Did Jesus Have to be Crucified?

[Thomas]

Hi Chris —

It's a doozie, isn't it?

I sometimes wonder whether that 'very large leap' is required to cross the gap from how we determine the world to be, to how it is. We are so conformed to this reality, and render anything else as myth or fairy tale.

It's difficult to believe someone might give so much ... for me.

Then again, wiser heads than mine assure me that faith in God is a gift, not a given, and something that has to be worked at — but that's the orthodox view, that all might be saved, not just pre-determined elect — at ground, we have to let Christ in (a gloriously cheesey statement, but real, none the less), we have to open the door.

Have you seen "The Light of the World" by William Holman Hunt?

The point is, there's no handle on the door, He can't get in unless the door's opened from the inside. This order of faith enters, it is not generated. We have to let in He who is every man's neighbour.

But then I read elsewhere:

But nobody is going to tell me how I'd be better off with religion. I'm happy and free without it, and that's the way it's going to stay.

OK, that's your experience, but don't tell me you've come to terms with it, brother, because you haven't ... I'd say you've walled yourself in.

In love,

Thomas

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

First let me say that I am coming at this from a Trinitarian, creed-based view. So, the Incarnation and divinity of Jesus is a given. That Jesus died for our salvation is a given. I am interested in how our free will intersects with God's plan.

I am wondering then if the question is mistaken, dear Luna. For if Jesus is Divine and G-d, then his will *is* the will of G-d, there is no "free" about it.

Therein lies a difference, in that all of the rest of us humans are free to will against or other than what G-d wills. If Jesus was G-d, he could not possibly will against or other than what G-d wills, because he is G-d. Jesus' will and our will then become two completely different critters.

Originally Posted by lunamoth

Would God really implement a plan that required us to kill him?

Who are we to say what G-d would or would not do? He is G-d, He can implement whatever He wishes, it is His game to play as He sees fit. I trust there is some reason behind it all that I do not now understand but that is right and proper and meant to be.

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

I am wondering then if the question is mistaken, dear Luna. For if Jesus is Divine and G-d, then his will *is* the will of G-d, there is no "free" about it.

Your question goes to the heart of the Mystery — Jesus Christ is true God and true man — so the question of His human will is very much a real one — else 'Incarnation' is a misnomer — and the Gospels testify to that, without doubt.

I assume Lunamoth is coming at the question from the orthodox viewpoint — not the erroneous one, in assuming Christ is either a God, or a man, so from an orthodox point of view, your point is invalid.

Thomas

[Dream]

If Jesus had refused, then he would not have been forced. Just going from the gospels, letters, etc. If he had refused it is likely that he would have undergone further discipline until he finally said 'Yes, I'll do it.'

Hebrews 5
7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to
save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear.
8 Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered;

If he continued to refuse all of his life. I think that it would mean something terrible had gone wrong. Certainly he didn't just pop out of the womb ready to die though.

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Yes.

+++
It was not for God's sake He dies on the Cross, but for ours. It's not the God demands the Cross, it's that we are too blind to see the Cross is the inevitable outcome of our actions.

God didn't bring Christ to Golgotha ... we did.
+++

Man actualised death;
Christ actualised salvation.
The Cross is the means by which man is saved, and remains free.


In the spirit of the question, yes — although we can make no demand of God whatsoever. I'd say it's more then lengths God is obliged to go for us, rather than the price we extract from Him.

Thomas

Thank you for the reply Thomas. I think you are getting where I am coming from (thank you eveyone else too!). I am approaching this from a (hopefully) orthodox view.

About the part I underlined, what I'm wondering is what would have happened if we had not brought Christ to Golgotha? We had to do it by our free will, but if our free will is free then it might not have happened. We were compelled by our evil nature, but not by God.

What if Jesus had been imprisoned instead?

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

There doesn't seem to be an entry point that doesn't require a very large leap of faith.

Chris

As far as I can tell, it does require a leap of faith somewhere along the path.

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

I am wondering then if the question is mistaken, dear Luna. For if Jesus is Divine and G-d, then his will *is* the will of G-d, there is no "free" about it.

Therein lies a difference, in that all of the rest of us humans are free to will against or other than what G-d wills. If Jesus was G-d, he could not possibly will against or other than what G-d wills, because he is G-d. Jesus' will and our will then become two completely different critters.


Who are we to say what G-d would or would not do? He is G-d, He can implement whatever He wishes, it is His game to play as He sees fit. I trust there is some reason behind it all that I do not now understand but that is right and proper and meant to be.

Thank you for your comments 123 but Thomas is right that I am coming at this from the orthodox view. I am asking about our free will in killing Jesus, not his free will to obey the Father.

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by Dream

If Jesus had refused, then he would not have been forced. Just going from the gospels, letters, etc. If he had refused it is likely that he would have undergone further discipline until he finally said 'Yes, I'll do it.'
If he continued to refuse all of his life. I think that it would mean something terrible had gone wrong. Certainly he didn't just pop out of the womb ready to die though.

Being human I'm sure it was horrible to obey unto death, just as the temptations in the dessert were real. Having just given up a small thing in my life for Lent, or fasting for a day, I get an idea of how hard that must have been!

But I don't think he refused the father at any point, even if he demonstrated the perfectly human trait of asking to be spared.

As I tried to clarify above, I'm not asking about Jesus' willingness to go through with it...I think his willingness is the point. A perfect non-resistance to evil. I'm asking about our role in the crucifixtion. Sure, our hearts are only evil all the time, but it seems there is still a chance we might not have killed him, even if we did not recognize the light.

[BlaznFattyz]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

I'm asking about our role in the crucifixtion. Sure, our hearts are only evil all the time, but it seems there is still a chance we might not have killed him, even if we did not recognize the light.

there were many people there, all with different views on Jesus. Sure, the pharisees conspired to kill him not wishing for their power to be taken away by the romans because of jesus, and the people that followed the pharisees. pilate tried to spare him a number of times, washed his hands of it, and finally gave the people what they wanted. the disciples followed jesus and one even took out a sword to defend him against his arrest. there were followers of jesus that were healed, that listened to what he said and believed in him to be innocent, the messiah, rabbi, and the Son of God, that did not wish him dead. so not everyone crucified him.

[Thomas]

Hi Lunamoth —

Christianity forever comes up against the accusation of myth, of metaphor ... that the things recorded in Scripture didn't actually happen, but that Scripture is a gloss on a series of rather mundane events (if those events happened at all, as some might argue), a valid narrative process by which a spiritual subtext is brought to the fore in signs and symbols, that the realities the Christian believe in are not real in any material sense.

The Christian belief is the other way round. We believe that a spiritual subtext, the Truth of the World, was manifest in a material fashion, in actual people, in actual events, a TheoDrama played out in real life. What happened in the real world, for once, was what actually is, not what man, locked inside himself, assumes it to be.

The philosophers and the gnostics, in all their dualist permutations, see the world as a shadow play of The Real World.

The Christian, in their Hebraic and holistic inheritance, see The Real World not in shadow but in substance.

So there can be no 'what if' — what happened, actually happened, because that's the way it is. If the reality was different, if the actuality of the broken relationship between God and His creature was different, then something else would have happened, and that would be the truth of it ... but such is not the case.

What happened, did happen, and it had to happen, because any other way would be a fantasy, a fabrication, lie ... about as true as apples floating upward from the tree, as fish riding bicycles.

We had to do it by our free will, but if our free will is free then it might not have happened. We were compelled by our evil nature, but not by God.

But our free will is free, and it did happen ... and it happened because we chose to exercise our will, not God's will ... we were 'compelled' by a fallen nature, not an evil nature — if we were by nature evil, we could not be saved.

If we are by nature evil, then we are not His creation.

Thomas

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

As far as I can tell, it does require a leap of faith somewhere along the path.

For one thing, one has to accept a definition of "original sin" based on the story of the Fall that doesn't exactly jibe with the original context of the source material (assuming that Judaism comprehends it's own sacred texts). That's a big leap. And if one is to be making these big leaps, what recommends Jesus oriented salvation over, say, kindly aliens sending their ship to pick us all up? It doesn't seem to be any more or less a leap of faith either way.

Chris

[Dream]

Thanks for responding to my post, Lunamoth, even though it wasn't really what you were asking. I misunderstood the question. I would like to address what Chris said, too. Obviously, what happens happens so we're talking about why we do things, and what about the garden (original sin, etc). I don't think that we need leaps of faith or contradicting statements to understand crucifixion in relation to the garden, but there is still the problem we face as human beings with accepting God's actions.

What we know for certain is that God and the angels could have stopped the serpent, but they didn't. It was likely not an experiment but a demonstration of what a mixed creation, Adam and Eve, would naturally do. I suggest Romans 5:12 says that the judgment against Adam passed onto us because we are Adam's descendants, his kind, and of necessity destroyed. In other words God pronounced a death sentence in the Garden of Eden on what human beings *are*, which goes along really well with the Bible instances of human extermination such as the flood.

Romans 5:12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned --

This implicates God in planning the whole 'Garden thing' against us. You are asking whether God would do that? It matches well with what many other scriptures say. It isn't really an issue of leaps of faith, which are unnecessary. Its about whether you agree with what God did.

Romans 3:5-6 But if our wickedness serves to show the justice of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?

I Corinthians 1:28-29 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

For one thing, one has to accept a definition of "original sin" based on the story of the Fall that doesn't exactly jibe with the original context of the source material (assuming that Judaism comprehends it's own sacred texts). That's a big leap. And if one is to be making these big leaps, what recommends Jesus oriented salvation over, say, kindly aliens sending their ship to pick us all up? It doesn't seem to be any more or less a leap of faith either way.

Chris

Hey Chris, you sure know how to pack a lot of interesting thoughts into a small amount of space.

Second point first, it's a big leap but I would not say for the reason you suggest (which I'll address in a bit). As for why not kindly aliens? The stepping stones of my life and experience lead up to the ledge of Christianity. Kindly aliens are neither compelling nor reasonable for me. :shrug: The leap does not start 300 yards from the edge of the cliff. I can describe the reasons and evidence that lead me to the edge, but I doubt it would work for you. Faith goes where reason can't, but that does not mean there is no reason before faith.

As to your first point, I agree that we must first seek to understand the story of Genesis in its own terms and recognize that Christian interpretations are just that, looking back through the lens of Christian faith. While I accept a concept of 'original sin,' I think my concept is more like that of the Jewish understanding, and not like that of Augustine. Christianity found meaning in baptism and the sacrifice of Jesus for a few hundered years before Augustine, and the Eastern Orthodox Church never did like the Augustinian original sin, so I don't think it's the keystone that makes all of Christianity stand or tumble.

Let me say clearly: of course Judaism understands its own Scriptures. I find it offensive when Christians imply they don't or that the Jews missed obvious clues that Jesus was the Messiah. Hogwash! We look back with Christ-colored glasses. (That also does not mean we have no right to do this...faith in Christ should affect our understanding of the OT writings).

Here's my understanding of it. The story of the sin of Adam and Eve is told, not so much to explain how sin came into the world, but to describe what sin is. The Fall is our claiming of moral autonomy and self rule, taking the place of God, and in doing so opening the possibility of overstepping our place, abusing our gifts. The result of the Fall is alienation: we are out of joint in our relationships with creation, each other, and God. In the sinless state ('before the Fall') our obligations to the earth, God and each other would be the natural response. But sin has entered the world, and with it the potential to put our own desires first. This leads to the cascade of disobedience (or failure to love), shame, blame, fear and alienation. I think it is this alienation, the separation between us and God, that is original sin.

Paul's epistle to the Romans is the main place in the NT where we see a connection between Adam and sin entering the world. But Paul is ambiguous about this: did Adam's act make sin inevitable or just possible? Augustine nailed it down that sin was inevitable, but I don't think we ahve to conclude this. Pelagius thought that sin was not inevitable, but then he pushed this to mean that we must bear the burden of our sins alone! Where's the grace in that?

To me, original sin represents that gulf, that alienation, that exists between people and between us and God. Original sin is my experience of being unable to perfectly love others as I love myself. That sin, while still there and affecting my behavior (its side effects) has been forgiven. And, I believe, it has been given freely to all of us. Accepting that forgiveness means trying to live into that perfection.

My 2c, , and now it's time to sign off for the remainder of Holy Week.

Peace

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Hi Lunamoth —

Christianity forever comes up against the accusation of myth, of metaphor ... that the things recorded in Scripture didn't actually happen, but that Scripture is a gloss on a series of rather mundane events (if those events happened at all, as some might argue), a valid narrative process by which a spiritual subtext is brought to the fore in signs and symbols, that the realities the Christian believe in are not real in any material sense.

The Christian belief is the other way round. We believe that a spiritual subtext, the Truth of the World, was manifest in a material fashion, in actual people, in actual events, a TheoDrama played out in real life. What happened in the real world, for once, was what actually is, not what man, locked inside himself, assumes it to be.

The philosophers and the gnostics, in all their dualist permutations, see the world as a shadow play of The Real World.

The Christian, in their Hebraic and holistic inheritance, see The Real World not in shadow but in substance.

So there can be no 'what if' — what happened, actually happened, because that's the way it is. If the reality was different, if the actuality of the broken relationship between God and His creature was different, then something else would have happened, and that would be the truth of it ... but such is not the case.

What happened, did happen, and it had to happen, because any other way would be a fantasy, a fabrication, lie ... about as true as apples floating upward from the tree, as fish riding bicycles.


But our free will is free, and it did happen ... and it happened because we chose to exercise our will, not God's will ... we were 'compelled' by a fallen nature, not an evil nature — if we were by nature evil, we could not be saved.

If we are by nature evil, then we are not His creation.

Thomas

Nicely said Thomas, thank you. Also, I agree with your distinction about fallen nature. I was merely trying to point out that we are capable of evil acts, such as the crucifixion, not that we are evil by nature.

Have a blessed Holy Week.

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by Dream

Thanks for responding to my post, Lunamoth, even though it wasn't really what you were asking. I misunderstood the question. I would like to address what Chris said, too. Obviously, what happens happens so we're talking about why we do things, and what about the garden (original sin, etc). I don't think that we need leaps of faith or contradicting statements to understand crucifixion in relation to the garden, but there is still the problem we face as human beings with accepting God's actions.

What we know for certain is that God and the angels could have stopped the serpent, but they didn't. It was likely not an experiment but a demonstration of what a mixed creation, Adam and Eve, would naturally do. I suggest Romans 5:12 says that the judgment against Adam passed onto us because we are Adam's descendants, his kind, and of necessity destroyed. In other words God pronounced a death sentence in the Garden of Eden on what human beings *are*, which goes along really well with the Bible instances of human extermination such as the flood.This implicates God in planning the whole 'Garden thing' against us. You are asking whether God would do that? It matches well with what many other scriptures say. It isn't really an issue of leaps of faith, which are unnecessary. Its about whether you agree with what God did.

Thank you for the post Dream. I was not trying to ignore you...just have limited time to address all posts so I was trying to keep to the track I was most interested in.

I do not think that it was God's will that we sin, nor that we crucify Christ. Also, the leap of faith I was talking about with Chris is to enter into the story of Christ, to believe as Thomas so beautifully said "...that a spiritual subtext, the Truth of the World, was manifest in a material fashion, in actual people, in actual events, a TheoDrama played out in real life. What happened in the real world, for once, was what actually is, not what man, locked inside himself, assumes it to be."

I talked a bit about the Fall and original sin in my post to Chris, which maybe of interest to you in the light of your comments above.

Peace and have a blessed Holy Week