Was the cross Cosmic Child Abuse?

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Welcome to the Rapid Bull, daily edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of striving for eternity. This week we take a look at an argument often made by professing atheists, and that is the claim that when

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Jesus Christ was on the cross, that was cosmic child abuse by God the Father. As we look at this, we're going to see that that is not a valid argument.

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First off, we're going to see that it is in a logical argument. Second, we're going to see that Jesus Christ was not sent to the cross or punished to go to the cross.

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He volunteered to go to the cross, and all this is a purpose is to avoid the meaning of the cross and why

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Christ actually came. And they do this because they want to avoid their accountability to a holy

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God. We need to pray for those that profess to be atheists. We need to take their arguments and examine them and find that they're very easy to take apart once we know what they're saying.

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You know, we have hear sometimes from professing atheists that Jesus Christ being put on the cross is some form of cosmic child abuse.

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Now, let us take a look at that argument. The argument is that God the Father putting

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Jesus Christ on the cross as a punishment for others is abusing his son.

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Now, there's a lot of problems with the statement, but they're not usually too good at thinking through those things.

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As we look at this, first off, it assumes that a father cannot be just.

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In other words, I would not want to be the child of a father who says that his role is to give the child everything that they want and there should never be any justice.

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In fact, we must have justice. As parents, we must provide justice to our children.

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They must know right from wrong. Spoiling a child is the worst thing you can do because the child ends up growing up thinking they're entitled to everything and not fitting in well in society.

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Even worse, they think that they will don't have to give an account for what they've done wrong.

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And therefore, when they stand before God, there is a judgment that they will suffer because they never looked for justice on God's standard, but on their own, which would be giving them everything they want.

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Now, what we want to look at next is the fact that Jesus was a willing participant to the cross.

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He wasn't forced to go to the cross. It's something that he chose to do. Now, those people who try to argue and say that Jesus was somehow suffering child abuse because the father sent

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Jesus to the cross, well, one thing they show is they really don't know the scriptures all that well.

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Because what we end up seeing is the fact that Jesus went to the cross voluntarily.

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That's right. That's exactly what we see in the scriptures.

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In Luke chapter 9 verse 22, Jesus says in that verse saying,

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The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.

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Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. He could have, he even says before Pilate, when

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Pilate says, Do you answer me nothing? And Jesus end up saying he has the authority to call down legions of angels.

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But that's not what he's gonna do. He says to Pilate, You can do nothing but what the

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Father allows. And so he knew this was his mission. Jesus voluntarily went to the cross.

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It was not child abuse and ultimately the reason it's not child abuse is because of a logical fallacy that we'll see next time.

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And that is that Jesus isn't a son the way we think of a son.

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Whenever you're talking to people who make claims like the fact that the cross was somehow some cosmic child abuse, you'll often see that people like that don't think through things logically and reasonably.

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In fact, it is a logical fallacy. What fallacy? It is the fallacy of equivocation.

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What's the fallacy of equivocation? Well, that is when you use a term, in this case the word son, and you use it with two different meanings.

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Jesus is called the Son, God the Son or the Son of God and his title is the

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Son within the Trinity. So you have God the Father, God the Son, God the

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Holy Spirit. His title is the Son. But when you talk about child abuse, it is a child.

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Now son is used in a different way. It's the idea of a son that is the offspring of a parent and therefore the parent somehow does something to the child who has no ability to say no or to defend himself and is being abused because of the authority of the parent.

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Now in that sense, Jesus Christ is not a son. He is not a son as an offspring that is one that has a parent.

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And so here you see a fallacy of equivocation being utilized in order to make the claim that the cross was cosmic child abuse.

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It is not logical. Now when you see people that make a claim like Jesus somehow was being abused by going to the cross, it shows that they have a lack of understanding of what the cross was about and a lack of understanding that the cross was purposeful in the plan of Jesus Christ for the salvation of mankind.

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Not only for the salvation of mankind, but as he says in John 16 7 down to 11, he had to go so that the

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Comforter would come. He even says that it is better if he goes because if he goes the idea of him going means he is going not only to the cross but going to resurrection.

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He's going to the Father. In fact, he says that. And so we know that Jesus Christ voluntarily went to the cross.

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It cannot be abuse because he was not being forced there by the Father which is not his father the way they are using it in the term of child abuse.

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Now I say this because this is something you hear used over and over again by professing atheists and yet it shows the problems that they have.

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They do not understand the scriptures well enough to know the problems in their line of argumentation.

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You see Jesus was not forced to the cross. He voluntarily went to the cross and the thing they want to avoid is the why?

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He went to the cross so he could be a payment of sin for mankind because men are accountable to God even if they don't want to admit it.

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So what we end up seeing is that when people make the claim that Jesus being on the cross was cosmic child abuse, not only is it illogical because it's a logical fallacy of equivocation by using the term son in two different ways, but we also see that it lacks an understanding of Scripture.

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It lacks an understanding that God the Father was not the only one that chose to send

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Jesus Christ to the cross. No, God the Son voluntarily went to the cross. He knew all along he was going to the cross and at no point does he say he was forced to do so.

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Child abuse requires force. You don't see that in the scriptures why

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Jesus went to the cross. He voluntarily came to earth as a man for the purpose of the cross.

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The scripture is quite clear. Now the reason they want to do this and make the claim that it's somehow child abuse is because those same people want to avoid the meaning of the cross and it is essential for that we understand that.

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The meaning of the cross is that you and I break God's law and in the violation of God's law we're accountable to God and would be seen as guilty.

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However, God himself became a man and suffering as a man went to the cross to suffer the ultimate consequence by suffering the eternal consequence for other human beings so that though he died we could be set free and he proved he was

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God by raising himself from the dead three days later. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry.