@Nablaise, you seem to have a nice understanding of the subject and you just expressed our differences in a very beautifull way, thanks for that.
but, on the other hand, one thing I never understood about the crucifixion – if Jesus knew he was to rise on the third day then where was the sacrifice? Now Prophet Ibrahim a.s and his son – that was true sacrifice because they had no inkling that a ram was going to be substituted at the last minute. But if someone knows that he is going to be resurrected a few days after being killed, how does that count as a sacrifice? What exactly is such a person sacrificing if his life is to be returned to him after a few days?
May peace be upon those who follow the guidance
Abraham knew that his son will be ‘resurrected’ as well. He just didn’t know how and when, but because he had true faith in God, and knew that God is good, he knew he was going to see his son back and his son knew he was going to be reunited with his father. Because of this, we call the sacrifice of Abraham a foreshadowing of the cruxifiction, because just as Abraham’s son knew he was not going to be abandoned, so did Jesus.
And God did not desapoint the faith of Abraham in God’s goodness. God saved his son. In addition, He purified it more by pointing out how salvation works: someone dying For the others. Not someone dying for himself as in suicide, or a human killing an other and hoping to please God. Although the ram is not a person, it represents ‘the perfectly unexpected other’, who can also be ’ a perfectly freely volunteering person (God, for humans are not perfectly free as God is free).
What God appreciated in Abraham’s faith is the ‘self-lessness’. God looks at the heart. Abraham had given up his son to God in his heart already by the time he was about to sloughter him. The sacrifice that pleased God had been offered already in the heart.
It is self-lessness that please God in Jesus as well. It could have pleased God also even before all the physical suffering. But Jesus was not only representing Abraham here as the one who offer the sacrifice. He was also the sacrifice itself. Self-sacrifice in self-lessness. In the Crucifix, Jesus fulfilled what Abraham, Isaac, and the ram, did. It was not enough to offer like Abraham, or be willing to die like Issac. This can be good at the individual level. But Jesus had also to die for the ‘other’, here completing the role of the ram.
Like the ram died for Isaac, so Jesus died for all humanity. However, the ram saved Isaac from the type of death a ram can die, not the type of death a human and his soul die. We can proportionally estimate what kind of salvation Jesus died for us by considering who Jesus is. It is not just physical death here, but spiritual death as well, because Jesus having no human father, has a spriritual nature far above ours.
At this point, we may say that to be willing to die for the other in your heart my be enough for God, and God can see it. So, we can say that Jesus did not have to physically suffer like the ram since God could see in his heart that he was willling. Yes, we can say this until we realise that sacrifice is not just a test, but it is about reality.
These death and bloody stories are not about God loving death and blood. If we see a mom cleaning a babies dippers often, we could suppose that the mom loves dirt, but with experience, we know that the mom does not get dirt because she loves dirt, but because she loves cleanness. She is cleaning up her baby.
Similarly, the sacrifice of Abraham or Jesus, is not about God loving violence and death and blood, it is about saving us from violence and death. The ram was up there wehre violence and death were about to occur. Jesus was sent where criminals are. Prophets knew the Messaih had to suffer and die because they knew the Messaih is about salvation and had to save the suffering and the dead so he had to reach the suffering and the dead where they are in order to save them.
This is what the sacrifice is about and why it pleased God. God loves us so much that he is willing to get dirty, suffer, and die to reach us who are dirty, suffering, and dead. In this we also see that Jesus is the Power of God. The power of God can have no effect on things unless it reaches them. Whether it is about healing, forgiving sins, raising the dead, or judging the sinners, the Power/Word of God riches the subject. And you can’t be more deep in contact in humanity than being human.
God bless
