The Answer to My Struggles

In my last post I wrote about how I was struggling with faith. What I thought I knew solidly, my faith in Jesus and Christian belief, I realised I understood far less.

To try and summarise, my struggle was in understanding why we should be Christians and not Jews. To break that down further: why was a human sacrifice suddenly needed to atone sin? Why was a new covenant needed? What's original sin and where did it come from? Should we still keep the laws of Moses?

Well finally I have the answers that I need. If you're interested, ask me questions and I'll go into greater depth. But I will try to be brief so you can see where I started in this struggle and where I ended up, as going deeper is probably of no interest seeing as these weren't your thoughts. Or maybe you're thinking the same thing?

God says in Leviticus (Vyikra) that blood sacrifices are needed in chapter 17. In Judaism, this was done by animal sacrifice. When the temple was destroyed, animal sacrifices could no longer be made at the alter. It is argued that at this point, the sacrifices stopped and thus blood isn't really needed for forgiveness. But historically, this was the time at which Jesus came, giving an alternative for ever more to animal blood sacrifices by providing a new blood sacrifice to atone sin.

So if God hates human sacrifice and forbids it in Deuteronomy (Devarim) 12:31, why did he send Jesus as a sacrifice? The answer is because he wasn't a human, reason number 1. He was a God in human form, allowing him to die temporarily because a God can't die. Therefore, it wasn't a human sacrifice and could simultaneously save all of humanity. Secondly, God chose to sacrifice himself in the form of Jesus to save others. It wasn't the kind of forced sacrifice for a non-existant god or other trivial cause that God says he detests.

Finally, a new covenant is mentioned throughout the Bible (e.g. Jeremiah 31:31) and from reading again Isaiah 53 I struggled to see how that could be about anyone other than Jesus. Lastly, I discovered that there is a whole book in the Bible on this topic (see God thinks of everything!) the book of Hebrews. It's all about how Jews were doubting their switch to Christianity, wondering if they should still keep the Jewish laws or return to Judaism entirely.

You can also check out http://www.gotquestions.org/ if you're still confused or have questions. There's over 20,000 I think so there's a good chance you'll find your answer to many theological issues.