Sacrifice and the Cross

[John Caldwell]

I was reading a book by Mark Heim and this stood out to me. I do not agree completely with Heim (I hold a Christus Victor view of Reconciliation and Heim views the cross a bit differently). But we learn from Christians who hold different views, not those who tell us what we already accept.

I found this quote both interesting and accurate:

"The difference between being right and being wrong is both small and enormous, like performing one last multiplication and remembering whether it should come out negative one billion or positive one billion (and that's a difference of two billion!). We have to add up all the oddities or it won't come out right. Jesus' death is that passage in Christianity. The answer balances on a razor's edge.

Is this God's plan, to become a human being and die, so that God won't have to destroy us instead? Is it God's prescription to have Jesus suffer fer for sins he did not commit so God can forgive the sins we do commit? That's the wrong side of the razor. Jesus was already preaching the forgiveness of sins and forgiving sins before he died. He did not have to wait until after the resurrection to do that. Blood is not acceptable to God as a means of uniting human community or a price for God's favor. Christ sheds his own blood to end that way of trying to mend our divisions. Jesus' death isn't necessary because God has to have innocent blood to solve the guilt equation. Redemptive violence is our equation. Jesus didn't volunteer unteer to get into God's justice machine. God volunteered to get into ours. God used our own sin to save us."

Mark S. Heim. Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross (Kindle Locations 48-53). Kindle Edition.

 

[DPMartin]

I was reading a book by Mark Heim and this stood out to me. I do not agree completely with Heim (I hold a Christus Victor view of Reconciliation and Heim views the cross a bit differently). But we learn from Christians who hold different views, not those who tell us what we already accept.

I found this quote both interesting and accurate:

"The difference between being right and being wrong is both small and enormous, like performing one last multiplication and remembering whether it should come out negative one billion or positive one billion (and that's a difference of two billion!). We have to add up all the oddities or it won't come out right. Jesus' death is that passage in Christianity. The answer balances on a razor's edge.

Is this God's plan, to become a human being and die, so that God won't have to destroy us instead? Is it God's prescription to have Jesus suffer fer for sins he did not commit so God can forgive the sins we do commit? That's the wrong side of the razor. Jesus was already preaching the forgiveness of sins and forgiving sins before he died. He did not have to wait until after the resurrection to do that. Blood is not acceptable to God as a means of uniting human community or a price for God's favor. Christ sheds his own blood to end that way of trying to mend our divisions. Jesus' death isn't necessary because God has to have innocent blood to solve the guilt equation. Redemptive violence is our equation. Jesus didn't volunteer unteer to get into God's justice machine. God volunteered to get into ours. God used our own sin to save us."

Mark S. Heim. Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross (Kindle Locations 48-53). Kindle Edition.

there's no age of enlightenment in the Kingdom of Heaven, and there is only one view that matters in the Kingdom of Heaven. the Lord God's view. therefore what is to be perused is of God, and not of men.

should one receive the Life given that is of Christ, for its the Life He has, then there is only one set of instructions to live it, that also only comes from God the Father through the Son in His Spirit. any other set of instructions is incorrect. so if one is walking with the Lord then how can there be a different view then the Lord's unless one talks but doesn't listen to the One they are supposed to be walking with.