ELI5: If you're a Christian, why do you have to be good if Jesus will forgive you no matter what?
I grew up going to church but I'm not religious now and I never really understood this part.
Please, no answers along the lines of "aha, that's why Christianity is a sham" or "religions aren't logical". I don't want to debate whether it's right or wrong, I just want to understand the logic and reasoning that Christians use to explain this.
That’s the fun part! It depends on which branch of Christianity you believe in. Some think it’s only faith, some the baptism/saved, and some good works.
Imagine Jesus as a director of a company that accepts all sincere applicants. The director assumes responsibility for all the mistakes his employees make, but he doesn't assume responsibility for people who only claim to be employees. People who purposely commit crimes get fired and applications by people who apply with the purpose of commiting crimes get rejected for not being sincere. (That's not to say someone who once was fired can't reapply if they're actually sincere about it, but since God sees into people's hearts and minds, you can't trick him.)
The theological answer, as I learned it, is most clearly spelled out in James 2:14-26, often referenced through the phrase "faith without works is dead". The short version is: faith in Jesus will save you, not good deeds. However, if you have faith in Jesus, then that faith will manifest itself through good deeds. If someone proclaims their faith but doesn't act lovingly, then they don't actually have faith and won't be saved. So a Christian should be a good person not because being good will save them, but because being good is a result of genuine faith.
TLDR: He doesn't forgive anyone who sins, he forgives those who repent. Repent not meaning "feeling sorry" as many seem to explain, but actually meaning "to turn away" which means changing fundamentally as a human being. From a bad person to a good person.
Someone who doesn't change and act good most of the time isn't repentant, so isn't forgiven. So basically, you prove it with your actions and how you live your life, not with just words only. By this measurement, Republican "Christians" aren't repentant and so aren't forgiven.
Not a Christian anymore, but I used to be for a very long time. Sidebar: "You will know a tree by it's fruit" AKA you'll know what kind of person someone is by what they do. Anyone who's even skimmed the bible (especially the new testament) would easily understand that most conservative "christians" aren't Christian at all, but rather like the Pharisees (phony religious types) that Jesus constantly argued with and condemned.
Other note: Sikhs actually live the way Christian claim to. I could easily make a "hard to swallow pill" meme which said: "Sikhs are better Christians than actual Christians are."
As far as I've understood, it's all about how you arrive at the pearly gates. You could live a sinful life of you truly redeem yourself on your dying bed; accept Jesus and free yourself of your sinful ways.
The strategy of living sinfully with last minute redemption comes with two big drawbacks. First, death could come for you at any moment - you won't necessarily have time to prepare. Second, your conviction in time of dying needs to be sincere. It would be hard to fake, and most sinners probably wouldn't even know where to start. That's why it's all but impossible for rich people to get to heaven - their minds are twisted towards justification of their inaction, and their chance of redemption is close to zero.
That's my understanding anyway, I'm an atheist from a Protestant country living in a Catholic one.
God will only forgive you if you repent. You can't be a dick all your existence, say "Please forgive me at the end" without truly beliving it and that's it.
But if you are truly repentant, you can't be a dick all your life.
Why not?
You can be a dick to the gays and trans people, you can be a dick to the muslims and the athiests, you can even be a dick to the christians of other denominations. In fact you are commanded to be a dick to all of those people because you are commanded to preach to them and try and convert them.
Raised Catholic. Don’t believe in hell. Lost my mom recently so i hope there’s a heaven. If there is i assume it would be accepting of all. I try not to do things that hurt people because i don’t like to see people hurt.
Welp you don't want to hear it but the best explanation is religion is a system to scam commoners of their devotion and money. If things start not making sense then you should stop believing in Santa Claus
You don't...not really. It's like a child leaving their parents house - you "can" now do whatever you want: good luck with that.:-)
Another take: the whole "being good" part is Santa Claus, not Jesus. The whole "acting in a well-behaved manner" is more what parents tell their kids that Jesus wanted (oh uh...yeah, it's JESUS that wanted you to be quiet in your room at 8pm, totally), while what Jesus actually said essentially translates to: fuck hypocrites, imma leave you behind when I'm in charge beotches!
I mean that seriously though - like to pick just one example:
If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar;
(1 John 4:20)
So hating gays is...a choice one could make I suppose, but if you say you are a follower of Christ at the same time, then Jesus calls such people "liars".
The real question is: if Jesus says one thing, but a particular church/pastor/priest/pedo says something else, which one defines the "religion"? Just like everything else in the world, truth gets mixed in with fiction, and sold as a package to control the masses - e.g. Orwell's Animal Farm, like overthrowing The Man was a good thing, but then who they picked to replace him... urg:-(.
The simple answer is that the "you have to be good" Christians are not the same people as the "Jesus forgives no matter what" Christians. Beliefs and doctrines vary wildly throughout Christianity, and different Christians often believe contradictory things. This isn't helped by the fact that the Bible itself, being a collection of many books by many authors, contains contradictory viewpoints. This allows believers to focus on the elements they like and ignore the ones they don't.
I had a teacher in school who believed in predestination. Basically, whether you go to heaven or hell is pre-ordained before your even born and there's nothing you can do to change it. I told him that sounded to me like I should be a Satanist because if I'm predestined for heaven I've worshipped Satan all my life for nothing and I get to chill in heaven. If I'm predestined to go to hell I've spent so much time worshipping Satan it probably won't be too bad. I'm personally not really religious myself but I really was dumbfounded at the whole predestination thing.
That's an... interesting take on predestination. The idea is that God already knows what you're going to do, because he's omniscient. It's not a matter of just picking you and then whatever you do is fine. He already 'knew' what you were going to do. So if you're good, he already knew and you're in.
If you wanna get into a religious debate about predestination, though, strap in. It's a doozy.
It sounds like you know more than this about me so correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is there's a difference between just plain omniscience (which sounds like what you're describing in your comment, and is pretty widely accepted among Christian denominations) and actual predestination (which to my understanding is almost exclusively a Calvinist belief).
Sounds like your teacher followed the calvinist branch of Christianity then?
Predestination (in terms of religious salvation but also in general, like in determinism) is something that I always found fascinating. Because, if you are predestined to something (either to salvation or to just wake up today), why do we even try so hard if the outcome is already preset? Why try to be a good person if you are already destined to go to heaven or hell since you've been born? Or why do you set the alarm to wake up early in the morning and go to work if you have no influence on what will happen? Couldn't you just sleep the whole day and the result would be the same because it's already preset?
I guess you wouldn't really have that choice. If a full determinism is true, there is no room for free will and even trying to affect the result is something you are already predestined to do and any choice you think you make (or even vacillating over the choices you make) is still something you were predestined to do and only an illusion of free will.
He sure did! And yeah, that's pretty much how I felt about his beliefs. If everything is decided already, then there's no point in having any motivation to do anything because it won't matter. Your destination is decided no matter what, so just do whatever you want regardless of if it's morally just or not.
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries - Hebrews 10:26-27
There is a lot of debate about this verse and others like it, but this is the way I understand it.
First, let’s get a little more context. This particular book of the bible is actually a letter written to a Jewish community who has come to believe Jesus was the coming king written about in their Bible for thousands of years. This is wonderful news for them, but it also puts a target on their back from other Jews (who happen to be in political power) who disagree. They now have to make a choice, abandon this idea for the sake of safety, or hold true to what they believe is true which has had beautiful results in their lives, despite the risk of mistreatment and death. The writer is appealing to their Hebrew bible (what the Christians call the old testament) to show that walking away is not what they really want.
Here are the verses again with what they are surrounded by:
By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.
Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.
Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies. For anyone who refused to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us. For we know the one who said, “I will take revenge. I will pay them back.” He also said, “The Lord will judge his own people.” It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ [the messiah, coming king]. Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering. Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things. You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever. So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. Hebrews 10:20-36
Hopefully this helps make this make more sense. This isn’t a blanket statement for all people of all time, it is about people considering abandoning their King for their own sake.
Also a little more about “the day of judgement” refered to here. This capital D “Day” is something referred to many times in the Hebrew bible. This is my understanding of the gist of it:
God doesn’t like the way us humans have decided to run the world. We kill and mistreat each other and the world around us. So he has decided to make everything right again and bring the world to peace. Great news if you are the one being mistreated, terrible news if you’re the one in power mistreating others. When the owner shows up, the managers are in trouble. The day of the Lord (the day of Yahweh)
The author of the letter is pleading with them to stay on the right side of history and not to align with the oppressors in power before God comes to make everything right.
IIRC the trick is to get your forgiveness after the last dick move, but before you die. If you mess up the timing, eternal damnation so it’s safer to be good.
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