Christianity basics

[Hotandbothereds]

I’m not a practicing Christian but I went to C of E primary school, regularly attended Sunday school with my grandparents as a child, so I feel like I know a lot of the Bible and always thought I had a good grasp of the religion.

But I feel like I’ve missed a huge piece of learning somewhere, can anyone explain?

I understand that in the Christian faith Jesus died to save our sins, but how? How is that connection made? How did his death make that happen?

And if he saved our sins then, do people who believe that consider themselves to be without sin?

I’m sorry if this sounds ridiculous, I genuinely feel like I somehow missed a huge important piece of learning here.

Yes! Jesus went to hell. Oh my goodness so much is misrepresented here.

He was human and felt the weight of sin, and if we believe and connect with God through Jesus, the weight has already been paid for. Because he experienced it for us, and has taken it away because he experienced humanity.

The Bible is not perfect! It needs to be taken in the context it was written, by the people it was written by, like any historical document.

There are 2 parts to Christianity; the Word (Bible) where you learn general lessons about the type of God we have, and the relationship (spirituality) you feel through connection, song and other dynamics.

I personally hate the structure and rigidity of the COFE, that is not the God I know.

Look inside your heart, you know what’s good and right but also you experience empathy, belonging, care and compassion. That is the God I know. Strip away the stupid conventions, it’s all there in your heart.

Utter rubbish. Perhaps faith isn't for you. That's fine. But this is offensive rubbish and doesn't represent Christianity. Luckily, I am sure you won't go to hell.

Thank you, I think the belief net one explains it to me, that the concept of dying for sins was developed by people later, so there’s no actual connection beyond people looking for one.

Its said like it’s a fact of Christianity but really it’s an interpretation of things that people find in the Bible.

Also, yes question it!! Anyone that says don’t is closed minded. Ask away, you need to be able to question your beliefs; they need to stand up for you otherwise, where is your foundation?

Ok. Thanks for sharing. 🤔

The Bible is all an interpretation. Take the context and values of the time into account when you’re reading.

But the values are the same: love, compassion, forgiveness and valuing others.

PM me if you’d like to talk more, I’m a very faith driven individual and I don’t deal much with later contrived formalities.

It’s fascinating when you consider the early writings were in different languages - mostly Ancient Greek I think, and lots and lots of people have had a crack at translating it, rewriting it out long hand, sharing it, preaching it, writing it down again …. You get the idea. There is certainly a lot of room for some interpretations to have been clouded by the prevailing philosophies of the day / translators.

Pretty much as @SparklePopRampage says really. There are so many branches of Christianity, but the basic tenet is consistent.

Interesting that Judaism has the same bible (Old Testament) and Muslim also have Jesus in their stories - albeit as a prophet not the son of God.

The Bible is also all about translation. Very few people are able to read the books of the Bible in the languages in which they were originally written. A lot of people don't even know off the top of their heads what the languages were.

Yes @adagio. I also find great comfort that there are several works by Roman writers who talk about Jesus and reinforce that he talked about forgiveness etc when they had no interest in his work.

The fact that people who were so against him wrote about him really gives validation to what he was actually trying to achieve at the time IMO.

I think, if you value love, compassion, empathy, forgiveness and understanding, you’ve already accessed Christianity. That’s it. Done and dusted, anything else is human constraints and ridiculous rituals.

There are different interpretations for why Jesus had to die and exactly how his death saves humanity. Even theology scholars differ on this. Many believe in penal substitution - that is, we all deserve punishment for our wrongdoing and Jesus took all of that on himself. I don't personally subscribe to that as a loving father would never require his children to die.
Others believe in "Christ as Victor" - that is, Jesus fought death and won.

I would suggest listening to the Leviticus series from The Bible Project podcast. It describes the narrative behind all the ancient Hebrew sacrifices and what they represented.
My understanding is that each sacrifice represented a step in the process of restoration with God and that Jesus' death was the culmination of all those small processes.

Its a poor analogy but imagine we lived in a clock that was broken in many places. Imagine if we were spending hundreds of years waiting for the clock-maker to come and repair our home. Imagine the cogs were rusty and needed polishing and the hands had snapped. Perhaps some screws were loose. What rituals might we set up to remind up what needed repairing? Perhaps we all took a metal object to a temple and polished them together. Maybe we bring our finest carrots to a temple and snap them to mourn the loss of the clock hands?
They sound silly out of context but it's meaningful to the people in the clock.
Then Jesus comes and fixes it all - we are just tiny people in a clock so we don't know how it worked....it just did! But our clock is okay now - we see the hands moving again, and the cogs are shiny, and the screws must have been tightened because everything moves to time - and we can never thank the clock-maker enough!

I think there's a C.S.Lewis quote that says something along the lines of "you don't need to understand why Jesus' sacrifice was necessary. You just have to believe that He did something for your salvation that you couldn't have done for yourself".

'The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?' Jeremiah 17:9.

These people were great for me. They will answer any questions.
christianity.org.uk/

I am a Christian and you are wrong in every single one of these points. I wonder if you have got these ideas from the internet rather from actually going to a church and finding out for yourself?

OP as I understand it God is just. He hates all sin, even small ones. We all do things that are wrong (except of course children and Jesus specifically mentions we should try and be like children) so after death, when we meet God and he looks back at our lives, we are all going to have things we didn’t do well.

Therefore, as God is completely just, we would all of us receive justice/reprimand. However luckily for us Jesus has already paid the price for us. He has taken on any punishment we might deserve.

God and Jesus are sort of the same person. God, in the form of Jesus, experienced what is like to be human and therefore understands why we do wrong things. He loves us and knows that despite his guidance in the 10 commandment, we are still going to make the wrong choices.

He wants everyone to join him in heaven so instead of punishing us for our wrong doing, he punished himself/Jesus.

If we choose to accept his love we can therefore all join him in heaven (as long as we truly repent/are sorry for the wrongs we have done to others/our world.

I understand that in the Christian faith Jesus died to save our sins, but how? How is that connection made? How did his death make that happen?

In addition to what other PPs have accurately posted about different translations, theologians and sects beliefs in this, there is one element not yet mentioned. Prior to Jesus, the one God was for the Jewish tribes only. They were the only people who would be saved and go to heaven. Christianity was the Jewish God reaching out to the Gentiles and saying, you too can come to heaven. I will sacrifice my son for you. This crested whats called the new covenant between God and humans.

There’s lots of discussion in the early church between the Apostles about this and how missions to convert other Jews to Christianity wasn’t really a priority as they’d still go to heaven as Gods covenant with Abraham was still in force. That Christ was for the Gentiles (non Jews) to also access heaven (life immortal after death). That’s why the early missions started going south into Africa, East to Persia and West/North to the rest of the Roman Empire. It’s all really interesting stuff.

There are lots of levels of meaning within Christ's sacrifice.

One which often comes to mind is that humankind murdered God(everything good and perfect)! And He forgave us! It shows up people's flaws and arrogance and pride - how far people strayed from what we were meant to be! Recognition and acknowledgment of that and receiving forgiveness from it is deeply healing and redemptive.

To me Jesus came to show us how to live. He said, basically, love God and love your neighbour as yourself. If you follow that you'll not go far wrong. A lot of the rest is 'padding' written by the church and used to frighten and coerce people into behaving a certain way. To me hell is the absence of love. You can absolutely choose that but it's never forced upon you by a loving God.

Meant to say I think he died because what he said was at odds with those in power. They wanted him out of the way.

I came across this online once, which ties in nicely with your last point @drummermumma .

I have no idea how accurate it is, as I'm not remotely clued up as to the actual history of this period and the culture within which Jesus lived, but I saved it as something to try and research at some point.

Again, with this - same caveats apply!

What if Jesus was not actually dead in the current medical terms as we understand, but instead just unconscious in the cave ?

@Hawkins001 The old swoon hypothesis. No, he was actually dead, the Roman centurions knew how to kill people - they were experts in their field. The other two people crucified with Jesus had their legs broken to speed up the process (so they couldn't push up with their legs to breathe). They did this because the Jews didn't want the execution carrying over into the Sabbath. However, the soldiers on duty saw that Jesus was already dead and thrust a spear into his side to confirm this. Jesus acted as the sacrificial Passover lamb - the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Israelites were prohibited from breaking the Passover lamb's bones, it had to be whole, and John testifies, "These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.”
Also, the Roman Governor of Judea (Pontius Pilate) was so keen to get rid of Jesus that he asked to be personally informed of His death. They would have had no reason to lie about this and had they been wrong, would have received the death penalty.