Hebrews 5:7-10... powerful verses that challenge many Christian doctrines

reply to post by sk0rpi0n


You have taken 3 verses and trying to make a point neglecting the other hundreds of verses saying Jesus died on the cross . You and your buddy JM Dewey should start your own radio show . Or did you ?

reply to post by SevenThunders

Hebrews also teaches that Jesus is God in Hebrews chapter 1. Thus you would have to call the author of Hebrews confused or a liar to believe he would create a contradiction in his own book. Rather you instead should assume that it is possible for Jesus to be God and yet be separate from him, which is what the Bible teaches. (in) Hebrews 1:8

The writer of Hebrews is quoting Psalm 45, a song in praise of the king.
It is describing a situation where the throne of the king is essentially the throne of God. It is not designating David, or any other king of Israel, as God.
The point of the exercise by the writer of Hebrews is that though the Messiah may be physically a man, he shares the glory of God through his reign.

reply to post by SimonPeter

You have taken 3 verses and trying to make a point neglecting the other hundreds of verses saying Jesus died on the cross . You and your buddy JM Dewey should start your own radio show . Or did you ?

I never denied Jesus died on the cross.
I do not take the further step that others do in attributing the drops of blood that he shed in the process of dying, as so many little containers of magic potion to forgive sins. That was a Catholic invention to make people come to church to receive their daily dose, for reasons that should be obvious.
Jesus died to condemn sin in the flesh, and to judge Satan, and also to defeat death by being resurrected.
Forgiving sins is something God can do regardless of a mythological "payment", but is not willing to do so except for the truly repentant. That would include the allowance by the person, of the spirit that is offered by God, through Jesus, that works in us to complete the repentance begun with the desire to be made clean of sinfulness.

Why do I get the idea that you have another name on this site called Scorpion . Both of you are deluded .

Be sure to point out the specifics of that, when you get the chance.

reply to post by TarzanBeta

The Word is the Spirit of God that pre-existed Jesus Christ in His flesh form.

You are free to think whatever you want, but don't expect me to call it wisdom. It does not say "spirit" in the verse you seem to be paraphrasing.

The Spirit within Him IS that Word.

Like I just said, it is not talking about spirit but something else, Logos, which is more like a divine principle. If John meant spirit, he would have just said, spirit.

But the flesh of Jesus Christ was created and you know this.

He was born. I don't think every person born is necessarily an act of creation.

How dare you pick and choose instead of accepting wisdom?

I work really hard to find out what a verse is actually saying before venturing out to create an interpretation. If you appear to me to be missing the first step, I am not about to accept your conclusion.

The Spirit of God entered Mary and she became with child.

A good example of your fundamental failure to even understand the text that lies before you. So how are you to arrive at a proper interpretation?

Is this NOT the marriage of the Spirit of God with the flesh?

No, because it doesn't say that.

Is this not the beginning of one called Jesus who became the anointed?

No, because a person is more than the sum of his parts.

Is NOT the Spirit of God that dwells in Him eternal?

Maybe but so what?

Where have I spoken wrongly?

You need to read correctly before you can speak correctly on what you read.

reply to post by XtraTL

You added the "Jesus cannot be God". It's not there in this verse. Jesus was setting an example for us. Recall he was man and God. So he was setting an example for us as a MAN.

Can we not infer from the verses about Jesus having to pray and "learn" that he was NOT God?

Also, it is you who claim that Jesus is man and God. Its not there in the bible. That very concept of a "man-god" resembles ancient Roman mythology, more than Abrahamic monotheism. Of course, thats no surprise considering Christianity was tainted in the hands of the Romans. Now you know where the "man-god" concept came from.

What you have added here directly contradicts other Scripture and is only half a quotation anyway. What he prayed was, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will".
This verse teaches us that there was no other way for us to be saved.

The verse also shows us that he was begging to be saved.

He said "not as I will, but as you will"... meaning he had shown complete submission to God.
And as Hebrews 5:7 tells us, he was heard because of his reverent submission.

You've simply misunderstood. He was saved from death in that he was resurrected after three days of being physically DEAD. This is the same way that we too can be saved from death.

You are simply re-defining the word "death" to suit your beliefs.

Hebrews 5:7 plainly says he offered up prayers to "the one who could save him from death" and was heard.
And nowhere does it even suggest resurrection.

Anyone who is fully man needs to learn obedience. This doesn't imply he wasn't fully obedient.

If Jesus had to "learn"obedience, that disqualifies him from being God.

I disagree with your analysis of these verses. You are trying to read something into them which is obviously not implied.

I'm just reading the verse for what it is, instead of forcing a meaning out of it.
If it says his prayers to be saved was heard, then thats what it means. You are twisting the very definition of certain words, to fit the belief that Jesus was crucified.

reply to post by XtraTL

But it's also a misunderstanding of the doctrine of the trinity to expect there to be a Bible verse which says, "Jesus is God". We find verses such as, "I and the Father are one", John 10:30. ""Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM." John 8:58

You are the one trying to read things into verses.

There are also plenty of statements from Jesus which shows that he is not God.

reply to post by jmdewey60

I do not take the further step that others do in attributing the drops of blood that he shed in the process of dying, as so many little containers of magic potion to forgive sins.

Even though we disagree on quite a few thing, I have to say that was very well put.

You are right, Jesus' blood is seen as a magic potion to forgive sins.
Most Christians see Jesus as a sacrificial animal and seek to profit off his death. When they say they "love" Jesus, they actually mean to say they love how Jesus can give them a free ticket to heaven.

The OP pursues the tactic of treating the New Testament as if it were the Koran, supposedly literal verbatim dictation from God. While there is a component of the Protestant minority among Chrisitans who do view thier canonical scriptures that way, the majority of Christians do not.

The New Testament was written by men, which is much of their point. The Epistles in particular are an intergenerational discussion of matters arising from the Christian revelation, especially at Calvary and the empty tomb, just as much of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is an intergeneratinal discussion among men about matters arising from the Sinai revelation.

The passage at hand, like so many others beloved of Muslim apologists, explores christology, rather than establishes some unitarian theology. One key feature of proto-orthodoxy is that Jesus is a man in full. And, of course, the orthodox view is that he is also God.

As a man, Jesus is said to behave as a man should. In brief, Jesus is a teaching example of piety. So, he prays. This is also actually psychologically trivial. The conscious ego routinely uses its resources, like speech, to summon the assistance of other parts of the self to meet challenges. People "talk to themselves" to rally in the face of hardship all the time. Jesus is people, except that when Jesus talks to himself, it is necessarily prayer, in the Nicene view.

The passage does not say that Jesus was seeking a way out. That is your retrojection onto the character of the prayers and petitions Jesus is said to offer. Jesus was indeed, in the orthodox view, saved from death."It cant be said that a man was saved from death AND was dead for 3 days." Umm, it can if the man is dead for only three days, and then lives ever after.

Verses 8 and 9 are about the redemptive value of suffering. Jesus, in the orthodox view, was in no need of instruction, but humanity was, and Jesus was the instructor. I applaud the unknown author of Hebrews for the choice of verb, to learn. Ominiscience is a curious quality if there are, in fact, things that can be known only to those who experience them.

I think it is reasonable to propose that there are. That this creates some tension with "Greek" understandings of Semitic concepts about God's "perfection" is certainly a feature of church history, but hardly anything that would eliminate Hebrews as an orthodox work.

Finally, your comment about "obey" points to a controversy that arises in the Christian world centuries after its canon is closed. The majority of living Chrisitans worldwide agree with you that more is required of the follower of Jesus than to believe in him.

However, a Protestant (that is, a member of the relatively recent and still minority way of reading the New Testament piously) would have no difficulty pointing out that Jesus instructed Paul. So, to "obey" Jesus is exactly to believe in him, as Paul teaches.

Long story short, if you aspire to pursue a Muslim apologetic founded on Christian scriptures, then you must first shed a Koranic perspective on what scripture is, and even narrowly ethnic notions about the character of God. Remember that the churches whom you try to rebut using these scriptures were built and maintained by people who knew your passages by heart.

In other words, your inability to reconcile cherry-picked snippets of scripture with the later development of Chrisitan theology isn't a reason for anybody else to change their beliefs. Know also that the only Christians who view their scriptures as you view the Koran are apt to believe that Islam is precisely the sort of anti-Christian movement, violence-prone and falsehood-promoting, that their scriptures foretell.

When people like that recite the aphorism, "The Devil can cite scripture to his own ends," then they aren't beling figurative. You will not reach them. For the rest of us, we can simply see that you fail to address what most of your opponents' views actually are, either talking past them or worse, straw-manning them.

reply to post by eight bits

The passage does not say that Jesus was seeking a way out. That is your retrojection onto the character of the prayers and petitions Jesus is said to offer.

We can clearly infer that Jesus was looking for a way out when he prayed asking for 'the cup to pass from him'. He did fear for his life... and prayed to God asking for help. He also said "let your will be done", meaning he had submitted to the will of God.

And as Hebrews states, he was saved from death because of this submission.

Jesus was indeed, in the orthodox view, saved from death."It cant be said that a man was saved from death AND was dead for 3 days." Umm, it can if the man is dead for only three days, and then lives ever after.

You are bringing up the resurrection here...which Hebrews 5:7-10 speaks NOTHING of. The verses simply says he prayed to be saved from death and he was heard.

Even if we go by what you say, Jesus would have known that he would be resurrected after 3 days. .. so Jesus didn't have to pray to be saved, in the first place.... and it would clearly establish that Jesus is NOT divine.

The majority of living Chrisitans worldwide agree with you that more is required of the follower of Jesus than to believe in him.

Not just believe in him.... but believe that he died for our sins and that one is saved only if he believes so. A man who believes in Jesus, but doesn't accept that he died for our sins is usually seen as "hellbound".

In other words, your inability to reconcile cherry-picked snippets of scripture with the later development of Chrisitan theology isn't a reason for anybody else to change their beliefs.

Aren't Christians experts at "cherry picking" isolated verses to base an entire theology around.
All I've done is point out whats there in that particular chapter of Hebrews.

If those 3 verses doesn't sit well with Christian theology about Jesus' divinity and the so called "sin sacrifice", the least you could do is acknowledge that there is a contradiction, instead of twisting and stretching verses to arrive at the conclusion that you want.

we can simply see that you fail to address what most of your opponents' views actually are, either talking past them or worse, straw-manning them.

Read through the thread and you will see that my opponents have been sidestepping the issue that I've raised through a variety of tactics.

- Bringing up unrelated verses from elsewhere in the bible and then weaving imaginary connections with the verses in question, so as to explain it away.
- Refusing to acknowledge obvious facts from the narrative... that Jesus could NOT be God because he prayed to God and was heard.
- Assigning their own meanings to key words such as "death"
- Accuse me of deceit and spreading lies.

...to name a few.

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

There are also plenty of statements from Jesus which shows that he is not God.

I don't think he says that he is not of some sort of exalted character such as what a god would be thought of.
There is a specific person who Christians think of as being God, who Jesus spoke of as his father, but in the thinking of the time, among the general population of the Empire, the fact that this single individual epitomized the whole of what would be thought of as God, would not exclude the possibility that Jesus could also be a god himself.
That may run counter to what some people would think of as a pure hebrewistic way of seeing deity, but I would assert that this is a mistaken assumption and based on a more modern version of Judaism and not what was the reality in the popular mind of the Jews in Jesus' time. The apocalyptic literature current then saw a messiah who was a type of deity very similar to how Christians think of the Christ. Since then, the Jews reacted by stepping back from that interpretation, so what we find today is not a good rule to measure what was the normal expectation back then. If Jesus seemed in error to his contemporaries, it would be that he was not god-like enough, rather than being too presumptuous of his position on the scale of exalted beings.

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

Also, it is you who claim that Jesus is man and God. Its not there in the bible. That very concept of a "man-god" resembles ancient Roman mythology, more than Abrahamic monotheism. Of course, thats no surprise considering Christianity was tainted in the hands of the Romans.

So what is "Abrahamic monotheism"?
The monotheism Abraham believed in, or what people in that tradition thought at any given moment?
If the second, then the thinking of those Abrahamic monotheists of the diasporic Hellenistic Jews of Jesus' day tended towards a Sethian gnosticism that believed that there was an ideal god-like man in heaven who was the model for the creation of mankind on earth, who was someone who could show up to be a messianic sort of savior.

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

The verse also shows us that he was begging to be saved.

He said "not as I will, but as you will"... meaning he had shown complete submission to God.
And as Hebrews 5:7 tells us, he was heard because of his reverent submission.

I think you are misconstruing this whole Hebrews thing, since it is not at all explicitly talking about something directly related to the Gethsemane prayer story.
Now that does not mean a preacher can not give a sermon where he looks at those two passages and draws some parallels to make one point or another, but what you are doing is just without support altogether and making a conclusion without any validity whatsoever.

A cute word I learned a couple days ago from Dickens' Little Dorrit, circumlocution, that he applied to a fictional government office of the Department of Circumlocution, where nothing ever gets done. The actual definition of the word comes from the parts combined to create it, to say something in a roundabout way. "The one who could save him from death" is a circumlocution for God.

reply to post by windword


I am not sure if this was posted, I am about half-way through this amazing thread. But I read in a rather interesting book that the Roman act of Crucifixion wasn't always deadly and in fact people actually do it willingly each year in a non-lethal crucifixion.

This is from wikipedia....

"Survival
Since death does not follow immediately on crucifixion, survival after a short period of crucifixion is possible, as in the case of those who choose each year as a devotional practice to be non-lethally crucified.
There is an ancient record of one person who survived a crucifixion that was intended to be lethal, but that was interrupted. Josephus recounts: "I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician's hands, while the third recovered."[43] Josephus gives no details of the method or duration of the crucifixion of his three friends before their reprieve."


Crucifixion

reply to post by jmdewey60

I think you are misconstruing this whole Hebrews thing, since it is not at all explicitly talking about something directly related to the Gethsemane prayer story.

It explicitly refers to the prayer at Gethsemane.... because thats the ONLY place where Jesus prays for his life to be saved.

From what I've gathered, Christians (not you, of course) are experts at compositing various unrelated verses to present "proof" of their doctrines*....and yet, when presented with a set of verses that explains what happened after Jesus prayed for help, they resort to their usual tactics to try and deny that.

reply to post by jmdewey60

So what is "Abrahamic monotheism"?
The monotheism Abraham believed in, or what people in that tradition thought at any given moment?

I used the term "Abrahamic monotheism" to refer to the belief of One God, which was held by Abraham, which is echoed by all the other later prophets.

Some quotes from Philo's tractate: Who is the Heir of Divine Things? that may suggest to the reader the idea that the Gospel was repeating a known version of the story about Abraham, familiar to its original readers, that is not so much to us now, (. . . and that lack of familiarity . . .) leading to speculative interpretations not consistent with the reality of the author's intention. The notable characteristic of Jesus' behavior in the hours after he makes the statement in this hypothetical (the potential witnesses being asleep) prayer is his silence when given the opportunity to defend himself, which would fit the quote below, which could be describing someone speaking in a way that puts him in danger and not when it could save him.

. . . he title lord, kyrios, is derived from the word kyros, authority, which is a firm thing, in contradistinction to that which is infirm and invalid, hakyron. But the term master, despoteµs, is derived from desmos, a chain; from which word deos, fear, also comes in my opinion, so that the master is the lord, and, as one may say a lord, to be feared, not only inasmuch as he is able to strike one with fear and terror; and perhaps also since he is the master of the universe; holding it together in such a manner as to be insoluble, and binding up again what portions of it are dissolved. But he who says, "Master, what wilt thou give unto me?" does, in the real meaning of his words say, this, "I am not ignorant of thy overpowering might, and I know the formidable nature of thy sovereignty: I fear and tremble, and again I feel confidence; for thou hast given me an oracular command not to fear . . .
. . . that I might know when I ought to speak . . .
. . . thou has appointed it to utter what ought to be spoken, confirming that sacred oracle, "I will open thy mouth, and I will tell thee what thou oughtest to Speak." . . .
. . . I do again confess that I am stricken with awe and amazement, and that I do not feel within myself an unmixed spirit of battle, but fear mingled with confidence . . .
. . . therefore I drink insatiably of this well-mixed cup, which persuades me neither to speak freely without prudent caution; nor, on the other hand, to think so much of caution as to lose my freedom of speech. For I have learnt to appreciate my own nothingness, and to look up to the excessive and unapproachable height of thy munificence; and whenever I know that I am myself "but dust and ashes, " . . .

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

It explicitly refers to the prayer at Gethsemane.... because thats the ONLY place where Jesus prays for his life to be saved.

Except that it does not say that.
The emphatic part of the Hebrews quote is that God heard Jesus' prayers.
Jesus, as our priest, prays to Him who can save (God), giving as an offering on our behalf, prayers, which God accepts, showing him as a true priest.
It does not say Jesus asked for his own life to be saved (in the Hebrews quote).

He also said "let your will be done", meaning he had submitted to the will of God.

Putting aside your anachronistic and foreign Islamic "meaning," accomplishing God's will was the point of his prayer. Jesus need only have stood up and walked out of the garden if his fear of pain and death had overridden his commitment to his mission. Nobody was there yet to stop him. His home was Galilee, which was outside Roman jurisdiction. He could simply have gone home, and stayed there in peace for the rest of his natural life.

In the event, he aligned his will with what he required of himself and got it done. Of course it would be nice if a mission could be accomplished without high cost. But if the mission cannot be accomplished except at a high cost, then either the mission or the alluring impossibility needs to be set aside.

People do this all the time. The world's maternity wards are full of women doing this right now as I type. Many of them are talking to themselves. The difference is that, unlike the woman in labor, in the Nicene conception, Jesus cannot talk to himself and not pray.

You are bringing up the resurrection here...which Hebrews 5:7-10 speaks NOTHING of.

But you did. You mentioned that Jesus was dead for three days. The English word for what Nicene Christians believe happened on the third day is the "Resurrection."

so Jesus didn't have to pray to be saved, in the first place...

He didn't pray to avoid death altogether. That's your reading of the verses you cherry-picked. As you yourself point out, that reading of yours is incoherent. And as I have added above, if being spared was his concern, then he needn't have prayed, he need only have walked away.

A man who believes in Jesus, but doesn't accept that he died for our sins is usually seen as "hellbound".

As I have already stated in my first post, that belief-centered view is held by some, and only some, Protestants. More than 2 out of 3 professing Christians belong to older, non-Protestant churches. "Usually" doesn't mean "held by a fraction of a minority."

All I've done is point out whats there in that particular chapter of Hebrews.

No, the four verses, read as you read them, aren't even representative of the chapter you plucked them from. The chapter boundaries were added much later. Hebrews is a letter, meant to be read as a whole in one sitting.

If those 3 verses doesn't sit well with Christian theology about Jesus' divinity and the so called "sin sacrifice", the least you could do is acknowledge that there is a contradiction, instead of twisting and stretching verses to arrive at the conclusion that you want.

I don't have a dog in the fight, Scorpie. I'm an agnostic. My concern is that you have misrepresented your opponents' position. I don't "want" the verses to say anything. I can read them, and have read more besides, so I can see that the verses don't say what you portray them as saying.

The only contradiction here is between what you have read into the verses, and what you seem to think the Nicene position actually is. I have acknowledged that contradiction fully.

Read through the thread and you will see that my opponents have been sidestepping the issue that I've raised through a variety of tactics.

Then by all means, take that up with them. However, you haven't raised any "issue." You've misread four verses from a much longer letter. People are entitled to some slack as they try to puzzle out why anybody would do that. Inevitably, some guesses will be wrong. That's not "sidestepping," it's just human fallibility. We're not mind readers, after all.

Originally posted by sk0rpi0nWe can clearly infer that Jesus was looking for a way out when he prayed asking for 'the cup to pass from him'. He did fear for his life... and prayed to God asking for help. He also said "let your will be done", meaning he had submitted to the will of God.

More accurately, to be saved from a horrific and very painful way to die - tortured to death.

It's not as simple as being hanged to death or beheaded which would be a lot less painful and quicker.

Anyone who can feel pain is very likely to deny such request.

Today, the subject of obedience, is demonically twisted. God will not ask you of anything that is too hard!

Oh really?? If it's not too hard, you don't even have to use faith! And without faith, it is impossible to please God!

reply to post by jmdewey60


Have you ever read of a bloodless sacrifice in the bible . That stipulation was prescribed by God not Christians . Jesus shed his blood before there was Christians . Before we had the bible of any kind to read he laid out the gift of Grace and Mercy with the blood . Christ died and his blood was spilled in the process as required by God the Father . Now if you have a problem with Gods way of handling things take it up with him .
You probably don't have to worry , I don't believe you have had any contact with the Blood of Christ .