P1: Christ paid the substitutionary price for our sins.
P2: Christ paid 3 days of physical and/or spiritual death.
P3: The price for our sins is 3 days of physical and/or spiritual death. (P1 & P2)
P4: Sinners can pay for their sins with 3 days of physical and/or spiritual death.
P5: Sinners remain damned even after 3 days of physical and/or spiritual death.
CONCLUSION: Jehovah cannot do math, is a liar, or is a myth. (P3 – P5)
Why do sinners remain separated from god after legitimately paying their 3 days of physical and/or spiritual deaths?
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Filed under: Divine Innumeracy, apologetics, redemption, salvation, substitutionary
Note the unstated premise in this argument: that Jesus is just the same as any other person, so keeping Jesus in hell for a day is morally identical to keeping anyone else in hell for a day.
Of course, this is not what Christian theology has to say on the matter. One of the central points of the whole atonement doctrine is that _Jesus did not deserve the punishment_. There is a difference between the innocent son of God suffering in hell and a guilty sinner doing so.
Review your theology. Jesus made a substitutionary sacrifice. While he did not sin, he was made sin for us, and therefore deserved our full penalty.
If he took on only part of our sins, we remain unredeemed. If he took on all of our sins, he’ll have to pay the full human price, and any divinity does not make him exempt from such. If his divinity makes him exempt from experiencing our “deserved” penalty, he did not need to become human to redeem us. If there is a difference between the innocent son of God suffering in hell and a guilty sinner doing so, then there was no substitution. He had to be the same as any other human in the act of bearing our sins. A king who substitutes his son for a murderer condemned to death cannot invoke his son’s prince-hood to lighten the sentence of death.
Here’s what you can do. Since redemption was substitutionary, write a formula with and “=” in the middle and balance the terms on both sides. On the right you have the “deserved” eternal torment of billions of humans. On the other side you’ll have the redemptive price Jesus paid. Let’s see if you can get them to coherently equate.
I read up a little more. It seems Thomas Aquinas said that the punishment was not an eternity in hell, but just to be sent to hell (Summa Theologica TP Q52 A1 BP1). From there, Christ could get out when we could not.
John Calvin said roughly the same thing, citing Acts 2:24 as evidence that it was impossible for Christ to stay in hell for longer than he did (Institutes of the Christian Religion, book II, chapter 16, section 10).
Thanks for those citations.
There are 2 problems with the opinions of Aquinas and Calvin.
1. If our sinfulness deserves only that we are “sent” to hell, but does not include the incidental suffering resulting from eternity in hell, then sinners experience undeserved suffering, an impossibility in a world governed by a just god.
2. Presumably, we cannot be resurrected from hell after 3 days because we maintain our sinfulness. Jesus was made sin for us so we do not need to spend eternity in hell. What innocent soul died for Jesus’ return from hell? If a king condemns a man to 50 years in prison, then offers his son up for substitution, he cannot prematurely release his son from the transferred 50-year prison term without losing his right to claim to be just.
As for Acts 2:24, the affirmation of the verse is not an argument. You’ll have to explain why our sins keep us in hell and why someone who has taken on our sins can escape hell. Why could a loving god not have resurrected all sinners from hell after 3 days?
I think this will be clear to you if you sit down with pen and paper and plug the variables into “A = B”. Place the “deserved” eternal torment of billions of sinners on one side. Then try to make what Jesus did coherently equate to that. Conversely, place the 3-day spiritual/physical death of Jesus on one side, then try to balance that with what you think the “wages of sin” might be for billions of humans.
I’ve never seen this even attempted, much less attempted successfully. Is this not rather odd for an act considered to be substitutionary?
Here is just a fun illustration of the problem.
Where do you get 3 days?
In my old church we were taught that according to the myth Jesus died Friday afternoon (around 3pm), and was seen again walking around again on Sunday morning (around 6am).
Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon is one day, Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning, a half-day. Total, less then TWO days. What a sacrifice!
I note that some christians suggest that, because Jesus was god, his anguish was more intense. 2 points.
1. No matter how intense it was, it could not be eternal since it was for 3 days as opposed to our “deserved” eternal anguish.
2. God in his perfection does not experience anguish, and the fact that Jesus was god should actually LESSEN his anguish.
So Christians could redefine god the father as being able to experience pain (a heresy?), but the equation still does not add up since the anguish of Jesus was not eternal.
(Jesus’ anguish * divine intensifier) = (eternal anguish)?
What number multiplied by what number equals infinity?
The 3 hours that god poured out his wrath could have been 4 hours and was therefore not infinite. Our “deserved” punishment of eternal damnation is infinite. Jehovah is innumerate.