To this end was I born,
and for this cause came I into the world,
That I should bear witness unto the Truth.
Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
— John 18:37
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We established in “It’s Not About Me” that Christ wanted our attention firmly focused on His Message i.e. The Word. Not on His person or minutiae about His life on Earth.
It stands to reason that He would expect us to apply the same lens to His earthly death – that the circumstances of His death should not overshadow His Word.
The Crucifixion terminated Christ’s spreading of The Word. And only He could give The Word (ref. “What Is The Word?“).
This indicates a tension between The Word and the Crucifixion, and raises the question: Was the Crucifixion actually a pre-ordained part of Christ’s Mission i.e. a pre-planned, God-Willed sacrifice to take up humanity’s sins? Or was it an avoidable outcome forced on Christ by men’s evil nature?
The Thinking Man’s Problems
- How come the Almighty suddenly needed a physical sacrifice after making it abundantly clear that He was not interested in such (ref. “‘Going to’ Service or ‘Performing’ Service“)?
- We all consider the punishment of an uninvolved, blameless party for the sins of another to be an injustice. As a man soweth, so shall he reap (ref. “Judging You, Judging Me“). Why is it (conveniently) different in this case?
- How can God need human beings to disobey His own Commandments (i.e. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”, “Thou shalt not kill”) to achieve His own purposes? Or more generally: How come He needed the help of evil men to achieve a good purpose?
- If all human beings had actually obeyed Christ (i.e. become better), they would not have desired to kill Him. So are we saying that the more successful Christ was in spreading The Word, the more likely it would have been that God’s “Crucifixion Plan” would fail?
- Should we vilify or celebrate men like Judas Iscariot? If the Crucifixion had to happen they were merely instruments of God’s Will.
- Why the struggle at Gethsemane? Christ suddenly faltered at the thought of something that He and His Father had planned from the very beginning? He was trying to evade His responsibilities?
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“Faith” Is Not The Answer
When thinking people raise such objections, they are told to accept the established position (i.e. dogma) by “faith”.
In short, faith is supposed to mean the acceptance of something that one does not quite understand.
That is not Christ’s own definition of faith (ref. “Faith Is A Halfway House“), and Christ never said anything that supports the idea that one should accept what one doesn’t understand.
Christ deliberately spoke simply and understandably. What He said was that we lacked conviction, not understanding, and that we can only gain conviction through experience:
He that hath my commandments,
and keepeth them,
he it is that loveth me:
and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father,
and I will love him,
and will manifest myself to him.
— KJV, John 14:21
But I have prayed for thee,
that thy faith fail not:
and when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren.
— Luke 22:32
It is no different from a child who understands the value of what his parents have said, but disobeys until he personally experiences the effects of his immature actions.
The Rejected Personality Cult Strikes Again
The fundamental problem remains the personality cult that was, against Christ’s own desires, woven around Him (ref. “It’s Not About Me“).
This led to the elevation of tangential issues around His birth, life, death etc. to a higher level in our minds than His Word of Truth, the absorption of which is the only thing that can actually save us.
If we make the living of The Word the centrepiece of our interpretation of Christ, as dictated by Christ Himself, we end up with a completely different interpretation of statements He made that have been used to support the idea that the Crucifixion was a pre-ordained, God-willed sacrifice.
We shall find that it was probably not…
Part 1: It’s Not About Me!
Part 3: “Lifted Up” Is Not “Crucified”
Part 4: Father Forgive Them, For They Know Not What They Do
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