After reading the OP, I think it might be easier if I point out where I agree/disagree; because I think it is fundamental to the essence of Christianity.
What is Christianity?
Is there a certain way you define it?
If so what way do you define it?, and it will become easier to understand.
Christianity means to mean, a belief on having having faith on the Lord Jesus Christ who came from Heaven, who was carried by the Holy Spirt of Father God, and they dwelled together in unity, and this is why when Christ Jesus healed people, it was not him doing it.
Christianity, to me, is the bold faith and proclamation that God, maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen, cares deeply about the world which He made, including us sinners. And so He who made all things, is unwilling that we wayward and sinful creatures should suffer and labor under sin, death, hell, the devil, and every manner of suffering and evil. And so God's answer to the cries of His creation is grace and love. And the story of that redeeming grace and love is the story of God's ongoing interaction and relationship with the world as the Old Testament bears witness and testimony.
God called a man by the name of Abram out from Ur, and established with him a covenant and a promise. That promise was that through him all nations would be blessed. Ultimately, the fulfillment of this promise and covenant is Jesus the Christ. All things which came before pointed forward to this one moment in the history of the whole cosmos:
The Eternal Logos, God the Son, the eternally begotten of the Father who is of the Father's own Essence (homoousios) as we confess in the Nicene Creed was, by the power of the Holy Spirit conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. God became man.
He who through Whom all things were made, the One by which all things came into existence, the very Almighty and Eternal Deity Himself, has united Himself with human nature. He is truly God of God and man of man; God by His eternal generation from the Father and man by His conception and birth by the Virgin Mary. Without any confusion or separation, one undivided Person, Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Lord.
It was his Father doing it, all the miracles and healings, from inside of Jesus Christ by the spirit because the Word of God was now made flesh, and was able to walk among his own creations.
By His own divine word and power He healed the sick, made the lame to walk, caused the blind to see, cast out demons, and calmed the wind and the waves. Because He is truly God. But by His own humility and love honored His beloved Father. So we read that Christ, though truly God, did not exploit His Deity, but humbled Himself, becoming a slave, being obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
For He is truly God, God the Son, begotten of the Father from all eternity; and true man, flesh and blood and bone, with a human soul and mind. Like us in all ways, but without sin.
As true God He had power and authority over all things.
As man He was weak and fragile.
And all things He said and did, in His indivisible Person as God the Son and Word, as Jesus Christ. The Impassible was passible, the Immortal was mortal, the Infinite was finite. This is truly the Mystery of our religion, He our God came in the flesh.
He ended up dying on the cross, and paid for the worlds sins, and was risen again again three days after his burial, signifying God has rose him from the dead by that same holy spirit talked about earlier.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, buried, dead, descended into the place of the dead; on the third day He rose again, ascended into the heavens, is seated at the right hand of the Father, from whence He will come again in glory as judge of the living and the dead.
The Scriptures declare that the Father raised up Christ. The Scriptures also declare that Christ raised up Himself, as He says He freely lays His life down, and freely He can take it up again. And the Holy Spirit raised Christ up. For the agency of the Holy Trinity is not divided, the three Persons always act in full and one accord. It is therefore to separate the Son from the Father or the Holy Spirit. What the Father does, so do the Son and the Spirit.
In the Incarnation He has taken upon Himself the fullness of our broken and mortal humanity, wounded and dead under sin and held in bondage by the devil. And by dying He becomes the full participant of our death, as the Scriptures teach, by dying He tasted death for all men. Thus dying the death of all, He has died a death for all men; and thus as the Apostle says, by Him all have been justified. In Christ all have died and all have been raised up with Him.
But as the Apostle says, how can they call upon Him whom they have not heard? How can they hear unless one is sent to preach? Thus it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news". And so Christ has established His Holy Church, that His Gospel go forth to every creature, and that forgiveness of sins be preached in His name.
And by this word of Christ, this holy Gospel, comes faith; as it is written, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ" and thus the gift of faith, through which we are freely justified, by God appropriating the finished and perfect work of Christ to us by the power of the Holy Spirit comes to us. As we read, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."
So salvation, justification, freedom, and healing comes flowing from Christ to all mean, and the means by which Christ comes to all men is through what He Himself has built and given: For this reason there is a Church, that the word is preached and the Sacraments administered; and that good works be done for the sake of our neighbor, that there are disciples who take up their cross and follow the Lord. To feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, to care for the widow and the orphan, to visit all who are in distress, to advocate for the disenfranchised and the maligned. To walk in faith that hope with which we look forward to--as we look forward to the Day when Christ shall return, and all things shall be made new.
The point of seeing the cross is because is it signifies the punishment of sin that the Lord Jesus Christ had took, from being beaten, and tossed around, whipped, and spit on, and disgraced, and died on the cross, for them all who did that. Because he never once told them to stop, or anything because his time had come.
Also the cross signifies redemption, once Jesus Christ had risen again.
The cross is the instrument of human terror and violence; and Christ-God embraced the cross, becoming the chief victim, the offering of His flesh and blood. Struck down, cursed, beaten, and despised--to ultimately unshackle and free the world from sin, death, hell, and the devil. For He who was crucified and dead, buried in the tomb, has conquered death, hell, and the devil. And He has been raised up, the firstfruits of the resurrection. For death has lost its power, hell has been overcome. Mercy, love, and goodness from God is the final say to this world of suffering. And even as we live in a perishing, dying, age, the long night shall not endure. For by His rising, we know that all shall rise.
The day is coming when He shall return, and this mortal flesh shall be raised up, glorified, made immortal. The days is coming when no more tears shall be shed, no more blood shall be spilt, no more sorrow or grief or pain or mourning. For He has said Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, and Blessed are those who are hungry, for they shall be fed, and Blessed are those who thirst, for they shall be given drink. He has declared that the least is greatest, that the last shall be first.
And that Day is coming. The Day God alone knows, and on that Day hope shall give way to sight. What is ours now by faith, in hope, shall on that Day fill heaven and earth.
This also means that we as normal men fleshly desires are part of our nature as human, we also have a spiritual body man inside of us, that when we talk to God, and we read the Word of God, and talk to Jesus, and God, about everything going on in our lives, while we try to Love God and Love our neighbours the best we can in a kind, gentle, loving, caring, spirit filled.
This mortal must put on immortality. But it must first be sown that it may be raised. This flesh shall rise. We have now peace with God, reconciliation with God, for God has overcome our hostility toward Him by rescuing us, saving us, justifying us--granting us faith by which we have now a new disposition and mind toward Him. For, as St. John says, we love Him because He first loved us. This is the good news, that God demonstrates His love toward us in that even while sinners Christ died for us.
It is God's love, His mercy, His kindness toward us, in Christ, taking hold of us wretches and beggars--naked and poor in the nudity of our sin and death--and clothing us with the white robes of Christ's righteousness. That we are now no longer strangers and enemies of God, but sons and daughters. For we have adoption as children, so that Christ has given us freedom and the privelege to know His Father as our Father; and thus as the Apostle says: That by the Spirit of God's Son, in us by grace, we can cry out "Abba! Father!". For we are children of the Father by grace, by our union to Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son, with the Holy Spirit alive in us.
So that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall never be put to shame, but shall be saved. His word is everlasting, and His Gospel is peace.
And now, in the paradox of our lives here as Christians, we are sinner-saints; struggling against the old man, dying day by day in repentance; even as we cling to hope and cleave with faith to Christ our Lord. And so our daily cross, to die. For we have been told, "To live is Christ and to die is gain". And so while alive here in our mortal flesh we struggle and set our gaze forward to Christ, and in death we know that we are still His, and He who has overcome death will come again, and there shall be resurrection, and life everlasting in the Age to Come.
This is Christianity. God has, in love, invaded the world and shall set all things to rights.
-CryptoLutheran
