Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Thu, 8 Oct 1992 08:10:22 CDT
From:         Michael Million <MM24681@UAFSYSB.BITNET>
Subject:      Comments on the Teachings of Jesus

 Greetings to All:
    If we listen closely, we 'hear' Christ repeat what I feel is the
 one fundamental teaching from which his other teachings derive.  That
 is, the familial concept of God as the Father.  This concept was
 offered time and time again:  God the Father, the All-Merciful Father,
 the Universal Father.  Jesus was expousing a relationship which he
 honored throughout the entirety of his life.  Jesus taught us to
 approach God as a *child* for He is all knowing and wise even before
 you open your heart to Him.  He knows your fears and prayers and your
 failings *before* you ask for forgiveness.  Jesus told his followers of
 the Fatherhood of God and he lived and promoted the corollary - the
 brotherhood of man.  These two notions of highest spiritual value are
 the guiding precepts around which Jesus lived his life.  He told us the
 Father is compassionate and ever merciful; God was never presented by
 Jesus as an angry and vengeful deity.  Indeed, the message of the
 loving compassionate Father is completely inconsistent with the notions
 of atonement, sacrifice and punishment.  Once one has fully grasped
 Jesus' concept of God the Father, the idea of an offended and wrathful
 God must go.  God is not angry with you; you are His creation.
   Jesus did not offer himself as a sacrifice or ransom to an angry God.
 Nor was his death an effort to pay God a debt on behalf of sinful man.
 Sin is an individual/personal matter; one cannot inherit sin.  No one
 pays for the sins of another.  The wrongdoings of fellow mortal _and_
 celestial beings may cause us to suffer _delays in time_ in our long
 approach to God but they in no way alter the fundamental relationship
 between the Creator and each of His creatures (survival potential).
 What merciful Father would *require* and derive satisfaction from the
 punishment of a child much less an innocent sufferer substituted for a
 guilty offender?  God did not demand Jesus so sacrifice himself; Christ
 most willingly allowed his life to be taken to showcase *divine love.*
    In addition, the ideas of atonement and sacrificial salvation are
 grounded in selfishness.  A believer's primary concern would not be the
 selfish desire for personal salvation but the unselfish urge to love
 and, therefore, *serve* one's fellows like Jesus loved and served his
 fellow brothers and sisters.  Salvation should be taken for granted by
 the true believers in the Fatherhood of God.  Motives and efforts
 designed solely to secure one's _own_ salvation are incompatible with
 Christ's teachings to believe and have faith in the kingdom of God the
 Father and help our fellow beings to recognize God by living a life of
 brotherhood and service.  Self-absorption and self-centeredness are the
 origins of a preoccupation about one's personal spiritual status;
 believers know that the message is to serve...not be served...and they
 have confidence that their faith is sufficient to safeguard their
 spiritual careers.  Pure and simple.
    Jesus showed us a love that did not merely forgive wrong, his love
 was a *divine, fatherly love* which actually had the capacity to
 swallow up wrongdoing and destroy it.  Offering good to evil was his
 improvement over the olden notions of 'an eye for an eye.'  Sacrifice,
 atonement and punishment are not required for salvation.  Salvation is
 real by virtue of one's recognition and faith in the Unseen Father and
 the striving to do His Will.  We should not look upon the cross as a
 token of Christ's sacrifice in place of guilty sinners for an unforgiv-
 ing God - rather the cross should stand as a symbol of the highest form
 of UNSELFISH LOVE - the kind of love that destroys and absorbs the very
 origins of wrongdoing.  As genuine believers, we should be little
 troubled by any future punishment of sin; we have better things upon
 which to concentrate our minds and spirit, namely, anyone else.....
 Everyone but ourselves!
                                  your brother in Christ,  Michael