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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.
Because he was supposed to bear the punishment for our sins, which was separation from god. Hence his dying words, "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?"
Somehow having to do this just for the time between his death and resurrection was supposed to take care of the eternal perdition we are subject to. That part was never explained to me and in fact I have to admit, back in the day it never occurred to me to ask.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
Because he was supposed to bear the punishment for our sins, which was separation from god. Hence his dying words, "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?"
Somehow having to do this just for the time between his death and resurrection was supposed to take care of the eternal perdition we are subject to. That part was never explained to me and in fact I have to admit, back in the day it never occurred to me to ask.
Then you should have sought God and read the fulfillment of Psalm 22 yourself. And you would see how God answered.
Then you should have sought God and read the fulfillment of Psalm 22 yourself. And you would see how God answered.
That psalm doesn't end with a "fulfillment". It exhorts people to praise god, declares that the earth is the Lord's, that all will ultimately acknowledge him, and give glory to him. It is no answer to the "why have you forsaken me". An answer to that would be "because you're a naughty boy" or "to serve higher purpose x" or "whoops my mistake, never mind" or something to that effect. All the closing of that psalm is, is a vague template that you can project pretty much whatever you wish to on it. Which is what a lot of holy writ is.
Of course I'm assuming for the sake of argument that Jesus actually said or did anything the gospels claim he did, and we're not discussing that "my god, my god, why have you forsaken me" is likely a post-hoc insertion of a hook in the account to lay claim to Jesus being a "fulfillment" of some sort of "prophecy" or at least that these Famous Last Words were predicted way before the fact.
That psalm doesn't end with a "fulfillment". It exhorts people to praise god, declares that the earth is the Lord's, that all will ultimately acknowledge him, and give glory to him. It is no answer to the "why have you forsaken me". An answer to that would be "because you're a naughty boy" or "to serve higher purpose x" or "whoops my mistake, never mind" or something to that effect. All the closing of that psalm is, is a vague template that you can project pretty much whatever you wish to on it. Which is what a lot of holy writ is.
Of course I'm assuming for the sake of argument that Jesus actually said or did anything the gospels claim he did, and we're not discussing that "my god, my god, why have you forsaken me" is likely a post-hoc insertion of a hook in the account to lay claim to Jesus being a "fulfillment" of some sort of "prophecy" or at least that these Famous Last Words were predicted way before the fact.
Here is the precise answer to the question, My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Verse 24: For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
You said God turned away from him. It says right there that God has not hidden his face from him. God saw him through it all.
Somehow having to do this just for the time between his death and resurrection was supposed to take care of the eternal perdition we are subject to. That part was never explained to me and in fact I have to admit, back in the day it never occurred to me to ask.
Some think that Jesus went down to hell and told Satan that he was whipped. Others think he went down there to rescue all the old testament's "righteous" people.
Here is the precise answer to the question, My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Verse 24: For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
You said God turned away from him. It says right there that God has not hidden his face from him. God saw him through it all.
That requires you to equate the generic phrase "the afflicted one" with "the person uttering the lament 24 verses ago" rather than "all who are afflicted".
It also allows you decide in what way he "listened" and whether it involved helping.
Like I said, a specific answer would normally not be 24 verses later and stated in such vague terms.
But sure, that's ONE POSSIBLE explanation, if you're willing to assume that much.
None of this changes my original response, which was to explain the doctrine of my former sect, however incoherent I now understand it to be. Which is that the punishment for sin is eternal separation from god, which means that, however briefly, god had to turn his back on Jesus, hence the dying exclamation, constituting an agony of separation from god for a person who had never previously known anything but perfect communion with same.
And note that the exclamation is not a request to be rescued or "please don't leave me". It is "why HAVE you FORSAKEN me?" It's a question about something that's already happened. Which is another reason why your interpretation of Psalm 24 is a fail, in my view.
Here is the precise answer to the question, My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Verse 24: For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
You said God turned away from him. It says right there that God has not hidden his face from him. God saw him through it all.
It's an odd sense of the phrase "saw him through it all", especially when he could have stopped it.
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.
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.
Our sin-obsessed ancestors and their descendants even today are the ones who believe that we not only deserve punishment for our sins, but we deserve eternal punishment for them if we do not believe in Jesus. It is a preposterous concept of God based on our imperfect sense of human justice that requires punishment for crimes as a deterrent because we are impotent to actually prevent, correct, or remedy the injustices.
God has no such impotence and His focus is CORRECTING our ignorance and misbehavior, NOT punishing us. He wants us to avoid any negative spiritual consequences of BECOMING the wrong kind of Spirit. The consequences are a natural result of what we have BECOME. God is NOT imposing the consequences as a punishment for anything.
This is why they were told that hell was of their own choosing, (even though hell is a temporary correction during refinement of the dross). Let's face it, if you have chosen to indulge yourself as a spiritually immature animal rather than develop a mature Spirit, you will need to endure the spiritual consequences. At least you will never be separated from God thanks to Jesus becoming one of us.
Our sin-obsessed ancestors and their descendants even today are the ones who believe that we not only deserve punishment for our sins, but we deserve eternal punishment for them if we do not believe in Jesus. It is a preposterous concept of God based on our imperfect sense of human justice that requires punishment for crimes as a deterrent because we are impotent to actually prevent, correct, or remedy the injustices.
God has no such impotence and His focus is CORRECTING our ignorance and misbehavior, NOT punishing us. He wants us to avoid any negative spiritual consequences of BECOMING the wrong kind of Spirit. The consequences are a natural result of what we have BECOME. God is NOT imposing the consequences as a punishment for anything.
This is why they were told that hell was of their own choosing, (even though hell is a temporary correction during refinement of the dross). Let's face it, if you have chosen to indulge yourself as a spiritually immature animal rather than develop a mature Spirit, you will need to endure the spiritual consequences. At least you will never be separated from God thanks to Jesus becoming one of us.
Hate to tell you Mystic but its not just our ancestors that were sin obsessed.
They're all still sin obsessed apparently. I made the mistake of responding to a post on P&OC today. I should know better than to venture over there.
A teacher who was fired for giving a high school student a cheap plastic gay pride bracelet off his wrist is apparently evil and crushing the living souls of his students and turning them all gay. I'm not joking. Give me strength.
I think I need to sign off today before I lose my sanity. LOL.
Thanks so much for your response. I always appreciate you making the time to explain things to me.
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