Since when DYING on a cross saves the rest of HUMANITY?

Question

Does that make any sense to you?
It certainly does not to me.

Answer 1

From what I gather after studying the history of the New Testament at uni, the "dying to save humanity" theory was made after Jesus died, to try to justify the idea that he might still be divine even though men could kill him. Because if Jesus can perform miracles, the question on everybody's mind would be "then how come the Romans could kill him?" unless you think of a theological justification for it.

Answer 2

That is because you are not well-versed in the Hebrew belief system.

According to the Bible, the blood contains life. Which should seem obvious enough, but it is the entire backdrop for why the sacrificial system was initiated. By sacrificing another life for your own, God was willing to overlook your sin and pardon you.

Now, specifically, you must look at the Passover. In Passover, the blood of a perfect and spotless lamb was to be splashed over the lintel on one's door. This lamb was not to have a bone in its body broken, just like Jesus.

The blood over the lintel was somewhat like the cross of Passover. God was willing to see you "through the blood" so to speak, and pardon your sin for your belief that God would forgive you if you did what He said and partook of the Passover ritual. Belief in the salvation that Christ offered on the cross is the exact same thing.

I would suggest you attend a Sader dinner sometime to get the Jewish perspective on Passover. You will then have a better understanding of the symbolic nature of the cross and what it means in your life.

Answer 3

First off Jesus did not resurrect himself, because Jesus is not God, but he is God's son. Next the Bible describes Jesus death as a ransom sacrifice. Matthew 20:28: "Just as the Son of man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his soul a ransom in exchange for many.”" Consider what ransom is... A price paid to buy back or to bring about release from some obligation or undesirable circumstance. The basic idea of “ransom” is a price that covers (as in payment for damages or to satisfy justice), while “redemption” emphasizes the releasing accomplished as a result of the ransom paid. The most significant ransom price is the shed blood of Jesus Christ, which made deliverance from sin and death possible for the offspring of Adam. Adam was perfect and sinned, thus spreading it to all of us. The only person that could atone for that was another perfect human. Who better than Jesus Christ, God's own son, to do that? So Jesus came to earth as a baby, the humblest form of intelligent creation, a fetus, then he grew up and was in subjection to imperfect parents and then once he was baptized and remembered that he was God's son, he fulfilled the sacrifice he knew that God had purposed. This sacrifice was to buy sin from mankind. Jesus died for our sins. So now we don't have to perform sin burnt offerings for every time we sin anymore. Next we all have a chance to make it into God's new system of things. For more information of if you would like to know how Jesus death can apply to you please contact Jehovah's Witnesses at their Kingdom Hall. Call them in the phone book even. You will not be disappointed with the truth from the Bible.

Answer 4

Hard to believe isn't it? Yet it is true.

This was the whole purpose for Jesus coming into the world. "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

"Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, was buried and rose again, according to the scriptures." (1 Corinthians 15:3)

"We have not been redeemed with anything corruptible, such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot or blemish." Peter

Answer 5

I personally find this explanation by Dante Alighieri, in the Paradiso of his Commedia to be the most beautiful and intellectually appealing answer. This passage is from Canto VII, lines 55-120, though I have abbreviated it. Here, Beatrice is speaking to Dante the Pilgrim:

You say: ‘I clearly understand your words,
but why God did not choose some other way
for our redemption still remains unclear.’

The reason, brother, for that choice lies buried
from all men’s eyes until their inner sight
has grown to ripeness in the warmth of love;

nevertheless, since men have always aimed
their arrows at this mark they rarely strike,
I shall explain why this choice was the best.
…

Sin is the only power that takes away
man’s freedom and his likeness to True Good,
and makes him shine less brightly in Its light;

nor can he win back his lost dignity
unless the void left by that sin be filled
by just amends paid for illicit joy.

Your nature, when it sinned once and for all
in its first root, was exiled from these honours,
as it was dispossessed of Paradise;

nor could mankind recover what was lost,
as you will see if you think carefully,
except by crossing one of these two fords:

either that God, simply through clemency,
should give remission, or that man himself,
to pay his debt of folly, should atone.

Now fix your eyes on the infinity
of the Eternal Counsel; listen well,
as well as you are able, to my words.

Given his limits, man could never make
amends: never in his humility
could man, obedient too late, descend

as far as once, in disobedience,
he tried to climb, and this is why mankind
alone could not make his amends to God.

Thus, it remained for God, in His own ways
(his ways, I mean, in one of them or both),
to bring man back to his integrity:

But since the deed gratifies more the doer,
the more it manifests the innate goodness
of the good heart from which it springs – so, then,

that Everlasting Goodness which has set
its imprint on the world was pleased to use
all of Its means to raise you up once more.
…

for God, Who gave Himself, gave even more
so that mankind might raise itself again,
than if He simply had annulled the debt;

and any other means would have been less
than Justice, if God’s only Son had not
humbled Himself to take on mortal flesh.

Answer 6

It makes no sense at all to those outside the cult. Even the Bible itself admits as much ('the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing")

Answer 7

Since when does eating fruit from a tree that god placed there constitute the destruction of all humanity??
i.e. why would jesus have to save me at all, from what two people supposedly did long before me, when it was a freaking snack.....I mean, come on, god

Answer 8

Saves the rest of humanity - where did you get that idea from? It saves those who believe that he is God and resurrected after this death.

Answer 9

Yes its simple

6000yrs ago God created man and then created satan to convince man to eat the fruit that god told man not to eat, after the man ate the fruit which god had basically set man up to eat, god got really angry and raped this chick called mary, so that god could come to earth and sacrifice god to god for the sins of the man created by god.

Yeah, makes perfect sense???

Provided they start brainwashing
you at an early enough age

.............

Answer 10

Good.

Your logical senses still remain intact.