A great deal has been written, preached and said about the great sacrifice
which Jesus made for the world. We deny that he made any such sacrifice as
is claimed for him by the Christian church. In fact, we cannot see, find
or learn from any record of the New Testament that he made any sacrifice
at all. This whole idea about the sacrifice of Jesus depends upon a
theological assumption.
Jesus had no earthly honor, position or estate to sacrifice, even had he
been disposed to offer such for the good of mankind. Not only is there no
evidence of any tangible renunciation possible by Jesus, but there is no
proof and no sign that Jesus possessed even the spirit of sacrifice. We
challenge the Christian admirer of Jesus to point to a single act of this
hero that can honestly be called a sacrifice. We know of no such act. We
have studied the gospels to find such an act, and we have studied them in
vain.
When a mother sees her boy pinned to the timbers of a wrecked car where
the scalding steam must escape into his face and destroy his life, and to
save her boy, voluntarily stands where this steam, with its hot breath,
will take her life instead of her boy’s, this mother makes a sacrifice
that is apparent, real. Such an act is sublime, grand, beyond heroism.
Such an act wipes the Christian slander of total depravity from human
nature. Such an act makes us almost worship the heart great enough to
perform it.
Jesus did no such things as this. He braved no danger for another. He did
not walk in the path of peril to save the life of friend or fellow. On the
contrary, he seemed bent on a selfish mission, inspired by a purely
personal ambition. He did not say: This world is suffering from
oppression; I will lay down my life to make it free. He did not seek to
destroy the throne and the sceptre that bear so heavily on the poor and
weak; but he sought a throne and a sceptre for himself that _he_ might
rule the world.
Jesus sacrifice himself for the world! No! He demanded that the world
sacrifice itself to exalt him! A poorer specimen of self-sacrifice could
hardly be found in all the historical out-of-the-way places that we know
anything about. Jesus had nothing to give up, nothing to renounce, nothing
but his life to offer to the world, _and this, even when it was taken, did
the world no good_.
The only incident in the whole career of Jesus which has been construed as
a sacrifice was his crucifixion, but this was not voluntary on the part of
the victim. _Jesus, in dying, made no sacrifice._ He surrendered his life
at the command of a political power; he did not offer it for the world’s
advancement. Jesus was the sport of circumstances, the victim of a cruel
fate. He played for high stakes and lost. He was an adventurer, and
suffered the penalty of failure. Taking the account of his career in the
gospels as true, it is totally barren of any lofty, sublime action for the
good of the human race. He did not throw his efforts into the public
strife to elevate the condition of the majority, but he loaded himself on
the shoulders of his followers to ride into divine greatness. Like
hundreds of others, he threw the dice of political chance and was beaten.
In following the gospel steps of the deluded Nazarene we are not sure
which are his and which are not, but take all the stories as true which
his devoted disciples have told about him, they do not reveal a mind
consecrated to any lofty purpose. He was working to establish the “kingdom
of heaven,” but nobody knows what that is. He talked about his “father in
heaven,” but nobody knows who he is. He had no practical ideas, he did no
practical work. History would have written this man’s name among the
unfortunate victims of political revolutions, if it had preserved it at
all, which is doubtful, but Jesus was made by priestcraft to play a
leading part in a theological drama, and religion has immortalized his
name.
But it is a false part that Jesus has played. No such character has any
reason for existing. The necessity for any human offering to God does not
exist. The idea of an atoning sacrifice is a relic of at barbarous faith.
It is time to take Christianity off the stage. It is an insult to the
twentieth century.
The silly, sickly superstition of the sacrifice of Jesus should be left to
die. It sprang from falsehood and has no basis in fact, in reason or in
truth.