Was the death on the cross necessary?

Anthony D'Arienzo said:

It doesnt, but scripture does.
Rennicks....what happens to sinners who are cast into second death?

rev20"
11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Mt 25;
38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;

39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.

40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.

41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;

42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

The other ideas highlight one truth at the expense of all the others.
Jesus is victorious yes; col2
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.



but the wrath of God will come upon all who are not found in Him
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

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Over the course of church history ideas about the atonement have ranged widely. An orthodox consensus never really developed and varied views of atonement have been tolerated within Christendom.

Does God having wrath against sin necessitate PSA which seems to say that the only way God could get rid of his wrath was to pour it out on Jesus? But none of the verse you quoted prove that is the case. They only show that God is angry at sin.
I agree that Christ is our sacrifice, but this doesn't necessarily lead us to PSA. It might lead us to ransom theory instead.

This theory essentially teaches that Jesus Christ died as a ransom sacrifice, paid either to Satan (the most dominate view), or to God the Father. Jesus’ death then acts as a payment to satisfy the debt on the souls of the human race, the same debt we inherited from Adam’s original sin.

Or satisfaction theory:
In this theory Jesus Christ’s death is understood as a death to satisfy the justice of God. Satisfaction here means restitution, the mending of what was broken, and the paying back of a debt.
This isn't the same as PSA.
So again I don't see how PSA is complete or totally correct

Anthony D'Arienzo said:

Let John answer himself;lol from JonC
[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).

opps, haha.

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I understand why you are confused over this topic. The reason is you apparently unknowingly have taken my quotes out if context.

Here we are speaking of the Cross. The quote you lift and place here was speaking of the Roman cross (the actual mode of death, not the events of the Cross).

I hope that helps you and anyone who may have been misled by your post understand what I was saying in both instances.

If you need any more help just ask.

I really have no idea what the OP is trying to say. Can someone tell me?

Anthony D'Arienzo said:

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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I believe it to be a distortion and denial of faith when people say the cross is not necessary. Of course it is necessary! Because the Word of God would not have been written if it were not necessary. Now if Jesus was crucified on an altar like animal sacrifices were made or some other way, I am sure the sacrifice would have still been accepted. Because, I think about Cain and Able, and it was Able's heart God was looking at. But the cross was just the means of how they crucified and killed criminals back then. So our Savior died on the cross for us that way. That is my thought on it. I don't worry too much about the hypotheticals. I believe what the Bible says. And everything the Bible says is true and necessary. What matters is trusting on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and that He indeed died on the cross for our sins. And don't forget the Resurrection!!!! Because anyone can die. But Jesus rose again proving He was God and all He said was true.

Anthony D'Arienzo said:

put it simply all sin must be punished. Either in the sinner or the Divine substitute. Gods wrath is only propitiated IN Christ.
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

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The Greek term for "propitiation" (hilasterion) here is actually a key term that has a unique usage in the Bible. It only appears twice in the New Testament
but the approximately 20 times it appears in the Old Testament, it particularly refers to the "Mercy Seat," which was the "Cover Lid" of the Ark of the Covenant (Ex 25:17-22; 31:7; 38:5-8; Lev 16:13-15).

So, we look at theDay of Atonement (which is described in Leviticus 16), which speaks of how the blood of the sacrificed animal was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat:

14 And he [the High Priest] shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the east side, and in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. 15 Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. 16 Thus he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins. And so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleannesses."

And later on Leviticus 16 continues:
30 For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins. 31 It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; it is a statute forever. 32 And the priest who is anointed and consecrated as priest in his father's place shall make atonement, wearing the holy linen garments. 33 He shall make atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly."

See Hebrews13
11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood."
Obviously referring to the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:27), and the purpose of Jesus suffering in fulfillment of this is to "sanctify" people by His blood.

So are we talking about transferring punishment or something else? Something like Jesus' being the sacrifice that makes us innocent, which may be part of PSA, but this verse doesn't seem to support the punishment being put on Christ, but his suffering willingly in order to cleanse us.

Anthony D'Arienzo said:

We just go with scripture. We see it clearly taught right there.No need to explain it away.
In fact if you understood the Covenant nature of the atonement you would not ask.
Your friend JonC deflects to debate fallacies and double talk. I do not really interact with him as I have seen his methods in action several times before.
He followed me here to try and undermine me, but now I will do a public service by showing how he does his majic. As an added bonus, I will respond to your posted falsehoods which I previously avoided

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You don't just "go by Scripture," because you use Western judicial ideas that never existed in Biblical times. You append the baggage of 16th century thought and apply it to what you look at in Scripture. You have already decided that whatever I say will be a falsehood.

You do not have the slightest idea of what I believe about the Atonement, because I have never told you what I believe! The question is the false doctrine of PSA.

So can I ignore what you say by your use of logical fallacies?

In this one post you poison the well, saying that I do not understand something that I have never commented on here.

Secondly, you assume that you just believe the Bible, yet you are burdened with theories and concepts that are not in the Bible. Many Restorationists make the claim the same and fail because of modern presuppositions and culture. If you want to see what people believed without centuries of baggage, read the Early Church Fathers. But even then, their definitions and meanings can vary a lot compared to today.

You use the Fatalist Berkhof that used the fallacy of circular logic to arrive at the nonsense that an agreement happened within the Trinity (no Bible) and that rectifies the problem of an injustice (it doesn't) and that it does not damage the Trinity by one Third sending wrath and thunderbolts of anger for the sin that is imputed to another Third of the Trinity.

Berkhof says on page 255-256 about the penalty of sin... "...the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). The penalty of sin certainly includes physical death, but it includes much more than that. Making the distinction to which we have grown accustomed, we may include the following" 1. Spiritual Death...." "Sin separates man from God, and that means death, for it is only in communion with the living God that man can truly live..." But, when it comes to punishing Jesus Christ, he says..."God imposed the punishment of death upon the Mediator judicially, since the later undertook voluntarily to pay the penalty for the sin of the human race." Page 339. So we must conclude that when Berkhof means death, he means spiritual death, a lack of communion with the living God! As a believer in Retributive Justice as a requirement, (P. 257), he is telling us that Jesus was ousted from the Trinity! He is wrong! Berkhof's "Retributive Justice" is a farce because Jesus didn't suffer what retributive justice demands! Is Jesus spiritually dead at any time? Is he in an Eternal Hell as we speak? No!

The Second person of the Godhead was separated from the First and Third while on the cross. Can you see the impossible contradiction here? The Trinity is One. If you can separate the Trinity, or take one Person from it, then you no longer have God. God is the Trinity at all times! The Oneness of the Trinity cannot exist if the other Two punished the Son. What we end up with are three Gods instead of One! How could Jesus be God if He were not part of the Trinity? This difficulty vanishes if we believe the Biblical data that Jesus voluntarily suffered for our sins instead of the absurdity of saying that He was punished.

Anthony D'Arienzo said:

You do not understand what is being said in the verse because you have a defective understanding of the biblical usage of the term foreknowledge.

22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:

23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

Here we go, I will offer you help from these men found on preceptaustin;
Steven Cole - Peter shows that Jesus was not killed because He was a victim of His enemies. He was killed because God predetermined before the world began that Jesus would die as the Savior of His people. Isaiah 53:10+ prophesied, “But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief.” And so rather than invalidating Jesus as Lord and Messiah, His death actually validated Him, since it was a fulfillment of God’s eternal decree. (The Sermon that Launched the Church)

David G. Peterson remarks, “God’s foreknowledge (Gk. prognōsis) means more than his ability to anticipate the future. It is another way of talking about his determination of events in advance, according to his own plan.” (The Acts of the Apostles)

Now we see the mysterious juxtaposition of God's sovereignty (His predetermined plan and foreknowledge) and man's responsibility (culpability in this case). So while God set the plan of redemption in motion even "before time began" (2 Ti 1:9NET+), men are still held responsible for their volitional (willful) choices.

Foreknowledge (4268)(prognosis from verb proginosko from pro = before + ginosko = to know) literally means to know beforehand. God's foreknowledge means not only that He knew beforehand but that He also planned beforehand (cf. similar idea in Ex 33:17; Jer 1:5; Amos 3:2; Matthew 7:22; 7:23 [note]). As used of God, the word prognosis means foreknowledge with a purpose that can never be frustrated.



John MacArthur on prognosis - Significantly, the word appears here in the instrumental dative case. That shows that it was the means by which Christ's deliverance to His enemies took place. Yet, mere knowledge cannot perform such an act. Foreordination can act, however, and that is the New Testament meaning of prognōsis. (MacArthur NT Commentary - Acts)

The natural human tendency is to believe that God's foreknowledge simply refers to His foresight, the idea that He knew beforehand. In a discussion of God's foreknowledge regarding election, Dr MacArthur explains why men equate foreknowledge with foresight. Click here (select Chosen by God - Part 2 - Scroll down to heading entitled "Man's Decline").

As J I Packer put it God "knows and foreknows, all things, and His foreknowledge is foreordination; He, therefore, will have the last word, both in world history and in the destiny of every man."

Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary says "God’s foreknowledge is much more than foresight. God does not know future events and human actions because He foresees them; He knows them because He wills them to happen. Thus God’s foreknowledge is an act of His will." (Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary)

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Foreknowledge Based on Foreordination - God's foreknowledge, according to the Scripture teaching, is based upon His plan or eternal purpose, which embraces everything that comes to pass. God is never represented as a mere onlooker seeing the future course of events, but having no part in it. That God has such a plan is the teaching of the entire Scripture.

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Knowledge is knowledge... not causation. To convolute it with foreordination is error.

Anthony D'Arienzo said:

Berkof;
a. The necessity of His manhood. Since man sinned, it was necessary that the penalty should be borne by man. Moreover, the paying of the penalty involved suffering of body and soul, such as only man is capable of bearing, John 12:27; Acts 3:18; Heb. 2:14; 9:22. It was necessary that Christ should assume human nature, not only with all its essential properties, but also with all the infirmities to which it is liable after the fall, and should thus descend to the depths of degradation to which man had fallen, Heb. 2:17,18. At the same time, He had to be a sinless man, for a man who was himself a sinner and who had forfeited his own life, certainly could not atone for others, Heb. 7:26. Only such a truly human Mediator, who had experimental knowledge of the woes of mankind and rose superior to all temptations, could enter sympathetically into all the experiences, the trials, and the temptations of man, Heb. 2:17,18; 4:15-5:2, and be a perfect human example for His followers, Matt. 11:29; Mk. 10:39; John 13:13-15; Phil. 2:5-8; Heb. 12:2-4; I Pet. 2:21.

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Berkhof is wallowing in hopeless contradiction. Retributive Justice, and the wages of sin being spiritual death and separation from God (his teaching) proves that Jesus did not accomplish satisfying Retributive Justice! You cannot say that the rules are unbending, and that Jesus was punished equally according to Retributive Justice, and have Him succeed in taking our place without being Eternally Separated in Hell.

Since Jesus is not in Hell as we speak, Retributive Justice is not Biblical, and the Atonement was not an equal punishment. It has to be something other than Penal Substitution or Retributive justice or we need to find another Savior that is successful.

Renniks said:

The Greek term for "propitiation" (hilasterion) here is actually a key term that has a unique usage in the Bible. It only appears twice in the New Testament
but the approximately 20 times it appears in the Old Testament, it particularly refers to the "Mercy Seat," which was the "Cover Lid" of the Ark of the Covenant (Ex 25:17-22; 31:7; 38:5-8; Lev 16:13-15).

So, we look at theDay of Atonement (which is described in Leviticus 16), which speaks of how the blood of the sacrificed animal was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat:

14 And he [the High Priest] shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the east side, and in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. 15 Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. 16 Thus he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins. And so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleannesses."

And later on Leviticus 16 continues:
30 For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins. 31 It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; it is a statute forever. 32 And the priest who is anointed and consecrated as priest in his father's place shall make atonement, wearing the holy linen garments. 33 He shall make atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly."

See Hebrews13
11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood."
Obviously referring to the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:27), and the purpose of Jesus suffering in fulfillment of this is to "sanctify" people by His blood.

So are we talking about transferring punishment or something else? Something like Jesus' being the sacrifice that makes us innocent, which may be part of PSA, but this verse doesn't seem to support the punishment being put on Christ, but his suffering willingly in order to cleanse us.

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The Penal Theory needs the atonement to be a "propitiation" which refers to appeasing the wrath of God. They must make the cross an image of thunder and lightening bolts slamming into the Son to make the Father happy. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.... the cross was a united act of love to reconcile man to himself. You will notice that in your research, atonement is to reconcile man to God, not God to man (as propitiation suggests). The Mercy Seat covers, or takes the sin out of the way; it cleanses from sin. It is Expiation that reconciles man to God, not propitiation.

Yet people latch onto a heathen form of the word, suggesting that God's atonement is no more than natives tossing a virgin into a volcano so God is no longer angry with them.

John Caldwell said:

Best to ignore him and cast not your pearls lest you be tempted to answer fools according to their folly.

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You are not the first to tell me that today!

Anthony D'Arienzo said:

25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

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Look at the later part of this verse: note that it does not say that it was to quell God's wrath, but speaks of Expiation by the remission of sins. It is to reconcile men to God, where propitiation means to reconcile God to us. This is enough to prove to me that the translators chose the wrong meaning by using propitiation. It is easy to pick and choose, and select from the possible meanings, that which feeds your assumptions, even if the context clearly denies it.

So, the OP was merely lining up the way to have a go at one person on the forum and then to drag his posts over to this one to have go at him, and then to paste and copy other people’s comments along the way to endeavour to back you up.
You post questions with hidden agendas, sorry, but that’s deceptive and not respectful - I will be deleting my post from earlier as I want nothing to do with it.
Rita

friend of said:

I really have no idea what the OP is trying to say. Can someone tell me?

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The Latin phase argumentum ad hominem stands for "argument against the person", which appears to be the purpose of this thread, hence the measure of theorising on the validity of comments made by the parties concerned regarding whether it was necessary for Christ to die on the Cross or whether He could have done something else to achieve the same result.

Ad hominem fallacies occur when parties attack the character and intelligence of a person as sufficient reason to discount their opinions, interpretations, and views instead of dealing with the pros and cons of their argument.

Most forums advise members to report this sort of behaviour so they can moderate it before it becomes more carnal than Christian.

Anthony D'Arienzo said:

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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The cross could not be bypassed, because God visibly witnessed the cross situation before He created the world. This would make God's
ability to transcend time a flaw(failure of omniscience).

Truther said:

The cross could not be bypassed, because God visibly witnessed the cross situation before He created the world. This would make God's
ability to transcend time a flaw(failure of omniscience).

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How do you know that God visibly witnessed the cross situation before He created the world? I can't find where it says that in the Bible.

Jim B said:

How do you know that God visibly witnessed the cross situation before He created the world? I can't find where it says that in the Bible.

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Rev 13
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.


Psalm 22
22 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

2 O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

8 He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.

10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.

11 Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.

12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.

13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.

18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.