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In terms of what the church teaching is, the Romans (and the Pharisees) are the villains of the story and the crucifixion is a cruel punishment. There is supposed to be appreciation for what Jesus endured on the cross, and celebration that he transcended that through his resurrection. By extension, believers, who are said to be "dead" because of sin, can experience "newness of life" by appropriating Jesus' substitutionary atonement for their sins. This "appropriation" is done by faith or simple belief.
No offense to Mystic, but if you want to understand what this means to Christians, Mystic's explanations will probably just confuse you. ;-)
As an aside, you're right that the standard-issue "suffering porn" as I call it usually renders a lot more depictions of the crucifixion than the resurrection, even though the crucifixion by itself without the resurrection is kind of meaningless. Part of that is probably that the cross itself is better symbolism than the open tomb. It just resonated more for some reason. Part of it is that Jesus' suffering induces some level of guilt or obligation to "appreciate" or "honor" it, lest you be called heartless or uncaring. I think they need the horror of the cross to contrast with the joy of the resurrection. Also, TBH, the crucifixion is way more plausible than coming back from the dead. Lots of crucifixions were actually done. The resurrection (apart from the extent it was copied from other myths) is one-off and less relatable. Who has ever seen someone resurrected 3 days after they were buried? I sure haven't.
Yes I was really trying to get to the bottom of Mystics take on things.
The whole holy spirit thing has always thrown me. To this day I don't know what it is. I know it's part of the holy trinity etc. sometimes referred to as the third 'person', sometimes represented as a dove. I don't understand how it is represented as different things. Why does god need to be three things? Why three? Why not one, or five, or an infinite number? I don't understand it.
I agree about the visual aspect of the crucifixion v the resurrection. The crucifixion definitely has more impact visually. And the ascension is hardly ever mentioned. Although I always took that to be more symbolic than an actual event anyway.
Yes I was really trying to get to the bottom of Mystics take on things.
The whole holy spirit thing has always thrown me. To this day I don't know what it is. I know it's part of the holy trinity etc. sometimes referred to as the third 'person', sometimes represented as a dove. I don't understand how it is represented as different things. Why does god need to be three things? Why three? Why not one, or five, or an infinite number? I don't understand it.
Don't feel bad. You have a lot of company.
The Holy Spirit is sometimes called the Comforter, it is the aspect of god that inspires, comforts, and actively dwells within the believer supposedly. It is the "still small voice" of god. That sort of thing.
I won't even try to explain why the trinity, because I can't. ;-)
It is just a continuation (and explanation for the intransigence) of their barbaric belief in blood sacrifices to appease their wrathful and vengeful War God. It is the prime corruption of Christ's Good News Gospel that was intended to be "Good tidings of great joy to all people."
It was the birth of God's Holy Spirit (conception as a human Spirit) that permanently connected humanity to God. I remain astounded that anyone could have considered the birth of Jesus as a crucifixion scapegoat or whipping boy to be good tidings of great joy to all people!!!
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Originally Posted by Cruithne
Okay, sorry you've lost me again. What do you mean by 'the birth of God's Holy Spirit?
If you believe in Christianity are you saying 'God's Holy Spirit' was born at some point? If so when? At Jesus birth or his crucifixion, or the resurrection or ascention or when? I'm not sure I understand. If there's such a thing as a holy spirit, wouldn't it always have existed ie before Jesus came along?
Mordant is correct about my views being more likely to confuse you relative to the actual dominant Christian dogma. The spiritual truth that escaped our spiritually fearful ancestors is that ALL human beings are actually embryo Spirits. Our physical bodies are "spiritual wombs." Death is when we leave the physical "womb" and discard the "spiritual placenta" (physical body). So our death is really a spiritual BIRTH as we are "born again" as Spirits.
God essentially incarnated and became an embryo human Spirit like the rest of us with the same destiny as the rest of us. God never left His actual Spirit-Self as the Father. He just replaced Joseph as the human half inseminating His PERFECT Holy Spirit into Mary which is why there is so much confusion about the hypostatic union in the Trinity nonsense. When Jesus matured under the guidance of the Father, His HUMAN embryo Spirit achieved full maturity and the IDENTICAL SPIRITUAL perfection of the Father's Holy Spirit.
When His human Spirit was "born again" at His physical "death" it became the Comforter (Holy Spirit identical with God) connecting ALL "Born again" human spirits with God. He also became available within the collective human consciousness to guide us just as the Father did for Jesus. When we are in states of mind of agape love we have access to the Holy Spirit's (Comforter's) guidance to the Truth God has "written in our hearts" with agape love..
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And your first paragraph. They were just a barbaric people that threw people on crosses at the drop of a hat, yes. Are you saying the early Christians turned the crucifixion into a kind of celebration instead of focussing on his life as the thing to celebrate?
No, Cruithne. They were not crucifiers but they did annual blood sacrifices to appease their wrathful and vengeful War God. Their ONLY conception of God was their War God. What Jesus represented and tried to teach them was anathema to them which is why He was rejected. They automatically interpreted whatever happened in the CONTEXT of their wrathful and vengeful God, hence the barbaric (and irrational) blood sacrifice interpretation of the crucifixion.
The intended purpose of Christ's sacrifice to propitiate the wrath and vengeance of our primitive and brutal ancestors was to unambiguously contradict the wrath of God that dominated their belief in God. Unfortunately, The belief in God's wrath was too strongly indoctrinated despite Jesus (God Himself) demonstrating His agape love and forgiveness for our ignorance despite horrendous treatment and crucifixion.
In His deathbed confession of forgiveness, He unambiguously put the lie to our ancestors' fables about God getting angry in Eden and cursing our newly created progenitors (who did NOT know Good and Evil, BTW) and their descendants in perpetuity for their very first and only act of disobedience over a fruit!!!
Mordant is correct about my views being more likely to confuse you relative to the actual dominant Christian dogma. The spiritual truth that escaped our spiritually fearful ancestors is that ALL human beings are actually embryo Spirits. Our physical bodies are "spiritual wombs." Death is when we leave the physical "womb" and discard the "spiritual placenta" (physical body). So our death is really a spiritual BIRTH as we are "born again" as Spirits.
God essentially incarnated and became an embryo human Spirit like the rest of us with the same destiny as the rest of us. God never left His actual Spirit-Self as the Father. He just replaced Joseph as the human half inseminating His PERFECT Holy Spirit into Mary which is why there is so much confusion about the hypostatic union in the Trinity nonsense. When Jesus matured under the guidance of the Father, His HUMAN embryo Spirit achieved full maturity and the IDENTICAL SPIRITUAL perfection of the Father's Holy Spirit.
When His human Spirit was "born again" at His physical "death" it became the Comforter (Holy Spirit identical with God) connecting ALL "Born again" human spirits with God. He also became available within the collective human consciousness to guide us just as the Father did for Jesus. When we are in states of mind of agape love we have access to the Holy Spirit's (Comforter's) guidance to the Truth God has "written in our hearts" with agape love.. No, Cruithne. They were not crucifiers but they did annual blood sacrifices to appease their wrathful and vengeful War God. Their ONLY conception of God was their War God. What Jesus represented and tried to teach them was anathema to them which is why He was rejected. They automatically interpreted whatever happened in the CONTEXT of their wrathful and vengeful God, hence the barbaric (and irrational) blood sacrifice interpretation of the crucifixion.
The intended purpose of Christ's sacrifice to propitiate the wrath and vengeance of our primitive and brutal ancestors was to unambiguously contradict the wrath of God that dominated their belief in God. Unfortunately, The belief in God's wrath was too strongly indoctrinated despite Jesus (God Himself) demonstrating His agape love and forgiveness for our ignorance despite horrendous treatment and crucifixion.
In His deathbed confession of forgiveness, He unambiguously put the lie to our ancestors' fables about God getting angry in Eden and cursing our newly created progenitors (who did NOT know Good and Evil, BTW) and their descendants in perpetuity for their very first and only act of disobedience over a fruit!!!
Okay thanks for explaining that. Gotcha. I understand now what you said earlier.
Except one thing. I was always under the impression that the crucifixion was a punishment rather than a sacrifice. They are subtely different things. But maybe I've had that wrong all this time.
Weird. I've been on this forum off and on for 10 years and I'm still learning things.
Jesus as depicted in the gospel accounts was certainly harmed, humiliated and inconvenienced, but sometimes I think the baroque nature of the death in the narrative uses the most horrific demise known at the time to try to compensate for the fact that it was ultimately a very short term problem. I'm sorry, I'm not impressed that he "endured our ignorance" for, what ... a day or three, depending on how you measure it?
Now in terms of theological outcomes, if you believe that sort of thing, it was important that it happened, and no one else could have done it. That's a separate question though. The question is, what did it actually cost him on a net basis?
His life? Nope.
His relationship to god? Nope.
The accomplishment of his stated goals? Nope.
His followers? Nope.
I'm just saying that the metaphor of the scapegoat breaks down rather badly here. I get that you don't value that metaphor anyway, since you see it as "primitive and barbaric" (and I don't disagree) but I'm talking about what's important to most of Christianity.
I agree, and have always wondered why Jesus was referred to as a "martyr" at all when he was simply doing what he was apparently designated to do in the first place.
You are on about something that we aren't discussing.
I did not suggest that creatures have anything to offer a creator.
I said that what Jesus did, whatever you may think of its admirability, was not a sacrifice. It represented no net cost to him whatsoever, as a man -- and, as you yourself pointed out, certainly not as a god.
Now sacrifice in the sense I meant it was referring to any actual cost to Jesus, either personally (as human) or professionally (as god). I was not referring to the theological concept of a sacrificial system wherein Jesus is a human scapegoat. In that sense, he can be seen in the role of a sacrificial "lamb of god". I don't deny that, although I see that whole concept as somewhere between primitive and silly. But I'm not arguing that point.
I just cannot think of anything Jesus actually gave up on a net, permanent basis. He died, but was resurrected. He suffered, but that was short-term and it ended. God turned away from him, but now he's at god's right hand. In that sense I don't see what it actually cost him. I'm not discussing its importance or efficacy.
How did G-d turn away from him when it was He who sent him for that specific purpose? That was the doctrine I was taught.
Okay thanks for explaining that. Gotcha. I understand now what you said earlier.
Except one thing. I was always under the impression that the crucifixion was a punishment rather than a sacrifice. They are subtely different things. But maybe I've had that wrong all this time.
Weird. I've been on this forum off and on for 10 years and I'm still learning things.
Crucifixion was a punishment, one of several baroque torture-death methodologies that the Romans and others used in that era.
In Christian theology, Jesus' death was a sacrifice because it fulfilled the requirements of the scapegoat system once and for all. Crucifixion was just the mechanism god used for it.
In terms of theology it was a sacrifice in the sense above. But Christianity happily conflates this with the colloquial definition of sacrifice, "nobly doing something that costs you dearly for the benefit of another", and the point I've made in another thread here is that the Crucifixion was no net cost of Jesus at all:
* Died, but was resurrected shortly after
* Estranged from god the father, now sits at his right hand
* Knew in advance that this was the case, since Jesus = god and god is all-knowing
* Pain and suffering, but very finite
But this is not how Christians think of it. To them, it's a sacrifice because of all the pain & suffering, and because Jesus had to experience the worst aspects of being human when he didn't have to. I say when you are an eternal being, slumming it on earth for 33 years isn't a big deal either, much less hanging on a cross for a day or so, or being "dead" for 3 days. But I guess that's just me.
How did G-d turn away from him when it was He who sent him for that specific purpose? That was the doctrine I was taught.
If they had read the fulfillment as written in the whole of Psalm 22, they would see that God did not turn from him, quite the opposite. Rather God listened to his cry for help.
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