Not since my days of reading Søren Kierkegaard in college have I thought up another doubly ironic situation as it comes to Jesus Christ (not like I "dreamed it up" as this idea was already there, waiting for someone to point out!)...
I was reading 2 Nephi 25: 12-13, which states-
12- ... when the day cometh that the Only Begotten of the Father, yea, even the Father of heaven and of earth, shall manifest himself unto them in the flesh, behold, they will reject him, because of their iniquities, and the hardness of their hearts, and the stiffness of their necks.
13- Behold, they will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God...
Now, Christ came to this earth to redeem all of those children of our Heavenly Father who would accept his atonement and follow his commandments, plus all who are born here will automatically be resurrected once they've passed-on from this life. Yet, the Jews are so wicked that they have crucified their God. Now, nobody but the Jews were so acquainted with their God, Jehovah, and yet they took offense to Him and His teachings and His example enough to murder him in the most cruel manner ever thought of!
Now, as if that wasn't ironic enough, this was all part of the plan from the beginning. Christ knew very well, perfectly well, what price he would have to pay to fulfill his mission here on earth; he knew that he would have to make a blood atonement for all mankind and he knew that it would be the very same people that he came-to, lived with, ate dinner with, taught, was friends with--think of your neighbor, your bishop, your best friend's dad--and those people were going to be the ones to take offense and be angered enough to murder him! The double irony comes to when you realize that those people were the only people born of our Heavenly Father who would kill their God!
In 2nd Nephi, chapter 10, verse 3, we read:
Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ—for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name—should come among the Jews, among those who are the more wicked part of the world; and they shall crucify him—for thus it behooveth our God, and there is none other nation on earth.
And, to add irony to double irony, the reason that we are told they crucified their God was:
Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. (John 5: 18)
JPS
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