Why is Jesus So Important?
A Comment on an Old Thread
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
I recently read the entire threat of "So, I'm Going to Hell" by JillUser and most of the comments.
Since the rule of blogging seems to be to come up with a topic and go without knowing the answer quite yet, I'm just going to go with it. The question I am posing is, "Jesus is the exclusive point on what eternity will mean for any given person. Can I explain this without quoting the Bible?"
God loves us. He loves to show his love for us. He gets angry at us, but mostly because we tend to ignore him a lot. How hard do we have to work to ignore such a big, wonderful, loving God? Pretty hard, I think. Anyway, God tries and tries to get our attention throughout history. He sends prophets, and things don't go so well. He has his chosen people enslaved and nearly wiped out repeatedly, which gets their attention usually for a generation or two. So, he decides to do the last thing he can think of. He's going to send his own Son down here to tell us how much he loved us. He uses the prophets to tell us how to recognize him when he gets here, but he barely even needed to. When his Son gets here, his love can be felt by people. They follow him around.
Now, God knew what was going to happen. He knew when he sent Jesus that Jesus was going to die. He knew it was going to be horrible. But, God wanted to give us this gift. He could have horded it in heaven, but he wanted to prove to us that he really loved us and cared for us. So he sent Jesus, and he said some things that the Jewish leaders didn't want to hear. They didn't want to hear that works didn't matter, either, because that's all they had. "I'm a good person, I pray loudly on the street corner. Look at me, you can tell I'm fasting!" Jesus said it didn't matter. That you had to believe in Him, the Son of God, who would take the place of the sacrifices they used to have. They wanted to crucify him, and they did.
God could've made the plan something else. He could've just said, "Hey, believe in me and you're saved." How would that have shown his love? What would God have had to give for us in that situation? Nothing. He WANTED to give for us, and Jesus wanted to DO it for us. If you try to just go to God, he's not going to be impressed. "Why are you ignoring this gift I gave you? He's what I want for you!"
How could a parent do such a thing? Send his Son to die? He had to. It was to prove his love to you and I. He loved us that much, and so did his Son. Jesus had free will, too.
Before that, people were saved by faith in God. Then Jesus came and told us that it couldn't be like that anymore. We couldn't be saved without knowing Jesus, because we could not know God without him.
Anyway, that's why Jesus is the end all of Christianity. Because God wanted Him to be.
Since the rule of blogging seems to be to come up with a topic and go without knowing the answer quite yet, I'm just going to go with it. The question I am posing is, "Jesus is the exclusive point on what eternity will mean for any given person. Can I explain this without quoting the Bible?"
God loves us. He loves to show his love for us. He gets angry at us, but mostly because we tend to ignore him a lot. How hard do we have to work to ignore such a big, wonderful, loving God? Pretty hard, I think. Anyway, God tries and tries to get our attention throughout history. He sends prophets, and things don't go so well. He has his chosen people enslaved and nearly wiped out repeatedly, which gets their attention usually for a generation or two. So, he decides to do the last thing he can think of. He's going to send his own Son down here to tell us how much he loved us. He uses the prophets to tell us how to recognize him when he gets here, but he barely even needed to. When his Son gets here, his love can be felt by people. They follow him around.
Now, God knew what was going to happen. He knew when he sent Jesus that Jesus was going to die. He knew it was going to be horrible. But, God wanted to give us this gift. He could have horded it in heaven, but he wanted to prove to us that he really loved us and cared for us. So he sent Jesus, and he said some things that the Jewish leaders didn't want to hear. They didn't want to hear that works didn't matter, either, because that's all they had. "I'm a good person, I pray loudly on the street corner. Look at me, you can tell I'm fasting!" Jesus said it didn't matter. That you had to believe in Him, the Son of God, who would take the place of the sacrifices they used to have. They wanted to crucify him, and they did.
God could've made the plan something else. He could've just said, "Hey, believe in me and you're saved." How would that have shown his love? What would God have had to give for us in that situation? Nothing. He WANTED to give for us, and Jesus wanted to DO it for us. If you try to just go to God, he's not going to be impressed. "Why are you ignoring this gift I gave you? He's what I want for you!"
How could a parent do such a thing? Send his Son to die? He had to. It was to prove his love to you and I. He loved us that much, and so did his Son. Jesus had free will, too.
Before that, people were saved by faith in God. Then Jesus came and told us that it couldn't be like that anymore. We couldn't be saved without knowing Jesus, because we could not know God without him.
Anyway, that's why Jesus is the end all of Christianity. Because God wanted Him to be.
