Appetizer #3: Sacrifice

Jesus Christ was seen by many to be something of a rascal and even a threat to the political powers at the time by spreading sedition and insurrection. He was forever criticizing the religious leaders of the day, calling them hypocrites and cheats, and likening them to 'wicked farmers'. By gaining a large following he threatened their position. He forgave people’s sins, performed healings on the Sabbath, desecrated the Temple and claimed to be the Messiah. There was nothing else for it; he had to go. Jesus was arrested by Roman soldiers on the orders of a Jewish high priest, charged with blasphemy, sentenced to death and subsequently crucified. Pretty open and shut. Yet Christians claim that through this ‘sacrifice’, Jesus somehow atoned for the sins of humanity.

The first thing that springs to mind is that there are two main premises here. On the one hand you have Jesus the trouble maker, the enemy of the state, executed on charges of blasphemy. On the other hand you have Jesus the Messiah, Saviour of all humanity, who gave up his life so that we might be saved. These two ideas are at odds with one another. That is to say, according to scripture, it does not appear that Jesus was giving his life at all; rather he was having it taken away. Far from ‘offering himself as a sacrifice’ (Hebrews 9:14), I cannot see that he had much of a say in the matter. The condemned man does not usually get to choose whether or not he is executed.

No choice: no sacrifice.

To illustrate this, imagine that an unemployed friend of yours breaks the law and is slapped with a hefty fine. With no income she has no hope of paying the fine and, even though you might not approve of what she has done, you feel sorry for her and want to help. You are in a position to pay the fine but it will considerably hurt you financially, and you know that it is practically certain that you will never see that money again. You are faced with a dilemma: keep your money and your friend goes to jail, or, pay the fine and put yourself in financial dire straits. You decide to support your friend and the fine is paid.

Let’s try another one: Imagine instead that it is you who have committed the crime and are liable to pay the fine. You are on a small income and it is decided by the court that your wages be arrested and an amount taken each month until the fine is paid. As your income is modest, this result is costly to you, but the court makes a ruling and that, as they say, is that. This time there is no dilemma: the court takes your money and the fine is paid.

The difference between these two situations is obvious. In the first scenario you could choose to pay the fine but in the second, there was no such choice: the decision was taken out of your hands. The first scenario involved a sacrifice, the second did not.

Once again - No choice: no sacrifice.

Not surprisingly, apologists often make desperate references to scripture in order to get out of this doctrinal nightmare. For instance, in the Gospel of John (10:18), Jesus says of his life: ‘No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again’. Later on, in 19:11, Jesus tells Pontius Pilate that he only has power over him because it was issued ‘from above’. The argument being that if Jesus/God had wished it, he could have avoided death by being spirited away or otherwise escaping. Therefore, by ‘choosing’ not to intervene or escape, Jesus/God made the decision to die and so there was a sacrifice after all.

This really is a pitiful argument. For one thing it is the ultimate in ‘get out’ clauses, as empty and fallacious as the desperate plea of “God did it” that we encountered earlier, except in this case it is rephrased as “God didn’t do it”. Moreover, it is easy to see quite how inadequate an argument it is, if one applies it to the real world. Consider the case of a condemned man—not necessarily the son of God, any condemned man will do. It is always possible, no matter how secure a prison is, to attempt an escape, and it is also possible that such an attempt will be successful, no matter how remote that possibility might be. Are we then to accept that, if the possibility of escape exists, any condemned man who does not take advantage of that possibility, but instead ‘chooses’ not to attempt escape, could be said to have made a sacrifice? I don’t think so; it doesn’t quite work does it?