Was the death on the cross necessary?

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Anthony D'Arienzo

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Sometimes people will take one aspect of biblical truth, and ignore other parts of the facts that make up that truth.
The cross is special and sacred to biblical Christians because we know that God ordained it to save us.
The questions that have been raised in a recent thread call historic basic beliefs into question.
Some have by word manipulation and doublespeak redefined biblical terms and suggested that we have it wrong!

Could the cross have been bypassed?

Could Jesus have come at a different time in history?

Could Jesus have come in our day and died of the corona virus?

Could Jesus have died of old age?

Could Jesus have died of cancer, a car crash, a plane crash, a mugging?

Some have suggested that He just had to die like we all do
That as the last Adam he just had to experience death as a generic,general offering, as a victim of wicked men, unrelated to wrath, or judgment of sins.

Do you believe that is the message of scripture?
Or is it a distortion and denial of the faith?
 
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Anthony D'Arienzo

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Along the same line was a discussion on does God punish sin?

Is it a biblical concept?
 

Agios

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Why do people speculate like this? We question the One's Ways, who is perfect in every way, and put human conditions and ideas into it. God is so far above us, His ways are so different then our ways, yet some people think they know better than He.

So, to answer your question, I wonder if people who believe this, how could they possibly be saved? What is their salvation based upon? God came into our space, in the flesh, as Christ, to die for our sins - willingly - and was resurrected 3 days later, in this is salvation. The simple gospel message. Anyone trying to distort this is not from God.
 

Helen

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Could the cross have been bypassed?

Could Jesus have come at a different time in history?

Could Jesus have come in our day and died of the corona virus?

Could Jesus have died of old age?

Could Jesus have died of cancer, a car crash, a plane crash, a mugging?


One word....NO!

God had one Plan before before He even created the world and mankind...He never deviated from it.

One Plan was enough.

Because Jesus had 'laid aside' His glory when He came to earth as a man, the temptation in the Wilderness and the agony and burden in Gethsemane were a real test.
The glory is that He overcame ...seeing the Joy set before Him.
 

Anthony D'Arienzo

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One word....NO!

God had one Plan before before He even created the world and mankind...He never deviated from it.

One Plan was enough.

Because Jesus had 'laid aside' His glory when He came to earth as a man, the temptation in the Wilderness and the agony and burden in Gethsemane were a real test.
The glory is that He overcame ...seeing the Joy set before Him.
It is obvious that the cross and accomplishment of redemption are center stage for The Lord Jesus Christ to step into His own creation.
 
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Anthony D'Arienzo

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I am a amazed that anyone can come away from scripture and deny the cross - now of it was coming from an atheist ,or a non believer , then I could understand their doubts.
Rita
Yes...unbelievers by nature attempt to diminish God
And His word. Believers cherish it and desire to learn and offer obedient service to Kingdom growth.
 
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Anthony D'Arienzo

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Why do people speculate like this? We question the One's Ways, who is perfect in every way, and put human conditions and ideas into it. God is so far above us, His ways are so different then our ways, yet some people think they know better than He.

So, to answer your question, I wonder if people who believe this, how could they possibly be saved? What is their salvation based upon? God came into our space, in the flesh, as Christ, to die for our sins - willingly - and was resurrected 3 days later, in this is salvation. The simple gospel message. Anyone trying to distort this is not from God.
Some people think they have to help us out.
They think they see something that all the others in church history missed.
All theologians have not seen what they have
 

Anthony D'Arienzo

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Haha
We all got it wrong! :)
Years ago Herbert Armstrong the cult leader came on tv to say that the whole church had gotten it wrong.
He looked into the tv camera and said all you Christian's are running around saying the blood of Jesus saves.....Then he said he had learned that the blood of Jesus never saved anyone.
He then repeated it a second time....it was chilling.
 

Agios

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Years ago Herbert Armstrong the cult leader came on tv to say that the whole church had gotten it wrong.
He looked into the tv camera and said all you Christian's are running around saying the blood of Jesus saves.....Then he said he had learned that the blood of Jesus never saved anyone.
He then repeated it a second time....it was chilling.
Wow! In James it says that "teachers" are held more accountable and those false teachers will be accursed.

Isn't it in Romans where it talks about how a person knows the truth but holds it in unrighteousness? Are these people honestly teaching something they believe in? Or for another motivating factor?
 

Anthony D'Arienzo

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Wow! In James it says that "teachers" are held more accountable and those false teachers will be accursed.

Isn't it in Romans where it talks about how a person knows the truth but holds it in unrighteousness? Are these people honestly teaching something they believe in? Or for another motivating factor?
Yes...Roman's 1 speaks of what are described as truth suppressors. They know what they hear is truth, but they work to hold down or suppress the truth in unrighteous.
A few might be sincere, but with most they are puffed up and think more highly of themselves than they should.
They live on their own self righteousness, and not the righteousness of Christ Jesus.
 

CharismaticLady

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Sometimes people will take one aspect of biblical truth, and ignore other parts of the facts that make up that truth.
The cross is special and sacred to biblical Christians because we know that God ordained it to save us.
The questions that have been raised in a recent thread call historic basic beliefs into question.
Some have by word manipulation and doublespeak redefined biblical terms and suggested that we have it wrong!

Could the cross have been bypassed?

Could Jesus have come at a different time in history?

Could Jesus have come in our day and died of the corona virus?

Could Jesus have died of old age?

Could Jesus have died of cancer, a car crash, a plane crash, a mugging?

Some have suggested that He just had to die like we all do
That as the last Adam he just had to experience death as a generic,general offering, as a victim of wicked men, unrelated to wrath, or judgment of sins.

Do you believe that is the message of scripture?
Or is it a distortion and denial of the faith?

Right, all those "Could"s are wrong.
 
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John Caldwell

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Why do people speculate like this? We question the One's Ways, who is perfect in every way, and put human conditions and ideas into it. God is so far above us, His ways are so different then our ways, yet some people think they know better than He.

So, to answer your question, I wonder if people who believe this, how could they possibly be saved? What is their salvation based upon? God came into our space, in the flesh, as Christ, to die for our sins - willingly - and was resurrected 3 days later, in this is salvation. The simple gospel message. Anyone trying to distort this is not from God.
I agree. No one can deny the cross (or the Resurrection) and be saved because that is foundational to our faith. I believe the first step for Christians in studying our faith is acceptance - accept God's Word even if we do not fully understand it. And obey. Obey God without question. Learning will follow, but learning never comes first.

We live in a strange and pagan culture. People invent things to worship rather than repenting and turning to God through Christ. I always think of those people who killed themselves to get on the spaceship behind the comet (Heavens Gate). That is an extreme example, I know. But it all goes back to the Garden and men wanting to be in the place of God. We see this in man-made theologies that circumvent Christ and the Cross. Some theologies empty the cross of all biblical meaning and fill it with human philosophy. But we have Scripture and that has to be our guide. We test the spirits, test the doctrine, and trust God's Word.

I also have to remind myself that we do not live in a world less strange and pagan than in which the early church found itself. God will keep His Church and the powers against it, the powers of this world, of human philosophy and paganism, will never prevail against her.
 
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Anthony D'Arienzo

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Now by all the responses, we see that the cross is both obvious and necessary.

We can now do two things. We can see why it was necessary according to scriptural revelation, and then look at some of the posts offered in the last couple of days that have error written all over them.

Here I have assembled some of the posts that are off.

Most of the errors come from the posting of
John Caldwell, who insisted I give him full credit;

John Caldwell said:
Hey!!! What happened to "thou shalt not steal"???

You just "quoted" me 9 times without crediting me for my words!!!
!


God tells us it is an abomination to condemn the righteous and to acquit the guilty. So we know PSA is a false doctrine. But there remains one solution - one that is a righteous apart from the law. Make the guilty innocent. How? One must be born again.

Several times I have seen advocates of the Theory of Penal Substitution Atonement (PSA) comment that they do not understand how other theories necessitate the cross.

I hold a Christus Victor view of Reconciliation. This view considers God as sending His Son as a sin offering, that it pleased God to “crush Him” in the context that Christ suffered and died “at the hands of wicked men” but that this was also “in accordance with God’s predetermined plan”.

Christ suffered and died at the hands of the world (at the hands of wicked men), not at the hands of God. The cross was necessary because the cross was the “worlds” condemnation.



Christ had to be condemned NOT by God but by the world. God will never condemn the righteous.


The point of the cross is that the world DID condemn the righteous. God vindicated His Son, raising Him to life, given victor over the powers of sin and death – the powers of this world – that has held man in bondage.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]PSA does not necessitate the cross itself (as long as Christ died in public and His death concluded by being hung on a tree or any type of wooden structure). I am not sure that advocates of PSA have realized this.[/QUOTE]

Sure, the cross was foretold so it would happen that way. Sure, under Roman law this is how it would occur. But none of this speaks to it as being necessary (that our redemption needing the cross).


Another interesting thing is PSA does not acknowledge that Christ died not under God’s law but under the law of the world. But that's another topic.

This is the first batch of errors...more are on the way.
We will see firsthand how error creeps in.
I see I can find an abundance of such errors on the penal substituionary atonement thread.
The names of the posters are not important, but the error itself needs to be addressed.
 
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Anthony D'Arienzo

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2nd batch of errors;

I disagree about the specific form not being integral to our redemption. The reason is Christ suffered under the evil of the world (under the bondage of sin and death, of the powers of darkness, etc.)

Also, when you are talking about things being pre-determined, you have to use the context of "foreknowledge" to be accurate.
Jesus the man, who is Deity, always had the option, of Free Will.
He was not forced to hang on a Cross by the Father. As had this been the case, had He been "pre-destined" with no ability to choose to do it, then His sacrifice would not be a sacrifice, it would not be LOVE.
Its not love when you are forced..
Its only love when you do it sacrificially, voluntarily.
So, the theory of "pre-ordained", falls flat and deceitful when it tries to teach as truth that Christ had no option of Choice and was FORCED to hang on the Cross.
If that is true, then He didnt do it out of Love, and if that is true, then the sacrifice is meaningless as its not really a sacrifice of Love unless its freely given as a FREE WILL choice, = to lay down your life......As Christ did for us all.

Sure. I mean a "wicked turn", not necessarily wicked like evil but a sharp departure from Scripture.

The reason I believe it is wrong is it applies a worldly philosophy (a 16th century judicial philosophy associated with the humanism of that day) and in so doing removes divine justice as outlined in Scripture. God can no longer be just in forgiving man because of repentance (because of a change in man) but is under the obligation to punish sinful acts so that He can forgive people who have sinned or wronged Him.

The judicial philosophy still exists today, but not in as much an archaic form. That is why if PSA had not been articulated in the 16th century it probably never would have. Prior to the 16th century Aquinas paved the way but he also was careful to specify to go further that satisfaction would be heresy and make God a liar. No one during this time would hold the 16th century judicial philosophy as just. It only exists today in PSA or in milder forms.

So it is a wicked turn because it turns the Cross upside down and empties it of the value and purpose Scripture has assigned to Reconciliation. No longer is Christ suffering the plight of mankind to redeem man from the bondage of sin and death. With PSA Christ suffers the wrath of God as a punishment so that God does not have to punish us. God being just and the justifier of sinners takes on a different and unbiblical meaning.

The reason it is an issue is what PSA replaces of Scripture. One cannot believe PSA without letting go of a biblical view of the Cross. The worst is not in what PSA affirms but in the Truth it tosses aside to make room for its theor
y.
 

Anthony D'Arienzo

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batch 3;;
PSA is an anti-biblical myth standing in opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ.[/QUOTE]
Hey!!! What happened to "thou shalt not steal"???

You just "quoted" me 9 times without crediting me for my words!!!!
I was trying not to embarrass you publically, but hey, I can do requests....I will qualify the errors and make sure you get full credit! I edited where I began listing the errors before we take them on:(;)
 
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