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Christianity Explained Information Find Christian Unity in Biblical Explanations of the Doctrines That Count! |
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You have a choice to
make: You can either believe the opinions of theologians, atheists, or
agnostics, or you can determine for yourself what the Bible says by
studying it. |
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Topics What Is Christianity Explained Information? What Is Religion and Where Did It Originate? What Is the Bible, and How Relative Is It to My Life? What Are Messianic Prophecies? Who Was Jesus of Nazareth, Really? Why Are There So Many World Religions? Why Are There So Many Christian Denominations? What Is the Law and How Does It Apply to Me? What's All This About the End of the World and End-time Prophecies? Isn't the Book of Daniel a Closed Book? Revelation: How can anyone understand all that symbolism? Who or What Was Jesus' Mother, Mary? Didn't Darwin Disprove Creation? What's the Truth About Faith and Works? Christian E-mails: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Complete Directory of Articles/Studies
Title Abbreviations for Books of the Bible Genesis - Ge |
1. the act of saving or protecting from harm, risk, loss, destruction, etc. 2. the state of being saved or protected from harm, risk, etc. 3. a source, cause, or means of being saved or protected from harm, risk, etc. 4. Theol. deliverance from the power and penalty of sin; redemption. re·demp·tion (ri dempÆshÃn), n. The principle of redemption arises in Leviticus.
Adam sold himself and therefore his posterity into slavery to Satan. By his disloyalty to God--his unwillingness to believe God and obey him--he became obedient to Satan, making Satan our master. We therefore needed to be redeemed from that position. Over several hundred years, humans have managed to convince themselves that there is no such thing as good and evil. There are only degrees of good and not-so-good. They did this to preserve their egos, which they call "self-esteem". People, the psychologists say, who cannot love themselves cannot love others, so all the trouble in the world is caused by low self-esteem. God calls it pride. He teaches that because some humans want everyone else to look up to them, they engage in selfish, self-aggrandizing activities that are hurtful to others. It is entirely possible that this need for honor from others is caused by a low self-esteem, but the cause of that low self-esteem is the problem, not the low self-esteem itself. Why do people have low self-esteem? Because the people around them cause them to. Those who develop low self-esteem have been either taunted and teased as somehow inferior or ignored as useless by others. Sometimes, however, jealousy prompts the problem. Because someone else has an apparent natural talent for ______________ (fill in the blank with any skill), another person feels inadequate in that area. This is actually a fairly rare occurrence. Usually it's more like the other person is too lazy to develop the skill in him- or herself and jealousy becomes a disease that festers until the need for the honor of others results in activities hurtful to others. It is always easier to take away what someone else has than it is to develop the dedication to produce in oneself the ability to work for that thing oneself. Of course, there are those whose lives do not offer the opportunities that others' lives have provided them, and the jealousy that arises in this circumstance is self pity. Once again, "I trouble" or the "It's all about me" syndrome takes over. Anyway, everyone, not just pathological serial killers, suffer at one time or another from low self-esteem. What one does with the dysfunction determines how one's life will be lived out and determines whether one needs salvation from that dysfunction. Many dysfunctions can be overcome by mere logic, but some need the help of a "professional"—someone with experience in "curing" the dysfunction. Sin is a specific dysfunction. It is a complex problem that can most easily be defined as selfishness. Humans have a "natural survival instinct" that leads them to put self first—all animals do. Of course, what separates humans from "all animals" is that we were created "in the image of God", which means, I am sure among many things, that we have the capacity to love and the capacity to think, reason, and function in a way that supports or advances "the big picture" instead of just ourselves. When God set out to "create", he figured out all the laws that prideful men are pleased to have figured out, like the laws of physics and chemistry, and how to live together peaceably by controlling our selfishness. Humans have discovered many of the laws God set in motion, and some of them we choose to live by and others we try to circumvent because of our egos . . . we don't want someone else telling us what to do and our egos tell us we're too good to need to "obey" the laws of someone else. Some humans believe they are Gods, though they can't create life. They can't even create the kind of water we need to survive, though they know the chemical formula. Still, they refuse to follow the laws of God. The Bible, in the King James Version, defines sin as "the transgression of the law".
In the New King James Version it is defined as lawlessness.
So, people who break the law, sin against the law maker, and according to the Bible, the result of that is death.
Now one might wonder why the wages of sin is death; I know I did. Although this could be a whole other study, the short version is that sin and righteousness cannot peacefully coexist, so a righteous and holy God, who created the world and all that is in it, has the right to win out over "evil" or sin, which he did not create (which is yet another study). God allows sin and evil to struggle with each other in this world to make a point—that sin (breaking of his laws) causes hurt and hate and discontent and even disaster. Rather than wipe out sin when it first reared its ugly head, God wanted to teach all of creation the lesson that his way is best, so he allows the sin problem to play out to its natural conclusion, when he will step in and destroy it. Ooops! Destroy? This means that, beside the harassment of sin itself, there is something major that we need to be "saved from". Anyone who wants to be a Christian knows all about the struggle that goes on between sin and righteousness, because a battle rages within us between our desires to do good and the selfish impulses that urge us to put our own desires and wishes before others. We are totally ashamed of ourselves when Satan wins a battle in our lives, even though Jesus the Christ has won the war. But God allows this because he wants us to learn that we cannot fight the enemy alone. The closer we get to God and the more we study Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and the prophecies that tell us how God has made provision for all who come to hate sin, the easier it becomes to love the law and become lawful instead of lawless. Praise God we have Jesus as our savior, our brother, our priest . . . What About Those Who've Never Had the Chance to Hear About Jesus?
That's a question that bugged me from the first time I heard someone say, "The only way to be saved is by faith in Jesus." Over the years it has prompted notice of various scriptures that give some indication that Christians or Jews aren't the only people who will be in heaven. First of all, let's talk about what saves Christians: The death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, the Christ. I was thoroughly "turned off" by the sacrificial system of the Jews. "Why," I wondered, "should innocent animals die for sins they hadn't committed?" Other religions preach that we need to make sacrifices to appease angry gods. It seemed to me the Jews simply had the most elaborate sacrificial system. Why would I want to have anything to do with a God that demanded sacrifices of animals or, worse yet, humans? Then I started studying the sanctuary system and what scripture had to say about it. I found that what was instituted on earth was just a dim shadow of the heavenly sanctuary on which it was patterned. God was trying to explain to humans what his plan was for those who have been taken in by Satan and seduced into sinfulness. He would send his own son to pay the price for our sins, and Satan's sins would be placed back upon him, for which he will suffer eternal damnation with no parole. Ever catch yourself thinking we're at an unfair advantage? God allows a majestic, spiritual being with superpowers to harass and deceive and lie to us and influence us, knowing that we have no special powers to fight him! Well, it's true. God does do that. The thing is, God has always had a plan to bail us out once we realize our helplessness and turn to him with that accusation. In the plan of salvation, God's own perfect son would pay the price for those sins that we do under the influence of Satan. Then, once and for all, the Savior would take our sins (represented by his own blood) into the sanctuary in heaven (just as the high priest did in the Jewish sanctuary with the blood of animals), and he would eventually cleanse them from that sanctuary (which the High Priest did in the earthly sanctuary once a year on the day of atonement), placing all sin on Satan (who is the father of all sin), and then covering the sins of his people with his own blood so that no one could, ever again, point an acusing finger at us concerning our sins. They'll be forever forgiven; it will be as though they never happened. We'll be forever safe from the price we should have to pay for our sins. Well, that's a relief! It's great to know that God is in the business of saving people, but what about those who don't know about any of this? In the Biblical definition of sin, there is a clue to the answer to this question: "sin is lawlessness". Now some might be tempted to say that lawlessness means the absence of the law, but that is impossible according to Paul.
On the contrary, in all countries and in all societies and cultures, there are those who, though the laws of God have not been taught to them, know in their hearts the difference between the laws of God and the laws of mankind.
Pretty simple, isn't it? God holds us accountable for what we know, not for what we don't know. If our consciences tell us what we are doing isn't quite right, and we fairly consistently follow that conscience, we're probably saved. If our consciences tell us we're doing wrong and we fairly consistently ignore the feeling, we're probably not saved. Unfortunately, in some societies or cultures, people are deceived by false teachings of their leaders, and they sin against their fellow humans as well as God, thinking what they are doing is God's will. Their consciences may have been active when they were children, but they have been brainwashed. They have been seduced into believing they will receive some great blessing or reward for doing something their conscience once would have told them was wrong. They become adept at ignoring the conscience, and it becomes seared. So, what happens to these people? Well, I haven't arrived at any specific scriptures that answer that question yet, but it is my opinion that every person comes to a point where truth is plainly shown to them and they have to make a decision that will reveal whether they are God's children or Satan's. What's the test? Well, it'll be different for everyone, but the outcome will be visible to all: will their decision help others or themselves? Are they more interested in what's in it for themselves or what's in it for others? Can a politician be saved? I'm going to guess they fall into the same category as a rich man. What they do with their power (or money) won't save them, but it will be a pretty good indicator of whether they're saved or not. If worldly power and posessions are more important to them than their relationship with God, they're probably in trouble.
Since all religions are different, can religious leaders be saved? I'd guess the same rule applied above works here also. If their worldly power is more important than seeking the truth about God . . .
No one is perfect, but there's a direction to every life that is fairly recognizeable, if not to others then at least to the person in question. If the direction of the life is more and more selfish and prideful, it's a good guess that person is going in the wrong direction. If the direction of that life is less and less selfish and prideful, I'd be hard-put to believe that person is going in the wrong direction. So, Bible study reveals that in the past, when it was hard to spread news about God and Jesus, or even before the time of Jesus or the Jews, the direction of individual lives indicated whether people were saved or not. In these times of increased knowlege and free-flowing information over multiple communication devices, however, I'd say it would be hard to find someone who hasn't had the opportunity to learn about God and Jesus and make a decision for or against them. And by the time Jesus returns, according to him, everyone then living will have heard the story and been given the chance to decide.
This "end" includes the destruction of sin and those who wallow in it. That's what we need salvation from, and truly following Jesus is what will deliver us from it. |
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Scriptures: Within Text: name chap:verse-s More Study: name
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Copyright 2005
Lynda Karr
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