Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: md89mch@cc.brunel.ac.uk (Martin Howe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: a Christian motif that doesn't make sense to me Message-ID: Date: 29 May 90 07:35:46 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Dept. of Elec. Eng. & Electronics, Brunel Univ., Uxbridge, UK Lines: 45 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article qpliu@andy.princeton.edu (Quowong Peter Liu) writes: # I've heard it on television religion, I've heard it on radio religion, I've # heard it from Christians trying to convert me, but it makes no sense to me, # and as it seems that it is quite fundamental to Christianity and that there # are a lot of smart Christians in explaining how their religion works and # convincing even more people to be Christians, here is what it is: # "Jesus died for your sins", meaning that the Death (and the subsequent # Miracle [of the resurrection I think he means]) of Jesus allows my sins to # be forgiven. This idea is not self-evident to me [] The idea is that Jesus took our punishment for us by suffering death by crucifixion. (God, of course, raised Him to life again - you cannot have God leaving His Son dead !! I don't know if this subsequent resurrection has anything IN ITSELF to do with our being forgiven). God wanted to forgive us our sins. But it seems as if He has decided that the guilty must still be punished. So He sent His Son, Jesus, to take our punishment for us so that we wouldn't have to be punished. In fact, there is a hymn that includes the line: "There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin" #Christians seem concentrate on are the gruesome details of the Crucifixion The reason for this is to show how much He suffered for us. Lots of other religions (and God in Old Testament times) required various sacrifices from their followers, but God, in contrast loves us so that He sacrificed HIMSELF for US (interesting contrast) ! ******** # Christian who has Accepted Christ as Their Saviour (whatever that means). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The phrase "Accepting Christ as your Saviour" refers to believing the taking of our punishment, and probably includes practising what He preached us to do. ******** Best regards, -- - /| . . JCXZ ! MOVSB ! SGDT ! iAPX ! | There are many kinds of revenge,but \`O.O' . Martin Howe, Microelectronics| none so sweet as Cats revenge ! ={___}= System Design MSc, Brunel U. | - Hodge ` U ' Any unattributed opinions are mine -- Brunel U. can't afford them.