A Few Questions To Ask About God, I Mean, Ask Yourself First (18)

It's fun to say, there is a picture on the Internet, I saw it many years ago, I just laughed when I read it, after all, it just shows ignorance, but I saw it again a few days ago, and it feels different. After all, the Bible He also said that if there is no biography, how would people know about it.

In this way, the ignorance of others is the fault of Christians, because you just laughed and didn't come out and tell everyone what was right.

However, in fact, this topic should have to wait until I start talking about Jesus (after all, everything I've written so far doesn't even have much to do with the Bible, and I'm just talking about monotheism is the only dialectical that is consistent with facts and logic) before I start talking about it. , so this can only be counted so far. After all, if you don’t finish talking about the identity of Jesus, you jump directly to this topic, and some parts are not easy to explain.

Anyway, I'll try it first, but let's take a look at the picture below.

In fact, this picture has been circulating for a long time, and Christians will find it funny when they see it. After all, Christians are very used to playing tricks like this, and they even play like this (if you look at some self-deprecating pictures and texts of college Christian fellowships, the scale is Bigger!), so I probably don't care.

That's a mistake made by people who are ignorant of theology anyway.

But where is the ignorance? This actually needs a good explanation, because that's the point of the gospel.

What is the meaning of the cross?

Here are a few key points first. First, what is the purpose of the cross in history, second, whether Jesus has said anything about the cross, and third, what the cross represents to Christians.

Roman Empire cross

The first is what the cross was used for in history. It's actually quite simple about this, it's a way of executing the death penalty. You may think that ancient China also had a lot of tricks, and also liked to be called the most cruel... That's right! However, all countries in the world like to make a fuss about this kind of thing, and always like to invent various tricks, and the capital punishment invented by the Roman Empire is the cross.

As the most developed ancient civilization in the history of human civilization, and even the main foundation of modern global civilization, the Roman Empire actually has a lot of tricks in killing people. The death penalty has its own special significance, because it was the most serious and cruel way of execution in Roman Empire law, and it was clearly not even used against people with Roman citizenship.

In fact, the main target of the crucifixion is the rebels, no matter which country, the rebellion is the most serious crime (but people with Roman citizenship are not allowed to use the cross even if they are rebels, so Paul was beheaded. , because he has Roman citizenship).

The Roman Empire actually used the cross to deal with the rebels in the colonies. Jesus should have encountered many such executions when he was alive. Not long after Jesus died, there was a self-proclaimed Messianic uprising called Bar Jesus, which of course was destroyed. It also caused the entire destruction of Jerusalem (and this event was also predicted by Jesus), in short, it is the most cruel and humiliating way of execution; those who are executed in this way will face various ways of death at the same time (depending on your first one). You can’t stand it), you can check the details yourself, anyway, everyone just needs to know that the cross was a symbol of terror in those days, representing the greatest humiliation and extreme pain, and of course, it also represented death.

By the way, in the religious view of Greece and Rome, only "great people" (people with great achievements, not necessarily good people) are qualified to enter heaven, and bad guys (please remember one thing, big bad guys are not necessarily good people) Go to hell, because it's likely that some god will appreciate you), go to hell (if you're a good person, but provoke gods as well), and most of the so-called "not so mortals" will sink forever by the river Styx.

It is a very confusing value of right and wrong, good and evil, so there is a Greek proverb: "If you can't live forever, you will have to stink forever." In short, things must be a little bigger.

At the same time, the emperor of Rome will also be conferred a god after his death (the ancient East Asian civilization directly regarded the emperor as a god), so if he is sentenced to be a big villain, he will go to hell, because this is the sentence pronounced by God.

In short, this is the case, so everyone is afraid of death. This is the situation of that era.

What Jesus Himself Said

Here are some excerpts from the Bible:

Matthew 10:38 - He who will not take up his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy to follow me.

Luke 9:23 - Jesus said to everyone again, "If anyone wants to come after me, he must forsake himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Matthew 23:34 - Listen, I will send prophets, philosophers, and teachers to you, some to be killed by you, some to be crucified by you, some to be scourged in your synagogues, and some to be scourged by you. One place was driven to another.

This is what Jesus said before he was sentenced. Everyone who listened to it felt uneasy. After all, it sounds too scary. It’s okay for people to carry the cross every day. The second is to tell everyone that the cross will have a new meaning.

Yes, maybe the cross was a sign of sin in the Roman Empire, but all human beings are sinners, and no one is perfect before God (original sin in Christianity does not refer to legal or moral sin, but "imperfection", and no one can To be absolutely perfect, compared to God’s perfection, you are sinful), but God does not require you to be perfect, after all, that is impossible, so He wants you to take up your own cross and follow Him ( Note that it's not to drop, Jesus is very clear that we can't, but at least you have to be conscious).

Please note that this is still only the first level of meaning, and the cross here represents reflection and conversion.

But what's the point if it ends up being dead?

So Jesus demonstrated it for us, yes, He showed it to us himself.

meaning of the cross

What did Jesus demonstrate? It's not death, there's no need to demonstrate death, because the Roman Empire used crosses to execute millions of people, and sometimes they can be placed on both sides of the road as decorations and can be arranged dozens of kilometers away, as long as people within the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire have not seen it. Difficult, no demonstration at all.

He exemplified victory, and He was resurrected to show you.

All right! Maybe you don't believe it, but know that if you only think of Jesus as a historical figure, a philosophical great man, etc., you are still "ignorant" because that is not his teaching at all, and you have no understanding of what he is trying to tell you. , because love your neighbor as yourself and be a good person doesn't need him to say such nonsense. Even the devil can say this. History is full of people who talk about this kind of nonsense. Yes, even Jesus himself said it many times. .

The point is that he "succumbed to death".

Because the price of sin is death, and we can't escape sin, Jesus knew that well, we can do wrong no matter what, we're not perfect, so the point is that what we need is "to be forgiven, to be forgiven," and that's why I will emphasize that the first condition for becoming a Christian is confession and repentance (not baptism, if someone tells you that this formalism is the key, you can say that he is lying), but confession and repentance can only be based on "there is a standard of judgment" This is why it is important to “really know God”, because you must know that right and wrong, good and evil have an origin coordinate, and it is not some nonsense that “as long as you persuade people to be good”.

Regarding the resurrection of Jesus, this is actually the case. If it is false, in fact, when there were such "rumours", the Pharisees, Sadducees, King Herod, Pilate or the Roman government would just take whatever they wanted. It would be nice if a half-rotten corpse came out and claimed that it was the corpse of Jesus, because it would quickly suppress the Jesuits (who were not yet Christian at the time) and make their "rumors" unconvincing.

Why is no one doing this? The reason is very simple, because it is true, so they dare not do this at all, they are scared to death, they will attack Christians, and even kill Christians and ban them from preaching, but they dare not deny the resurrection of Jesus. , because there are so many witnesses that they know they can't be overwhelmed.

Regarding Jesus and the later Christians, the Roman Empire has official records, and even Jewish history books have related records, but there are zero records on the matter of “Jesus resurrection forgery”.

You must know that the Roman Empire persecuted Christians for more than 100 years, and there was a lot of time to deal with such rumors, but they had no choice but to continue the persecution, and even doubled the use of the cross to execute (later, it became a Christian-only punishment).

So the cross has another layer of meaning. It is a sign of victory. Please note that it is not a sign of death, but a sign of victory. It does not represent death, but victory over death.

The meaning of overcoming death is that one is that your sins have been forgiven, and the other is that because of the forgiveness, you gain eternal life.

Therefore, for Christians, the cross is a glorious sign, a sign of victory.

Another commonly used symbol is the "empty tomb" because after all your body will still die first, but you will be resurrected if you overcome death.

Yes, it should be noted that the eternal life of a Christian is not only a soul, but a new body, living again in the image of a "perfect man".

The "new creation" lives in the "new world".

On the contrary, sinners will stay in hell in the form of souls, but please remember that in Christian theology, people do not disappear, even if you are a sinner, your soul will always exist forever (and therefore some theological views say, There is always an opportunity to repent, even if you are in hell).

The cross represents redemption

In Taiwan’s general religious view, death is a very scary thing. Just think about the cultural circle from which things like peaceful care and organ donation came from. The Christian culture’s view of death is very different from that of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Reloading, but past bugs have been accumulated...

Therefore, the Christian cultural circle has less fear of death, and the memory of the ancestors is more pure, because firstly, you know that he will never run away and reincarnate, secondly, you know that you will meet again sooner or later, and thirdly, you have concentrated on it. Just take care of yourself, your ancestors don’t need your care, and you don’t have to worry about your ancestors or others coming back to make trouble (although there are legends about ghosts in the Christian cultural circle, but that is already something that has been added to pagan ideas, Christianity believes that there are demons. spirits exist, but not the ghosts of some dead person, unless there is an evil spirit in disguise).

The story of the resurrection of the dead is in myths all over the world. Maybe you don’t think that Jesus’ resurrection is so miraculous. So one thing to understand is that the cross represents not only resurrection, and the resurrection of Jesus is not simply death and resurrection, because Jesus is a sacrifice. Crucified as a sin offering for human sin (all sins, from ancient times to the future) (Jesus was crucified in exactly the same way as the Jewish sin offering), and then resurrected to gain eternal life (most of the resurrected dead story, just "delayed death").

According to this, the cross represents the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection of the dead. This represents the victory over death, redemption, and victory. Therefore, it is a symbol of glory, a symbol that reverses the fear of death.

In this way, next time someone posts this picture, you can pity the ignorance of the person who made this picture.

Or you can tell him the good news about the cross, which is the gospel.