Hats Off wrote:Did God kill his Son? Did men kill Jesus? Did Jesus give his life? Did He commit suicide?
The thing that really matters is that man sinned and became separated from God. God could not accept sin so He offered up His Son so that those who would could be reconciled to Him again. Jesus, Son of God, present with the Father at creation, agreed to the Father's plan to bring us back to him.
So again, did God kill his only Son? Was Jesus forced to become part of this plan? Did men kill Jesus? Were men guilty because they took part in fulfilling God's plan?
What model of atonement is this? Does it matter? Simply put, Jesus, Son of God, one of the trinity, died that I might have life.
I certainly agree a lot with your sentiments. On the other hand…..Josh wrote:Hats Off,
I really like the simplicity of how you put things. It's one of the things that really helped me when I was a new believer - putting away complex theologies and just simply reading scripture without all these systems on top of it.
Oregon has the highest percentage of religiously unaffiliated adults in the nation, and has a very strong skepticism presences. Portland has one of, if not the highest percentage of atheism in the nation.
So when I am talking with these people (some of which are my coworkers) of which many are either hostile to Christianity, or just extremely ignorant of the Bible, the more I understand about this issue of atonement the better. Because when these people ask about the cross, these questions “Did God kill his Son? Did men kill Jesus? Did Jesus give his life? Did He commit suicide?” are absolutely going to be asked. Like I said, some will be from skeptics, and some will be from ignorance.
So if I want to answer these questions, then I need to do my homework. And yet do I believe that if I answer according to my poor knowledge, God can still work in these peoples hearts. I don’t think anyones salvation is going to simply hang on whether I successfully explain the correct view of atonement.