ECT Understanding the value of Jesus' sacrifice

[patrick jane]

911

 

[Aimiel]

What does it mean that God "gave" Jesus? (John 3:16) It appears more like God lent Jesus for 33 years and then He returned to the Father.

He surrendered His Son to His enemies: "Sin, death and the grave." He gave His Son to man and man put Him to death.

What is the permanency of Jesus' sacrifice?

He forever broke the power of the enemy. Because death took Him (Who never did anything worthy of death, since the wages of sin is death) He has the right to give His Life which was unjustly taken from Him to whomsoever believes in Him.

For God to have "given" something, it must have cost Him something... to lose something He doesn't have anymore.

He gave His Very Life. God was crucified.

What did it cost God to purchase us?

He died. There is no higher price.

What is the value of suffering for 3 hours on a cross or being dead for 3 days in light of eternity? 3 hours or 3 days of suffering/death is infinitely negligible relative to eternity. Is it not so? What is missing from my understanding?

The fact that He is God. He suffered every pain, every sin, every cut and scrape and every evil thing that ever happened to anyone and everyone from Adam to the last man who will ever live. He suffered the consequences of disobedience, even though He was perfect. He suffered far more at Calvary than any man can even begin to understand. He is infinite in knowledge and understanding. He felt the pain of all sin and it's consequences upon all of humanity. It was more terrible than anything anyone has ever felt all at once. The cost was greater than anyone could have understood or withstood. He bore it for the prize: the souls of men.

I recommend that you read: "The Day I was Crucified," by Gene Edwards. You'll have a whole new understanding of God and the crucifixion.

 

[Sheila B]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply



Hmm... I never thought that by intercession He is continually sprinkling blood.

I always thought the atonement happened once.



Hebrews 7:27

27 who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.



Hebrews 9:12

12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

Yes, once on earth on time, but eternal High Priest in the heavens does not mean "again and again" as it would if he were a priest on earth. Hebrews addresses this in ch 7:24 etc.

We enter into that eternal moment when we "come to Mt Zion..." Heb 12:22

Anemnesis is the term...

 

[eustilou]

What does it mean that God "gave" Jesus?

I think I got it. How does the following sound?

The trinity changed after Jesus was born.
Before, it was Father, Word and Holy Spirit. After Christ was given, it became Father, Word in human (resurrected/glorified) body and Holy Spirit.
Humanity is part of the trinity now... allowing us to be partakers of God's divine nature through Christ.
The Word becoming flesh created a human interface to the trinity: Christ... the door... through which we can be hidden in God through Christ.
I'm wondering whether the interaction dynamic between the Father and the Son changed forever due to the Word being human and having a human body now.
I'm wondering whether Christ having a body diminishes or changes in any way how the Father relates to or interacts with the Son.

For example, a father and son discover a colony of ants that is about to get wiped out by an incoming wave. They need to be told quickly to move to higher ground, but the only way to communicate that is for the son to become one of the ants. Because the father loves the ants so much, the son becomes an ant and some of the ants listen to the son's message and move to higher ground before the wave hits. Now, the son ascends back to the father, but remains in the form of an ant... forever changing the interaction dynamic between the father and the son. The son is still of human nature with all its reasoning capacity and still has all power and authority of a human, but will remain an ant forever.

Could this be what God "lost" or gave up in order to save us?

Do my thoughts have any merit, or am I totally off base?

I don't want to minimize the suffering, shed blood and death of Christ. Those had their costs also.

 

[eustilou]

He suffered every pain, every sin, every cut and scrape and every evil thing that ever happened to anyone and everyone from Adam to the last man who will ever live. He suffered the consequences of disobedience, even though He was perfect. He suffered far more at Calvary than any man can even begin to understand. He is infinite in knowledge and understanding. He felt the pain of all sin and it's consequences upon all of humanity. It was more terrible than anything anyone has ever felt all at once. The cost was greater than anyone could have understood or withstood.

Yes. agreed... but I have difficulty appreciating all that sacrifice because it happened in such a short time... relative to eternity, so our limited human minds think "how is it that weighty since it happened in such a short time"?

One illustration that is helping me gain appreciation is the following:

Suppose you suffer a mild pain for an hour because scraped your hand.
Now, suppose you had a deeper scrape which doubled the pain, but you only experienced that pain for half an hour. You would still have experienced the same amount of pain... twice the pain in half the time.

We could say that a jabbing toothache lasting 5 minutes is equivalent to some other mild pain lasting two weeks.

So, Jesus, having suffered in 3 hours all suffering accumulated by mankind in 6000+ years... the intensity would have been unfathomable. No wonder He was crushed by it as Isaiah 53 says .

 

[beloved57]

Understanding the value of Jesus' sacrifice

None Truly Understand the Value of Jesus sacrifice without acknowledging that all for whom it was made, not all without exception, that it ensures their Eternal Salvation ! All for whom it was made, It Sanctified them and Perfected them before God forever Heb 10:10,14

10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

 

[chrysostom]

What is the value of suffering for 3 hours on a cross or being dead for 3 days in light of eternity? 3 hours or 3 days of suffering/death is infinitely negligible relative to eternity. Is it not so? What is missing from my understanding?

it was God who suffered

 

[Sheila B]

I think I got it. How does the following sound?

The trinity changed after Jesus was born.
Before, it was Father, Word and Holy Spirit. After Christ was given, it became Father, Word in human (resurrected/glorified) body and Holy Spirit.
Humanity is part of the trinity now... allowing us to be partakers of God's divine nature through Christ.
The Word becoming flesh created a human interface to the trinity: Christ... the door... through which we can be hidden in God through Christ.
I'm wondering whether the interaction dynamic between the Father and the Son changed forever due to the Word being human and having a human body now.
I'm wondering whether Christ having a body diminishes or changes in any way how the Father relates to or interacts with the Son.

For example, a father and son discover a colony of ants that is about to get wiped out by an incoming wave. They need to be told quickly to move to higher ground, but the only way to communicate that is for the son to become one of the ants. Because the father loves the ants so much, the son becomes an ant and some of the ants listen to the son's message and move to higher ground before the wave hits. Now, the son ascends back to the father, but remains in the form of an ant... forever changing the interaction dynamic between the father and the son. The son is still of human nature with all its reasoning capacity and still has all power and authority of a human, but will remain an ant forever.

Could this be what God "lost" or gave up in order to save us?

Do my thoughts have any merit, or am I totally off base?

I don't want to minimize the suffering, shed blood and death of Christ. Those had their costs also.

Your thoughts have great merit. The great thinkers of the first centuries and beyond have discussed these exact thoughts. I was just reading a bit of Thomas Aquinas, and it makes me think of this very type of thought process... you might find guidance from the "Shorter Summa" (one book of his basic conclusions of these types of things), that will enable you to put wings on your ideas... then come back to us with what you are discovering!

 

[Sheila B]

Yes. agreed... but I have difficulty appreciating all that sacrifice because it happened in such a short time... relative to eternity, so our limited human minds think "how is it that weighty since it happened in such a short time"?

One illustration that is helping me gain appreciation is the following:

Suppose you suffer a mild pain for an hour because scraped your hand.
Now, suppose you had a deeper scrape which doubled the pain, but you only experienced that pain for half an hour. You would still have experienced the same amount of pain... twice the pain in half the time.

We could say that a jabbing toothache lasting 5 minutes is equivalent to some other mild pain lasting two weeks.

So, Jesus, having suffered in 3 hours all suffering accumulated by mankind in 6000+ years... the intensity would have been unfathomable. No wonder He was crushed by it as Isaiah 53 says .

You might add this to your meditations: the sacrifice (suffering and loss) and salvific merits began (to accrue, so to speak) from the first moment that He became sperm/zygote in the Virgin's womb. Who can fathom it!
Giving up all the Great Glory from eternity to enter time and place oneself in a dark womb - patiently united to grow with the human soul given to It! whoa

 

[oatmeal]

Hello, I have a few questions about the sacrifice of Jesus:

What does it mean that God "gave" Jesus? (John 3:16) It appears more like God lent Jesus for 33 years and then He returned to the Father.

If I buy something precious with a diamond, and the seller smashes the diamond into pieces, then I take those smashed pieces and put them back together restoring the diamond as it was before... and I keep the diamond, what price did I pay for my purchase?

What is the permanency of Jesus' sacrifice? For God to have "given" something, it must have cost Him something... to lose something He doesn't have anymore.

What did it cost God to purchase us?

1 Corinthians 6:20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
1 Corinthians 7:23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.

What is the value of suffering for 3 hours on a cross or being dead for 3 days in light of eternity? 3 hours or 3 days of suffering/death is infinitely negligible relative to eternity. Is it not so? What is missing from my understanding?

Scripture tells us the currency of the transaction happened with blood.

Acts 20:28 ... shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
Revelation 5:9 ...You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

We also know the blood is precious.

1 Peter 1:18-19 ... you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ

It seems like most in the church don't appreciate much the value of the blood. We take the gospel too lightly because we don't properly appreciate the weight of Jesus' sacrifice.
What value does the shed blood have if Jesus is alive in heaven with the Father?
What is the permanency of the sacrifice? What was sacrificed? What was lost? What was given up?
To sacrifice means to give something you will not have anymore.
If you receive back what you gave, what sacrifice is that?

God gave His son. not his equal but His son.

His son heroically gave himself to rescue us, to redeem us.

God bought us back from the clutches of Satan. We are no longer under law, we are no longer legally subject to sin nature, (unless we let ourselves)

The enormity of God's work in Christ is unspeakable.

 

[oatmeal]

This is for sure:

Jesus did not die so that you can stay sinful and wicked selves which most of you want to believe.

Nor is it so you can go around beating people up. Love your enemies

Who are your enemies?

Learn to love them

But not at the expense of truth.

 

[eustilou]

The trinity changed after Jesus was born.

Scratch that...
Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever (Heb. 13:5)
In the Father there is no variation or shifting shadw (Jam. 1:17)

 

[eustilou]

The most satisfactory answer I found so far:

christianthinktank.com/2littlepain.html

 

[0scar]

Jesus, being God, lived a life in our exactly conditions. with no omniscience, omnipotence or omnipresence. Same as us. He lieved by faith. By faith he reconed (not by knowing but by faith) to be the Son of God and by faith he went to the cross for us.