, Hospitality and the Cross, Hans Boersma boldly questions that assumption.

Boersma views Jesus’ work as an act of recapitulation, in which the incarnate God retraces the path by which our humanity has gone astray and heals and transforms it from the inside. Boersma covers the Christian tradition with the same easy erudition that Patterson covers the biblical context. With the recapitulation theme he draws together the prophetic, priestly and royal dimensions of Jesus’ work in a unity much like that outlined in Sherman’s book. Traditional atonement doctrine is very much a part of that unity for Boersma.

He says that the vision of unrestricted hospitality and total nonviolence is appropriate to our eschatological hope, but is misleading if applied to the historical struggle against sin. The dogmatic rejection of a God in any way soiled by contact with violence is akin to the complaint of a drowning man who insists his rescuer should not get wet.

What is most helpful about Boersma’s book is his insistence that we think carefully about these categories. Any use of force or coercion (physical or nonphysical) that brings some harm or injury to another is violence, he suggests. He notes that Weaver, for one, insists that many non-physical acts of resistance that undeniably bring harm (like economic sanctions or strikes) do not count as violence, while other nonphysical acts that might bring harm (tax policies or cuts in education funding) can be violence. Conversely, some physical coercion that may harm someone (pulling to the ground a child who was about to run in front of a car or forcibly intervening in an attempted suicide) is not counted as violence. Weaver, and others, are particularly concerned to emphasize that nonviolence does not rule out effective and active forms of resistance to evil.

Does this simply ‘amount to excluding anything on our personal list of ‘good force" from violence by definition? Would it be more honest to admit that there is such a thing as redemptive violence, employed at times by faithful people and even by a loving God?

Boersma frames this issue in terms of hospitality. God’s nature and eschatological design both point toward universal hospitality. Indeed, the incarnation is an act of such hospitality, in which God invites and receives all people and their broken nature into the divine life itself. But under the conditions of time and sin, hospitality has an intrinsic dimension of exclusion. It is conditional hospitality

Is the God of the cross the same as the father of the prodigal son? Boersma says yes -- but we have to imagine the shape of hospitality when it goes beyond receiving the already repentant returning child with open arms. What if God had gone to the flu country to find the unrepentant child rather than waiting at home? What kind of hospitality would that be?

At the risk of skewing Boersma’s very dense discussion, I would explain it this way: God’s arms are still open, but much of our current way of life, much that we may even think of as part of ourselves, does not fit within those arms. God loves us as we are, but invites us to be different. At the very least this is the coercion of the parent who says to a grown child: Our house is yours but your drugs and drug-dealing are not welcome here, If you cannot separate yourself from them, you will be separating yourself from us and cannot stay. Such punishment is restorative. It serves the purpose of a fuller hospitality. Not only God’s justice but also God’s mercy requires it. God’s coercion, if we may put it that way, is God’s refusal to be hospitable to our sin.

Yet the unfathomable further step is that if this conditional hospitality results in punishment or exile, God then acts to share that same condition with the child. The cross is not just a concrete illustration of this constant truth. It is also a moment in the historical covenant of God’s relationship with humanity, a moment when judgment is actually rendered on evil, and the pain of that judgment (which includes a separation from God, a nonhospitality) is borne by the incarnate Word.

In a final section of the book, Boersma draws out the implications of his view for the Christian life. He rejects an absolutist form of nonviolence, and argues that short of the eschatological fulfillment Christians themselves must practice a conditional hospitality. This requires a prophetic witness against injustice but also a sober one, which can rule out neither the use of violence nor the expectation of a suffering like that of Jesus.

Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross offers a fresh and independent perspective. But the work is somewhat marred by a rather elliptical pattern of argument. This gives a good deal of texture, but it often leaves the reader groping for clarity on major points. Nowhere is there a full and clear answer given to the problem implicit in the entire project: how exactly is God exercising violence in the crucifixion of Jesus and how (and why) is God exercising it against Jesus? The argument is highly suggestive, but a good deal of that suggestion seems to evaporate when the book’s cover is closed, for want of a firm summary to contain it.

Patterson and Boersma have written two very different but very fine books, the one plainly hoping to replace atonement and the other trying to retrieve it. In that sense they represent the two broad parties to the discussion. Each has its special setting -- Patterson in the Crossan-Borg vein of New Testament criticism, Boersma in the broad tradition of Reformed theology. Beyond the Passion is the easier of the two to pick up cold, while Violence is more demanding of the reader. If one wants to be of two minds about the cross, one could do with both.



Books Reviewed:

Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering and the Search for What Saves Us. By Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker Beacon, 288 pp.

The Nonviolent Atonement. By Denny J. Weaver Eerdmans, 246 pp.

The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Historical & Practical Perspectives. Edited by Roger R. Nicole, Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James. InterVarsity, 500 pp.

Power in the Blood? The Cross in the African American Experience. By JoAnne Marie Terrell. Orbis, 187 pp.

King, Priest and Prophet: A Trinitarian Theology of Atonement. By Robert Sherman. T&T Clark, 304 pp.

Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus. By Stephen J. Patterson. Fortress, 161 pp.

Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition. By Hans Boersma. Baker, 288 pp.

Hi LoT: Nobody weighed in on this topic and I think you already know how I feel, but for the record, here is my opinion.

Of the two choices given, I believe that the “sacrifice” concept is the one in need of a “rethink”.

To me, the most toxic issue is the idea that “Deliberate Innocent Suffering (or even the threat of it) is (somehow) Redemptive.” There are seemingly countless examples of these in the Bible. Jesus is just one of them. I’m sure you know how traumatizing these stories/accounts would be to a 5 year old (bedtime stories?). Unless they have already been brainwashed, they will instantly respond in horror at the violation to their God-Given sense of justice. I actually know of Christian parents who, not only read these to their children, but also explained to them that if “god” wants to do this, it’s ok. This is NOT First Pure and it violates Romans 3:8. (Let us do Evil that Good may come?) I want to puke! I think God’s message to His Creation should be pure and understandable to a 5 year old, thereby justifying the “Child-Like Faith” that Jesus talked about.

Anyway, I think the Orthodox Theology of the Cross, that is, Jesus, and He alone, had to die to appease an angry god (actually Himself), is in need of drastic repairs! It is (or should be) an embarrassment to the Christian Church as well as a major source of offence and puzzlement to non-Christians. But it is only one of many Dogmas which, in my opinion, defy reason and impugn the Good Nature of the “Heavenly Father” that Jesus described.

I guess this is the response that one should expect from an “Unitarian Universalist” or whatever label folks want to put on me.

In His Love, John

Q. 142. What will become of the wicked in the day of judgment?
A. They shall he cast into hell.

Q. 143. What is hell?
A. A place of dreadful and endless torment.
Q. 144. What will become of the righteous?
A. They shall be taken to heaven.


Q. 145. What is heaven?
A. A glorious and happy place, where the righteous shall be forever with the Lord.

These questions are from the Westminster Catechism for children. I can't believe I was going to teach these to my grandchildren.Can you imagine a little child having this garbage pumped into their little sponge like brains and forced to learn this crap?

I am reading through the bible and am now in Lev. I'm in total agreement with you John about the god in the OT who requires so much death and blood in order to be appeased. Isn't that what the false and pagan gods required?...more blood and death in order to calm their gods down. The Mayans not only required death, but much suffering in order to appease their gods. Christianity requires that a lamb, goat or rams throat be cut and the blood spilt. Depending on whether it was a meat, sin, trespass, or wave offering, different animals were used for the sacrifice. All this death and blood had to have a negative effect on people. How could you not fear this god who requires so much death and misery in order to be happy? All the laws in Lev. that seem to have no other purpose than to remind you of how evil and wicked you are. Why even having a baby required an atonement....why this is I have never been able to find out. Can you imagine a woman today being unclean after the birth of a precious baby? It just makes no sense.

Hey Shib:

To me, there is no difference in sacrificing to Zeus or to the OT “god” – the purposes are identical.

The poor animals are just another (non-human) example of an innocent suffering because of someone else’s mistakes. And if you don’t eat them after the sacrifice, you can’t even claim that they helped sustain another life!

Now, if innocent suffering is a choice made by the sufferer, I see that as Heroic and almost certainly an act of love. This is an example of the Greater Love, that Jesus spoke about – the conscious and willful laying down of one’s life for those you love. I define love as a deep, abiding concern for another’s needs above that of oneself. Therefore, Love could include a decision to forego the servicing of ones needs, wants or desires for the sake of another – even unto death. This is NOT vile to me but is a deeply individual choice.

In His Love, John

Just letting you guys know - I didn't 'weigh in' but I am weighing and reading as time allows. Much appreciation for the info posted.

DISCLAIMER: I am just thinking out loud here... bear with me.
To find truth, you have to consider all possiblities.
These are just some things I am considering thus far.
Thank you.



Sometimes I think...

Was Jesus God... Did God appear to us in flesh form... to show us the way?
To lead us out of religion and to lead us onto the path of love?

And to show us that there is nothing we could do to escape his love?
Even if we killed him...???

He still loves us.

Love is the most powerful thing and GOD actually IS love.

Lots of things I wonder about the cross...

When he defeated death, wasn't he giving us hope?
That we too, would be like him?
To pass from death into magnificent life?
(This existence being the valley of the shadow of death.)

Well...
still pondering.
and wondering.

Sometimes...
I hesitate to say this because I love animals.
BUT... sometimes I think of the blood sacrifices and I think does it make sense afterall?
The animals (from what I've heard) were not brutally killed but killed in a way that minimized suffering.
Was this just a stepping stone? Something that had to be done for a short time for people to realize that there is LOSS when you don't abide by LOVE?
When you try to operate outside of love... we suffer loss?
Was this just a lesson? (And the animals would have been made alive after death and would have been with God.)
Was this just a lesson? But people weren't getting the point, they weren't learning what they were supposed to learn (which God probably already knew would happen.) So he took on the form of a man to come down and SHOW US the WAY???

And we killed him?

And yet... He showed us that we are STILL his beloved?
Perfect love casts out all fear.



hmmm. Just thinking out loud you guys.
These are all things that I just ponder and ponder....

and then ponder some more.

Truth is quite a journey, ain't it??
Whew.

Need to sit down and ponder some more.

Good stuff by all (Except Byron who didnt weigh in )

The pat answer always seems to be "The life is in the blood"
What the heck does that mean and where did we get that from?

It seems to be the answer one gets for the brutality and sickness of shedding blood to be right with God when you ask a fundie...

How did we get to it?

I saw that movie " Mel Gibson's Apocalypto"
and man - it was disturbing as it laid out the brutality of the Aztec human sacrifices!!!! What kind of sick God would need or desire that? That God you worship out of fear - no way love..

I dont think Jesus death was planned - I believe it is a symbol of how religion kills the spirit.

snakeknife jpg.gif (20383 bytes) In Mesoamerica, the most obvious practice of human sacrifice was found in the Aztec Culture. Under the leadership of Montezuma and others before him, sacrifice became a key element in their ritual and worship to many gods. The Aztecs were constantly at "war" with neighboring tribes and groups. The goal of this constant warfare was to collect live prisoners for sacrifice. The Flowery Wars began with a mutual agreement between the Aztecs and the Tlaxcalans to capture live men for future sacrifice (Meyers & Sherman:65).

The Aztecs worshipped a war god called Huitzilopochtli, who took on the likeness of the sun over time. It was thought that in order to insure the sun's arrival each day, a steady supply of human hearts had to be offered in holy sacrifice (Hogg:43). They believed that the sun and earth had already been destroyed four times, and in their time of the 5th sun, final destruction would soon be upon them. In order to delay this dreadful fate, the practice of human sacrifice became a major element in Aztec society and livelihood (Meyer & Sherman:67).

The most common form of sacrifice was performed outside, on the top of a great pyramid. The victim was spread-eagled on a round stone, with his back arched. His limbs were held, while a priest used an obsidian knife to cut under the rib cage and remove his heart. This method was used when honoring the sun god, Huitzilopochtli. Each god apparently preferred a different form of sacrifice. For the fertility aztec_dagger.jpg (4731 bytes)god Xipe Totec, the person was tied to a post and shot full of arrows. His blood flowing out represented the cool spring rains (Meyer & Sherman:69). The fire god required a newly wed couple. They were thrown into the god's altars and allowed to burn and at the last minute they were taken out and had their hearts removed as a second offering (Hogg :48). The earth mother goddess, Teteoinnan, was extremely important. At harvest time, a female victim was flayed and her skin was carried ceremoniously to one of the temples. Her skin was worn by an officiating priest who then symbolized the goddess herself (Meyer & Sherman:44 Human sacrifices were seen in many different cultures in Latin American, such as Olmecs, Mayans and the Moche.

well I will weigh in but my entire view depends on evolutionary consciousness.

I believe that whole tribes of peoples were what is described as 'reds' by Ken Wilber, or archaic, mystical consciousness, in the language of Jim Marion.

These people lived in a consciousness that you still see in very extremist fundamentalists around the world. Brutality is nothing for them. And everything is symbolic. Blood is a symbol, the skin is a symbol, sacrifice is a symbol and the symbols were much more important than anything else in their lives. The magical consciousness lives on symbols and explains nature by making it symbolic of the Gods emotions and happiness or unhappiness with them. The entire realm was just a manifestation of the gods emotions really. And they interpreted nature as Gods needs being manifested. So if it didnt rain god was thirsty. The highest most symbolic drink was blood because it cost a life to obtain it. This mindset lives on in many christian, muslim, and other tribal groups. In that they still dance around an imaginary version of a bloody dieing sacrifice.

In my opinion, Jesus reached out to those people that were trapped in this archaic, magical mindset to lift them up a little higher. Its a fact that in the OT God said sacrifices He never desired! It was mercy He desired! But they (I) didnt get it. And the fact is they still didnt get it even with the death of God/Jesus played out for them.

To me the cross is seen differently according to what consciousness you are in. To the archaic, magical, mythical it is seen still very much as a needed symbolic sacrifice or scapegoat, whipping boy picture. God is angry and He needs to vent on humans for being so ignorant of how to please Him so here is Jesus to be Gods punching bag. Totally appeases the archaic mystical mythical mindset and lets them off the hook! Now they can approach God!

That consciousness seems so awlful to us once we rise out of it and it takes a while to get to the place where you can appreciate where you started out and how God ministered to you right where you were. Its important to me to accept my whole journey, warts and all. And its very humbling. :)

But once you rise out of this mindset the cross morphs. You realize God never wanted sacrifice, He wanted mercy. You realize God is love and most importantly you realize you are connected to God in such a way that disconnection was merely an illusion you believed. The cross becomes a whole different picture, one of God showing you that He is not going to hurt you, even if you kill Him. One that shows you the transformation and power of grace. One that leads to resurrection. Still symbolic, still because you are being taken across a threshold of consciousness.

However, once you begin to see this and step into another realm of consciousness you must realize you are to the old minset trampling on the most sacred of symbols to them. They will rend you for that.


Jesus said himself he had 'other sheep'. He even told Paul I believe it was not to go to Asia. There have always been a remnant group that rose above that consciousness and Jesus didnt have to speak to them the same way. He could come to them as Love, Mercy, Compassion and Enlightenment, Awarness of being One with God. This has always been available to mankind.

I believe where ever we are Jesus will speak to us to take us a little higher.

But once we rise past that place of scapgoating we cant go back without betraying our own consciousness and religion will try and try to pull one back into the scapegoating camp.

I think evolutionary consciousness explains so much that it is mindblowing to me.

In another 500 years you wont find much archaic, magical or mythical consciousness around. It will be evolved past and we will be in what chrisitanity refers to Tabernacles.

just my opinion of course but I believe God has led me to study this and learn from it.

blessings

GodisLove

But once we rise past that place of scapgoating we cant go back without betraying our own consciousness and religion will try and try to pull one back into the scapegoating camp.

Yes, I can already see this when I talk with on another forum with those who believe in the god who does the things the OT god does. They say I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm just wrong, who am I to dispute god etc. But, I know in my heart, that God has revealed this truth to me little by little and bit by bit. Coming out of darkness into light can cause a lot of harm to the eyes. But, coming out of darkness gradually and letting the "eyes" see a little light over time will cause less harm. That's how God teaches me, I'm still coming out of the darkness into the light.

Yeah, its why each time we are taken to another higher rung on the consciousness ladder we are seperated for a bit.

I love the picture of the angels/messengers ascending and descending on the ladder in Jacobs dream. There is a place we can reach where we can be all things to all people. Ministering on all rungs to bring folks a little higher just as we rise a little higher all the time.

At some point we no longer are hurt by their arrows and are able to just be amongst any rung of consciousness, understand it cause we have been there and minister there. That to me describes the 'sons of God' and the manifestation of them. They can go anywhere and minister to anyone where they are at and bring them in.

Come to the waters and drink, cries the Bride!

The entire earth is thirsty for Gods Presence, for His great Love.

I cant wait to see what is in store on higher rungs! Oh my!

I look forward to each and every day because I know there is so much more I dont know and havent seen and perhaps this is the day I will be lifted up a little higher to peek!!!

God is amazing!

The pat answer always seems to be "The life is in the blood"
What the heck does that mean and where did we get that from?

The term shedding of blood simply means death. You can "shed someones blood" without a single drop of blood being shed.

Jesus could have dies without shedding a single drop of blood, yet we could still say he shed his blood for us...because he died for us.

Wow! Really great stuff! I'm taking notes!

That's a great way of putting it!
I like that a lot.

Did Jesus come to sacrifice himself once and for all so people would stop killing animals and stop shedding blood and stop misunderstanding what they were supposed to be learning and stop FOCUSING on the wrong things?

and then we killed him instead of him sacrificing himself?
But that didn't stop his plan.
It just proved his point further.
(how much he loves us.)
He can work anything around for Good, right?

I am still thinking that he came to put an end to all of the sacrificing and "appeasing the gods" so we would GROW beyond where we were at...
So he was like. ok look... ENOUGH. all of your sins, here, I am putting them on myself and will be the one and only sacrifice for all time so STOP killing animals, and focus on what you are here to focus on. (LOVE!)

(I say "we" because there but for the grace of God go I, right?)

I think maybe I'm trying to see "WE" more as opposed to "You" or "I". Since we're all brothers and sisters and since we are ALL capable of good and evil, to whatever extents... I think "WE" is starting to make more sense to me.

Ok, I'm in ramble mode trying to sort through all these things in my mind..

sparrow

I believe, at this time, that Christ is whatever we need where ever we are to take us a bit farther in our journey of apprehending Gods Love.

WOW!!! Great Stuff from all of you today!!!

Excellent, excellent answer... GodisLove.

That is so profoundly true.

John Said:

WOW - this was profound. Aint it the truth?

It seems that we are separated more then not. It doesn't seem to end.

I think the biggest struggle was getting past the fear of moving towards a view that was so not mainstream!
There are so many curses the church puts on you as you walk away from it.... You better fear, you will be snatched, you will be deceived... etc.... It takes a long while to "really" be ok with those things - but once worked out - there is true freedom!

Yes, and imagine that once you enter true rest in where ever you find yourself in your knowing. None of that can have a negative effect on you any longer!

You can even minister to those caught up in fear , save some in fear, snatching them out of the fire as the scriptures say.

Its been hard to enter rest after this last shaking. But I feel I am now.

Excellent topic..the more I think..((waaaitt a minute! .. they didn't teach me to do that in Church!)) the more I see the sacrifice aspect as borrowed from other religions into blood sacrifice..its not at all original

The idea that someone had to pay in order to appease an all knowing all loving righteous God seems ludicrous now..when my kids misbehave does there have to be punishment and sacrifice for there to be forgiveness?? NOOOO..so why would God demand it?? Because he is more holy than I? So since he is more holy, he cannot be as forgiving and keep no record of wrongs, I guess!! Makes sense! Anyway if jesus is God then was not God punishing himself?? sacrificing himself to himself?? Thats like writing myself a check and depositing it!!

..it is almost as if his holy nature is more of an impediment or a prison for him than a liberating quality...this then brings up the many NT and OT references to the Messiah as a sacrificial lamb etc..what does one do with all these passages and still retain the Bible at all? At this rate Jefferson's Bible (80% crossed out) will be long comapred to my "bible" !!! Thus, the question remains..what was the true purpose of Jesus' life and death and how does that purpose accomodate the many teachings in the Bible regarding him being a blood sacrifice? If his purpose was not blood sacrifice why did he not renounce the OT with all its gory language about blood etc? For me Jesus is my rock (excuse the cliche) and example and I know somehow he is the foundation of mankind..but the religion his life spawned is one dark path folks!

Any ideas???

what was the true purpose of Jesus' life and death and how does that purpose accomodate the many teachings in the Bible regarding him being a blood sacrifice? If his purpose was not blood sacrifice why did he not renounce the OT with all its gory language about blood etc? For me Jesus is my rock (excuse the cliche) and example and I know somehow he is the foundation of mankind..but the religion his life spawned is one dark path folks!

I'm still muddling through this myself, DG. I'm reading a book by Bart Ehrman called "Misquoting Jesus" and he says that many quotes by Jesus never came from his mouth. Actually, how can we know what came from Jesus mouth since all we have are copies of copies? Since so many copies were full of errors, such as leaving out parts of quotes or making up "quotes" out of their own imaginations, we can't be sure about anything Jesus said in our error ridden bibles. Mt.28:19 is one that that has pretty much been disputed. It seems that the RCC was so intent on pushing the trinity, they needed a passage to "prove" it was true.....same goes for 1John 5:7.

Also, I'm reading through the OT now and I see how much voodoo takes place in the OT. Num.5:9-31 is an example. If a man is jealous of his wife and thinks she's been unfaithful, he can take her to the priest and she will be given poison and if she's innocent she will live and if she's guilty she will die. (BTW, nothing is said about a jealous wife giving her husband poision if she thinks he's unfaithful.)All you jealous husbands try that today and guess what you'll get?--about 30 years to life. No preacher I ever asked about this passage could explain it, which shows me that they know there's a lot of BS and voodoo in the OT.

Had a whole post here but took it off for tweaking.

The sacrificial system belongs to the one needing sacrifice. It is a gift to the carnal mind from the carnal mind.

Would God dare to enter that realm and be what ever is desired there? oh wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes HE would!

If you have left the sacrificial needs by being/bringing forth LIFE. This LIFE has no beginning , no end, is not a religion, yet religion grasps at it all the time.

I had a dream

I had a dream, in my dream was a man and this man saw a beautiful child, he cut the childs head off and placed it on his sholders. Trying to capture innocense as his own!



Religion likes to do this and it runs around showing its newhead to anyone that will look upon it. But those with eyes see the same old head that has always been there.



oh no, Religion and carnal consciouness is off to find another innocent child.....another sacrifice.....



off the merrygoround!!!

Dare we???

Yes we dare!!

and suspended out of time, dare we to see LOVELIFE

dare we enter back in time and bring forth what we have seen?

Dare we to give birth to what religion is waiting to grab and kill?

They watch for the ManChild to be born so they can carry him off......sacrifice him to their carnal religious system....the god of all flesh!

I think I will sit up here and watch the birds eat their carnal sacrifice to their carnal consciousness!

I think I will no longer turn back and forth becoming a pillar of salt! I had no idea this salt pillar hadnt lost its savor afterall! I had no idea that as I looked back God transplanted me into His House! I had no idea pillars dont go in and out any longer!

I think I will dare to believe there is a life beyond sacrificing, a real LIFE that just IS and one that the carnal systems of man cannot ever grasp

off while he chases me with his ax haha

thing is, I dont think he will catch me this time cause while he wasnt looking I sprouted wings and flew away!

Hes just chasing my shadow, but he doesnt know it! lol

blessings

GodisLove