Christians say by dying for us, Christ washed away our sins! Is that not a justification of human sacrifice?

Question

and a huge insult to God?

I always found this story particularly repulsive.
Is our God a kind benevolent merciful, forgiving being, or a blood seekingn monster?

How would a benevolent God demand the sacrifice of any one, and especially his son, before forgiving a disobedience or any thing else?

Surely this is the thinking of barbaric, ancient, pre-Israelite tribes and others, practicing infanticide and human sacrifice. We can see the beginning of its disappearance in that horror story of Abraham attempting to sacrifice his child to God and changing his mind the last moment.

Christ brought about his own death in order to fulfil an ancient Jewis prophecy about the Messiah? God is not guilty.

I read the explanations offered by Christians. They are twiste and illogical. How can the death of an innocent person bring about the forgiveness of someone else? The very idea is absurd.

Answer 1

Evolutionary COMPLACENCY of the IGNORANT. It is why the religious are the biggest contributors to MURDER and ill respect of LIFE here on earth. They have their sights set on the life AFTER death and not the life of the present in themselves or anyone else. To think the murder of someone will ATONE for the bad behaviors of those too stupid to take responsibility for their own actions is WHY the world remains in a backward state of individuals who won't accept the precious gift of life on THIS planet.

Answer 2

God is neither benevolent or malevolent, God is Creator. What need would the Creator have for blood sacrifices, this is a human way of atoning for sins and appeasing a Deity. All Deities that are complicit in those acts are fictional, there has been no verifiable proof that the wasting of life appeases the Creator.

Our Creator is scapegoated by religions as a participant in those ridiculous superstitious rites. Those activities are not befitting of, nor do they honor God. It is disgraceful to think that it would.

Pantheist

Answer 3

"Christians say by dying for us, Christ washed away our sins! Is that not a justification of human sacrifice?
and a huge insult to God?"

Absolutely not. In the first place, you've got your wires crossed -- in several ways...

Christ's Sacrifice did not wash away our sins. His Sacrifice only provided the means whereby our sins may be washed away. We still have to daily accept Jesus' Sacrifice as our own. If we then later, at some point, fall away from Jesus, we will still have to answer for our own sins in the lake of fire. Jesus' Righteousness only covers those whom willingly, and daily, accept His Offer.

Christ's Sacrifice is also not a justification for human sacrifice. Why? Because Christ isn't just any other human -- He is the only Begotten Son of the Father. Only His Blood could have paid the Price for Sin. The blood of any other human would not do as such blood is already tainted by sin.

Also, even if Christ had not been crucified, He would have offered His life within the Temple itself. After all, the story of Abraham and Isaac is a type of how Christ's Sacrifice was supposed to go (the anti-type) -- except that no angel would have stopped the Sacrifice this time. It was the devil and satan whom wanted to thoroughly humiliate, torture, and crucify the Son of God. Long jealous of Jesus' position with the Father, satan was just waiting for his chance to make Jesus suffer to the n-th degree. Little did satan know that the Suffering Christ went through had nothing to do with anything satan could do to Him nor what Man was doing to Him at the time. Instead, it was the burden of all sin and the final separation from His Father which caused Jesus the most suffering -- and is what actually killed Him. It was not the beatings or the cross which killed Him. In the end, Christ laid down His life in spite of all the efforts of satan or the men around Him.

Lastly, a huge insult to God? Yes, in a way, it was. The insult was the same, though, which men had been doing for thousands of years by killing the prophets of God. It is also the same insult Cain delivered by killing Able -- whose only crime was that he followed God. The insult was in the ultimate rejection they demonstrated aginst the Father and His Son.

On the flip side, Christ laying down His life was the Ultimate Compliment to the Love of God. Christ's Sacrifice was also the Ultimate Vindication of God's Kingdom and His Law. This is what the Great Controversy is really about. It is not about sin. Sin is just the symptom. The Great Controversy is about Lucifer's accusation that God's Kingdom and His Law are nothing more than a dictator's iron rule. When Christ submitted Himself to satan for satan to do what he willed with the Son of God, Jesus proved that God's Kingdom and His Law is not based upon dictatorial rule but upon Love and the Freedom which True Love brings. And, at the same time, satan proved to just what depths his suggested replacement for God's Kingdom would sink -- that it would seek to destroy the very Son of God whom had done nothing to deserve any such treatment.

Atheists and agnostics also prove what satan's kingdom is about when they vilify those whom choose to follow God. Granted, though, too many supposed Christians sink to the same level. Don't forget, though, that Jesus said the tares must grow together with the wheat. It will all be sorted out in the end.

God bless.

Answer 4

Actually Christ died to break the bands of death and bring about the ressurection - He is a life bringer. He suffered for our sins in Gethsemene and bled from every pore because of pain. Thus the dying and the suffering were two separate acts part of the whole act comprising the atonement. Most Christians do not clearly explain this.
God does not demand a sacrifice before he will forgive. God is our Father - a perfect father who loves us as children.
As for Abraham - I suggest you read the story more closely. Read the King James Version. Just before Abraham goes to sacrifice Isaac, he tells the servants who ar traveling with them to stop and wait. "We will return" is what Abraham tells the servants. Abraham wasn't going to slaughter his son in a blood sacrifice, he was going to give his son to God, knowing full well that God contained the ultimate power over sin and death - the power of ressurection. He fully expected God to live up to his bargain to restore all things to their rightful place. God did not "just change His mind at the last second" - this life is a test of our obedience to the will of God. This was one of Abraham's tests. He passed. God knew he would, but now Abraham knew too and God could bless him.
I suggest that you study more carefully and with an open mind. If you get down on your knees tonight and ask God, believing that you will recieve an answer God will send you more knowledge - but you must act on that knowledge. Just be open to who ever brings it to you. It may be a friend or aquaintance or some billboard. Just be open.

Answer 5

The Lamb of God was innocent - "a reed he did not break, a stone he did not leave overturned."

A sacrifice can´t allow for an innocent victim, and starting from the first civilisations, the first humans, a program of villinification was started against different groups, different victims each time (just as the Jews had to be villinified before perpetrating the holocaust.)

The immense innocence of Jesus Christ undermines the basis of human sacrifice and victimisation in all forms.

It gives us the plain truth, that we are not worthy of God´s immense inocence. This humility is what leads to repentance.

Answer 6

The Bible is very clear that without the shedding of blood there can not be any forgiveness of sins. God provided that animals could be that sacrifice. However, animal sacrifice could only cover sin for a season.

Jesus was the sacrifice because he had the form of a man, and was innocent before God. No other human could've been the sacrifice required in the Bible. None before, none now, none to come.

It was His blood and his alone that allows for our forgiveness.

Answer 7

Try thinking of Jesus' death not as a sacrifice, in the ancient sense of human sacrifice to gods.
Try instead to think of Jesus death as God, sharing in human experience. Fully experiencing all aspects of humanity, so that God's love for humanity can be complete and empathetic.

Answer 8

God asked the same of Abraham, and when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God intervened.

Suffering has value, and the Christian idea that Jesus suffered willing for all of us is very powerful.

By calling him "Christ" you imply you are a believer.

Answer 9

Whoa, whoa, whoa...
"Surely this is the thinking of barbaric, ancient, pre-Israelite tribes and others, practicing infanticide and human sacrifice. "

The ancient egyptians and a whole bunch of cultures did not do this! You cannot classify all the 'pre-israelite' cultures as barbaric.

Answer 10

i would rather term it the ultimate sacrifice! without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, that's why the old school (testament) sacrificed animals. have you really read the story? what don't you understand, exactly, i will try to help you put the puzzle together if you would like, prayerfully