Plenty of stories and myths, religious or not, convey actual truths. |
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The penalty for sin against an infinitely holy God is death. Adam and Eve were made sinless, and therefore immortal. Then they sinned, and death entered the world. So there is a problem: God is perfectly holy. And God is perfectly just. If He decided to just wave away the sin, he would no longer be just. But He very much loved Adam and Eve, so He set up a system wherein when they sinned, they could offer a sacrifice that would “take the penalty“ of the sin (die) and they would still be in God‘s presence. The Old Testament is basically one long series of this contract sin (break with God)-death (sacrifice)-reconcile.
One man, Jesus, ended this cycle. He lived a perfectly sinless life, but took on every one of our sins at his death, and therefore paid the permanent price for us to be with God forever. |
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By analogy: say there is a bank that opens in your neighborhood that offers a special ticket to get to heaven. So you open and account and they tell you “cool, you just need to earn 500,000 units of goodness and then you can get your ticket to heaven. These are the things you have to do to earn units (help your neighbor, call your mom, etc.). The catch is that you lose units when you do all these things you shouldn’t (lie, overeat, gossip, swear, hate, envy, etc.).” So you work for a few weeks and you earn some units, but then you lose a bunch too. After a few exhausting months, you check your account and you actually owe the bank now. There is obviously no way you will ever get that ticket.
So now imagine Jesus is the only person who ever earned that ticket to heaven. And now he literally signs you onto his account, you have a debit card with your name on in, and every penny in that account is yours (including heaven). That’s redemption. |
I dislike this analogy because it’s like God set the price (500,000) to begin with, knowing you’ll never get there, and the he paid it himself and wants us to praise him? He caused the problem!!! I like the wounded animal analogy better.
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His innocent life had mad credits when he’ll tried to keep him. He came up big, and offered a clean slate of karmic debt to souls if they believe. |
How does Roman and Greek mythology make any more sense than Christianity? |
The difference is that Jesus, if you believe it, was no ordinary guy being crucified. What makes him special is that he was the Son of God, sent to earth by God to redeem us through his suffering on the cross. Then, to prove his divinity, he rose from the dead after 3 days in the tomb and then later ascended into heaven to live eternally with his Father, and eventually his mother, a human, who came up to heaven even later. |
He didn’t really set a price though. The whole problem rests on the enormous gulf between an infinitely holy God and sinful humans. The Old Testament is kind of like God trying to help people come “up” to Him (which will never, ever work, we just can’t be that holy) and Jesus was Him coming “down” to us. I think a lot of the confusion over Jesus’ death would disappear if people truly understood how holy God is and how desperately, in-our-bones we love sin more than Him. |
Except some people aren't confused or bereft of understanding -- They simply don't believe. |
That’s true. I was referring to confused believers, specifically (which is how I read OP to be). I think most Christians have a very rosy view of their own sin and a very small idea of God’s holiness. |
| Anybody else wonder if God, in a second attempt at creation, managed to make a world with perfect people without sin who didn’t end up sinning like Adam and Eve and therefore didn’t need a child of God to be born to die for them? |
God would be pretty bored and churches would be out of business |
God loves redeemed man more than Adam and Eve. A child who loves you because they choose to is sweeter than a child who can’t choose otherwise. |
How can people find out just how holy God is? |
And children who don't believe in you because they can't see you go to hell for eternity. Their choice. |