What is the pure sacrifice?

[arunangelo]

Jesus said, “The bread that I will give you is my flesh� (John 6:51); and further stated that, “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life within you� (John 6:53). Then at the Last Supper, He made an offering of His sacrificial body and blood by the following acts. He thanked His Father, took bread, broke it and gave it to His disciples to eat, and said, “This is my (sacrificial) body�; and then took the cup and gave it them to drink and said, “This is my (sacrificial) blood�. (Matthew 26:26-29). He then commanded us do this (re-enter his sacrificial offering) as often as possible so that we will always keep His Spirit in our heart (Luke 22:19); and express His sacrifice in our thoughts, words and actions (1 Corinthians 11:26). Paul emphasizes the real presence of Jesus in the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper, by stating that, those who eats the bread and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily are guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord (Corinthians 11:27). Therefore, when ever the Lord’s Supper is celebrated, it fulfills Malachi’s prophesy (Malachi 1:11) which stated that, from the rising of the sun to its setting, in every place a pure sacrifice will be offered to God.

[flitzerbiest]

The "pure sacrifice" is that in Jesus, God willingly relinquished his Divine powers in order to become human, in order to express and demonstrate God's solidarity with us, and in order to personally share in the human condition of suffering the results of sin in the world.

I suppose that's a bit more palatable slant than the contention that without human/divine sacrifice, we would all warrant eternal damnation, but it's still a lot of unsubstantiated conjecture about a highly improbable metareality.

[Zzyzx]

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The "pure sacrifice" is that in Jesus, God willingly relinquished his Divine powers in order to become human, in order to express and demonstrate God's solidarity with us, and in order to personally share in the human condition of suffering the results of sin in the world.

There are tales to that effect in a single source that cannot be offered as authoritative in this DEBATE sub-forum and in certain religious dogma and doctrine.

Is there any other evidence that "god became human"?

Admittedly, this Christian claim isn't going to make a whole lot of sense without the concommitant Christian claim of a Triune God.

Agreed. It doesn't make any sense -- unless one accepts Christian dogma. Do you wish to address ONLY fellow believers? If so, this sub-forum is NOT the appropriate place to do so.

But the Christian Trinity--three eternally co-existing, eternally differentiated, eternally loving, eternally Divine "persons"--gains at least some independent support from the fact that the traditional hallmarks of the Christian Triune God (Existence, Differentiation, and Relationality) constitute the trio of Godelian "super-positives" that hold for every conceivable universe (given the assumption that a universe such as ours is conceivable).

That is the nature of "evidence" presented in attempts to justify Christian polytheism as being monotheism. Grafting the "Divine Jesus" character onto existing Jewish "scripture" has presented difficulty and requires quite a bit of mental and "philosophical" gymnastics.

The "sacrifice" by an "eternal god" temporarily DYING is not only contrary to the claim of "eternal" but is similar to pre-existing tales of "dying and resurrected gods" from Greek, Roman and Egyptian god-worship or mythology. The concept of "dying to atone to himself for human 'sins'" is a bit of a new twist by promoters of the splinter group, but the dying and coming back to life is not infrequent in what is considered mythology.

[otseng]

Moderator action:

Since the OP references several Bible verses, to avoid debating on the authority of the Bible, I've moved the topic to the TD&D subforum.

[freeman]

The pure sacrifice is the giving of one's life for another out of love. Jesus gave his life so that we may be saved. What greater act of friendship is there? What more can you give than your life?

To comment on some other answers I've seen here, there is no triune godhead. God has seven spirits, as is represented by the seven candles of the Jewish candelabra. The Christ is his only begotten son. The Holy Lamb of the Most High God. They share glory, but even Christ said to worship only God.

He died an unjust death though he was without sin. This gives him the right to judge. We are all conceived and born in sin, he was born sinless of a virgin. He passed the test of every temptation. Yet he was condemned as a sinner. He died this death to give hope to those he judges righteous. He did not come to condemn sinners, but to save the righteous. Faith is credited to us as righteousness. Only by faith can we be justified. To justify yourself by good works, you must do all good works. Same with God's law, to be justified by the law, you must be justified by the whole law. But all fall short. Because of his sacrifice, we have the hope of being justified by faith.

We owe this debt of faith because in the beginning Adam and Eve believed the lies of Satan and lost faith. By faith we may return. Without faith, what need is there to condemn what is already condemned?

Jesus was Jewish because it fulfilled the promise God made to Abraham; that his promise would be passed on to his children. God chose to pass it on to the descendants of Isaac, son of Abraham, and so the Tribes of Israel became God's chosen people because of the faith of Abraham. But the Jews did not keep faith and so Christ came and made the sacrifice and a new covenant was made. That all who have faith would receive the promise of Abraham.

The miracles were done so that we could have faith, but blessed are those who believe without seeing. Only the true of heart shall see God.

[McCulloch]

The pure sacrifice is the giving of one's life for another out of love. Jesus gave his life so that we may be saved.

But is it really a sacrifice if you know for certain that you are going to get it back even better in three days? Jesus did not sacrifice his life, he sacrificed a weekend. I won't trivialize what he is said to have suffered, but its duration was a fixed duration.

There is no triune godhead.

I won't disagree with you. I would just leave off the adjective.

God has seven spirits, as is represented by the seven candles of the Jewish candelabra.

Where do you get this bit of wisdom?

He died an unjust death though he was without sin. This gives him the right to judge.

Why does dying unjustly, without fault, give anyone the right to judge?

Jesus was Jewish because it fulfilled the promise God made to Abraham;

As I understand the Jewish traditions, Jesus would have been Jewish because his mom was Jewish. Isn't that kinda the way it works?

Only the true of heart shall see God.

I must then have a false heart. I really do think that I am seeking truth in spiritual matters. I seek to challenge any and all claims to the fires of evidence and logic, because there have been so many charlatans and liars. But, according to you, because I have not come to the same conclusions that you have, I must be false, a liar, wicked.