Mike Konrad "This Sunday, Christians around the world will celebrate Easter. Some prefer to call it Resurrection Day. Now most Christians – whether nominal or serious – just accept the holiday without much thought. But if they would examine the claims, most Christians would be shocked.
"The basic premise behind Christianity is that humanity, and also by extension the universe, is flawed – the theological term is fallen – so flawed that there is no way any human could set himself right with a just, perfect, and holy Creator. If humanity is to be reconciled to the Creator, it must be the effort of the Creator Himself, since only the Creator is capable of effecting such as massive work.
"Christianity's claim is that the Creator did come down to Earth, with the purpose of reconciling God to man, in the person of Jesus Christ, who is both man and God. His human nature would be the Son of God through a virgin; his divine nature would be God incarnate.
"Jesus would absorb all the wrongs of mankind in Himself to clear out the account. The classic wording for this is that He (Jesus) paid the penalty for our sins. If one is more modern, and eschews the concept of retributive justice, then one could say Jesus absorbed within Himself all the consequences of man's wrongs, with the idea of setting it right.
"Now, the idea of suffering on someone else's behalf is not new, but Christianity takes the concept a large step forward and makes this claim: death would not be able to hold Jesus, and He would come out of the grave. And this resurrection would be the signature that Christ indeed set things right between God and man. Indeed, He would more than pay the price for man's transgressions." . . .
Read more...Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who wishes he had availed himself more fully of the opportunity to learn Spanish better in high school, lo those many decades ago. He runs a website about the Arab community in South America at http://latinarabia.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment