Why can't proselytising "Christians" explain their message clearly?

Question

First, they say Jesus died for your sins.
Then you ask, "Why did He have to?"
Then they say, "Because the wages of sin is death, and you would have gone to hell if not."
Then you ask, "What kind of person or God would require a bloody sacrifice for redemption?"
They say, "Because God loved you so much, he gave his son to die for you."
Then I ask, "But God got his son back, what did He lose?"
The only way I can understand it is:
God was ready to turn his back on the world because it was too corrupt, but decided instead to take on human form and go down and experience life as a human, try to communicate wiht people. He saw it was really hard for us here, and felt the hopelessness of feeling totally separated from God. And he saw when he tried to challenge religious leaders, he was persecuted and finally killed. Then he went back home and decided not to destroy everything, but to send the message that bloody sacrifice is not the way, that all should be forgiven.

Answer 1

Yes, many proselytising Christians are hard to understand, Much of this stuff makes no sense.
In the old days, Jews would "sacrifice" an animal to atone for their sins. (Then they would eat it.) As I see it, Jesus was a metaphor, a living metaphor, for the idea that God loves us, would give his only "son" for us---(the most valued member of the Jewish family) So this was a symbolic message that people could relate to.
If we assume that Jesus knew he'd be resurrected, that makes the whole thing a little pointless, though, it seems. So Jesus was tortured to death in the nastiest way the Romans knew how to do it, betrayed by the clergy of his own church, and denied by those who followed him.
A lot of this stuff does not make sense to me either.

Answer 2

I've never seen someone respond to:

Then you ask, "What kind of person or God would require a bloody sacrifice for redemption?"

with:

They say, "Because God loved you so much, he gave his son to die for you."

That's obviously not an aswer to the question. The answer to the question would be "God". The followup question of "Why does he require blood sacrifice" would not be answerable by a person and anyone that tried would not give you the entire picture.

God is God, he makes the rules. We're his creation and you either follow the rules or you don't. Obviously many people aren't going to be happy with that answer but it's the only one you're going to get.

Answer 3

Actually, aside from some confusion between the Mosaic and new covenants and and misunderstanding of the nature of The Trinity; your description shows a fair amount of insight and really I can't knock what appears to be your interaction with a lay person which has been interpreted as that of a teacher.

A nice synopsis. Somewhat coarse, but insightful. Your main problem is item item three because not all sin is punishable by death (of the spirit) by being cast into the lake of fire.

Answer 4

Close, but you seem to be confused on a few points I will try to sum it all up succinctly as I can.

What was the point of Jesus being killed? God said that the penalty of sin was “death”. No exceptions. So someone has to suffer and die for each and every sin ever committed, or else God did not keep his word. The death of Jesus shows us how seriously God views sin. When Jesus died, he was paying the price for the sins of all of mankind, in order to satisfy God’s sense of justice. God doesn't want to dilute the seriousness of his commands by "just forgiving it without penalty" which would compromise his own holiness, then transgression has to find its punishment.

If you are the kind of person who wants to pay for your own sins yourself by spending an eternity suffering in Hell, then you can, and that will satisfy God's sense of justice too. Doing good deeds by itself cannot "earn" God's forgiveness, nor cause him to let you into Heaven. Doing good deeds is simply doing your duty as a human being – you are not doing God a “favor” by doing good, so God does not “owe” anyone Heaven, or anything else for that matter. People get into Heaven simply by God’s grace – God does not owe you nor I anything, no matter how much good you may have thought that you have done. Thinking that you can “earn” your way into Heaven by doing good deeds alone seems to be the sin of pride, according to Jesus. One also needs to have his sins forgiven as well, since only a proud person would assume that he was so perfect that he had never done anything wrong, or that God needed no apology from him.

Answer 5

Blood has ALWAYS been required for the redemption of sin from the day Adam and Eve introduced it. God saw their fig leaf coverings and immediately knew of their shame and sin, so He had to devise a way to "cover" it in order that they could be forgiven for it. When God killed the goats and made goatskin clothing for Adam and Eve, it gave them a taste of what was to come. Jesus became the ULTIMATE blood sacrifice, because God realized that man couldn't live under the Law covenant sacrifice due to the fact that sin increased each succeeding generation, and the animals that were used, while they were pure under God's law, couldn 't WILLINGLY give themselves for sin. So, God wrapped Himself in flesh and was treated in much the same way as the animals for sacrifice were. He was born of low estate, He was "without spot, blemish or any such thing...." Even Pilate said, "I find no fault in Him...." His family loved Him as He was growing up as any good family would (The OT animals were seperated from the flock after weaning and treated as pets, engendering a LOVE for the pet that would in turn engender heartache when time came to offer them up, much like the heartache everyone close to Jesus felt that fateful day.) This was performed so that WE wouldn't have to die! If we lived under the Law today, the animal sacrifice wouldn't cover our sins, and WE'D have to DIE to receive salvation! When God and Abraham made the blood covenant, God bore the responsibility for Abraham's (mankind's) sin and His own offering for said sin. Abraham merely bore the fleshly responsibility of killing the animals for sacrifice that day and being a conduit for the earthly entrance of the ultimate sacrifice (Jesus). Jesus came from the lineage of David as recorded in Matthew 1, but after all, Abraham was David's grandfather twice removed, I believe, so God even helped ensure Abraham's portion of their covenant would be fulfilled! Because of this, our only "sacrifice" is that of the deeds of the flesh, or past sins, making an oath to God with "fear and trembling" not to perform these acts any more. Acts 2:38 says it all concerning our salvation today.

Answer 6

I am hoping you would like an at least somewhat serios answer. it appears the Christians you meet are not well versed in apologetics. Also different groups need different skills or ways of thinking to stimulate their thought on the subject. For example Pascals wager. This is good if one is in discussion with an existentialist but not necessarily someone from a different philosophical background.

Answer 7

It's sheer sentimentality and emotionalism. The idea is to make you feel guilty for being conceived sexually, guilty for being born, guilty for your own personal faults, guilty for your own biology, guilty that "we" killed Jesus, and yet grateful that God loved us enough to send His son to earth so that we could sacrifice him back up to God. Christianity instills a sniveling inferiority complex in its victims and then exploits it.

I love it when "Christians" reach the end of their resources and then say "God is God and He makes the rules." And those rules are set forth in the Bible, of course. Well, my personal belief - which has, incidentally, the combined evidence of history, science, and common sense to back it up - is that the Bible was written by men. YOU may believe that it's God's Word, because that's what you've been told by other men, but I think you're wrong. So spare me your performance as God's mouthpiece.

Answer 8

the reason the christian messege is so unclear is because it's truelly nothing more that sories made up thousands of years ago by catholics wanting to scare people into their beliefs. so in short it's pretty much made up and the christians are repeating a messege thats beenpassed down for all those years and like the grapevine game the messege has been molded to how each person interpites it. does that make sence?

Answer 9

Well,

Catholic Christians are not real big in the proselytizing, but you can easily find our "message"

It is in print for anyone that is interested, called the Catechism of the Catholic Church. No murky water there.

That is one of the many reasons I became Catholic.

Peace!

Answer 10

Because it is all a bunch of bunk invented in a day and age when most people couldn't read and lacked even a basic education. Now that they have to deal with mostly literate individuals that, heaven forbid, think for themselves they have a hard time convincing people their gibberish is worth swallowing.