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Original poster

Why did God need Jesus to be killed?

226 replies

Machadaynu · 01/10/2012 11:14

Not much to add to the title I suppose.

It's just never made sense to me that an omnipotent God would need to do anything he didn't want to, therefore he must have wanted to have Jesus killed.

He could have forgiven us without him being killed - or he isn't omnipotent.

He could have made a world that remained without sin, rather than letting Satan mess this one up in the first week - or he isn't omnipoitent

He could have invented another way of making a symbolic gesture that didn't involve murdering his son - maybe he could have made the earth spin backwards or something to signify a new start.

I just don't understand God thinking "well, I don't need to murder my son, but I think I will anyway because that will show people how loving I am"

So why did he claim to need to have Jesus killed?

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Original poster
Machadaynu · 01/10/2012 14:08

Jesus didn't have free will to keep his head down and shut up, though.

He was sent from God to do a specific job - tell people about God and get killed for it. He had to do it because God had already told us that would happen via the prophets.

He was not a normal person like you or me. We can't walk on water, turn water to wine, heal the blind with spit and mud or rise from the dead. In no way was Jesus "like you or me"

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DandyDan · 01/10/2012 14:10

Not at all.
I believe in God, and so did Jesus. Jesus was revealing God to us in human form.

God is not a "being" - God is God. I was that I was, am that I am, and will be that I will be.

HotSlate · 01/10/2012 14:14

DandyDan - sorry but that doesn't clear it up any (for me anyway) Grin

Okay - so not a being, but would you say God was an actual entity (rather than a sort of collective consciousness / accumulated wisdom)?

Original poster
Machadaynu · 01/10/2012 14:16

The other key difference between most mortals and Jesus was that he didn't need to have faith - he didn't believe in God, he met God and knew for a stone cold fact that he exists. I can only think of Moses who had the same benefit.

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DandyDan · 01/10/2012 14:19

Jesus wasn't sent from God to "get killed for his mission". "Sent" is wrong, and your notions about prophecy are wrong - biblical prophecies are written not about the future but about the present. Jesus lived in his life the nature of God, and in this world, that can and many times does lead to suffering and death. He could have turned aside from his ministry at any point but chose not to. Not because he was on a mission to die - not even the night before his death did he want to die.

There's a wealth of informed theology out there on this, but if you want to believe God is a "being" and father who murders his son for a pretty pointless reason, none of it is going to alter your opinion.

DandyDan · 01/10/2012 14:23

There are a few others, Machadaynu, Enoch, Noah, Abram/Abraham but 'faith' is not exactly right - it is not a talent or merit, but a readiness to accept what God proposes [not my words but a quote from a theologian]. In that sense Jesus had utter faith. We are called to have the same.

Original poster
Machadaynu · 01/10/2012 14:28

I don't want to believe God is "a father who murders his son for a pretty pointless reason"

However, he describes himself as a father.

John 6:38 makes it pretty clear that Jesus thought God had sent him:
"For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me."

Why do you think he wasn't sent?

1 Timothy 15 then says:
?This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.?

This says that Jesus came to facilitate the forgiveness of sins, he had to be the one perfect sacrifice. The question is who needed the sacrifice, and why?

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Original poster
Machadaynu · 01/10/2012 14:30

DandyDan faith is doing something based on trust, or something you cannot prove.

Jesus, Noah, Isaac, Moses and the others didn't act out of faith, they acted out of knowledge, which is very different.

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ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 01/10/2012 14:35

I wondered this from the moment I was old enough to think about religion. I always thought wouldn't it have been far more sensible for Jesus to have lived and taught to a ripe old age.

I still think that.

JugglingWithPossibilities · 01/10/2012 14:38

Because I'm interested in the spiritual dimension and I was born in England which has been immersed in the christian tradition I've tried to find some truth in this story (of Christianity) I think the most helpful idea is that God knows what it's like to be human, and has experienced suffering. Other than that I can't see much that makes sense in the whole sacrifice idea. Like you say OP, if God is omnipotent or even powerful, and if he created us and everything in the first place, then he has to take some/ more responsibility for how it all turned out, and he could have done things differently. My problems with this whole idea were an important part of me looking for a wider world view than you can find in orthodox Christianity. I'm now a Quaker - many of whom hold much more liberal and diverse views, though it's a faith community that grew from the christian tradition in the 17th century.
Basically I now think that there are important truths that we seek and pass on to others through shared story. I'm with the "Sea of faith" movement in viewing religion as a human creation - we created God more than he/she created us Smile Still much of value though to be found in the spiritual and through world faith traditions, including Christianity. Prayers in particular can be a beautiful type of poetry expressing some of the deepest experiences of the human condition, and our hopes for the world and each other.

HotSlate · 01/10/2012 14:39

'Lived to a ripe old age being a teacher' doesn't have the ingredients of a good drama though, does it Ariel Wink

LFCisTarkaDahl · 01/10/2012 14:39

He did die - he was fully human AND fully God.

He died as a human, with all the attendant pain and suffering and fear. With his mother and family he loved weeping beneath him. And he died despised and humiliated.

The point is being omnipotent is he could have got off the cross - he CHOSE not to and to die as a human.

Yes, he gets to be God, omnipotent in heaven but he died as a human as we all will.

Original poster
Machadaynu · 01/10/2012 14:43

No, LFCisTarkaDahl. He could have got off the cross. He could have turned the cross in to a bouncy castle and had a party. He could have done anything he liked.

That is not dying as a human - the other men killed either side did not have the choice, or the absolute stone cold certain knowledge that their father was God, and would make it all ok, and that they would soon be 'at their fathers right hand in heaven'

They died in pain, scared and with uncertainty.

Jesus may well have died in pain, but there the similarity ends.

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DandyDan · 01/10/2012 14:46

They didn't act out of knowledge, no. Abraham had no knowledge that he would have a son - he had a promise, for decades, and nothing more. Nor did Jesus have knowledge that the cross would actually lead to resurrection. He had to trust God to the absolute end, and wasn't sure even then. Knowing God for oneself is not the same as living one's life out knowing that it's all going to be okay. Moses didn't know that, neither did Noah, or Abraham, or Jesus. And of course in many people's lives it isn't.

I'm heading into happier territories now and leaving those who do not believe to continue asking other Christians to explain the basics of NT theology - I suggest people who want clearer answers go and read some modern theology - NT Wright is a very good place to start.

HotSlate · 01/10/2012 14:46

Juggling - see I can understand that concept, ie seeing 'god' as a collection of wisdom handed down through the centuries.

But to say 'god is real, he is here and has somehow 'done things' but he isn't actually a thing / being / entity' just dodges around the issue, and makes no sense.

Original poster
Machadaynu · 01/10/2012 14:49

DandyDan I've read books, I've attended church, I've searched the net, I've emailed churches and I've invited the JWs in.

Yet they all respond as you do when I ask questions and tell me to ask someone, or somewhere else.

Odd.

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JugglingWithPossibilities · 01/10/2012 14:49

Except I think Jesus did experience the same M, because he was indeed a man.

I don't believe he could have got down from the cross. But I guess at the end of the day I don't believe he was God. Just a wise man and teacher who left us with some important ideas and stories, and an inspiring example of how to live.

But when I say "Just" I think that's pretty much the most important thing anyone can leave behind them.

HotSlate · 01/10/2012 14:50

DandyDan - we might be discussing 'basics', but nobody has ever come up with a clear and definitive explanation of these basics, have they?

JugglingWithPossibilities · 01/10/2012 14:54

How about the words from the hymn HotSlate ...

God is love, his the care, tending each everywhere ?

God as Father (or Mother) is only one analogy used. There are plenty of others, especially as a place of refuge, a rock, and also as Love for example.
Personally I'm particularly fond of the shelter/ refuge analogies ...

Such as "Oh God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come
Our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home"

LFCisTarkaDahl · 01/10/2012 14:59

Machadayu - you're missing the point. Of course he could have got off, I already said that.

The point was he didn't. Instead he chose to die that way. It's a really difficult concept to hold onto - no one else is Fully Human AND fully God.

Original poster
Machadaynu · 01/10/2012 15:04

LFC .. he chose to allow the Romans to kill him - that means he wasn't fully human. He chose not to come off the cross - not fully human. He could perform miracles at will - not fully human. He knew for certain he was immortal - not fully human.

You cannot be fully human and fully God. You're one or the other.

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JugglingWithPossibilities · 01/10/2012 15:04

Perhaps it's a difficult concept to hold on to because it doesn't make sense though *TarkaDahl" ?

If you are omnipotent you can't be fully human (because we humans are very far from that experience) Being omnipotent would make being human very different.

DandyDan · 01/10/2012 15:06

It's not odd. It's people who can point to authors who have had more time to study and phrase things more clearly so that those who do not currently understand, can begin to understand something about all this. I do not have the time or energy to reproduce my entire understanding of Christ's life and suffering on the cross, moreover, not so it can be summarily dismissed as is usually the case on these threads. Tom Wright has written the very clear basics guides that you seek and is pretty much one of the most renowned theologians of our time. I do hope you find the answers you're after; I can only begin to give you elements of the things I understand about Jesus and which make my life meaningful. If pretty much everything I say, is dismissed as unbelievable or wrong - "makes no sense" "dodges the issues" etc - , there's little point my expending time and consideration on it. Re the thread, someone else might be willing to answer your questions "to your satisfaction".

LFCisTarkaDahl · 01/10/2012 15:08

No, YOU can't be - HE can. that's the nature of the Divine.

Of course it's impossible to get hold of, makes no sense to me either Smile

Original poster
Machadaynu · 01/10/2012 15:20

DandyDan it is odd that seemingly no-one can offer definitive answers, and indeed most people who have the time to enthusiastically answer questions initially soon find they don't have time when their first answer is not accepted at face value.

I find it odd that you can have faith in something you claim not to understand fully. My brain is made in such a way that I require a higher standard of evidence, sadly. God made it that way, presumably. Makes it harder for me to be saved though. I wonder why God made my brain like this?

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