Matthew 5
43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
An inspiring sermon, some would say, but a surprising one considering the "Father" to which Jesus was referring. This text, attributed to Jesus and supposedly written by one of his disciples, tells us that, as the old adage goes, "to err is human, to forgive divine." But is this really the case? Does "our Father in heaven" forgive the way Jesus taught we should forgive?
The principle which states that we should forgive is a good one, by and large, and one which probably not many would disagree with. But, the model of this forgiveness, "our Father in heaven", is hardly a good one. According to this text, it would seem that we should forgive unconditionally, without asking a price. A wrong done to us should be expunged and the perpetrator should be set free of his "debt". Does the God of the Bible forgive this way? Not according to the Bible, he doesn't. Why then is he used as a model of unconditional forgiveness?
God requires sacrifices in order to be placated -- "propitiated" as theologians are so fond of calling it. He sits on his throne in heaven, thundering against sinners. He is angry with them and demands not only repentance, but a sacrifice in order for their sins to be forgiven.
Psalms 7:11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
In Old Testament times God required animal sacrifices. Thousands, nay, millions of them through the centuries, if the Bible numbers are to be believed, were not enough to satisfy this deity since, Christianity tells us, they were only the precursors to the "ultimate" sacrifice, God's own Son. Since the first century of the common era, he has accepted, according to the Christianity, only one sacrifice:
Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation* through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
God requires sacrifices in order to be placated -- "propitiated" as theologians are so fond of calling it. He sits on his throne in heaven, thundering against sinners. He is angry with them and demands not only repentance, but a sacrifice in order for their sins to be forgiven.
Psalms 7:11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
In Old Testament times God required animal sacrifices. Thousands, nay, millions of them through the centuries, if the Bible numbers are to be believed, were not enough to satisfy this deity since, Christianity tells us, they were only the precursors to the "ultimate" sacrifice, God's own Son. Since the first century of the common era, he has accepted, according to the Christianity, only one sacrifice:
Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation* through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
*According to Wikipedia: Propitiation (from Latin propitiāre, "to appease;" from propitius, "gracious"), also called expiation, is the act of appeasing or making well-disposed a deity, thus incurring divine favor or avoiding divine retribution.
The above verses tell us that Yahweh, the bible god, had to be appeased, or had to be made well-disposed, and the only way this could be done was to have his son tortured and the nailed to a cross and left to die like a common criminal. THIS is the "loving Father" who is our model of unconditional forgiveness??? Please! He couldn’t even forgive unless animals or a human being were put to death! He had to have his own son tortured and nailed to a cross in order to bring himself to forgive those who would eventually believe, those whom he had chosen even before they were born! (Acts 13:48; Eph 1:4,5; 2:8-10, and many other passages.)
Jesus tells us that we must forgive and we must do so unconditionally, without asking a price; and he gives us as a pattern to imitate: his Father in heaven. He tells us that even the bitterest enemy must be forgiven on the grounds of the goodness of his Father. My question then is: if "the Father" is the model, then why can't he do the same as he commands us to do? Why are we commanded to behave in a better way than Jesus' father did? Why can he not forgive unconditionally, without having millions of animals sacrificed, or his own son tortured and crucified? Why does blood have to be shed? After all, isn't the example given in Matthew 5 one of goodness and compassion, i.e., to forgive unconditionally, the Father being the example of this goodness? Then why the dog and pony show if the Father is so good? I think it's because "the Father" is a psychopath, created in the image of a bunch of ignorant barbarians.
If we are to believe Jesus' testimony, the Father, who is gracious even to the unrighteous, makes his sun to shine upon all. The text suggests that he does out of pure goodness, out of grace. This is our model, we are told by Jesus. Could he have been referring to the god of the Old Testament? Surely not, or else he would have told them to go sacrifice an unblemished lamb, or kill some other animal on the alter if they wished to be forgiven their sins.
What is the difference between the picture which Jesus paints of his Father in heaven and the god of the Bible? The difference, as the text so clearly indicates, is that his Father in heaven is the model of unconditional forgiveness, but the Bible god requires that blood be spilt in order to satisfy his "justice", so-called. Sounds like he’s talking about two very different gods, doesn't it?
So which model do we follow? The Father in heaven who forgives unconditionally, or the bloodthirsty god who needed animal sacrifices in the OT, and then a man nailed to a cross like a common criminal, for sins he never even committed?!?! Are we not told in the OT that Yahweh abhors human sacrifice? Are we not told that he was filled with anger when the Israelites imitated the Canaanites, who were reported to have passed their children through fire, as a sacrifice to their god Molech? What then makes Yahwe so different from Molech if he requires a human sacrifice?
Which testimony and what part of the Bible are we to believe? The part that says the Father forgives without asking for a price, as is taught in Matthew 5? Or, do we believe that we are to accept by faith that God will love us and forgive us if, and only if, we give ascent to his brand of forgiveness, the atonement of sin through the sacrificial death of a human being? Don't you sometimes get the feeling that Jesus was speaking of a very different god than God? The Gnostics did, among others. One of them, a man named Marcion, was at the center of a great controversy for teaching that very thing in the second century of the common era.
One would be hard put to try harmonizing these various texts and try to make sense of this unholy mess. Christians would accuse us of distorting their holy book by "taking a few verses out of context," but how can one harmonize such opposites? By divorcing reason? Surely we are not asked to do this, are we? The plain truth is that the Bible offers such an array of contradictions with regards to the character of its deity, that it is impossible to reconcile such opposites. the god of the Bible is at once, loving/hating, forgiving/vindictive, compassionate/sociopathic; there seems to be no middle road with this deity. The laws of logic tell us that A cannot be ~A, i.e. A cannot be not A, at the same time and in the same respect, but this god of the Jews, Christians and Muslims, is exactly that, a whopping contradiction, he is A and ~A at the same time and in the same respect.
We have, at once, a god who loves and forgives without asking a price, and we have a god who will not forgive unless the blood of his own son is shed for us. Truly, the Bible is a wondrous book... wondrous in its capacity to err and produce stuff like that which comes out the hind end of a bull.
Jesus tells us that we must forgive and we must do so unconditionally, without asking a price; and he gives us as a pattern to imitate: his Father in heaven. He tells us that even the bitterest enemy must be forgiven on the grounds of the goodness of his Father. My question then is: if "the Father" is the model, then why can't he do the same as he commands us to do? Why are we commanded to behave in a better way than Jesus' father did? Why can he not forgive unconditionally, without having millions of animals sacrificed, or his own son tortured and crucified? Why does blood have to be shed? After all, isn't the example given in Matthew 5 one of goodness and compassion, i.e., to forgive unconditionally, the Father being the example of this goodness? Then why the dog and pony show if the Father is so good? I think it's because "the Father" is a psychopath, created in the image of a bunch of ignorant barbarians.
If we are to believe Jesus' testimony, the Father, who is gracious even to the unrighteous, makes his sun to shine upon all. The text suggests that he does out of pure goodness, out of grace. This is our model, we are told by Jesus. Could he have been referring to the god of the Old Testament? Surely not, or else he would have told them to go sacrifice an unblemished lamb, or kill some other animal on the alter if they wished to be forgiven their sins.
What is the difference between the picture which Jesus paints of his Father in heaven and the god of the Bible? The difference, as the text so clearly indicates, is that his Father in heaven is the model of unconditional forgiveness, but the Bible god requires that blood be spilt in order to satisfy his "justice", so-called. Sounds like he’s talking about two very different gods, doesn't it?
So which model do we follow? The Father in heaven who forgives unconditionally, or the bloodthirsty god who needed animal sacrifices in the OT, and then a man nailed to a cross like a common criminal, for sins he never even committed?!?! Are we not told in the OT that Yahweh abhors human sacrifice? Are we not told that he was filled with anger when the Israelites imitated the Canaanites, who were reported to have passed their children through fire, as a sacrifice to their god Molech? What then makes Yahwe so different from Molech if he requires a human sacrifice?
Which testimony and what part of the Bible are we to believe? The part that says the Father forgives without asking for a price, as is taught in Matthew 5? Or, do we believe that we are to accept by faith that God will love us and forgive us if, and only if, we give ascent to his brand of forgiveness, the atonement of sin through the sacrificial death of a human being? Don't you sometimes get the feeling that Jesus was speaking of a very different god than God? The Gnostics did, among others. One of them, a man named Marcion, was at the center of a great controversy for teaching that very thing in the second century of the common era.
One would be hard put to try harmonizing these various texts and try to make sense of this unholy mess. Christians would accuse us of distorting their holy book by "taking a few verses out of context," but how can one harmonize such opposites? By divorcing reason? Surely we are not asked to do this, are we? The plain truth is that the Bible offers such an array of contradictions with regards to the character of its deity, that it is impossible to reconcile such opposites. the god of the Bible is at once, loving/hating, forgiving/vindictive, compassionate/sociopathic; there seems to be no middle road with this deity. The laws of logic tell us that A cannot be ~A, i.e. A cannot be not A, at the same time and in the same respect, but this god of the Jews, Christians and Muslims, is exactly that, a whopping contradiction, he is A and ~A at the same time and in the same respect.
We have, at once, a god who loves and forgives without asking a price, and we have a god who will not forgive unless the blood of his own son is shed for us. Truly, the Bible is a wondrous book... wondrous in its capacity to err and produce stuff like that which comes out the hind end of a bull.
grgaud
“The Bible, properly read, is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived.”
~~ Isaac Asimov
(I would add the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon, and a host of other "Holy" books.)~~ Isaac Asimov
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