I’m starting right in with a new mini series of posts. This time around, my topic is the semantics of Christianity.

The reason I wanted to do this is not purely to convert anyone, it’s actually because I keep seeing people on the internet describe what Christianity, only they don’t describe it. They think I believe something totally different.

This is getting on my nerves, so in order to feel better,  I’m gong to explain what I believe and why.

(A quick warning, Christians don’t agree on everything, I’ll try to stick to the basics, but there’s always going to be some debate between sects. Most of it is over minor stuff so I hope no one will start an argument in the comment section over it. Thanks.)

Okay, topic number one: What is Christianity?

Better yet, why does it claim to be different from every other religion?

The skeptic will always doubt that there really is any difference, and might not care what the difference is because it still involves God.

But as far as theists are concerned the difference is important.

All religions, (even the godless ones) try to answer life’s fundamental questions about our identity, purpose, and who is in charge over everything. Christianity is no different here. But Christianity goes a step further. It not only answers all this, but it answers the question of why these things are the way they are.

We are made in God’s image. The reason is, God wanted to make independent beings who could love Him of their own free will. (That’s the semantics part.) Because, love is a choice.

Now the mistaken internet person I was watching yesterday made an error after this point. I won’t tell you who it was, though I doubt any of you watch her. (It would be uncanny if you all knew the same people as me.)

What she said was that we can’t attain heaven, until we’ve been given free will. Being born into it makes it boring. And that Christianity shows this by having man first choose to leave paradise, and then to regain it by sacrificing his life, thereby earning it.

I could see how, if you view Christianity as just another myth, you might think that Adam and Christ are both meant to represent mankind. Therefore making the whole thing a metaphor for how we have to earn our stripes, as it were.

But the real thing we believe is that we earned the stripes, and Christ took the beating for us.

It is true that Adam and Christ both represent Man. As do all of use individually at some point in our lives. We all constantly reenact Adam’s choice to sin, and hopefully we reenact Christ’s choice to put ourselves aside, sometimes.

But the Bible never claims that this is a metaphor. It’s quite literal. Christ was able to pay the price for Adam’s sin, and all Adam’s children (us and also himself) because he never sinned. Because he was also God in the flesh. (More on that later.)

The idea that man needed free will in order to sin so that heaven could be a choice is flat out ludicrous.

It seems to make sense in this world, where the idea of never sinning seems impossible.

But that’s because we’v lived here all our lives and never seen an example of anyone who doesn’t sin, except for a young baby.

But that’s what Adam was, compared to us. A baby in terms of sin. As indeed, Christian are admonished to be by the Bible. (1 Corinthians 14:20)

It doesn’t mean however, that sin will make you grow up. We all know immature people who do things that are wrong and won’t listen to reason, they aren’t more grown up than us. They are less.

The reason sin is associated with adulthood is because the older we get, the more of it we know about. Which is a tragedy, not an asset. I wish there was no sin to know about, but because there is, I have no choice but to deal with that fact.

But how is it good for me? The idea that sin is good for man, in that in enables him to choose heaven, is against everything the Bible teaches.

Whether you disagree or not is irrelevant to the topic, since I am merely laying out what the Bible actually says. (Not saying as of now that you have to accept it.)

This is just what’s actually in there. Sin brought death (see Romans.) Man brought sin into the world. Sin leads to death, which leads to hell, unless it is redeemed through Christ.

Hell is not good. Also, God cannot live with what is not good. So, if sin was the key to getting into heaven, how would that work?

I think the real idea this YouTuber had was that sin enables you to truly become good. But that’s also not true.

Goodness is linked to purity. The Bible says God desires a pure heart. Pure means not mixed. A heart that’s mixed with sin is not pure.

And pure goodness is preferable to partial goodness.

Romans also says no one in righteous, no not one.

So, it doesn’t matter if we choose good in the end. We aren’t righteous because we choose to do good, since we’ve all chosen evil before.

Jesus himself taught that if you break one of the commandments, you break all of them.

What this means is, only one sin is enough. Sins aren’t cancelled out by good deeds. Not in Christianity anyway. It is because to sin is to cast yourself infinitely away from God.

The idea is to be without any sin, ever, that was how man was created.

If we were all good, we wouldn’t be bored. It’s only because we sin that it becomes pleasurable to us. I think we all know this deep down, if we look back to when we were kids and still felt guilty over thing we take for granted now.

That’s all for this post, till next time–Natasha.