Lejend's little corner

[Horsemen]

The Father = God, God = The Son, but The Father =/= The Son????????????????

[lejend]

The Father = God, God = The Son, but The Father =/= The Son????????????????

Yeah, that obviously doesn't make any logical sense, but it's not an accurate formulation of the Trinity.

You know how the word 'is' can have more than one meaning - for example, it can be an 'is' of identity or it can be an 'is' of predication.

To illustrate the distinction, consider

1. George Orwell is Eric Blair

and

2. George Orwell is famous.

Both sentences feature a token of 'is.' Now ask yourself: is 'is' functioning in the same way in both sentences? The standard analytic line is that 'is' functions differently in the two sentences. In (1) it expresses identity; in (2) it expresses predication. Identity, among other features, is symmetrical; predication is not. That suffices to distinguish the two uses of 'is.' 'Famous' is predicable of Orwell, but Orwell is not predicable of 'famous.' But if Blair is Orwell, then Orwell is Blair.

In the statement, 'the Father is God', the 'is' is one of predication. We shouldn't understand it to be an identity statement; it's not saying that the Father is identical to God, but that the Father has the property of being God. It's like saying 'my car is red'; it doesn't mean the car is identical to the color red, but that the car has the property of being red-colored.

So, properly speaking, the true identity statement here would be 'the Trinity = God', but the statements 'the Father is God' and 'the Son is God', those would be predications, not identity statements. They're predicating properties of the Father and the Son, namely the property of being fully divine.

In other words, while the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each distinct persons or consciousnesses of the same one being, only the Trinity is identical to God.

[lejend]

On the creation of woman

[lejend]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the Incarnation:

"What a wonder that two natures infinitely distant should be more intimately united than anything in the world. That the same person should have both a glory and a grief; an infinite joy in the Deity, and an inexpressible sorrow in the humanity! That a God upon a throne should be an infant in a cradle; the thundering Creator be a weeping babe and a suffering man.

The incarnation astonishes men upon earth, and angels in heaven."

- Stephen Charnock

[lejend]

Parable of the Good Samaritan

Luke 10

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 In reply Jesus said:

[lejend]

Parable of the Lost Sheep

Luke 15

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3 Then Jesus told them this parable:

[lejend]

Two modern takes on the Parable of the Good Samaritan

[lejend]

Parable of the Prodigal Son

Luke 15

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.



Ellicott's Commentary:

(13) Took his journey into a far country.—The young man left his home, and started, bent on pleasure or on gain, for Alexandria, or Rome, or Corinth, and rumour came home of riotous living, and a fortune wasted upon harlots, sabbaths broken, synagogues unvisited, perhaps even of participation in idol feasts. In the interpretation that lies below the surface, the “far country” is the state of the human spirit, of the Gentile world, in their wanderings far off from God. The “riotous living” is the reckless waste of noble gifts and highest energies on unbridled sensuality of life, or sensuous, i.e., idolatrous, forms of worship.

(14) There arose a mighty famine in that land.—In the individual interpretation of the parable, the mighty famine is the yearning of the soul’s unsatisfied desire, the absence of its true food, of “the bread that cometh down from heaven.” In its wider range it is the craving of humanity for what it cannot find when appetites are not satisfied, and their wonted supply ceases—the famine, not of bread and of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord (Amos 8:11); the want of a message from the Eternal Father to sustain the life of His children.

(17) And when he came to himself.—The phrase is wonderfully suggestive. The man’s guilt was, that he had been self-indulgent; but he had been living to a self which was not his true self. The first step in his repentance is to wake as out of an evil dream, and to be conscious of his better nature, and then there comes the memory of happier days which is as “Sorrow’s crown of sorrow.”

(18) I will arise and go to my father.—This, then, was the firstfruits of repentance. He remembers that he has a father, and trusts in that father’s love; but he dares not claim the old position which he had so recklessly cast away. He is content to be as one of the “hired servants.” Spiritually, the first impulse of the contrite heart is to take the lowest place, to wish for the drudgery of daily duties, or even menial service, if only it may be near its Father in heaven, and by slow degrees regain His favour and earn the wages of His praise.

[Jam]

Why althiest does don't understand Santan does control the earth so is why evil does in it?

[lejend]

There were Scribes and Pharisees throughout the land, but those of Jerusalem were the chief; they were men of the greatest learning and abilities, and were more expert in their religion and custom.



Scripture vs human tradition

Matthew 15

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’”

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

[lejend]

Moses and the Burning Bush

Exodus 3

13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Another episode highlighting Jesus' conflict with the religious leaders of Israel



The Plot to Kill Jesus

Mark 14

Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. 2 “But not during the festival,” they said, “or the people may riot.”

[lejend]

Judas Agrees to Betray Jesus

Mark 14 & Matthew 26 & John 12

While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Then Judas went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

[lejend]

The big thing about Christianity that I really don't like is the idea that people are inherently bad and need to accept Jesus to go to heaven. Most people I have met are nice and I can't imagine that they would deserve to go to hell because they didn't believe in something with no evidence. It doesn't make sense.

That's a common objection to Christianity but it doesn't really make any sense if you think about it. As Reinhold Niebuhr liked to say, original sin (or man's natural inclination to sin) might be the one empirically verifiable doctrine of Christianity.

What sends people to hell isn't the fact that they're not Christian, but the fact that they're sinners. Rejecting the gospel is a sin, but it's not the only sin. There's other sins besides, like theft, greed, murder and sexual immorality. The Bible says that "whoever hates his brother is a murderer", and, "anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Romans 3:23 summarizes the human condition when it says that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Not "some, except for normal people", not "most, except for a minority of wonderful people" - all.

In fact, the only people who think they've only ever done right in their life are those whose idea of right is basically whatever they do, which is nice and self-serving, but no.

To go to heaven and be united to God, you have to be perfectly good, but the point is that there is no one who is good. There are people who do good things, but there's no one who is good, who only does good.

Since all have sinned, justice requires that all pay the penalty for our sin, which is separation from God, or spiritual death, unless someone pays the penalty in our place.

Due to the infinite consequences for sin that we could never pay for ourselves, it would require a sort of divine human substitute to pay the penalty for our sins.

That's where the Incarnation comes in. The second person of the Trinity volunteers to serve as our representative in bearing the punishment for our sins. He incarnates as the man Jesus, lives a sinless life and then offers up his life and death to God as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Once divine justice has been satisfied, God is free to pardon humanity for our sins. But in order for the pardon to be actualized, it has to be accepted through faith and repentance on the part of the individual believer.

That's why only Christians go to heaven, because Christians are the only ones who've accepted the pardon for our sins. Everyone else says "Nah, I'm not guilty, I don't need a pardon." But the reality is that there's no good news (forgiveness of sins) without bad news (recognizing that you are a sinner and in need of God's forgiveness).

John 3

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Romans 5

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Colossians 2

9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

tl;dr

Christianity is the cure, not the cause of damnation. When someone dies after rejecting the cure to their illness, the cause of death is the illness, not their rejection of the cure to it.

[lejend]

The release of a Jewish prisoner was customary before the feast of Passover. The Roman governor granted clemency to one prisoner as an act of goodwill toward those he governed.

The choice Pilate set before the crowd that day could not have been more clear-cut: Barabbas, a high-profile killer and rabble-rouser who was unquestionably guilty, or Jesus, a teacher and miracle worker who was demonstrably innocent. The crowd chose Barabbas to be released.

I Am Barabbas

1. He was a rebel.

I, too, am a rebel. Despite the benevolent rule of my King, I have both willingly and by my very nature participated in heinous acts of rebellion against the rightful rule of the God of the Universe.

2. He was a murderer.

I, too, am a murderer. Not just of my fellow man, having wished them harm, but of Jesus Christ whose life I have chanted for through my varied and sundry acts of despicable sin. I have chanted along with the crowd, “Crucify! Crucify!” for I saw Him as a threat to my commitment to my own desires.

3. He, though guilty, was released and an innocent was punished in his stead.

I, too, have been released. The punishment that was rightfully due to me has been handed down to another. Someone – an innocent man – has been crucified in my place.

I am Barabbas.

And so are you.

[occamslightsaber]

Welease Wodewick!

[princeofcarthage]

I am going to put some things in perspective. Assume you are in a room. Size, shape, anything of the room doesn't really matter. Now take a pen, and put a dot on some paper. Yeah that blue dot is NOT Earth. Now that dot has millions of atoms which have billions of subatomic particles. But for the unknown let's stop at atom. Yeah that Atom is our Earth.

[Dolan]

[lejend]

If there was a human equivalent to the Atonement..

[lejend]

The scourging of Jesus

John 19

1 Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.

---

“The Roman flagellation or scourging was a form of brutal, inhumane punishment generally executed by Roman soldiers using the most dreaded instrument of the time, called a flagrum.”3

The flagrum used in scourging was a whip consisting of three or more leather tails that had plumbatae, small metal balls or sheep bones at the end of each tail.

One or more soldiers would be assigned to deliver the blows from the flagrum. Standing beside the victim, he would strike in an arc-like fashion across the exposed back.

“The weight of the metal or bone objects at the ends of the leather thongs would carry them to the front of the body as well as to the back and arms, the shoulders, arms, and legs down to and including the calves. The bits of metal would dig deep into the flesh, ripping small blood vessels, nerves, muscle, and skin.”4

The injuries sustained during scourging were extensive. Blows to the upper back and rib area caused rib fractures, severe bruising in the lungs, bleeding into the chest cavity and partial or complete pneumothorax (puncture wound to the lung causing it to collapse). As much as 125 millilitres of blood could be lost. The victim would periodically vomit, experience tremors and seizures, and have bouts of fainting. Each excruciating strike would elicit shrieks of pain.

[lejend]

[lejend]

The mocking of Jesus

Matthew 27

27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. 30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

38 Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. 39 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40 and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.



1 Peter 2

21 Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

22
“He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.”

23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

[chris1089]

Tear inducing.

[lejend]

The Way of the Cross

Mark 8

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”



Jesus Takes Up His Cross

[Dolan]

That's a pretty good holospray ngl

[Snuden]

Never read such nonsense in my entire life.