Vicarious Sacrifices

[WebersHome]

[font=Verdana]-
God is not in the habit of sweeping sins under the rug.

â—� Ex 34:6-7 . . Yhvh, Yhvh God: compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth; who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished

â—� Nahum 1:3 . . Yhvh is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked

Looking at those two scriptures one cannot help but scratch their head and wonder how it's possible that God forgives the guilty, and yet at the same time does not acquit the guilty. Well; the answer to that is quite simple: forgiveness and acquittal are two very different things in the Old Testament.

In other words; though God forgives the guilty, He never clears the guilty; viz: forgiveness in the Old Testament is merely a reprieve; which Webster's defines as: to delay the punishment of someone; such as a prisoner who is sentenced to death. In point of fact, Yom Kippur, though a day of cleansing, is also a day for the Jews to remember that their sins are still on the books, hanging over their heads like a sword of Damocles.

But God has devised a procedure for rescuing the Jews from their rather precarious position.

â—� Isa 53:5-6 . . He was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Yhvh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

Christ's crucifixion is commonly referred to as a vicarious substitutionary sacrifice. But that's a misnomer because the Bible does not allow for substitutions. The soul that sins; it shall die in its own place rather than another soul in its place because that would not be justice; in point of fact, that would be a miscarriage of justice. No; people themselves have to die for their sins in order to satisfy the law of sin and death which reads like this:

â—� Rom 6:23 . . For the wages sin pays is death,

So; in order for Christ's crucifixion to protect people from a second physical death in the lake of brimstone depicted at Rev 20:10-15, it has to be, in some way, accounted as their own crucifixion as well as his; and God has invented an ingenious way for them to do that very thing by means of a baptism that involves neither clergy nor H₂O.

â—� 1Cor 12:12-13 . . For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Seeing as how this particular baptism is supernatural rather than physical, then of course it's to be expected to make no sense whatsoever. However, in a nutshell; what this particular baptism does is make people participants in Christ's crucifixion instead of merely observers.

â—� Rom 6:3 . .Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

â—� Rom 6:6 . .Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him

â—� Gal 2:20 . .I am crucified with Christ

â—� Col 3:3 . .For you died when Christ died

The Watchtower Society agrees that Holy Spirit baptism did occur back in the day, but that it was only temporary. The Society insists that it ceased early-on so that now the one baptism spoken of in Eph 4:5 is the ritual of water baptism. Well; that is very tragic to say the least because it means that every one of the Jehovah's Witnesses alive today is on a road to termination in the lake of brimstone because they are merely observers of Christ's crucifixion instead of participants.

/[/font]

[OnceConvinced]

God is not in the habit of sweeping sins under the rug.

Actually this is not true. If you repent and acknowledge him as lord and saviour, then he will sweep any sin no matter how horrendous under the rug and will continue to do so:

Hebrews 8:12:
For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.

Isaiah 43:25
I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

Hebrews 10:17-18
then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Romans 8:1
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

So Adolf Hitler could have his sins swept under the carpet if he acknowledged Christ on his death bed.