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Godi
Guest
Don’t forget When Jesus asked God his Father, He always prayed, “not as I wish but according to YOUR WILL.”:knight1:
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hamba2han
Guest
How can Christians believe that the words “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” can come from Jesus (pbuh) since it is so obvious that the Psalm verses above is the lamentation of someone who has sinned and is praying for salvation from his Lord…
Do Christians believe that Jesus committed sin that he should utter these words of someone praying for his salvation when he was allegedly dying on the cross?
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John_Hiner
Guest
Laudatur Iesus Christus.
This idea is very close to several heresies. One would have to be *very careful *about what one means by “in some sense” in the statement of what is meant.
A claim of actual separation between God and Jesus is impossible, without denying Jesus’ divinity and the unity of the Holy Trinity. Either of these would be clear and serious heresies.
Any claim of “subjective” separation, in the sense that Jesus “felt” separate though it were not true, would call into doubt Jesus’ integrity (or “chastity," see Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2339). This has to do with understanding the effects of Original Sin on the intellect and the heart of man. Since Jesus was the perfect man, His emotions and “feelings” were in accord with His knowledge and reason. To posit a divergence between these human faculties within Jesus might be to imply actual “iniquity” or sin in Jesus. This too would most likely amount to a denial of Jesus’ full divinity – which would be a serious heresy (perhaps a form of Aryanism).
It is my understanding that the idea of a “separation between Jesus and God on the Cross” is an innovation of some Evangelical Protestant preachers. I do not have the exact history of this idea, but I would be interested in any details that anyone can share tracing its origin and propagation.
It may be more profitable to give up this idea, after noting the difficulties which make it untenable. One can then turn attention both to the entirety of Psalm 21 and to the specific meaning of the word translated as “forsaken.” These are more likely to lead to understandings consistent with the rest of the revealed truths about Jesus and the Incarnation. This in turn will give a more accurate understanding, to the extent that is possible, of the nature of the Sacrifice of the Cross and the sense in which “Him, who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in him." (See, 2 Corinhians 5:21.)
The interpretation proposed comes dangerously close to asserting that ‘Jesus knew sin,’ which would be heretical, “For we have not a high priest, who can not have compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15.)
I might suggest that Jesus suffered the consequences of sin, but not the effects of having committed sin. This is a distinction worth weighing.
Pax Christi nobiscum.
John Hiner
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Godi
Guest
Jesus was without sin, HE IS THE SON OF GOD OUR FATHER. He died for man’s sins. Christians wonder how Muslims can believe in someone as monsterous as Mohammad was? Talk about SIN! Mohammad seems to be a character out of a Stephen King novel. How can you believe a pedophile? A murderer? A Thief?:knight1:
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Montalban
Guest
David wrote that Psalm, and he *had *sinned
All the Pslams were lamentations for his sins, and rejoicing in God.
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nonsumd
Guest
Montalban, my brother, to interpret “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?,” I think it would be useful to consider two other verses:
Jesus “becoming sin” does not mean that Jesus ever sinned. Clearly, the word “sin” cannot always be taken to mean “the sin we commit.” Sometimes it can mean “the state of alienation from God that results from the sins we commit” or, in the case of Original Sin, “the state of alienation from God that we inherit from our first ancestors who commited sin.”
If we regard Christ as the Lamb of God who is the innocent victim whose death substitutes for the death due to us for our sin, does it not then make sense that this Lamb of God would take on the feeling of separation from God that is the result of sin, sin that is the death of God’s life in us?
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Montalban
Guest
One of which can be written as God made him to be an offering
How can God be alienated from Himself?
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nonsumd
Guest
Montalban, my brother, I suspect that your understanding of the nature of the Trinity is deficient (the Trinity whose internal workings are something which cannot be understood by relying too heavily on analogies with human psychology).
How can God be alienated from Himself?
How can Jesus pray to God the Father if Jesus is Himself God? How can Jesus ask the Father to let the cup pass from him, though only if it is the Father’s will and not His own?
How do we Christians usually answer the latter two questions?
Has Islam infected your understanding of Christianity?
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Abraxsis
Guest
It is in that quote that you see a sacrafice that is done everytime you go to mass. A real sacrafice occurs when you partake in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus asked why his Father had forsaken him; it was because the sacrafice of his only son paid for the sins of the world. In that way, Jesus’ life on Earth had been forsaken, to pay for the sins of man, and to place Jesus in heaven at the right hand of the Father. Jesus asks God why he did this, not necassarily because he didnt know (he most certainly understood), but for eyewitnesses to reflect on the meaning of his crucifiction.
Thats my 2 cents.
Thats my 2 cents.
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Montalban
Guest
That’s an insult. You assume because I question YOUR concept of the Trinity that I don’t understand ‘the Trinity’.
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Montalban
Guest
The whole notion of ‘sacrifice’ however is based on the misunderstanding that God needs for something - in this case, to make up for the slights we have given him - it’s called “Satisfaction”
God does not need to be ‘satisfied’.
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Abraxsis
Guest
It is not what God needed but what man needed. Man could not get into heaven with the Father if they have sinned. Christ’s death pays for your sin. It was a debt that had to be paid since you alone are not pure enough to enter the kingdom of heaven alone. Man needed a sacrafice that was pure and God provided it.
John 3:16
John 3:16
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Montalban
Guest
I agree, but Catholic teaching’s all about God being ‘satisfied’.
1494 The confessor proposes the performance of certain acts of
“satisfaction” or “penance” to be performed by the penitent in order to
repair the harm caused by sin and to re-establish habits befitting a
disciple of Christ.
scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1494.htm
Because Christ Himself was a sacrifice to satisfy God…
616 It is love “to the end” that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as
redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved
us all when he offered his life. Now “the love of Christ controls us,
because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have
died.” No man, not even the holiest, was ever able to take on himself the
sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all. The existence in
Christ of the divine person of the Son, who at once surpasses and embraces
all human persons, and constitutes himself as the Head of all mankind,
makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all.
scborromeo.org/ccc/para/616.htm
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Abraxsis
Guest
Im not really a Catholic im a Gnostic Christian.
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Montalban
Guest
Okay, but I agree with you that it’s what man ‘needed’, but Catholic wording has it it’s what God needed.
We need not dwell upon the possibility of the salvation of mankind or upon its appropriateness. Nor need we remind the reader that after God had freely determined to save the human race, He might have done so by pardoning man’s sins without having recourse to the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Still, the Incarnation of the Word was the most fitting means for the salvation of man, and was even necessary, in case God claimed full satisfaction for the injury done to him
by sin (see INCARNATION).
newadvent.org/cathen/13407a.htm
God was injured by Adam’s sin, and needed satisfaction! The ‘ever-changing’ God of Catholicism. Here’s more (from the Catholic Catechism)…
1494 The confessor proposes the performance of certain acts of “satisfaction” or “penance” to be performed by the penitent in order to repair the harm caused by sin and to re-establish habits befitting a disciple of Christ.
scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1494.htm
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ryanoneil
Guest
When you say “Catholics” are you refering to the Apostles or the rest of Christ’s disciples?
As these quotations show, the Church Fathers had a lively understanding of the role of penance in the Christian life (cf. Matt. 6:16-18, Mark 2:18-20, Acts 13:2-3, Jas. 4:8-10), an understanding we need to recover.
pay particular attention toMark 2:18-20
John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, "While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. "But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
These are Jesus own words, not some made up idea!
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ryanoneil
Guest
The ever-changing God of Catholicism?
Notice in the previous post that the Old Testament Pharasees were fasting! and look at this link,and the early christians writings at the end, and tell me that penance is some invention of 1494.
catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0011frs.asp
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Montalban
Guest
I’m referring to Catholics
1 Corinthians 3:2
I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
Different analogies are used depending upon one’s level of understanding.
It’s clear God does not need to be ‘satisfied’. Work from there
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Montalban
Guest
I don’t deny that one can benefit through fasting or prayer, etc.
What I object to is the notion that God needs to be satisfied.
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ryanoneil
Guest
I’m going to try and bring this conversation back to the original quesion. As I understand it, Muslims don’t see Jesus as the Messiah, and don’t think that Jesus actually died on the cross and was resurected.
I believe he was, and his death on the cross “satisfied” God so to speak. Jesus, being part of the trinity, paid for the sins of us all. What, if anything would “satisfy” God to allow any of us into Heaven considering that we are all sinners? How do we get to heaven if not through Jesus?
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