Why would Jesus save?

Thing is, Jesus is really a placebo.
People have been running around for centuries saying "Jesus saved me", "Jesus did this for me", Jesus did that for me"........
yet that is not so.
The power of self hypnosis which used the redemption story as a catalyst is the power these people have been tapping into.

If you {You, not someone else} have faith, even as small as a grain of mustard seed, I tell you this, there is nothing you cannot do, even something as impossible as casting a mountain into the sea, it shall be.

This is the real power which all those self help gurus talking about "the secret" are really talking about, but it is no secret.

So how do you think about yourself?
Do you Love yourself?
Or do you harbor dissatisfaction due to you failures?
Do you subconsciously think you deserve to be punished for your mistakes?
Do you think you do deserve to be blessed abundantly?

The thing with these religions is they provide a vehicle for people to use to activate this inner powerhouse as without it they seem helpless to effect any real change as they can't seem to muster the necessary elements without it.
It is curious.
But there it is.
 
When Christ came it ended the old covenant PERIOD.
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Jesus said He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. The Mosiac Law was imposed on a society of people after their escape from the bondage of Egypt to provide order in their daily affairs. The Ten Commandments deals with relationships between man and God and man with his neighbor.

External enforcement of the Law is no guarantee of it's compliance. The Law wasn't written for those who obey, but for those who don't. Jesus said, "They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." - Mark 2:17

Jesus taught that the whole Law is hung on two commandments:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." - Matthew 22:37-40

So obeying the commandments equates to Love.

The problem with the written law is that you cannot legislate the human heart. What is needed is a change of heart. And the God of the Old Testament said there was a time when this would happen:

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." - Ezekiel 36:26-27

What you presume to read as getting rid of the Old Covenant is just getting rid of the written law not written on the hearts with a new heart whereby the Spirit of God may dwell in the Temple of God, that is our bodies (I Cor. 6:19-20), and thus we are able to obey God through the Spirit.

Thus the law is fulfilled when we operate in the Spirit of Love.
 
Jarrett said:
According to the bible man was made by God, in his image, and placed in paradise. After man failed the test as given by the god who is all knowing, he was banished from paradise. Man worked and toiled to live for generations until the law was given. This law was given supposedly to show man the mind of god and our apparent darkness. So for many years the descendants of these people spread this law abroad, creating along the way many systems of man.

My questions:
1.Why would Jesus need to come and save us from what his Father created and then called good?
Jesus didn't come to save us from what His Father created, Jesus came to fulfill all prophecy and to fulfill the law and the prophets. Matthew 5:17-18

2.Why would he end the Law of Moses and replace it with Love after the big todo made when the law was given? The law was only to given to reveal sin. 1 John 3:4 It's impossible to fulfill the law. Jesus came to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17-18) and to be the one sacrifice needed to atone for all the sin of the world, for all time.

3.Why did possibly millions of people gather to receive the law with thundering and earthquakes from a mountain, and only a few wanderers and barn animals congregated with angelic accompaniment to receive the savior? Because they wanted to kill him as he would upset the cushy lifestyle they had, Herod tried to kill Him as soon as He was born. (Matthew 2)
4.Why is this same old testament god jealous? If all that is belongs to this god. If you know all things and you are the beginning and end why would you get jealous when it is already yours and you know the outcome?

Jealous used to mean differently, it just meant that He loved Israel.

Is that close to what you thought?
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Stevem said:
Jarrett said:
According to the bible man was made by God, in his image, and placed in paradise. After man failed the test as given by the god who is all knowing, he was banished from paradise. Man worked and toiled to live for generations until the law was given. This law was given supposedly to show man the mind of god and our apparent darkness. So for many years the descendants of these people spread this law abroad, creating along the way many systems of man.

My questions:
1.Why would Jesus need to come and save us from what his Father created and then called good?
Jesus didn't come to save us from what His Father created, Jesus came to fulfill all prophecy and to fulfill the law and the prophets. Matthew 5:17-18

2.Why would he end the Law of Moses and replace it with Love after the big todo made when the law was given? The law was only to given to reveal sin. 1 John 3:4 It's impossible to fulfill the law. Jesus came to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17-18) and to be the one sacrifice needed to atone for all the sin of the world, for all time.

3.Why did possibly millions of people gather to receive the law with thundering and earthquakes from a mountain, and only a few wanderers and barn animals congregated with angelic accompaniment to receive the savior? Because they wanted to kill him as he would upset the cushy lifestyle they had, Herod tried to kill Him as soon as He was born. (Matthew 2)
4.Why is this same old testament god jealous? If all that is belongs to this god. If you know all things and you are the beginning and end why would you get jealous when it is already yours and you know the outcome?

Jealous used to mean differently, it just meant that He loved Israel.

Is that close to what you thought?
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I don't think sin is the issue with Jesus.

More like he came to re-establish communications with man. Now, instead of God asking "where are you?" (first mistake of man in the garden to hide from God), now Man is calling out to God "where Are You?", only to find God is right behind him, and as close as a breath...
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Dogbrain said:
The West has badly distorted Salvation. Christ's death was really of secondary importance. It was His Resurrection that is the true center.
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I agree that the West has badly distorted the concept of Salvation. Jesus, as a man, proved that true communion with Christ Consciousness (CC) overcomes death. And though Christianity's adherents claim that Easter is the holiest of the religion's celebrations, they focus on the physical death of Jesus the other 364 days out of the year. :confused:

As for the Crucifixion, it was Jesus, the man, who died--not the Christ Consciousness within him. Actually, the CC resides in all souls, who're created in God's own image. But most of us have lost touch with our Divine connection--hence the Genesis story of mankind being booted from the Garden of Eden.

The West became dominated by a bloodthirsty legalism and raised "atonement" to such importance within the Incarnation that it created a view of God as a fundamentally evil being. Western theologians then had to go through all manner of verbal gymnastics to preserve God's "goodness" while still portraying Him as a bloodthirsty, merciless, evil thing.
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I think that the issue of atonement--i.e., at-onement (with God)--is rather vital and is not to be confused with the physical death of Jesus.

Anyone who reads the Bible should be able to see a HUGE difference between the description of God given in the OT and the one attributed to Jesus in the NT. I suspect that human filters were largely at work during the writing of the OT; thus, human (mis)understanding marred the Truth: God is love.

I think that Christianity would be a better force in the world if it focused more on following Jesus' example. After all, we're gods in the making; we ought start acting like it. :D
 
Such a mistake to read the Bible as history. Especially the beginning of Genesis. The Eden story is a myth, i.e. an ETERNAL truth, an ongoing truth. Life is easy if you never know right from wrong. Once you find out, things get tough, and there's no going back. There are many other levels of understanding the meaning of this story and they all tell you something about life.

To this day, some people are much more comfortable with a set of rules to live by. Nothing wrong with that if they keep to those rules. Others follow the guidance of their hearts and obey the rule of Love. This is harder but the rewards are arguably greater.

There are few people I have met whom I really admire, but when life is hard and getting me down I sometimes think of them and their example of how to live, and that thought gives me new strength.

Because we can't actually see or hear God directly, Jesus is our example of what God would be like if he was human (which Christians believe he was). So we use him as our inspiration. When people say they were saved by Jesus, they are saying that his life and teaching has been a beacon of light that guided them when their lives had got lost.

I respectfully suggest that if people want a greater understanding of spiritual matters they should be prepared to look beneath the surface of the words to seek the truth. For example, I was brought up in the Protestant tradition; what did the Blessed Virgin mean to me? Nothing. I now understand better; my tradition lacked any feminine quality, or any role model for women. It is all too masculine. We are still trying to find ways of identifying with our feminine side. We didn't have the BVM. So look with the eyes of understanding and you will understand.
 
Dragonseer said:
I agree that the West has badly distorted the concept of Salvation. Jesus, as a man, proved that true communion with Christ Consciousness (CC) overcomes death.
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Jesus is fully human and fully God. He bridges the gap between the created and the Uncreated. There is no such thing as a "Christ Consciousness".

And though Christianity's adherents claim that Easter is the holiest of the religion's celebrations, they focus on the physical death of Jesus the other 364 days out of the year.
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Your ignorance of Christianity is truly miraculous. Easter is NOT about the "physical death" of Christ. Easter is about the RESURRECTION. Yes, death is a necessary preliminary, but it is the RESURRECTION that matters, not the death.

As for the Crucifixion, it was Jesus, the man, who died--not the Christ Consciousness within him.
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Christ died on the cross. Christ is not a double-being. He is one, both fully God and fully man. He is not merely some schmuck who happens to have an "awakened Christ Consciousness". His very existence bridges the gap between man and God.

I think that the issue of atonement--i.e., at-onement
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Except that this is not how the West uses "atonement", anymore. Modern Western usage is entirely based around guilt, expiation of guilt, and punishment. Thus, the "atonement" spoken of by Western Christians usually does not mean "at-one" but "paying the guilt price". That is how I used the word, since it is how most Western Christians use it.

Anyone who reads the Bible should be able to see a HUGE difference between the description of God given in the OT and the one attributed to Jesus in the NT.
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No. Read Isaiah. Read what it says that God hates and God loves.
 
Dogbrain said:
Jesus is fully human and fully God. He bridges the gap between the created and the Uncreated. There is no such thing as a "Christ Consciousness".
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I do not dispute the idea that Jesus was fully human and fully divine--nor do I dispute that he bridged the gap. I believe he came to demonstrate that all people are both human and divine, though most of us aren't yet able to even stroll across that bridge.

As for the term Christ Consciousness, it can be called whatever appeals to you: Christ, Christ Power, etc. The label doesn't change its essence nor its purpose.

Your ignorance of Christianity is truly miraculous. Easter is NOT about the "physical death" of Christ. Easter is about the RESURRECTION. Yes, death is a necessary preliminary, but it is the RESURRECTION that matters, not the death.
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Firstly, I can't fathom from where your vitriol stems.

Secondly, you misread my original statement. I did not say that Christian adherents focus on Jesus' death on Easter; I said that they do so the other 364 days out of the year. (In other words, they often focus on Jesus' resurrection only/mainly on Easter.)

Christ died on the cross. Christ is not a double-being. He is one, both fully God and fully man. He is not merely some schmuck who happens to have an "awakened Christ Consciousness". His very existence bridges the gap between man and God.
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The power known as Christ is unable to be killed.

I'd like to add that a soul's awakening to its true status--as a child of God--does not make one a "schmuck." I would never refer to Jesus the Christ as such.

Except that this is not how the West uses "atonement", anymore. Modern Western usage is entirely based around guilt, expiation of guilt, and punishment. Thus, the "atonement" spoken of by Western Christians usually does not mean "at-one" but "paying the guilt price". That is how I used the word, since it is how most Western Christians use it.
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But that's my point: Westernized Christianity has botched the true meaning of atonement and, instead, chooses to focus on guilt, etc.

No. Read Isaiah. Read what it says that God hates and God loves.
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I didn't say there's a complete absence of love attributed to God in the OT; I said that there are many instances in which faulty human attributes--e.g., petty anger--are attributed to God. It all depends on the author(s) of each particular book. Some focused more on Jesus' understanding/description of God: love; others wrote of God's ways in all-too-human terms.
 
The reason that Jesus saves is to pass to Abrahm, who dribbles downfield, short kick to Moses, bobbles to Jethro, set-up to Melchizedek--GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
 
Dogbrain said:
Jesus is fully human and fully God. He bridges the gap between the created and the Uncreated. There is no such thing as a "Christ Consciousness".
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I think the correct phrase should be: Jesus WAS fully human and fully divine. Sorry if this sounds picky - serves me right for having been a computer programmer - but Jesus started at his birth and ended at his death on the cross. We identify him as the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. So Jesus was the mortal manifestation of the Son of God.

But we forget that. We say "through Jesus Christ our Lord". OK this wouldn't matter at all except there has to be something that survived the mortal man or all Christians are deceived. Whether you call that, Son of God, or Christ Consciousness or Buddhic- or Cosmic- or God-Consciousness or whatever is a matter of personal preference.

And accoding the John's Gospel, where Christ went, we follow. So as Dragonseer says, we all have something of that in us, if not very much.
 
Virtual_Cliff said:
I think the correct phrase should be: Jesus WAS fully human and fully divine.
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You're wrong. Jesus IS fully human and fully Divine. He rose from the dead, retaining His humanity. Jesus was not a mere "mortal manifestation". Jesus Christ IS the God-man. He IS God, he IS man. He IS the bridge between the unbridgeable. If He ever ceased being fully human, He ceased being the Mediator. If He ever ceased being fully human, He ceased being the Way.

And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and afound gathered together the eleven and bthose who were with them, saying, “The Lord has really risen and bhas appeared to Simon.”
They began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread. While they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be to you.”
But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing aa spirit. And He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; btouch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
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Luke 24:33-36
 
Dogbrain said:
You're wrong. Jesus IS fully human and fully Divine. He rose from the dead, retaining His humanity. Jesus was not a mere "mortal manifestation". Jesus Christ IS the God-man. He IS God, he IS man. He IS the bridge between the unbridgeable. If He ever ceased being fully human, He ceased being the Mediator. If He ever ceased being fully human, He ceased being the Way.

Luke 24:33-36
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Much like the proverbial Chief Warrant Officer (both enlisted and comissioned...a bridge between two parties).
 
Dogbrain said:
You're wrong. Jesus IS fully human and fully Divine. He rose from the dead, retaining His humanity. Jesus was not a mere "mortal manifestation". Jesus Christ IS the God-man. He IS God, he IS man. He IS the bridge between the unbridgeable. If He ever ceased being fully human, He ceased being the Mediator. If He ever ceased being fully human, He ceased being the Way.
Luke 24:33-36
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I'm OK with Jesus rising from the grave, although I'm open to other explanations. But if you're saying that somewhere up in the sky, maybe floating on a cloud, there is still a two thousand year old human being who still hears prayers somehow, I have to say you stretch my credulity.

You would also have to admit that the experience of being human fundamentally changed God, as God-before-Jesus would be different from God-after-Jesus.

This is just one of those annoying bits of dogma that was never really thought through properly.
 
Virtual_Cliff said:
I'm OK with Jesus rising from the grave, although I'm open to other explanations. But if you're saying that somewhere up in the sky, maybe floating on a cloud, there is still a two thousand year old human being who still hears prayers somehow, I have to say you stretch my credulity.

You would also have to admit that the experience of being human fundamentally changed God, as God-before-Jesus would be different from God-after-Jesus.

This is just one of those annoying bits of dogma that was never really thought through properly.
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Could it be that "linear time" is not relevant? If you answer yes, then the arguement about a two thousand year old man, is mute...

just a thought.
 
...so if he is the same human being who ate the barbecued fish, he is now over two thousand years old. The disciples saw him ascend, upwards. If nothing changed since then I can only assume he is now in Earth orbit.

I'm sorry if that offends, but I just wanted to bring the inconsistencies out into the open.

It's no use saying Jesus IS human in a sense that only applies to Jesus. That is circular. Human is solid flesh and blood, heart lungs liver and the rest. Does Jesus have these organs today? Please don't say yes.
 
Virtual_Cliff said:
...so if he is the same human being who ate the barbecued fish, he is now over two thousand years old. The disciples saw him ascend, upwards. If nothing changed since then I can only assume he is now in Earth orbit.

I'm sorry if that offends, but I just wanted to bring the inconsistencies out into the open.

It's no use saying Jesus IS human in a sense that only applies to Jesus. That is circular. Human is solid flesh and blood, heart lungs liver and the rest. Does Jesus have these organs today? Please don't say yes.
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No offense at all sir. But I have a question. If I move (say I can) close to the speed of light, and I go away from earth for say 25 years, then come back...how old am I?

More important, how old are you?

Answer: I am 50, and you are 3000 years dust.
 
Virtual_Cliff said:
It's no use saying Jesus IS human in a sense that only applies to Jesus. That is circular. Human is solid flesh and blood, heart lungs liver and the rest. Does Jesus have these organs today? Please don't say yes.
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I don't believe that Jesus has a material--i.e., physical--body in the spiritual realms. But could/does/did he take physical form on earth after the Resurrection? I believe so.
 
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