This segment will serve as the What Do You Mean “Suffer”???
This essay will be parsed into the following segments:
Part 1: What’s In A Name???
Part 2: What is Prayer???
Part 3: Teach Us How to Chant???
Part 4: Is There a Magic Word???
Part 5: Let My People Conform???
Part 6: Thou Shalt Not “Kill” or Not “Murder”???
Part 7: Is it All Our Fault???
Part 8: What Do You Mean “Suffer”???
Part 9: Christ the Temporary???
Part 10: Does the Bible Say???
Parker/Prabhupada wrote,
“when you commit sinful activities, you must suffer—not Jesus Christ. This is God’s law.”[2]
Parker/Prabhupada appears to be confused about what sort of suffering Jesus came to take away. There is the temporal, physical, emotional suffering which we experience while in the world. This suffering is sometimes due to our own personal sin and other times due to the fact that we live in a fallen world of entropy. There is also the ultimate suffering, the eternal suffering. That suffering is being eternally separated from God by our own choice, by our rejection of Him (see my essays On Hell and
Why Would Your Lord Send You To Hell?).
When David sinned with Bathsheba and was confronted by Nathan the prophet “David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the LORD.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die” (2nd Samuel 12:13).
We see that David’s sin had been forgiven “However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die’” (2nd Samuel 12:14). Although David had been forgiven and would not have to suffer eternal punishment after death, he did commit a very grievous sin by showing the gentiles that a man of God was acting immorally. The suffering which he suffered was the death of his child, and being personally responsible for the blaspheming God. This is a clear example of temporal vs. eternal suffering.
Likewise with Paul who has mightily used by God, who planted many churches and who wrote most of the New Testament. He certainly was forgiven of his many and terrible sins. However, Paul was made to suffer a “thorn in the flesh” in order to keep him humble (2nd Corinthians 12:7).
Also Paul dealt with suffering in various situations because suffering is a fact of life, especially for a servant of the LORD,
“From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness; besides other things, what comes upon me daily; my deep concern for all the churches” (2nd Corinthians 11:24-28).
It seems that Parker/Prabhupada has missed the whole point of the gospel, the good news, which is that Jesus Christ came to do that towards which animal sacrifices merely pointed.
When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden they made a covering of fig leaves in an attempt to cover their sin. This was not at all acceptable to God, who sacrificed an animal for their sin and made a covering of animal skin to cover their sin, their nakedness (See Genesis 3:21).
Likewise, regarding the sacrificial system, the Torah offers only a temporary covering for sin, one that points towards the coming Messiah.
The Passover Lamb, for example, would take sin away for merely a year. Jesus came to fulfill the Law and to become the ultimate, unblemished sacrifice for the sin of the world, past, present and future as He stated, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). He fulfilled the requirement of the Law for a blood sacrifice and made the ultimate atonement. He paid the ultimate price for sin and He paid it in full once and for all forever and ever amen.
For us to turn to chanting is to deny the atonement of Jesus on the cross. To believe in works such as chanting for salvation is to look at Messiah, the unblemished sacrificial lamb in the eyes and say, “You are not good enough, your perfect sinless life and your unfathomable humble death for us is just not enough. I’m here to finish the work you left undone.”
The Bible teaches,
“By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God…” (Hebrews 10:10-12).
The main thing is not just that we could not possibly do enough good works, or that we could but we just do not do so, but that there are no more works to do—the sacrifice has already been made.
The blood atonement for sin has been shed, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).
From the cross Jesus cried “It is finished!” (John 19:30).
The Greek word He used was street language meaning “paid in full,” as when we make a purchase and pay for it completely and then owe nothing else. The debt for sin has been paid in full. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God…” (1st Peter 3:18).
Chanting is not a blood sacrifice and therefore can never take away sin. Grace is God’s undeserved favor, the undeserved forgiveness He offers us. The scripture teaches that we are saved by grace so works are of no merit; if we are saved by works then grace is of no affect. Therefore, if grace is then works are not and if works are then grace is not (see Ephesians 2:9 and my essay Oh, My Goodness!!!).
[1] The whole article that is being commented on is called “Christ, Christians, & Krishna by Nathan Parker. Srila Prabhupada Speaks Out: On Christ, Christians, and Krsna.” (BTG—Vol. 12, No. 12, Dec. 1977)
[2] Ibid.
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