So how does Jesus getting killed by the Romans scrub the world clean of sin?

Question

This is a serious question, so I expect serious answers. I am trying to understand the ideology of Christianity.

Answer 1

HE WAS A PERFECT MAN, WHEN HE WAS CRUCIFIED HE TOOK ON THE SINS OF THE WORLD SO THAT IF WE ACCEPT HIM WE WILL BE SAVED FROM OUR SINS.

Answer 2

Okay, here's the gist of it, at least as I understand it (bear in mind, I haven't been to Church in quite a while!). Up until the time of Jesus, Jews would petition God for forgiveness by sacrificing an animal. Depending on how God received the sacrifice would let the petitioner know whether God forgave him or not. Obviously, the better the animal sacrificed, the more God would look favourably upon the request.

It wasn't a matter of how expensive the animal was, but more of how much of a sacrifice (hence the name) giving up this animal would be to the petitioner. For instance, if the family was poor, but the petitioner sacrificed the only chicken it had, then that would be a greater sacrifice in God's eyes than if a rich farmer had sacrificed one of his thirteen or so cows.

So what does this have to do with Jesus? Essentially, when Jesus was crucified, we (meaning, the world) sacrificed Jesus to God. Since we sacrificed the Son of God, that would remove all the sin in the world, from the beginning of time onward.

Incidentally, this is also why Christians never had a practice of sacrificing. Since we just sacrificed the Son of God, what other animal in the world could possibly compare to that?

Answer 3

It's essentially an analogy to older religions. Way back when, people thought that sacrificing the right animals would cause crops to grow, partly because they'd see things die in one season and then grow back in spring. A certain group in the Near East added some ideas about sins contributing, and they adopted a kind of mix of Zoroastrianism and some Egyptian ideas into their new-ish monotheism, and from there, the practice of sacrificing evolved further. Eventually, just like many other divine characters ended up sacrificed, the Jesus legend went the same path.

It was essentially a mix between ancient fertility rituals (satisfy the gods with a sacrifice so the Earth can grow crops next year) and Jewish ideas of sin (bad things happen because of sin, so crops not growing is because of sin, so we need to please our God). Throw in some Hellenism to make things really screwy, and you have Christianity.

Answer 4

It all started when Adam and Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit. This began the intrinsic natural sinful nature of mankind. Because of our sinful nature, we become unclean and ineligible to return to God's presence.

Clearly, God was not satisfied with all His children (us) coming here and failing miserably with NO hope of returning to Him.

Justice demanded that each and every sin be suffered for, punished and set right.

Mercy begged compassion, knowing that EVERY sin cannot be set right.

God set up a plan (laid out from the very beginning) where His First Son (Jesus) would come here, live a perfect life (unlike the rest of us). He would suffer the pain and punishment for each and every sin perpetrated. Jesus' suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane was the payment for all our sins....

Jesus would satisfy Justice by perfectly paying for ALL sin. Jesus would satisfy Mercy by allowing us to repent and improve.

The Romans and the Jews were merely unaware players in this whole thing. Had the Jews, as a whole, realized who Jesus was- the Messiah they were looking for, I don't think the Romans would have ever gotten their hands on Him.

Answer 5

In Judaism, you'd sacrifice sheep for the expiation of sins. Problematically, people seem to be inherently sinful, inherently imperfect. So all the sacrificing was never quite good enough to make up for the flawed nature of human kind. In order to do that, you would need a perfect sacrifice. Essentially, Jesus is that perfect lamb of sacrifice. It doesn't scrub the world clean of sin, but if you accept the sacrifice, then God will accept it to as an offering for your inherent sinfulness. It isn't a guarantor of heaven, but it makes it possible for people to get there.

Answer 6

Well he was actually found guilty by the Jews - The Romans more than once stated they found NO fault with him. The Jews were even given the option of releasing him or Barrabas a criminal on the holy day and they chose to kill Jesus.

He was the 2nd perfect man that could balance the scale for believing mankind to be saved. Adam failed to obey and was perfect, Jesus offset the scale

Answer 7

There is a Buddhist ritual called Tonglen basically performed by breathing in the sorrows of the world, and breathing out peace. Perhaps Jesus was doing a variation of this practice by getting crucified, and "taking in the sins of the world," so to speak. Compassion.

Answer 8

It wasn't his death that took away sin, it was his suffering in Gathsemene. That was when he took the sins of the world on to himself, causing him to bleed out of every poor from pain and agony. He could have stopped his death, if he wanted to, but he knew that to finish what he started, he had to die and be resurrected to make it so we could also be resurrected.

We are not without sin. We all do things that are wrong, but we can be forgiven. That is the miracle of the attonement. Only certain things will not be forgiven. Murder, denying the holy spirit, and denying Christ- with the last two, you have to have personal knowledge and a testimony of them before it is denying- are ones that you can not be forgiven of.

Answer 9

It's called dogma and doctrine instead of scripture.

Actually, Jesus Christ made His human body Divine and God became visible with the Divine Human or Son of God. So a large part of the work done was God becoming more visible to mankind.

Answer 10

We have our relatives and we know they are ours because of blood connections. Today this can be confirm thru DNA mumbo jumbo. Spiritually speaking we are connected because we came from single spirit. And we are talking only one spirit, not many. But because of the cloth we wore(body) and the ignorance permeating to our mind because of the cloth, we develop great sense of individuality called ego. This ego clouds our mind the true nature of our identity. Each ego, because of ignorance of the truth, accumulated packet of sins which in turns burden our spirit. Jesus was, I would say seriously, is a man who was stripped of ego and is aware of his true identity as spirit. His mind was clear and so his objective. Our view about relatives is the same Jesus view held in relation to our spirit. He looked upon us as his brothers and sisters and can really make that connection the same way we make the connection to our own flesh and blood relatives. Because he was egoless, he was also sinless. He was sinless thereby have no individuality that separates him from us because he operated on the level of one spirit. As far as Jesus eyes was concerned, he is us and we are him. He is a living spirit that felt the burden of the sins( our individual packet of sins). He was born without sin but was sinful because of our sins that he carried on his back. Jesus ultimately became the sacrificial lamb because of the our individual sins which was his collective sin. This why one of the christian favorite lines "Jesus saves us from our sins" holds, but I doubt if they can really understand what they're talking about because they operate on the basis of faith and belief. So they don't care how the death of one man could possibly save the lives of many for as long as they have the book who would answer for them.

I am not a christian but I speak for Christ because I truly understand what goes on in him, his purpose, his death and his resurrection.

Answer 11

Well, first you all must believe in God.....and then have faith in the bible.....then you would know that indeed God gave his son to make it so ALL could be cleansed of their sins....but you still must turn to him, and ask forgiveness for them.....it is simple....you all make it much more complicated than it truly is