In the Old Testament, in order to test Abraham’s commitment to the Old Law, Yahweh commanded him to slay his ownly son, Isaac, and then burn his body in sacrifice. Thereafter, Abraham built an altar. With the help of young Isaac, father and son collected the very wood to be used to make Isaac into a burnt offering to the Almighty.
At the last minute as Abraham raises his arm above Isaac’s body, his hand clutching the sharp killing weapon, an angel of God grabs Abraham’s arm. "Do not lay a hand on the boy," the angel said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son" (Gene
sis 22:12).
Although Biblical believers are thrilled to chant Yahweh’s goodness in sparing Isaac, and Abraham’s courage in obeying him, little mention is ever made of the other murders of men, women, and children sanctioned by God and carried out by the chosen ones of the Old Testament. The more abominable commands of Yahweh are not often dwelt on: rape captured virgins, kill the elderly, take slaves, overrun and keep property. Yet, Christ as the eternal Logos, one with the Father, was there with Yahweh.
Lastly, consider the most heinous crime ever committed on planet Earth, a crime which is reverse engineered as an act of love and redemption for all human beings and for all time. I am speaking of God killing—the murder of Jesus Christ. This unspeakable act of allowing and even arranging human actions/history so that a group of people are driven to murder their God as a human/divine sacrifice for the sin of mankind has no possible equal in the past, the present, or the future.
Abraham was merely tempted by God to kill his son Isaac as an act of abeyance. Not so with God’s own Son, the Christ. What’s worse is that his death was to somehow atone to the angry, embittered God of the Old Testament for all the sin mankind could ever commit. It is impossible for me to make sense of this horrific act of indecency.
How has it become possible that torture and killing of a God, any God, are considered an appropriate blood sacrifice? How is it possible that religion has so twisted human thinking that this ghastly act of out-and-out murder has been glorified and honored for well over two thousand years?
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