Catholic Answers says Christ didn't have to die for us?

[mpartyka]

God chose to save us by dying for us in order to illustrate the full horror of sin and to show His love in that he was willing to do even that to redeem us. Likewise, the whole principle of sacrifice in the Old Covenant was set up, not because God has to have blood in exchange for sin, but to illustrate the same lesson.

The reason I disagree with this is that the book of Hebrews contradicts it:

Hebrews 9:12-18,22 – Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives. Therefore not even the first testament was dedicated without blood…And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

It’s clear that by “shedding of blood” the author of Hebrews is not just talking about a p(name removed by moderator)rick or other lesser form of blood donation. He’s talking about death. And not a symbolic death, either, for if the Old Testament was supposed to provide a “pattern” (or symbol) for the actual heavenly realities, the realities themselves can’t merely be symbols – moreover, if the symbols are required, so much more the realities must be required. Hence, the death of Christ was strictly necessary for our redemption.

 

[thenobes]

Mike,

Steve here again. You may be looking at an inverted sequence of implication in your logic there.
.

…-- moreover, if the symbols are required, so much more the realities must be required. Hence, the death of Christ was strictly necessary for our redemption.

Unless the symbols are required because God previously chose the means of sacrifice for our sake, ie, so we would understand more fully what a Divine sacrifice, any divine sacrifice, entails to divinity, and not for the sake of what was absolutely necessary for the Father to accept as propitiation for our sins.

peace
steve

 

[DFWChristian]

Great post! I am appauled at his response that Jesus didn’t to die for us to be saved. That is totally pathetic and I bet you are 100% right on the money in what you heard. Truly pathetic!

(How ironic. I didn’t even realize until today that this web site was sponsored by Catholic Answers, though I’ve posted things here off and on for years. )

I’ve been drifting away from Christianity for quite some time, but I missed it some, so I started listening to Catholic radio. I was really getting into it until I happened to tune in to an episode of Catholic Answers in which a teenage boy called in and said, “I just learned in one of my classes that Christ didn’t have to die for us to save us.” I was expecting the host to contradict that assertion, but instead the host said, “That’s right!” At which point I shut off the radio and haven’t gone back to Catholic radio since.

I had actually heard things like this before. “God could have just forgiven us.” “Jesus could have pricked his finger, shed a single drop of blood for us, then returned to Heaven.” But I had thought this was a line of speculation that had died out in medieval times. I at least had thought it wasn’t the official teaching of the Church (which I assume is what Catholic Answers is trying to promulgate out there).

Why does the idea that Christ didn’t have to die for us turn me off so? Because if all God had to do to save us was forgive us, or if all Jesus had to do to save us was prick his finger, then that renders the cross of no personal consequence to me. God went over the top for me – so what? That wasn’t because of anything I did. That wasn’t because of my sin. That was His choice. Why should I feel guilty that Jesus hung on the cross and died for me if that was purely a voluntary choice and not a matter of necessity? Unless Jesus’ suffering unto death was absolutely necessary to procure my salvation, why should Jesus’ suffering unto death impress me or make me want to bow my knee to him or especially give my life for him, rather than make me recoil at the Father’s sadism and/or Jesus’ masochism for constructing an unnecessarily horrific death? A God who would come and die for me because that’s what He had to do – because there was no other way – that’s the kind of God I can get behind. A God who would suffer and die needlessy – that kind of God repels me, because that, to me, is a God who enjoys suffering and death and inflicts it, not because He has to, but because He wants to.

Am I wrong about what the Church teaches here? Did Christ have to suffer and die for us? And if he didn’t, am I the only one who feels repelled by that notion?

 

[Mintaka]

So basically, you didn’t read any posts between the original poster and your response.

And apparently, you think either:

a) God had a gun to His Head, and was forced to save us because He had no other choice. (As opposed to choosing to save us out of love, and loving us so much that He sent us His only Son.)

or:

b) God, omnipotent and omniscient, had no other possible path open to Him except saving us exactly the way He did. Not “no better, more logical, or more artistic path”, not “no more loving and eucatastrophic path”, but no other path whatsoever. (Admittedly, one can make a good Anselm argument for this since God doesn’t do stuff without a good reason; but there’s plenty of good reason to think that God made a free choice of methods, just as He exercises free creative control over every other part of Creation. His choice of how to save us may have been included from the first moment of Creation; but He chose it.)

 

[mpartyka]

And apparently, you think…God, omnipotent and omniscient, had no other possible path open to Him except saving us exactly the way He did. Not “no better, more logical, or more artistic path”, not “no more loving and eucatastrophic path”, but no other path whatsoever. (Admittedly, one can make a good Anselm argument for this since God doesn’t do stuff without a good reason; but there’s plenty of good reason to think that God made a free choice of methods, just as He exercises free creative control over every other part of Creation. His choice of how to save us may have been included from the first moment of Creation; but He chose it.)

Here’s the argument I’ve made from the beginning (I think…been a while). God cannot treat righteousness and sin the same, or He is a liar. If God can accept a person who has never sinned into Heaven and accept a person who has sinned into Heaven (i.e., require no propitiation for sin whatsoever, just forgive sin), then God is a liar when He says He loves righteousness and hates sin. So there has to be some sort of propitiation for sin. God has to require something of a sinner that He does not require of a righteous person. And what the Bible has said over and over again is that this requirement – “the wages of sin” – is death. Death came by sin. Death is the penalty Adam and Eve received for eating of the tree. Death makes a testament effective. Death, death, death – nothing short of death will do. So if Jesus is going to be an effective sacrifice for our sins, His sacrifice has to be of an identical kind to ours. He has to make the same payment we do, in order to balance the scales. Thus, God became man so that this man could die and make the particular payment for sin that men are required to make. Simple as that. All this talk about how God just wanted to make us feel bad about sin ignores the fact that a truly just God must act justly, and to require anything less from the substitutionary sacrifice than the actual payment prescribed for sin – death – would be unjust. Jesus’ sacrifice doesn’t just demonstrate the love and mercy of God but also His justice in requiring from Jesus exactly what He requires of us all. Nothing short of that would have been just.

 

[fhansen]

Good answer , I like this

I agree with usagi as well. For me the cross, due to Jesus’ act, now stands on the landscape of human history as a testimony that ‘man hated God without reason’, as Scripture tells us, even while man is unconscious of this fact before he contemplates the cross, and that God has always loved man beyond measure in spite of his sins.

 

[mpartyka]

I think I wrote this once upon a time, too, but I want to say it again:

Let’s say you are injured on account of something wrong you did, and you need a blood transfusion – if you don’t get some blood soon, you’ll die. So this guy you don’t even know, whom you never asked, says, “I’ll donate for you.” So the doctor hooks him up to you and starts the transfusion. After a little while the guy starts to look pale, but you’re feeling better. Then the doctor says, “Done! All done, we don’t need any more!” You look over at the donor with gratitude. Then, to your dismay, the donor says, “Don’t stop until I’m dead.” The doctor says, “What? But we don’t need any more blood!” The donor says, “I know, but I really want him to feel bad about what he did that made him need this transfusion, so I want you to drain me until I’m dry. If he feels indebted to me now, he’ll feel REALLY indebted to me when I’m dead.”

THAT is what I think of the whole, “Jesus could have shed a single drop of blood and saved us, He just wanted us to feel bad about sin,” paradigm. It’s a sadistic/masochistic manipulation of our emotions that serves no actual good purpose other than to control us, and I would like to think that God wouldn’t stoop to such cruel chicanery.

 

[Odell]

First things first we desirve hell fire. For Christ to take our place as you suggest He would have suffered hell fire.
Second propitiation is the means Gods wrath against sin is appeased and His honor restored. Propitiation is principally a part of personal relationship and not legal ones. If I steal money from a stranger, the stranger will seek a legal remedy. He will not care how much I apologize or try to appease him in other ways. He will only want money back. That is because I don’t have a personal relationship with a stranger. However if I steal from my parent, they won’t care as much about the money. They will be personally offended. Even if I return the money to them they will continue to be hurt byy actions. It will not be about the money, but about my having harmed our relationship. Whereas the stranger will desire legal payment, my parents will desire to be appeased. They will desire some sort of sacrafice from me to prove my love for them, and to restore their honor and justice. A heart felt apology in charity will mean far more to them than a return of the money. In a word, they will want to be propotiated for m sin.
In the same way, Jesus Christ did not satisfy the Fathers justice with an impersonal legal payment for our sins, but with a personal sacrifice that appeased the fathers wrath and acknowledged his honor.

Christ sacrafice propotiated the Father because it pleased Him more than He hated mans sins

 

[mpartyka]

First things first we desirve hell fire. For Christ to take our place as you suggest He would have suffered hell fire.

“Hellfire” is a convenient name for whatever the torment of Hell actually is. Does it have to be a physical torment? The rich man and Lazarus experienced physical-sounding torment and comfort, respectively, even though they were disembodied spirits. So perhaps “hellfire” is an entirely spiritual torment, in which case there is nothing to suggest that God didn’t inflict that torment on Christ as He hung on the cross.

If I steal money from a stranger, the stranger will seek a legal remedy. He will not care how much I apologize or try to appease him in other ways. He will only want money back…However if I steal from my parent, they won’t care as much about the money. They will be personally offended. Even if I return the money to them they will continue to be hurt byy actions…Whereas the stranger will desire legal payment, my parents will desire to be appeased.

Here’s the thing, though: God isn’t just a merciful parent. He’s also a just and impartial judge. He’s BOTH the stranger who wants recompense and the parent who wants the apology.

And let’s be clear, the “recompense” for a crime such as theft is not just the offended party’s getting his money back. There’s also the “recompense” for the time and/or effort lost because of the theft, the emotional injury done by the theft, the use of police resources on account of the theft, etc. Even the simplest of sins damages the world in ways that ripple outward, perhaps forever, from the initial event. And even if you were to somehow work hard enough to restore everything back to balance, there would STILL be required a recompense for all the time wasted while the world was not in balance.

In short, sin is like starting out with a grade of 100% and then doing something bad that costs you a point. From that day forward, you will never be back to 100%, even if you get 100% on every test from that day forward. And there’s no “extra credit” because a good deed doesn’t erase a bad deed. (More on this in a moment.)

Christ’s sacrifice propotiated the Father because it pleased Him more than He hated mans sins

See, that’s the part I don’t believe. I don’t believe that doing a good thing cancels out doing a bad thing. That’s not justice – that’s bribery. As someone once put it, “I broke my Dad’s chair, but my Mom baked my Dad’s favorite cookies so he’d be so happy he wouldn’t punish me.” All that tells me is that your Dad takes bribes. Your Dad can be unjust and not give your sins the punishment they deserve. Morality on earth is a pattern of eternal morality, and even morality on earth doesn’t work that way. Think about it: If a child molester were to save a baby from a burning building, is he any less guilty of child molestation for having been a hero in this instance? Should the children he molested just forget about the justice they deserve on account of this amazing good deed? That’s not justice! The molester deserves both a medal for the heroic rescue AND a jail cell for his crimes – neither one should cancel out the other. Neither should good deeds – ours or anyone else’s – cancel out sins. The good deeds could have been done WITHOUT the bad deeds. The hero could have been heroic WITHOUT his crimes against kids. You and I, whatever good deeds we’ve done in our lives, could have done those good deeds WITHOUT our ever having committed sins. What God expects from human beings is a perfect record as regards sin – i.e., when He looks at the record of our lives, He expects to see no sin on it. It doesn’t matter how many good deeds we have to our name – what matters is that we have no sin. A person could have 1000 good deeds, a million good deeds, or even a billion good deeds, but if there’s even one sin, that person has missed the mark and fallen short of what God expects. Those good deeds don’t even count. So this idea that God takes Christ’s good deeds and uses them to cancel out our sins just doesn’t wash, because the pluses of good deeds and the minuses of sins don’t even add up in the same column – it’s good deeds in one column and sins in the other, and if there’s anything in the sins column at all, you’re a sinner worthy of death and Hell.

So what Christ did is say, “I’ll take your record of sin upon myself, and I’ll pay that penalty of death and Hell in your place. Through my death I’ll totally wipe your sins column clean so that God sees you as righteous.” That’s in addition to everything else taught about our redemption, i.e., the infusion of grace to make people righteous. It’s not “either-or” but “both-and.” God can’t just infuse grace and that’s that for your sins – the penalty for the sins has to be paid, too, and that’s the penalty Christ paid in full on the cross. Without the death of Christ – without His paying the prescribed penalty that we incurred, which is death – then God would be simply overlooking sin, and God would not be just. And this is why whenever people say something like, “God could have just forgiven our sins without any sacrifice at all,” or, “Jesus could have just shed a drop of blood from his finger and saved everyone,” they’re just plain wrong.

 

[Odell]

Here’s the thing, though: God isn’t just a merciful parent. He’s also a just and impartial judge. He’s BOTH the stranger who wants recompense and the parent who wants the apology.

Sorry for the delay I hope we can keep this discourse going

I would agree God is both just and merciful which is why I believe we are acountible for our actions. There is nothing just in letting a unjust man go free.

See, that’s the part I don’t believe. I don’t believe that doing a good thing cancels out doing a bad thing.

1 Peter 4:8 “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

“by faith Abel offered a better sacrafice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings” (Heb 11:4) in Genesis 4 God specifies how He was able to speak well of Abel " the Lord LOOKED WITH GRACE on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with grace."

Through grace God can “look upon” our works as pleasing to Him because under the system of grace it does not demand absolute perfection or put God in obligation such as the law did.

Also in Gn 6 we see that Noah found grace in “the eyes of the Lord.” Was Noah sinless? No but he was able to please God! Under the strict limits of the law Noah would never have merited Gods favor.

That’s not justice – that’s bribery. As someone once put it, “I broke my Dad’s chair, but my Mom baked my Dad’s favorite cookies so he’d be so happy he wouldn’t punish me.” All that tells me is that your Dad takes bribes. Your Dad can be unjust and not give your sins the punishment they deserve.

But what’s just in the Dad coming home in this example and beating his wife in place of his kids? What is just is one is punished for there sin but not so severely when they a a heart felt apology and do to the sacrafice of the wife only letting the kids off with a slight punishment. Which is why scripture also tells us we are still disciplined as Christians. If not for Christ we would suffer the full punishment.

You talk about bribes let’s see what scripture has to say about so called bribes. In the old testament we have quite a bit in people ring able to persuade God. Let’s start with Moses after receiving the ten commandments, the people had a adorned Moses and God says to Moses “I have seen this people…and they are stiff necked people. Now leave me Alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them” Moses appeases Gods anger in Ex 32:11-13

Apparently God was in the verge of destroying all of them and only Moses’s plea abated the occurrence.

We also have Abrahams plea for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah whom God intended to destroy God agreed to Abraham and tells Abraham if he can find ten righteous people he will not destroy out of respect for Abraham and the righteous.

Now in Job 1:5 “Even if these three men Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Lord…they could save neither son nor daughter.”

None in the nation could appease Gods anger. By proposing the hypothetical example of Noah, Daniel, and Job who would under more normal circumstances be able to appease Gods anger

Jeremiah 15:1 “then the Lord said to me: 'Even if Moses and Samual were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence!”

Because of the infinite value that God places in Christ’s suffering and death, He is able to take away the punishment of eternal damnation for those who accept it but we still have to suffer the temperal punishment of sin.

Think about it: If a child molester were to save a baby from a burning building, is he any less guilty of child molestation for having been a hero in this instance? Should the children he molested just forget about the justice they deserve on account of this amazing good deed? That’s not justice!

Which is exactly why I don’t believe Christ came to cover this mans sins so he does not have to answer for them. A just judge does not impart someone else’s guilt onto one who is undeserving of the crime.

Further Christ told the Pharisees you clean the outside of the cup but on the inside you are white wasted tombs, filthy ex. Makes no sense Christ would cover up what he came and desires to change in us.

Those good deeds don’t even count. So this idea that God takes Christ’s good deeds and uses them to cancel out our sins just doesn’t wash, because the pluses of good deeds and the minuses of sins don’t even add up in the same column – it’s good deeds in one column and sins in the other, and if there’s anything in the sins column at all, you’re a sinner worthy of death and Hell.

It doesn’t cancil out our sins, but appeases Gods wrath. We still have to deal with the temperal aspect of our sins. And if we are with of Hell than Christ would have to suffer Hell for all of eternity.

So what Christ did is say, “I’ll take your record of sin upon myself, and I’ll pay that penalty of death and Hell in your place. Through my death I’ll totally wipe your sins column clean so that God sees you as righteous.”

The son of God could never assume anything evil or sinful. St Paul says “oh what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?”

And again I have to ask what is just in seeing one as righteous whom is not righteous?

 

[Stephen_Korsman]

b) God, omnipotent and omniscient, had no other possible path open to Him except saving us exactly the way He did.

Molinism’s “middle knowledge”

Not “no better, more logical, or more artistic path”, not “no more loving and eucatastrophic path”, but no other path whatsoever. (Admittedly, one can make a good Anselm argument for this since God doesn’t do stuff without a good reason; but there’s plenty of good reason to think that God made a free choice of methods, just as He exercises free creative control over every other part of Creation. His choice of how to save us may have been included from the first moment of Creation; but He chose it.)

The way I see it is that it was God’s plan that the 2nd Person of the Trinity become incarnate to raise man to a higher level [both the concepts of theosis and an incarnation had sin not occurred are Eastern Catholic/Orthodox teaching and fully compatible with Western Catholic teaching.] Sin resulted in man’s response to that incarnation being an attack on the incarnate Jesus. Although Jesus was sinless, sin still lead to death for him because that was our will and our doing.

From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christus_Victor (emphasis mine) -
Aulén argues that Christus Victor (or as Aulén called it the “classic view”) was the predominant view of the early church and for the first thousand years of church history and was supported by nearly every Church Father including Irenaeus, Origen of Alexandria, and Augustine of Hippo to name a few.
…
The Orthodox Church still holds to the Christus Victor view, based upon their understanding of the Atonement put forward by Irenaeus, called “recapitulation” Jesus became what we are so that we could become what he is.
…
Christus Victor, by interpreting the New Testament teaching through a lens of Trinitarian unity, depicts Christ’s sacrifice not as a legal offering to God in order to placate his honor or justice, but as the decisive moment in a war against the powers of darkness; ironically, the Law included.

 

[mpartyka]

…God is both just and merciful which is why I believe we are accountable for our actions. There is nothing just in letting a unjust man go free…Was Noah sinless? No, but he was able to please God! Under the strict limits of the law Noah would never have merited Gods favor.

Right. Which is why Christ had to die to redeem Noah from the strict standard of law. I’m not making the assertion that we can’t please God. I’m making the assertion that our pleasing God – or even Christ’s pleasing God – is not the mechanism by which we are freed from the penalty for sin. A good deed does not cancel out a bad deed as if a good deed were a positive number that cancels out a sin’s negative number. The numbers add up in 2 separate columns. The question is what wipes away the sin column, and the answer is not doing good deeds but rather being punished with death.

But what’s just in the Dad coming home in this example and beating his wife in place of his kids?

The justice is that the beating of a willing substitute satisfies the requirement that God punish sin. If God truly hates sin, then God cannot refrain from punishing sin. The only question is upon whom will the punishment rest – upon you or upon the one who will willingly bear it and then be raised up from it? Look at it this way: The thing about the beating analogy that doesn’t quite fit is that you’ll heal from a beating. You don’t heal from death. Once you’re separated from God after death, that’s it – no coming back. But there’s another person, an innocent person, who will take that death and separation from God for you. And then that person, because He alone is righteous and deserving of eternal life, will be raised from the dead – the penalty will be reversed and the person restored. Isn’t it better for that person to take the “beating”? Isn’t that what God would prefer, especially since He’s the one who sent the person to take the beating in your place, so that He could both express His justice upon sin and show you mercy in diverting the punishment for that sin onto someone who could handle it and be restored from it?

Regarding all those verses concerning appeasement, I completely agree that at times God has been appeased and withheld punishment – but guess what? The mechanism of the appeasement was the deflection of those punishments onto Christ at the cross!

Because of the infinite value that God places in Christ’s suffering and death, He is able to take away the punishment of eternal damnation for those who accept it…

But don’t you see you’re begging the question? Why does God find Christ’s suffering and death valuable? Why does Christ’s suffering and death have any value to God whatsoever? God is eternal, immutable, and unchangeable – there’s nothing God needs that would make Christ’s suffering and death intrinsically worthwhile. In other words, for Christ’s suffering and death to have value it must have value independently of what God uses that value to accomplish. Money has value not because it is intrinsically worthwhile – it’s just paper and ink – but because it can be exchanged for things that satisfy your needs. God has no needs. Therefore, Christ’s suffering and death cannot have value to God in the sense you are trying to give it.

The son of God could never assume anything evil or sinful. St Paul says “oh what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?”

That’s the same St. Paul who said Christ “was made sin for us.” That is, God punished Christ on the cross as if Christ were the living embodiment of all the sin ever committed that God intended to forgive via His death. In this way Christ “was numbered with the transgressors” – by bearing their sins upon Himself and paying the penalty for those sins on the cross.

And again I have to ask what is just in seeing one as righteous whom is not righteous?

You’re not righteous even now! Are you perfect? Do you never have a selfish thought? Do you never have a sin “without which we cannot live,” as Augustine said? If you’re not actually perfect, then what justice is there in God’s accepting you into Heaven as if you were, even through a purifying process like Purgatory? It’s like someone wrote in a Catholic Answers tract: “Some people are bad – they go to Hell. Some people are fairly good – they go to Purgatory. Some people are really good – they go to Heaven.” But this oversimplification does nothing to account for the fact that all people are bad to some degree, even the really, really good ones. And so if you really want to make an objective distinction between those who are truly righteous and those who aren’t, the only objective you can make is between those who have never sinned and those who have, even once. If you’ve sinned even once – if you’ve failed to love God or love your neighbor as yourself even once, even instinctively – they you are not righteous. So if God lets you into Heaven ever, at all, it is only because God has chosen to overlook the sins on your record as if they were not there. And what I’m arguing is that the only way God can do this is to drown those sins in the death of Christ – not because Christ’s obedience cancels out sin like a positive cancels out a negative, but because Christ’s death on the cross pays for our sin such that God can consider the debt for our sin “paid in full” with the same penalty that He prescribed for us. Essentially, we are acquitted on the basis of “no double jeopardy” – God won’t punish us for the sins He already punished in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The debt has been discharged, and we’re good to go. And God can purify us and infuse us and do whatever else He needs to do to make us fit for Heaven. But without Christ’s paying the debt, none of that purification, infusion, etc., would make a difference, because God cannot go without punishing sin.

 

[Odell]

Right. Which is why Christ had to die to redeem Noah from the strict standard of law. I’m not making the assertion that we can’t please God. I’m making the assertion that our pleasing God – or even Christ’s pleasing God – is not the mechanism by which we are freed from the penalty for sin. A good deed does not cancel out a bad deed as if a good deed were a positive number that cancels out a sin’s negative number. The numbers add up in 2 separate columns. The question is what wipes away the sin column, and the answer is not doing good deeds but rather being punished with death.

Where in scripture does it say a good deed does not cancil out a bad deed? What Father would be pleased with the death of a son? Would not a father doesn’t let certain things go unpunished after a heart felt apology. Fathers care far more for a heart felt apology than death of a son. God is a Father with qualities of justice, not a courtroom judge with fatherly qualities.

The justice is that the beating of a willing substitute satisfies the requirement that God punish sin. If God truly hates sin, then God cannot refrain from punishing sin.

God would much rather there be a restored relationship than a punishment for sin.

The only question is upon whom will the punishment rest – upon you or upon the one who will willingly bear it and then be raised up from it?

If the judge allows another to accept the punishment then the law would be satisfied and the judge would be required to release the defendant, whether or not the defendant believed in the substitution or wanted to be released. Even if they wanted to receive the sentence the judge would still have to let him go and could not give two sentences for the same crime. But a father who desires a loving relationship requires faith and that is why the Catholic model makes more sense of scripture.

But there’s another person, an innocent person, who will take that death and separation from God for you.

That’s the huge fallacy of Protestantism. Christ is God and at no point could experience sin or separation from God.

And then that person, because He alone is righteous and deserving of eternal life, will be raised from the dead – the penalty will be reversed and the person restored. Isn’t it better for that person to take the “beating”? Isn’t that what God would prefer, especially since He’s the one who sent the person to take the beating in your place, so that He could both express His justice upon sin and show you mercy in diverting the punishment for that sin onto someone who could handle it and be restored from it?

No God would prefer an actual restoration an actual righteousness not a cover up. God is a Father that rejoices in the prodigal son being restored to the family. Not someone dieng in the place of his children.

Regarding all those verses concerning appeasement, I completely agree that at times God has been appeased and withheld punishment – but guess what? The mechanism of the appeasement was the deflection of those punishments onto Christ at the cross!

The mechanism was Christ on the cross but not because He took on the punishment of sin. But that God could peer into the hearts of Abraham Noah and Moses and not demand death for when the do sin.

It’s like this
The speed limit in front of a school is 25mph. This represents the law. This is a good law because it protects little children and forces drivers to check their speedometers as they enter a school zone. As Paul says in (Rom 7:12) “the law is righteous and good.” But the key factor in this situation is not the law but the attitude to the law. Do I slow down and stop to avoid being ticketed by the law showing how great a citizen I am but all the while sneering at the children as they pass by? Or do I slow down because I care for the children and don’t want them harmed? The answer is crucial. The law says slow down but the spirit behind the law says the life of the children is precious. Obeying the law without understanding the spirit behind it is living bythe written code. God will codemn by the written code. If in this example you traveled 26 into a 25mph zone, I have broken the law and a judge will condemn me. But if I’m a living in the spirit behind the law, even though I may go a few miles over the speed limit, the judge will not condemn me because he knows my heart and my intentions. God works with us in the same way.

God peers into our hearts we are children who pleases our Father not defendants who have to answer to a judge. In the Protestant example as long as the cop pulls someone over that person can take on the punishment of the other breaking the law. But this is not what God desires.

God was able to withhold punishment for the sale of the righteous not that the righteous suffered in the place of whom God wanted to suffer. Also you state that God can be appeased. How much more do you think the sacrafice of God incarnate pleased God? And what Father than punishes a child that has pleased Him?

Continued…

 

[Odell]

But don’t you see you’re begging the question? Why does God find Christ’s suffering and death valuable? Why does Christ’s suffering and death have any value to God whatsoever?

Because “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15:13)

God is eternal, immutable, and unchangeable – there’s nothing God needs that would make Christ’s suffering and death intrinsically worthwhile. In other words, for Christ’s suffering and death to have value it must have value independently of what God uses that value to accomplish. Money has value not because it is intrinsically worthwhile – it’s just paper and ink – but because it can be exchanged for things that satisfy your needs. God has no needs. Therefore, Christ’s suffering and death cannot have value to God in the sense you are trying to give it.

This argument can just as easily be applied to you.

That’s the same St. Paul who said Christ “was made sin for us.” That is, God punished Christ on the cross as if Christ were the living embodiment of all the sin ever committed that God intended to forgive via His death.

Ok but let’s interpret this passage in light of Paul saying “what fellowship hath light with darkness.” I don’t think we can dismiss this passage. It’s either true or false! God cannot both ligh and dark, good and sin, pure and evil.

Christ became sin in the sense the sacrifices of old was a sin offering. You see the sacrafices in the Old Testament never took upon the sin of the one doing the offering. It was simply a sin offering. That pleased God by the way! Christ did not take on sin in that light now has fellowship with dark or that Christ had no more light but only darkness. That again is impossible. Instead Christ removes the curse of sin through His propitiatory sacrifice. Also the Greek word FOR in “He was made sin For us” is huper it is found in many other passages meaning “for the sake of” or “for the benefit of” Stromgs Exhaustive Concordance does not us "in the place of in any of it’s definitions where “for” is used in scripture.

You’re not righteous even now! Are you perfect? Do you never have a selfish thought?

Scripture referes to countless people who are righteous. God can view sinners as righteous when He peers into the heart of these men as He did with Abel and Noah. Also refer to my school zone analogy above.

So if God lets you into Heaven ever, at all, it is only because God has chosen to overlook the sins on your record as if they were not there. And what I’m arguing is that the only way God can do this is to drown those sins in the death of Christ

Luke 1:5-6 “the we’re both righteous before God, walking I the commandments of the Lord, blamelessley.” They key here is God is the reference point in determining the righteousness. It is not men but God evaluating, peering into their heart. This dosnt mean that they were sinless it that they understood their sinful nature and used Gods grace to subdue it.

God actually puts His righteous qualities into man not imputing it to them. We are just because it is actually our inner condition. No one especially not judges would designate someone who is not intrinsically just, just. God can graciously accept our faith, hope and love because Christ provided such a gracious acceptance of us in the atonement and resurrection. Through grace, God infuses these qualities into the individual, making him righteous in Gods eyes and worthy of salvation.

And if we you preposition far enough why is faith even necissary if it is all God. Why is faith a prerequisite for the imputation? Also why is Christ Jesus at the right hand of the Father interceding for us if He has already taken our punishment? It only makes sense that from a Catholic perspective is that He is still offering that perpetual sacrifice appeasing Gods wrath on us. (Rom8:33)

Also you would go as far to say as a Protestant God can accept out faith as imperfect as it is. I would have to ask how is this? I assume it’s through the eyes of grace that He accepts your faith, right? This is all I’m tring to say about our works. If God can look upon your faith through the eyes of grace and accept it by His grace and mercy, then he can accept our works in the same way. So it’s illogical on your part that you can’t see that God through the eyes of grace see righteousness that He actually infused into the believer as actual righteousness due to the fact of the atonement of Christ that has made this view of man possible. Thus grace is both the lens through which God Views us and the infused quality we receive from God to help us maintain His gracious view.

 

[mpartyka]

Where in scripture does it say a good deed does not cancil out a bad deed?

Matthew 22:36-39 – “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said unto him, “‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Galatians 3:21 – Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.

Jesus tells us that all the law and the prophets hang upon the commandments, “Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.” To do that is to follow the law perfectly. And this is what we are doing when we perform good deeds: expressing love of God and love of neighbor. And Paul says, Doing that can’t save you.

Think about it: Let’s say that you sin against society, and then after that you give a billion dollars to charity. What good does that do you? You could have given a billion dollars to charity without having sinned. Your good deed is independent of your bad deed. Your good deed doesn’t make you any less guilty of sin than you were before. You still deserve to be punished for what you did.

What Father would be pleased with the death of a son?

Exactly! What “infinite worth” could Christ’s death on the cross possibly have before God, such that He could use that worth to cancel out our sins? It makes no sense to call Christ’s death an “infinitely good deed” unless you can show in what sense it’s “good” at all. And you can’t say, “Because it pays for our sins,” because that’s just begging the question: “It’s valuable to pay for our sins because it pays for our sins.”

Fathers care far more for a heart felt apology than death of a son. God is a Father with qualities of justice, not a courtroom judge with fatherly qualities.

Well, I guess that’s a good summation of how you and I view God differently. I look back at Abraham’s plea (“Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?”) and see God as a just judge in addition to a merciful Father – both at once, without contradiction.

God would much rather there be a restored relationship than a punishment for sin.

I agree, but if God is a just judge, there cannot be a sin that goes unpunished. For a sin to go unpunished would mean that God doesn’t care about that sin. But God says He hates sin. That means he can’t treat sin as if it were nothing. Our sins deserve punishment. But, just like you said, God would rather not punish us. God wants us restored to Him, not cut off from Him forever. And that’s why God provided Jesus as the One who would take the punishment we deserve upon Himself and satisfy God’s justice. In Jesus’ death our sin is punished so that God doesn’t have to punish us. And you know what? Jesus is just fine with that. Besides, He’s all better now!

If the judge allows another to accept the punishment then the law would be satisfied and the judge would be required to release the defendant, whether or not the defendant believed in the substitution or wanted to be released.

But that’s the choice we make. Do we choose to accept the deal or not? Speaking (somewhat) in Catholic terms, if you die in a state of grace, then you’ve taken the deal – Christ’s punishment serves in place of your own. But if you die in a state of sin, that’s the equivalent of rejecting the deal – you get punished yourself.

That’s the huge fallacy of Protestantism. Christ is God and at no point could experience sin or separation from God.

As a human being He could. That’s the whole point of His becoming human. God needed a human being to suffer the punishment. It take a human being’s death to pay the price for human sin. “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us…For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” (Heb 9:12,10:4)

God peers into our hearts we are children who pleases our Father not defendants who have to answer to a judge.

See, I’m agreeing with you and disagreeing with you at the same time! Yes, God looks upon the heart of the sinner as a Father. If the sinner’s heart is not pleasing to God, God will punish the sinner, and that’s that. But if the sinner’s heart is pleasing to God, God will forgive the sinner…by punishing Christ for the repentant sinner’s sins. God does not forsake His position as Judge while acting as Father.

Because “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15:13)

Still begging the question. And did you not notice that “laying down one’s life for one’s friends” is substitutionary? You’re dying so your friends don’t have to. Your death takes the place of theirs!

This argument [that God places no value upon Christ’s suffering and death] can just as easily be applied to you.

But I’m not arguing that suffering and death have value before God at all. Suffering and death are the punishments that God has assigned to human beings for sin. God is not reaping any personal benefit from our punishment. God punishes sin because it is the right thing to do according to how He Himself has defined right and wrong.

 

[mpartyka]

You see the sacrifices in the Old Testament never took upon the sin of the one doing the offering.

Of course they did. That was the whole point! The animals (or whatever could be afforded) were offered up in place of the humans making the offerings. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia says so:

The offering of the blood of an animal instead of a human life originated in the profound idea of substitution, and has its justification in the prophetical metaphorical references to the unique vicarious sacrifice offered by Christ on Golgotha…

The ritual of the bloody sacrifice…[included] the imposition of hands (or, more accurately, the resting of hands on the head of the victim), by which significant gesture the sacrificer transferred to the victim his personal intention of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and especially of atonement…But inasmuch as the blood, since it bears the life of the victim, represents or symbolizes the soul or life of man, the idea of substitution finds clear expression in the sprinking of the blood, just as it has been already expressed in the imposition of hands…

If all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, and especially the bloody sacrifice, were so many types of the bloody sacrifice of the Cross (Cf. Hebrews 8-10), and if the idea of vicarious atonement was present in the Mosaic bloody sacrifices, it follows immediately that the death on the Cross, as the antitype, must possess the character of a vicarious sacrifice of atonement.

The substitution aspect even goes all the way back to Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, and perhaps here is where you might clearly understand what I’m trying to say. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, right? And then God, seeing Abraham’s heart, said, “Good enough! I see your heart is with me. You don’t have to sacrifice Isaac!” And so Abraham and Isaac immediately went home, right? WRONG. Instead, God provided a ram caught in a thicket (i.e., Christ wearing the crown of thorns) for them to sacrifice instead of Isaac. Do you see? God let Isaac go only because He provided a sacrifice to take Isaac’s place!

God actually puts His righteous qualities into man not imputing it to them.

I’m not arguing against the infusion of righteousness into man. I’m just saying that’s not enough. God can pour an infinite amount of rigtheousness into a sinner, but that won’t change the fact that the sinner sinned and deserves to be punished for that sin. And that is why Christ came to die for that sinner – Christ would take the sinner’s punishment upon Himself so that God’s pouring all that righteousness into the sinner would not be in vain!

 

[fhansen]

Jesus tells us that all the law and the prophets hang upon the commandments, “Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.” To do that is to follow the law perfectly. And this is what we are doing when we perform good deeds: expressing love of God and love of neighbor. And Paul says, Doing that can’t save you.
Of course that would save you-love’s the fulfillment of the Law, something unachievable without grace. And this is why Paul says in 1 Cor 13
"…if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."

Love’s the whole enchilada-it’s what man’s justice consists of, which is why St John of the Cross, a Doctor of the Church, could say:
** “At the evening of life we shall be judged on our love,”**

If, OTOH, works of love aren’t really works of love at all, but rather works of drudgery performed by someone trying to prove their love or obedience, then we’re still not finally justified. Here’s St Basil:
**If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children. **

 

[mpartyka]

I’m not arguing that God will not judge us based on our love. But if love is the fulfilling of the law, and the law cannot save, then neither does love save in and of itself. Rather, the presence of love is the criteria by which God judges whether or not we or Christ will bear the punishment due us for our sins. If we have love, God will allow Christ to bear our punishment, and thus we will be saved from our sins. If we don’t have love, we will bear our punishment ourselves, and thus we will be lost on account of our sins.

What I’m arguing against is this notion that no punishment for sin need occur at all. That notion runs contrary to the idea of a just God. A just God punishes all sin. A merciful God does not abstain from punishing sin in opposition to His justice but rather provides a way for the sinner to avoid the punishment – but the punishment must go somewhere, hence the willing substitute who bears the punishment for the sinner’s sins in the sinner’s place.

 

[fhansen]

I’m not arguing that God will not judge us based on our love. But if love is the fulfilling of the law, and the law cannot save, then neither does love save in and of itself.willing substitute who bears the punishment for the sinner’s sins in the sinner’s place.
There’s something a bit off-kilter here IMO. The Law can’t justify us-but love can. Love is mans’ justice. The reason the Law can’t justify is precisely because it lacks love. While the Law is right and holy, obedience to it is a pretension of love at best. It gives us a picture of how a loving person would look-what they would do and what they wouldn’t do. But the Law is not the equivalent of love. This is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New. In the old Covenant we’re to obey the Law/be holy by our own external efforts:
I consider them [Paul’s former acts of righteousness] garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. Phil 3:8-9

The righteousness that comes from God is the righteousness whose standard is love-because it proceeds from love, it proceeds from God, who is love. It all begins, for us, with faith. IOW, I can attempt to obey the Law without having genuine faith-because such obedience isn’t *dependent *on God but rather on my own efforts to be worthy. True worthiness, true justification, comes only as we realize our own inability to fulfill the Law and recognize our need for God-then He can begin writing “His Laws on our hearts and in our minds” -that’s the New Covenant. And this means that God is molding us into beings who love as He does-as He wants us to love. Only when we authentically love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves is the Law fulfilled ipso facto, and we’ve been made truly just. The Atonement was necessary for reconciliation to happen, to restore man’s faith in God, the righteousness dying for the unrighteous, all while He never deserved to be doubted in the first place.

 

[mpartyka]

There’s something a bit off-kilter here IMO.

Agreed, but I think what’s off-kilter here is the notion that actual sins don’t matter to God. If someone commits a sin, he deserves to be punished for that sin. Even if the next day he repents and becomes a 100% good and loving person, he doesn’t stop deserving to be punished for the sin he committed. The fact that he is a 100% good and loving person now negates neither the wrongs he committed nor the harm done by those wrongs. Justice demands that those wrongs incur a cost that must be paid. Otherwise there’s no difference in righteousness between a person who commits no sins and is 100% good and loving his whole life and a person who commits a bazillion sins but turns 100% good and loving at the end. To say that the latter person doesn’t deserve punishment for his misdeeds is to basically make all notions of justice a meaningless concept. It is not only internal disposition but actions that matter. Jesus “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15), and James said, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation…But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin.” (Jam 1:12a,14-15a) If Adam and Eve had only desired the fruit of the forbidden tree, they would not have sinned. God made the fruit desirable, so you couldn’t fault them for wanting it. But it was the fact that they acted and ate of it that made them guilty. Actions matter. Evil actions incur a cost, that cost (by God’s decree) is death, and that cost is precisely what Christ paid on the cross for sinners who choose to be found in Him.