Friday, August 24, 2018

HOW CORRECT ARE SOME POPULAR BELIEFS? (PART VII)


6. “Jesus died for all our sins”

The prevalent belief is that the Lord Jesus became man for the sole purpose of dying for our sins and that with this death He took upon Himself our sins vicariously.  

This belief however flies in the face of God’s justice, love and purity! No creature can heap his iniquities on the Holy One sent forth by God!

Over many centuries, our materialistic way of living had estranged us from God. Our religious teachings had also become materialistic which made it impossible to approach God through our religions. Man was in need of the Truth, the Word of salvation. Jesus came to this earth therefore, with the Sacred Mission of showing mankind the Way back to God!  It was this Word which could be the saving grace for mankind. We were meant to listen to the Word of God brought by Jesus, reflect upon its truth and change our lives for the better. It is only this change for the better through putting the teaching of Christ into practice that brings salvation for men.

Meanwhile, the priests who already thought they were masters of the people of Israel felt their authority and their hold on the people disappearing and in self-defense used the earthly power at their disposal to bring the slanders and persecution which Jesus had to endure, resulting eventually in the crucifixion.

Jesus stood His grounds on the assertion that He is the Son of God and faced death so that His Word might be preserved for mankind. His death therefore was nothing more than the result of tyranny by those who envied Him and who as a result used the earthly power as their disposal to kill Him.

Indeed, His utterances contradicts what is conventionally believed. Why would Jesus have said the following if His death was a necessary sacrifice to take our sins away?
1.       He prayed: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do!”
2.       Jesus reportedly used a Rabbinical phrase to the effect that it would have been better if His betrayer had not been born!
3.       This was also reported: "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.”
4.       While addressing Pilate He was quoted to have said: “…the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”
All these translates to the fact that all who had a hand in slaying Jesus were no priests carrying out a sacrifice to God but just cold-blooded murderers whose actions are an outrage against The Most High!

The word of the Lord remains forever true: "Whatever a man sows that shall he reap". This means that each one of us would have to atone for our sins ourselves! Only now it is easier for us to do so because with the Word of Jesus we know exactly how to go about it. The way to forgiveness has been and will forever remain: obedience to the Holy Word of God which is the same as His Laws! Therefore obedience to the Word of Truth proclaimed by Jesus cleanses and can set us free from our sins.

So, we read in John 15:3: “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.”
Let us therefore thank the Almighty for sending His Son and let us make the promise to accept the true Word of Jesus and live accordingly. This is the way to our cleansing, our salvation and redemption!


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