The death of Jesus

[Rebekah_34]

I’ve heard people say “Jesus died on the cross for you so your sins may be forgiven” a million times. I have never understand how this relates. How did Jesus dying cause my sins to be forgiven? Yes, it was terrible but He did rise again, but the connection eludes me. What am I missing here?

 

[RedSoxFan]

St. Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo might help out as well as Ray Brown’s Death of the Messiah vols. 1 and 2 and Bernard Lonergan’s 15, 16, and 17th essay.

Basically only God could overcome Original Sin and help restore a right relationship because man by virtue of his humanity could not. Christ’s death mets the satisfaction needed in order to repair this relationship (Anselm). Furthermore, it is a great communication of God’s love for us that he would allow himself to be incarnated and suffer his passion for us (Lonergan).

 

[NotWorthy]

Rebekah, are you familiar with the Passover Sacrifice. In it, the Lamb is slain and its blood is poured out on the door frame so that the angel of death would pass over the house and the Israelite would live.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb (remember, it was John the Baptist who said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”), and his blood is poured out over the Cross, so that we may have eternal life.

The Old is fulfilled in the New!!!

 

[NotWorthy]

Another way to look at it is that Israel had violated the Covenant Treaty that Moses had mediated between them and God. Hence, Israel was subject to the curses of the Covenant. They’d already suffered through all of them (disease, occupation, exile, etc.) but one; and that was death. So Israel had to die.

Do you recall the words of the Marriage Covenant? “Til death do you part”. If one of the two spouses dies, the marriage is dissolved. It is in dying that a covenant is finally ended. So, if God could die, then the covenant with Israel would be over and they would be subject any more to the Covenant curses. Hmmmm… God can’t die… or can He? That’s why Jesus became Man and took on our curses and died for us, so that we may live!

I wish I could explain it better, but it is rather late!

God Bless!

 

[PiousTemplar]

Rebekah, are you familiar with the Passover Sacrifice. In it, the Lamb is slain and its blood is poured out on the door frame so that the angel of death would pass over the house and the Israelite would live.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb (remember, it was John the Baptist who said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”), and his blood is poured out over the Cross, so that we may have eternal life.

The Old is fulfilled in the New!!!

LOL! I’m scared about your dreams, buddy!

 

[NotWorthy]

LOL! I’m scared about your dreams, buddy!

You sort of lost me there, brother.

 

[tm30]

Man’s punishment for sin = physical and spiritual death

First and greatest sinner (first mortal sinner) = Adam

All sin is “eternal”. Mortal sin is the deadly sin. God sees it in the present. Man cannot sufficiently atone for this sin because he is finite and bound by time and space. Only an eternal being - One who is Divine - can atone for an eternal sin.

So to atone for the first sin - the sin of Adam - required God to take on the flesh and take upon Him our sins, which would be crucified to the cross, pre-figured by the Paschal sacrifices demanded by God of the Hebrews.

Since the flesh is what separates us from God through sin, a sacrficing of this flesh was the only way to bring perfect justice to the fall in the Garden. Since man cannot make up for it (the sin is passed down), it had to be Christ the Savior.

 

[TimothyH]

We are not automatically forgiven just because Jesus died on the cross.

Jesus redeemed us - paid the price for our release from the bondage of sin. But we can refuse his free gift.

From catholic.com/thisrock/2001/0105fea5.asp…

***When a first-century person could not pay his debt, he was often thrown into prison until the debt was paid. To further humiliate him, the debtor was forbidden to pay the debt himself, even if he came into some money while in prison. A relative had to come and pay the amount owed. This paying of the bill was called redemption. Now, look, before Christ came, we were all in a sort of debtor’s prison because of the sin of Adam. We could not pay the debt ourselves. A relative had to come and pay it for us. This may be one reason why Christ became man, became our relative by blood, so to speak.

In any case, once the debt was redeemed, the relative was then given the right to walk back to the prison cell, open it, and escort the debtor out of the prison. This second process-the application of the ‘right-to-leave’ that the relative had purchased for the debtor and the debtor’s willingness to be so publicly humiliated in being led out of the prison-is what a first-century person would have understood by the term salvation.

"Catholics believe that the world was redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, but the second part of the process, the salvation part, depends partially on us. You see, even when Christ walks into the prison and takes us by the hand to save us-Christians almost universally call this initial step “baptism”-we still have to walk with him out of the cell. And we can let go of his hand at any time before we get to the door, if we are sufficiently cantankerous or too ashamed to be recognized as his kin. We certainly can lose (technically, give up) our salvation, as any good first-century Jew or Gentile would have realized.

“Anyway, a person isn’t fully saved until he’s actually crossed the threshold of the cell-for us, by analogy, the prison of this world-into the daylight-heaven. If you told a first-century person that they could be sure of their salvation, they would have looked at you as if you were speaking a foreign language.”***

-Tim-

 

[thistle]

LOL! I’m scared about your dreams, buddy!

Strange remark you made. NotWorthy’s comments are correct.

 

[PJD1987]

You sort of lost me there, brother.

I believe he was just making a light hearted joke about your tagline quote there at the bottom of your posts about being naked in Church. Nothing you said was incorrect, he was just laughing at the tagline there.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I’ve heard people say “Jesus died on the cross for you so your sins may be forgiven” a million times. I have never understand how this relates. How did Jesus dying cause my sins to be forgiven? Yes, it was terrible but He did rise again, but the connection eludes me. What am I missing here?

God wanted a sacrifice. That’s why. He wasn’t going to just forgive people without some blood being spilled.

 

[NotWorthy]

I believe he was just making a light hearted joke about your tagline quote there at the bottom of your posts about being naked in Church. Nothing you said was incorrect, he was just laughing at the tagline there.

Oh, I get it now!

I forget that thing is on there! Thanks for clearing that up!

 

[razredge]

I’ve heard people say “Jesus died on the cross for you so your sins may be forgiven” a million times. I have never understand how this relates. How did Jesus dying cause my sins to be forgiven? Yes, it was terrible but He did rise again, but the connection eludes me. What am I missing here?

There are many different models of atonement and not all of them involve God needing Jesus’ death to appease his anger.

For example, the model I gravitate towards is the ‘moral influence theory’ where the work of Christ was to bring positive moral change to humanity and to show us the path to salvation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_%28moral_influence_view%29

It was also universally taught by the early Church.

 

[thallon]

I’ve heard people say “Jesus died on the cross for you so your sins may be forgiven” a million times. I have never understand how this relates. How did Jesus dying cause my sins to be forgiven? Yes, it was terrible but He did rise again, but the connection eludes me. What am I missing here?

to prove His love [God’s]
God in a sense used abraham’s obedience to sacrfice his son,
saying " I know you love me because you were willing as a man to give up your only son to me in obedience,"
So, I, God, am going to prove my love for mankind by giving up my only son in sacrfice
for their sins, because i love them and i realise that they can never be prefect by
their own efforts or the sacrifice of animals, enough so i can legally accept them into heaven.
Jesus by coming in the flesh got to feel what it is like to be a human,
to hurt, to cry, to love, to hate, to feel heat and cold, hunger and thirst,
death and separation. Temptation.
thats why he is The mediator between man and God, he understands.

 

[StrawberryJam]

to prove His love [God’s]
God in a sense used abraham’s obedience to sacrfice his son,
saying " I know you love me because you were willing as a man to give up your only son to me in obedience,"
So, I, God, am going to prove my love for mankind by giving up my only son in sacrfice
for their sins, because i love them and i realise that they can never be prefect by
their own efforts or the sacrifice of animals, enough so i can legally accept them into heaven.
Jesus by coming in the flesh got to feel what it is like to be a human,
to hurt, to cry, to love, to hate, to feel heat and cold, hunger and thirst,
death and separation. Temptation.
thats why he is The mediator between man and God, he understands.

Does Jesus know and understand what it is to be a father as a man on earth?