Friday 27 October 2017

More Muslim objections to address: Response to ibn_saleh

ibn_saleh of Paltalk raised these objections to me a few days ago. Let's address the points

Which Bible? 73 or 66?
66, The Apocrypha isn't canon. This article will not dive into that but there are articles that I recommend that do:
http://www.reformedapologeticsministries.com/2013/01/appendix-addressing-some-arguments-in.html
http://www.reformedapologeticsministries.com/2013/01/is-jewish-apocrypha-inspired-scripture_23.html
http://www.reformedapologeticsministries.com/2013/01/is-jewish-apocrypha-inspired-scripture_1537.html
http://www.reformedapologeticsministries.com/2013/01/is-jewish-apocrypha-inspired-scripture_2120.html

http://www.jiminger.com/apocrypha/index.html

When Jesus paid our sin debt, who was it paid to? Who paid the price? Was the Son paying himself?
Jesus is the one who paid the price for our sins, He was not paying himself, he was paying the price to the Father and satisfy his justice and wrath against sin.

It was paid to the Father. Sin demands payment and justice and atonement is to be made to God because he is sinned against. Atonement means to compensate and Jesus' death satisfies God's wrath against us. There is no evidence scriptural that any debt to Satan was paid. Satan in the Old Testament although it is downplayed in the New Testament had the job of reporting sins. He was know in the Old Testament as "The Satan" or the accuser. Because of this, Satan has no reason to be paid anything, as he is not the one who mankind has sinned against. If you stole property or an item, you return it to it's rightful owner, not to someone who is your accuser. If you sin, Satan is not one to whom the debt is paid.

Read the following article on who Satan is: http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/tackling-rabbinic-objections-2.html

God is so holy that he cannot just sweep sin under the rug and he must deal with it in some way and the death of Jesus was the answer, the second person of the Trinity dying for our sins, a debt that we ourselves could not pay.

Is Atonement a Biblical idea or a Greek idea?
It's certainly not a Greek idea, it goes right back to the Old Testament with respect to the issue of dealing with sin through blood.

There is nothing in Greek Mythology to my knowledge that is even remotely similar to the death of Jesus on the cross (Don't you dare tell me Zeitgeist is a credible source of information.) The Old Testament sacrifices pointed to Jesus who would eventually be our ultimate atonement and he saves us from bringing a ram or sheep or ox or any animal as a sacrifice for sins.

The idea of expiation via an animal's death is as old as that of when Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, when God slaughtered the first animal to give the two humans garments and the means of atonement (Genesis 3). Cain and Abel's offering you can dispute as to their reasons, maybe merely fruit wasn't what God wanted of Cain gave with the wrong motive or perhaps Cain trying to merit his worthiness with God whereas Abel recognized he fell short and relied on God and loved him anyway (Genesis 4) We simply do not know the reason but in any case, blood was offered in Abel's offering and even Noah offered a possible blood sacrifice of thanks once he left the ark.

"Genesis 8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse[a] the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”"

Leviticus itself also has copius references to blood offerings in the sacrificial offerings and before anyone makes the claim that blood isn't necessary, I direct you to articles I have written previously on the subject:

http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/response-to-rabbi-eli-cohen-on-blood.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/response-to-rabbi-asher-meza-blood.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/hezekiah-and-manasseh-blood-atonement.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/response-to-jono-vandor-and-jason.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/response-to-jono-vandor-and-jason_13.html

Hope this answers your questions.

There will be an article that talks on the subject of sin debt to whom linked here in the future.

Answering Judaism.

28th of October 2017. Here is the article in question: http://internetbiblecollege.net/Lessons/Was%20The%20Ransom%20Paid%20To%20Satan%20Or%20To%20God.htm

1 comment:

  1. read your past articles. they in no way refute what is in the Hebrew Bible. Lev 17:11 is one passage in a section whose theme is clearly about the prohibition of consuming blood. The blood offerings are for unintentional sins (chatas) and there are clear unambiguous references to bloodless offerings. Why do Christian apologists use this one passage to insist that only through blood can atonement be achieved but skirt around the words which also say that the animal's (not human) blood is to sprinkled on the "altar". Was J' blood so dealt with?

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