greg@zehntel.UUCP (06/14/83)
#N:zehntel:19200008:000:1817 zehntel!greg Jun 13 15:48:00 1983 Several people have commented lately that the resurrection is not as important a part of Christianity as the body of moral teachings which Jesus and his followers espoused. While I can see how someone could look at Christianity from a "social impact" perspective and say this, it's not doctrinally true. In the Old Testament, God revealed what He expected from us through the Law. When the Law was not fulfilled, a sacrifice was required. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, pointed out that God wants us to be *perfect*. The result of our imperfections is separation from God, the effect of which is death. Animal sacrifices were a way of transferring the penalty for our sins to another. The Law makes it clear that only an unblemished animal was worthy to be sacrificed, ie, only a "perfect" being can take another being's punishment. Now, when Jesus died for our sakes to take the punishment due us, His death would have no meaning if He Himself had sinned, ie, He'd really only have paid the penalty for His *own* sins. BUT, since He had *not* sinned, death had no power over Him. Thus the resurrection was the demon- stration to us that our sins really were paid for; without it, the whole doctrinal structure of Christianity is worthless. Maybe everybody knows this, but in the context of what was being said, I felt it bore repeating. (Please keep in mind when flaming that the Old Testament method of atonement was a type of what was to come; it's perfectly clear to me that no animal is perfect. Also, although I firmly believe in the life and resur- rection of Jesus, I know that many of you do not. I do not intend to offend you by the absolute nature of my statements; I'm merely attempting to clarify the absolute nature of the doctrine.) Greg Boyd ...decvax!sytek!zehntel!greg