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WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?

It is definitely not about committees!

It is certainly not about keeping religions alive!

It is undoubtedly not about keeping churches afloat by giving!

It is not even about supporting 'good' causes!

Your eternal fate hangs on your true understanding of Christianity.

If you want to know more then read on....

CHRISTIANITY IS ABOUT THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS OF NAZARETH AND THE REASON WHY HE WAS CRUCIFIED.

The Christian faith began one day about 2,000 years ago when God stepped out of His spiritual realm, came down to earth, and took upon himself the human form of Jesus of Nazareth.   Why did He do this? A good question, which I would like to answer using some of the scripture based thoughts that were given to me during prayer on the subject.  This is what the worldwide Christian church should be teaching  every day, from every pulpit, in words that people can understand: 

 The reason that the Son of God took a human form is very beautifully stated in the New Testament letter to the Hebrews 2:¹⁷. 

"Therefore he [Jesus] had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people."

The Son of God's love for each of us was indeed great because when He left his spiritual realm he gave up all his glory and all his power. No longer did he sit at the right hand of Almighty God.  Instead of having the glory and honour of being the Son of God, he had voluntarily reduced himself to the status of that of a mere mortal. Stepping out of paradise he left all that and instead took the earthly form of Jesus of Nazareth.  It might be hard to believe but the Son of God allowed himself to be born into a world that he himself had created.  That is why the term "the only begotten son of God"  is used.   Begotten simply means born of flesh. Luke 1:³⁵   "And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you; wherefore also the Holy One which is begotten shall be called the Son of God."   God is telling us that he loved us so much that he became like us to give us the opportunity of becoming like Him. He did all this just for the privilege of welcoming you and I into his realm, which we call heaven.  "1 John 4:10 "That God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through Him."

Jesus was an ambassador, a divine emissary from Almighty God himself. He had many objectives on his mission to earth, but His main purpose was twofold. First he was to tell the entire world about God the Father, and the second purpose is spelled out so very clearly in Paul's first letter to Timothy 1:¹⁵  "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners".

How did He accomplish this?  Only by dying could He achieve this end.  But before he died, he was going to have every one of your sins and every one of mine placed upon him.   With those sins firmly in place, he then allowed himself to be horribly tortured and murdered.  Giving up his existence as The Son of God, stepping out of heaven, taking the human form of Jesus Christ, and going through a horrible and painful death, was his main goal for coming here. For had God in the form of Jesus not paid your sin-debt and my sin-debt, then nothing else that Jesus did would have mattered very much because none of us would have ever had the chance of achieving eternal life and be able to spend eternity with him and his Father. As Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians 5:²¹ 

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God".

Having our sins placed upon Jesus didn't make him sinful. He was still God and therefore was completely sinless. At the time of his crucifixion Jesus simply "carried" our sins;  a sort of temporary substitute for our sins. There was a transfer of sins; from all of us, to him. This is why the wording of Paul's second letter to the Corinthians chapter 5:²¹ is so very important.

That verse says, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of  God in Him."   

Christ was himself without sin, but willingly accepted every sin, from every person, that was or would ever be committed.  It makes no difference that you would not be born for another 2,000 years. The sins of every human being that ever lived, or was going to live, had their sins all transferred over to Jesus. Not one single sin, regardless of how small, was left unaccounted for.

The born again believer will sin again, in fact he will more than likely sin many times in the future, but he will not willingly persist in an ungodly and sinful lifestyle. So what about those times when he does sin? Well, with the help of the risen Christ he will recognise his sin for what it is. He will then confess that sin to God, repent of it by making an honest and sincere effort not to commit that sin again, and then the shed blood of Christ will wash away that sin.

Why did Jesus have to suffer and die?

As wrongdoing is an anti-God state,  God cannot be in its presence and so even a single act of wrongdoing cannot occur in heaven.  It is therefore self evident that no one can enter God's realm who is dragging a load of wrongdoing around with them. A sinless God declared at the dawn of time that the penalty for sin is eternal separation from God.  The Word of God is full of verses like Romans 6:²³ "When someone sins, he earns what sin pays - death. " So when someone sins, then they have to die. It is as simple as that. When we sin we are sentencing our self to death because we cannot join with the Father.  Therefore God had a problem and the problem was this: How are you and I ever going to get into God's spiritual realm and be with the Father, since we spend a great deal of our lives committing sins against Him, as clearly stated in Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 3:²³  "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God".   It seems then that with all of our wrongdoing there is just no way that any of us can ever make it to the spiritual realm and be with the Heavenly Father. But then God came up with a plan to save as many humans as possible, and to get them into heaven so they will be with God for all eternity in unimaginable joy and happiness.  The plan was really quite simple.

 Jesus was to be a substitute sacrifice that cancelled out our sin-debt to God.

 The problem is that God the Father does not want us to die. He considers us his children and he loves us and he wants us to be with him. He wants to make us happy beyond our wildest dreams. 1 Corinthians 2:⁹, "The eye has not seen and the ear has not heard, nor has there even been conceived in the mind of man the things that God has prepared for those that love him."   So what does God do?   Into His plan steps his Son, who is willing to take responsibility for all of our sins.  Instead of us dying for our sins, the Son of God is going to die in our place. We will no longer be responsible for our own sin-debt.

The following two statements describes how God's plan works in principle.

1)    If we died for our own wrongdoing, and we are all wrongdoers, then what we would do is die in our sins.

2)    But the Son of God who was sinless and who knew no sin, so loved us that He died for our sins instead.

It was Jesus who paid off each of our sin-debts. It was Jesus who paid the penalty for all of mankind's wrongdoing. It was Jesus who died in our place. Jesus chose to accept our sins and die for them in our place, and the only way that he could die was to leave heaven and take up the form of a human being. Jesus became the sin-bearer for all of our sins, and it was on His cross where justice and mercy met.

The only way for anyone to pay their own sin-debt would be for them to die without accepting the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Then they will die in their own sins and for their own wrongdoing. They, themselves will pay the penalty for their wrongdoing. And their penalty would be that of the death of eternal separation from the Father.

When all those sins were hoisted onto the soul of Jesus Christ, it relieved you and me and every other person who ever lived and ever will live, who accepts that Jesus is Lord, of the eternal punishment of those sins. Because as Jesus hung there dying, the punishment for all those sins on his back were also dying. And God the Father was accepting Jesus' sacrifice as full and complete payment for all our sins for all time.  We were relieved of that debt.

We are all going to sin again in the future, but all that is required of those who believe in Jesus is simply to truly repent and ask for forgiveness. Then their sins will vanish.

Email me with any questions.