Good stuff, but why couldn't all sinners be crucified to pay for their own sins rather than face eternal hell to pay for their sins? Why did Jesus not have to face eternal hell as a substitution rather than the cross? My thought is that the idea of substitution is not a complete description of how the death of Jesus removes sin and the associated punishment.
Gen 3:14 And Jehovah God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed above all beasts, and above every animal of the field. You shall go on your belly, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.
Since this PROPHETIC word of YHWH concerning His Messiah
had been spoken by YHWH Himself,this had to be fulfilled by YWHWs' Messiah.
Seeing that YHWH cannot lie,Messiah had to fulfill all that had been told about Him.
YHWHW gives man the easiest possible way of having his or her sin(s) dealt with forever.
He also had Messiah take upon Himself the judgement upon mans sin,DEATH.
Gen 2:17 but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you may not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, dying you shall die.
Deu_30:19 I call Heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, that you may live, you and your seed,
Without Messiah,would YHWH be just in His judging man for his sin.
Yes.
Yet YWHW is compassionte and He loves His Creation,which He made in His image,that is MAN.
Jer 18:3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he was working a work on the wheel.
Jer 18:4 And the vessel that he made in clay was ruined in the hand of the potter. So repeating he made it, another vessel, as it seemed good in the potter's eyes to make it.
Jer 18:5 And the Word of Jehovah was to me, saying,
Jer 18:6 O house of Israel, can I not do to you as this potter? says Jehovah. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
A person can trust Yeshua,or they can take their chances with an angry GOD,when they see Him.
Hebrews 9:15,26b-28: Christ is the mediator of a **NEW COVENANT** so that those who are called:rolleyes: may receive the promised eternal inheritance--now that He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant...But now He has APPEARED once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the SACRIFICE of Himself... so Christ was SACRIFICED ONCE to take away the sins of many people, and He will *APPEAR* a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.:applause:
Hebrews 8:8,9,13: God found fault with the people and said: The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a **NEW COVENANT** with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will **NOT** be like the covenant I made with their forefathers.....By calling this covenant **NEW**, He made the first one **OBSOLETE**; and what is **OBSOLETE** and aging will soon disappear.� When all the words of the New Covenant were completed by the Book of Revelation in AD 96!!
Hebrew 10:8-10: Jesus said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them. Although the law required them to be made. The He {Jesus} said. "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He {Jesus} set aside the first {Covenant} to establish the second. And by that will, we:rolleyes: have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus ONCE FOR ALL!!
Isaiah 53:5,6: "He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed. We all like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to His own way, and the Lord has laid on HIM the iniquity of us all!!":applause:
Thanks for these answers, they are good, but do not directly deal with my question I posed in the first post.
The crucifiction lasted half a day, hell is eternal. Therefore how can that be classed as a substitution?
Please understand that I fully believe in the saving work of Jesus on the cross, I'm just digging into some of the details that I have often taken for granted.
Hi Dave...I found this on line. Doesnt answer your question but does explain much about Why ? and is in understandable common language. Hope it helps a lil...Be Blessed...xo
The Atonement of Christ
Study By: Lehman Strauss
At the very heart of the Christian system lies the all-important doctrine of the Atonement. The Apostle Paul, himself an advocate of �sound doctrine,� in a condensed statement of what the Christian Church believes, said,
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures (I Corinthians 15:3, 4).
Though the Gospel according to Paul included a sinless and a bodily-resurrected Christ, he gives first place to the fundamental fact that �Christ died for our sins.� In spite of the fact that some religious leaders object vigorously to the Doctrine of the Atonement, that the Death of Jesus Christ was sacrificial and necessary for man�s redemption, we proceed on a sound biblical basis to pursue this great subject.
The word �atonement� in the Authorized Version of the Bible is an Old Testament term. It appears only once in the New Testament (Romans 5:11) where it is translated �reconciliation� in the Revised Version. It is not entirely fanciful to suggest the idea of at-one-ment because the word atonement is used to refer to the atoning death of Christ through which the sinner is reconciled to God, restored to His favor.
To atone for means to make amends. In the Bible atonement is associated with man�s sin. God commanded Israel to set aside one day each year, the tenth day of the seventh month, which He called �the day of atonement� (Leviticus 16:29-30; 23:27-28). The people were to bring a sin offering, an innocent animal sacrifice �whose blood was brought in to make atonement� (Leviticus 16:27). God had said, �For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul� (Leviticus 17:11) �. . . and without shedding of blood is no remission� (Hebrews 9:22).
In this study we will give thought to the biblical teaching how the death of Christ and the shedding of His blood atones for man�s sin.
Upon entering into a consideration of this majestic theme, it may be well to remind ourselves that the Death of Jesus Christ on the Cross at Calvary is a historical fact. Some books of fiction about the Death of Christ have come into my hands. They have a tendency to leave the mind in the dangerous state of dreamy unreality and poetic imagination. But �sound doctrine� deals with facts and not fiction. In the New Testament alone, we find almost two hundred references to Christ�s Death. Though many theologians have differed on the meaning of the Cross, the fact of our Lord�s Death has been accepted in the history of the Church. Some theologians are frank to accept the fact of Christ�s Death, and just as frank to say that they have no rationale, no theory, no doctrine of the Atonement.
We believe that men are regenerated, redeemed, reconciled to God, justified, forgiven, adopted, not by the Doctrine of the Atonement, but by the Atonement itself, by the Sacrificial and Substitutional death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We cannot hope to treat thoroughly so great a subject in this brief study, but simply to state the basic elements of the Atonement so that believers may have a firm foundation for their faith.
God the Father had decided that only the blood of God the Son was sufficient to cleanse us from all sin thus gaining our entrance into the eternal New Jerusalem with its New Heaven and New Earth. And when God the Father says something all those who are born again from His Word believe Him with all their hearts.
I Peter 1:23-25: For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God. For, all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord stands forever." And this is the Word that was preached to you!:applause::peace:
Angelforlove, I think you have the answer he was looking for.
Remember that the penalty for sin is not simply a life in hell, but death AND an eternity in hell. If we were crucified we would only fulfilling part of our punishment.
The sacrifices in the temple had to be repeated every year because none of the animals were perfect. Only a perfect sacrifice could atone for ones sin.
None of us are perfect, and we all owe a debt of punishment for our sins. The punishment for our sins is not sacrifice on the cross, but eternal damnation in hell. To say that we could just be crucified for our sins is to try and renegotiate our punishment. We like to say that it was Jesus� crucifixion that is the substitution for our sins, but in truth it is his perfection, execution even though was innocent, and resurrection that is the substitution for our sins.
