Pages 616-617 … a dishonest Savior?
“How can we listen to you Scaughdt, when you take away the death & resurrection of Jesus? How can we listen to you when you believe that he faked his death?… The Jesus you speak of was a deceiver and a liar.”
Well, first of all, while I have indeed presented you & yours with an astounding amount of evidence from the Scriptures showing how Jesus might indeed have intended to “fake” his death on the cross, I have never claimed he did so. Indeed, it is actually my personal preference to believe that he never intended to have people believe that he actually died at all; desiring instead to have people finally come to comprehend the message he had unsuccessfully tried to share with them up to that point; namely, that joyful self-sacrifice was the way – indeed, The Way – for us all to enter the state of pure bliss he called “the Kingdom of Heaven” (see Luke 17:20-21 + John 13:15-17 + Matthew 16:24 + Matthew 25:40), and that things then simply got out of hand after his crucifixion was carried out.
That having been said, I do contend that the Scriptures clearly show that Jesus probably did indeed fully pre-plan & thoroughly pre-organize his own crucifixion – which was in my opinion a decision that required an incredible amount of self-sacrifice & a phenomenal amount of courage – amounts of which humanity has yet to see repeated since. In truth, it was to honor Jesus that I presented evidence showing that this probably was the case. After all, what shows him the greater honor – that he was pre-determined to hang from the Cross after being placed there against his will, or that he purposefully chose to make that great & terrifying sacrifice in order to symbolically show us his Way of selfless, perfect Love?
And as far as you feeling that I portray Jessu as a liar — well, I can see why you would feel that way, my Friend. And yet that is most certainly not how I personally feel about Jesus’ crucifixion, nor is it how I feel the Scriptures show Jesus to be … Yes, it is pretty clear that Jesus was incredibly frustrated with his inability to get people (even his own disciples) to understand what he was actually sharing with them. They kept wanting him to be the Son of God – or the saving Messiah – or even the God Himself, and yet that was NOT who Jesus felt he was (see Mark 10:18 & Mark 12:35-37), nor was that what he wanted to be (see John 5:41 & John 8:50-54 et al). Instead, he simply wanted people to understand that there was a way to live life (a manner of being towards others that he called “The Way”) that allowed anyone practicing it to Bliss-fully experience a literal re-union with the all-Loving essence that resides at the foundation of the Universe; the all-Loving essence Jesus called his “Father”; the all-Loving presence many of us call “God” (see Matthew 5:48 + John 14:20 et al).
And the way to access this State of BEing – the way to enter what Jesus called “The Kingdom of Heaven” (see Luke 17:20-21 + most of his parables, all of which clearly speak of Heaven in the present tense) – was to purposefully and joyfully sacrifice one’s own comfort &/or abandon one’s own desires in order to further the Peace &/or Joy of others; especially in those times when we least wanted to do so, and especially for those people “least deserving” of the same (see Matthew 5:44-48; Luke 6:37-38 et al).
Well, as it turns out (and as the Scriptures plainly show), despite his incredibly patient and wonderfully clever way of teaching that Truth, folks just weren’t getting it. This led a highly frustrated Jesus to come up with his ultimate plan – he would stop telling people about his Way, and he would radically show them instead … And the Scriptures clearly show that this is exactly what he did – where, enlisting the aid of Joseph of Arimathea (and Pontius Pilate, & Mary Magdalene, & Judas Iscariot, & more than a few others), Jesus pre-planned & fully orchestrated his own crucifixion; showing everyone in quite graphic detail thereby that joyful self-sacrifice was not only possible, but that it was The Way … But don’t merely take my word for it, you can go to www.issuu.com and check out the article of Biblical scholarship I wrote on the subject (entitled “Exhuming Easter”) and let the Bible tell the tale for itself!
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