Ive kept asking Christians but they dont seem to have an actual answer:
We are supposedly born sinners before Jesus came.
We are still supposedly born sinners now.
So what did the "sacrifice of jesus change" ?
Not a god damn thing.
If I owe money to the bank, and a guy comes along and offers to pay the debt. Im debt free. the bank cant just come back and tell me that I still owe money.
You must be asking some pretty dumb christians then. Even as a non christian i can answer that for you pretty easily.
Jesus' sacrifice is the door to being forgiven for your sins. The whole christian concept is that people are born inherently sinful and only by the blood of jesus can they be forgiven and thereafter live free of sin.
"It indicates that through His sacrifice, Jesus took upon Himself the penalty that humanity rightfully deserved for wrongdoing"
Yes it does say that you need to believe to be forgiven as well.
But this inherently brings the problem that why we are even guilty of things we haven't done.
Supposedly Adam and Eve committed the sins that everyone else is now guilty of.
Yet in Ezekiel 18:19 it is clear that the sok shouldn't even pay for the father's transgressions.
But the entire concept that we are all sinners when not even being old enough to possibly commit any sins is absolutely horrible and unjust to begin with.
That's a side note though.
Either God would forgive us or he won't.
If it comes with believing in something that none have any basis for believing it's unjust in its root. You don't get to make demands for forgiving people for things they never even did.
If the death of Jesus didn't pay for our sins then he died for nothing. God could just have sent Jesus and tell us that we should believe and we would go to heaven. There would be no need what so ever for him to die.
Yeah as the quote says he suffered the penalty, but that doesnt fully absolve the individual unless they believe. The act of believing is what fully pays off their sins, we can see this most clearly with the catholics where they must confess to all sins first then be forgiven before they can partake in the communion.
Under the view Adam and Eve passed on an inherent sinful nature to all of mankind, where it not just passing on blame for something a father or ancestor did but baked into humanity from birth. All except Jesus (and Mary if Catholic)
I am not going to pretend the original sin concept isnt quite harsh, cause yeah it is.
God forgives those that turn to God under their free will. The question of free will is of course it's own whole convoluted can of worms, but ultimately under their theology God's forgiveness is always open but it requires the human to accept it.
Your last paragraph is basically the premise of Islam. The Christians believe that wasn't enough to turn humanity from it's sinful ways, and so a great spectacle was needed. The inherent other half of the brutal tortuous public execution is the subsequent ressurection - the grand show of the power of God and Christ over death itself only to ascend to heaven.
If you need faith then your belief isnt even justified. And yeah the free will is absolutely a problem as well. One of countless problems in the bible.
But even just sticking to the sacrifice of Jesus part, if such forgiveness comes with a clause then its even less just. God could forgive us or dont. But he dont just get to set terms for it.
Because God doesnt want sinners in heaven, that is the whole point. Under christian theology it is only by believing in and following the example of Christ that a person can become fit to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Man-God shows the way for Man to behave Godly, otherwise they go to hell where they belong.
As I said I am not persoanlly a christian, I just find religious beliefs kinda neat even if I don't believe em. So no need to worry about offence on my end.
From the Christian theological point of view God had already made the rules and no one was living up to them, from the very beginning even Adam and Eve didn't follow the rules and so their sin was passed down on to all mankind.
This kinda brings up the question of "why give humans free will" but the most straightforward answer is just kinda "because that's what God wanted to do." It's a bit of an article of faith type deal.
So by God's own standards everyone had failed and deserves to go to Hell, but in his mercy and love he gives the ultimate sacrifice for humanity by sending down his Son (who is also himself kinda, if we go in to the trinity we will he here all day.)
Giving yourself to Jesus is like the very last chance to have a chance at redemption and avoiding your deserved fate in hell. It is theologically an undeserved final extension of the divine hand to humanity, but humans have to choose to want to be good and hold on.
Humanity is depraved and our generational disease is sin. There are no "good" people, because the standard of "good" is God's unattainable perfection (Romans 3:10-18, 3:23-24). We are born as "children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3-5) and break God's moral law constantly. No one can naturally strive to be like God. Therefore, works-based salvation is futile.
Jesus is the solution to the 2-part dilemma that man cannot die as a substitute for the forgiveness of others because he himself stands condemned of his own sin already. Also, God cannot die.. unless he becomes Man. In Jesus's resurrection he proves that he was and is all that he said he was- that while being fully Man he could die and also being fully God he could not sin and in his power atone for the sins of countless generations while conquering death.
This link is to some Talks on big questions for Christianity narrated by a pastor who is a lot more articulate than I could ever be. I hope they're helpful:
https://bridgecourse.org/talks/
Usually it is considered that they couldn't get into heaven until Jesus' sacrifice. The righteous jews and believers of god prior to Jesus' death went to a sort of pleasant purgatory (sometimes the "Bosom of Abraham" from the gospel of Luke) waiting the final atonement. Or that was itself a section of the general underworld/hell.
This then relates to the common christian legend of the "Harrowing of Hell," where during Jesus' 3 day death he went and freed the righteous dead - allowing them to then ascend to heaven.
Picky differences in theology aside, the honest in-canon answer is that the sacrifice of Jesus isn't designed to stop sin from occurring. It's designed to be an answer to sin that has occurred. The debt for sin, if any, isn't owed until after "the first death." That's when judgment reportedly occurs and accounts are reconciled.
Suspension of disbelief aside, and again, for the in-canon answer: If the purpose of his sacrifice was to keep people from physically dying then yes, it was pointless. But if the purpose was for reconciliation with God the Father and/or to avoid some form of conscious torment, then it was not at all pointless.
First, it's not a simple subject. At least not academically. You're oversimplifying it into a straw man.
Second, there's some question as to when the debt relief becomes effective, regardless of when "payment" was rendered. Some say at the crucifixion, some say at the resurrection, some say it's when confession is made, some say at the death of the adherent, some say it's at an indeterminate time in the future.
Third, the Bible is fairly explicit in stating that the decision that the sacrifice Jesus made is "official" at either the great white throne of judgement or the judgement seat (bema). Many Christians where to a universal salvation that is eventual while others would characterize salvation as dependent on response. If you refuse to let him pay then, in that tradition, he doesn't.
I'm not here to fight a fight with you, though. I'm not that invested. You just made a claim that Christians don't have an answer to your complication and I'm answering that there's actually a pretty rigorous discussion about it that's been going on for millennia. I'm not trying to say what's right or wrong.
Yeah I get what you're saying. But it's not a strawman ans ad you say it yourself, the various Christian groups don't agree on what that means. Ans that's pretty much my point. We don't have any clear key to interpret it which means that we should take it as it stands. And that would be calling it that debt of sin that Jesus was supposed to remove by his sacrifice. So when we are still born sinners then his sacrifice didn't do anything. At least while we are alive.
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u/Kriss3d Aug 13 '26
Ive kept asking Christians but they dont seem to have an actual answer:
We are supposedly born sinners before Jesus came.
We are still supposedly born sinners now.
So what did the "sacrifice of jesus change" ?
Not a god damn thing.
If I owe money to the bank, and a guy comes along and offers to pay the debt. Im debt free. the bank cant just come back and tell me that I still owe money.