Diakon Lesson 3
| 3A Questions | 3B Questions | 3C Questions |
The Satisfaction Theory is presupposed in many ancient theological writings. Esoteric Kristians do not believe God the Father really needed to be “satisfied” by seeing his son brutally sacrificed and bleed to death.
We will explore three articles to correct mistakes in the ancient satisfaction theory:
But first let’s read about the Satisfaction Theory itself. Please go to this short page,
Jesus’ Sacrificial
Death and read but do not click on the three article links it suggests. We’ll read those articles in a minute, but first scroll down past them and read also the paragraph at the bottom of that same
page. Then hit your Back button and return to this page.
Are you back? Did you read the Jesus’ Sacrificial Death intro? Now we will look at the three articles which aim to correct the mistakes in satisfaction theory. Please answer the sets of questions below that go with each article.
Diakon 3A Read the article,
Is God a
Dictator? and answer the following questions.
Questions: Send answers to the
School with Diakon 3A from __________ (your name) subject line.
| 1. Do good parents dictate? How do they instruct their children?2. T or F: The God of the Bible always treats us like children, wanting our blind obedience.
3. How did Yeshua’s encounter with the Samaritan woman, the “woman at the well,” and his resulting unplanned stay in her city, show his feeling about administering eternal life to all humankind? [Side Note: she is the first in recorded history (Gospels) to proclaim him the Messiah. Usually Peter gets credit for first mouthing the words, but actually it was this gentile woman. Can’t have a mere woman proclaiming the messiah, however, so her story was overlooked and the significance of this event ignored, just as Yeshua’s official anointing was ignored because a woman did it.] 4. T or F: Yeshua measured his own response against the yardstick of love. This is how he determined the will of the Father. 5. T or F: The Father could never have sanctioned a sin like the innocent murder of Jesus. 6. T or F: Yeshua gave his life as the Good Shepherd who would not leave his “sheep” during times of trouble, but willingly died for them instead. |
The Samaritan Woman at the Well |
![[Image]](https://northernway.org//wp-content/uploads/2017/02/womanatwell.jpg)
7. Fill in the blanks: “The Father did not _________Jesus to be killed, which would have been cruel indeed. No, the Father _________ Jesus with _________ so that he _________ died for us.”
8. Fill in the blanks: The commandments and teachings of the Church are ____________ that help us when, on the strength of our considered ____________, we _________ God’s will for us in our specific ______________.
9. T or F: Christians do not live under law, but under grace and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
10. What is the one word the Law is fulfilled in?
Diakon 3B
Top
Read the article
Did
God Demand Bloody Satisfaction?
Questions: Send answers to the
School with subject line Diakon
3B from _______ (your magikal name)
1. T or F: Back in “Bible times” the king of Moab sacrificied his son on the city walls to appease the god of Moab and save his city from being taken over by the enemy–the Israelites.
2. T or F: Child sacrifice was a common practice among the ancient Israelites.
3. Describe the way in which children were sacrificed to Melek.
(If
this is too gory for some of you who are mothers, upsetting, etc., please
write “too disturbing to write about” and go to the next question. Males
and non-mothers you can not get off the hook. If you can stomach it,
please answer it. Only takes 3 or 4 sentences, really.)
The idol was a hollow bronze statue with an opening in the back where a fire could be started. The child would be placed on the outstretched arms of Melek and would be burnt by the flaming hot bronze, or would role down the arms into the open belly of the idol to be consumed in the fire. Sometimes the children were stabbed first, but often they were burned alive.
4. Who built the shrine to Melek at Topheth?
5. Fill in the blanks: The practice of sacrificing children to Melek endured in the Israelite monarchy and among the common people until the reforms by King ______, who ironically was a child king. He came to the throne at age 8 and would have heard the screams of children and their mothers. He then chose Yahweh El as the official god of the people and had the Torah re-written or edited to match this. (750 BC). Why did he choose Yahweh? Probably because Yahweh had TURNED DOWN a child sacrifice (_____ name of victim Yahweh turned down) instructing the victims father, Abram ,to use a substitue, the ____ caught in the thicket, sent by God. Ah, escape from the cannibal god, and so the Yahwist priests were given supremacy and everything else was torn down. Unfortunately (and this is why we are ticked at Josiah, even though we are proud of him for getting rid of child sacrifice) the worship of __________ was erased from the books, too, and her holy places torn down even though no human sacrifice was ever made to her. Josiah was under the sway of a powerful priesthood by this time (age 18) who conveniently “discovered” documents to support their doctrines. (See the story in 2 Kings, and we discussed this in
Diakon Lesson 1)
6. What Indian practice was substituted for human sacrifice?
7. T or F: Ancient Israelites sacrificed their children because of the conditions of their times; since there was no birth control and sustenance was scarce children were considered ubiquitous. Parents were less likely to have a bond of love with their children than they do now. Child sacrifice was a means of population control.
8. Fill in the blanks: Jung states that gods are _____________ in our subconcious, the origin of our __________. Dreams can heal, if they are properly ___________ and if their contents are faced with ___________.
9. T or F: Some Christian theologians teach that God could not simply forgive sins through an act of mercy; satisfaction had to be offered to his justice. Yeshua was made a blood offering to satisfy this demand out of an act of divine love. God wanted Yeshua to die for our sins.
10. Did the God of the Old Testament approve of the Israelites’ practice of child sacrifice?
11. John and Yeshua teach that his crucifixion was a sin and a crime. Could a just God have willed this act to take place?
|
Yeshua Enthroned as King of Kings, by Greg Olsen 13. T or F: The resurrection’s equal importance to the crucifixion teaches us that it was Yeshua’s life that liberated us from our sins, not his death. 14. T or F: In his role as High Priest Yeshua offered the gift of himself, which unfortunately resulted in his death, and became the supreme sacrifice of reconciliation that fulfilled and replaced all other sacrifices. 15. T or F: Expressions of “Yeshua paid the price with his blood” are only valid when it is understood Yeshua’s death was the culmination of the sacrifice of his life, not a debt of satisfaction to be paid to a demanding God. 16. Fill in the blanks: When Christians sacrificed innocent lives during the Inquisition and other historic episodes, they were in fact worshipping ___________, not the Christian God of mercy and love _____________ taught us about. |
12. Why did Yeshua’s death “please” the Father, if you can call it “pleasing”?Perhaps it would be better to look at this concept as God “allowed” or did not try to prevent Yeshua’s death to take place. He respected Yeshua’s decision to give himself up so that only one would die rather than his whole following and family be persecuted. The Romans were known for crucifiying people by the thousands–jews specifically–in one case running out of crosses so they nailed them to the city walls. Yeshua did not want his family, students and movement stamped out. The Romans were none too happy with the popular revolt caused by Yeshua’s followers who were attempting to put him on the throne as a King of the Jews (even though Yeshua probably did not want to be such a secular ruler). Rome wanted to keep the governement of Judea as it was–a Protectorate with a governor, Pontius Pilate, and a puppet King Herod Antipas who wasn’t even a Jew, but an Idumean convert to Judaism who suited the Roman’s uses just fine. The Caeser at the time, Tiberius, did not want another petty monarchy under him, the Empire had enough troubles with secondary kings elsewhere. Plus, Yeshua’s people were calling him a King among Kings, challenging even the supremacy of Caesar in Rome, or so Tiberius was led to believe by Pilate. Pontius Pilate was a nasty so-and-so, Josephus the Jewish historian, lived at the same time as Pilate, even worked in his government!, and described him as a violent, ruthless tyrant second only to the evils of Herod. When Christianity got hijacked by the Roman Emperor and became the State religion of the Empire, certain parts of the story were changed to make the Romans via Pilate look “blameless” and to blame the death of Yeshua on the Jews, “those christkillers, the jews” was a popular saying for centuries, including in the 1900’s.)
Anyway, the question here is 12. IF there is any one thing that might have “pleased” God about Yeshua’s death, what would it have been? |
17. What ancient patriarch attempted to sacrifice his own son? Did God allow him to do it? Did you know that Solomon’s Temple was later built on that very hill, perhaps on the rock of sacrifice itself? Six hundred years after the second Temple’s destruction the muslim Dome of the Rock building was erected over the rock. It sits with its gleaming golden dome on the Temple Mount to this day and visitors can go inside and see the rock, which is surrounded by a black iron railing built by the Knights Templar during their time protecting the building. The designer of the dome modeled it after the nearby Christian Church of the Holy Sepulcher which in the 600’s AD also had eight sides and a single cupola or “dome.” You can read more about this at www.TempleMount.org. Muslims also claim it was the rock Mohammed used to ascend into heaven, but they only started claiming that in the 1800’s. Up until then they revered it as the rock of sacrifice used to slay that ram caught in the thicket, which is the question—who was that Patriarch? And did God permit him to go thru with it? Click here to see Rembrandt’s painting of
A
Father about to sacrifice his Son with the Angel of the Lord arriving on the scene.
18. Some medieval theologians taught that Mother Mary was the sacrificial High Priestess at the crucifixion of Yeshua, because she was at the foot of the cross seemingly “presiding.” (If interested in these arguments, see these two articles:
Mary as
a Sacrificial Priest and
Why must Mary be
considered a Priest?). If the satisfaction theory is false, does this invalidate their teaching? Why might it still be significant?
Diakon
3C
Top
Read the article
Did
God Want to See Blood?, read the comments below, then answer the following questions.
Sir Ivarr of York, upon completing this lesson, wrote: I must take issue with some of the points made by Womenpriests.org. They say that Christians are hardened by their idea of God. I disagree. They seem to be implying that it was only Christians that perpetrated all the horrible crimes of slavery, torture, war and whatnot. These atrocities were also committed by Muslims, Hindus, Pagans, Buddhists, Africans, Communists, etc. I would put forward that it was the “hard resolve” of Christians and, only Christians, and their belief in God’s love (not vengeance) that drove Christians to fight so hard to abolish these crimes against humanity and defeat those who commit them. I think a lot of Christians would appreciate someone saying sure, all these terrible things happened, but only the Christian community fights hard every day, day in and day out, to improve the lives of millions who suffer. We have won a great many of these battles over the last 2000 years. But, unfortunately there’s a long way to go.
Katia adds: Even Hindu and Buddhist nations, whose faith focuses on ahimsa (non-violence) and ending suffering, have not done much of anything politically to make the world a safer place for human minds to grow up healthy and start to evolve. Perhaps the reason is because they are so enmired in their own problems (fighting Islam in India’s case, Communism in China’s case). Christian nations were the first to abolish slavery. Many non-Christian nations still have slavery to this day.
You and I don’t agree with mainstream Christian theology – we are esoteric Kristians — but we agree that Western Christian-influenced culture is the best for human safety and spiritual evolution. You can’t develop spiritually or even mentally if thread, bread and shed are daily threatened by the whims of some religious fanatic (like the Ayatollahs and clerics) or sadistic evil dictator. Esoteric Kristians/Christians refuse to stoop to bashing Christianity, even though the fundamentalist dogma-freaks have corrupted the teachings and scared off so many with their religious abuse. We Mystery School members are part of the esoteric inner core of Christianity, the mystics and contemplatives, the quiet ponderers of the profound who insist on direct contact with the Divine. We can love our lesser evolved brothers and sisters of the outer Church, and we can certainly resist Christianity-bashing.
Questions: (Send answers to the
School with Diakon 3C subject line)
1. Fill in the blanks: Yeshua was the __________ of God, the ___________ lamb, who unlike the other lambs sacrificed at __________, would take away the sins of the entire world. [Keep in mind that our Church of the Way and the Mystery School do not teach that Yeshua died for the “sins” or mistakes of the world. He did die to save his family, followers and message, and he did accomplish something during that descent into hell while the Magdala anchored him and pulled him back, but he was not paying a blood price for some domineering sin obsessed god. Our mistakes do not have to be “paid” for, but they do have a negative affect on us and Yeshua tried to teach ways to end the suffering cycle brought on by mistakes (otherwise known as sin). ]
2. T or F: Satisfaction Theory states that God had been dishonored by humanity’s sins. This hurt could only be made up for by someone giving “satisfaction”, so God offered his Son as the blood sacrifice to satisfy this demand out of divine love for humanity. God wanted Yeshua to die so that by his blood we could be purified of our sins. Unfortunately, this concept is in line with honor killing, and brings to mind the honor killings in the middle east where a muslim man can lawfully kill his wife or daughter if either of them dishonors him by being “too worldly.” This is a dark ages worldview and implies that it’s okay to take a life, an innocent pure life, if you’ve been dishonored. It doesn’t make sense for God to get caught up in this unbending line of thinking. God is not obsessed with his own honor to the point of demanding blood to “clean” it.
3. Who is one philosopher who wrote about the incongruity and sadistic nature of this doctrine?
4. T or F: Some of the “hardness” of God rubs off on Christian believers.
5.Fill in the blank: The result of the doctrine of satisfaction theory is a spirituality of ________.
6. T or F: John consistently presents Yeshua’s death as an unlawful murder, and therefore a crime. Yeshua refers to his execution as a sin. [Additional thought: Judas is considered a traitor of the vilest kind, yet supposedly he was doing God the Father’s will?]
7. Can a just God instigate a crime or want a sin to take place?
8. Fill in the blanks: Yeshua was not like a __________ who is unconcerned about the well-being of the __________ and who runs away in the face of danger. No, he was the good __________ who was willing to die for them.
9. T or F: The Father did not want Yeshua’s death in itself, but as a necessary component of Jesus’ fidelity.
[Again, this is not exactly in keeping with our Church’s teaching, the author of the article is struggling with finding an answer to the “Why did Yeshua really die?” question, too. We all have to grapple with this one. Our esoteric teachings are that he intended to die all along, but of old age. He planned on teaching a lot longer and reaching more people, he was enjoying time spent with his Goddess, they had been separated since the creation of evil when she made a conscious choice to remain on earth to wait with her children for the Son (Jesuits say it was Father God) to come take human form, die, descend and defeat the Evil One. Yeshua may have come to earth to live an earthly life and then to eventually die (perhaps of old age, not by betrayal and bloody execution!) in order to descend into hell, while the Goddess (in Mary Magdala) anchored him, pulling him back up after he confronted the Evil One hiding therein and took back the Keys of Death and Hell which were “locked” inside the Hall of Souls / Hell/ Limbo so that the Prince of Darkness who Ruled the world at the time could not touch them. Gnostic teachings during Yeshua’s time, and Kabbalistic thought say that the Great Mother Goddess (Sophia, Shekinah) had accidentally created a flawed Prince of Darkness named Ialdabaoth and before she knew he was bad, had given him the keys to life on planet earth. She planned to leave him in charge, he would be companion to the female Mother Earth, a system used on other planets according to kabbalistic mysteries (very deep mysteries) and hinted at in the book of Job. But her Planetary Prince was flawed because she made him without God the Father’s cooperation (the latter being delayed with other business up in the highest heaven!) and so Ialdobaoth turned evil and threatened all humans–the children of God and Goddess–corrupting them and ruining their godspark within. God the Father finally arrived to the new planet and the first thing he said to Sophia was, “We’ve gotta nuke this planet.” She protested saying she loved this batch of humans above all else and couldn’t we please do something to get the keys back from that nasty “god-devil” who hides in the underworld? God answered with perhaps a sigh, “Yeah, there’s something we can do, but it’ll take time to plan. If we kill him, the fragile egg that is the earth will die. Since you gave him the keys to Earth, if we call him to us and engage him one on one the whole planet will come down around us, all the people will be lost. If you want to save them, we have to do this quietly and subtly–in human form. We’ll meet every Friday night after sundown for 24 hours to make our plans.” (Kabbalah teaches that God and Shekinah reunite once a week on Friday nights, this is an integral part of workings and techniques to Mend the Separation and End the Exile. Married Jewish couples are encouraged to engage in marital relations every Friday night to honor the God/Goddess reunion.) The Father God and Goddess of the Presence (Shekinah who remained “present” with us) began their planning stage. They chose a people from one of the first clans near the Garden of Eden itself, a people who were highly literate and tuned into the Word (90% literacy of Hebrews in the ancient world compared to 1 to 3 % in all other cultures). They were the people of the Book. Finally the day came when he and she both took bodily form in order to grow up, figure out who they were, and then fulfill the mission: descend into hell (ignorance) and get the keys (of knowledge and life) back for humanity without destroying the whole planet.]
10. How did Yeshua giving his life freely suggest God the Father was not using him as a blood sacrifice?
(see hint below)
11. Fill in the blanks: “No man has greater _________ than the one who is prepared to give his ___________ for his ____________.”
(c’mon now,
you can do this one without looking back at the article. Your memory should
fill in the blanks for ya)
12. T or F: God sent us his Son to teach us about love and how we can overcome our sins.
12. Fill in the blank: Perfect love overcomes _________.
13. Essay: What does the realization that God IS Love mean for you in your life?
Hint for question 10: On the Easter Cycle page in the Holy Saturday section we explain a little how the Hall of Souls / Limbo / Hell was locked by the Creators after the Fall so Satan would not devour all the unborn human souls inside. Children of Eve who later died also went to the Hall of Souls, to the Limbo section of the Hall of Souls to what Jews call Sheol and Anglo-Saxon Norse pagans named Hell. Yeshua called that place Paradise, he said so from the cross telling the theif on his right that he would be together with him in Paradise very soon. Islam, some Christian theologians, the Mormons, etc. also call that limbo / hell place “Paradise”. It is not heaven, by the way, but that’s another topic. Anyway, Yeshua had to die a mortal’s death in order to enter that locked place and thus unlock it (“retrieve the Keys of Death and Hell”) so humans who had died could move on/ evolve to the next level on the “path to salvation”, could re-incarnate in some cases. He DID come to this earth to die, but intended to die of natural causes hopefully of old age. Dark Forces intervened and scored one small point — Jesus died early and suffered horrible pain. But he still got his ticket to Hell and “set the captives free” so that Prince of Darkness, Ruler of this World at the time, could still not break in and devour the unborn and the souls of the dead, but they could transmigrate if they needed to. If that’s too radical for you, you can go with this more traditional explanation: Yeshua chose to complete his mission of teaching humankind about love even if it meant dying; God the Father did not force Yeshua to die, he did not ask him to submit to being murdered and bleed out on a cross. It was Yeshua’s decision, but once it was made God did his best to make Yeshua’s “sacrifice” a model of divine love for humanity.