Jesus died for our sins

d taylor

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I posted this in intros but I was told it would be better to post it here!

I'm wondering, what does 'Jesus died for our sins' mean? I hear that as a common line, though I don't understand it. How does him getting crucified and suffering have anything to do with us sinning? I don't really see the logical connection here.

Thanks!
Jesus died for the sins of the world, making every person eligible for eternal life. But that is not an automatic gift, so many die with out receiving eternal life.

But the gift is there, for anyone who can believe that Jesus in the New Testament is the promised Messiah from Old Testament prophecies and trust in The Christ for His gift of His eternal life and resurrection.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
 
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Sanoy

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The concept of Jesus bearing our sins is foreshadowed in the Goat for Azazel ritual Leviticus 16. There are two goats, one is for the Lord, and the other is for the adversary (the devil). The Priest would lay his hands on the goat for the adversary and it would carry the sins of the congregation to the adversary in sheol (where the dead go). The adversary owns whomever bares sin (all of us), so Jesus bore our sins, and took them to the grave in our place. Such would have been our fate, but He paid the ransom for our lives with His own.
 
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@shadow2 I believe Jesus died to liberate us from death and sin which is called the Christus Victor theory. It is different than the Catholic Satisfaction theory or the Protestant Penal Substitution.

If you have more questions about it you can ask in TAW (The Orthodox Forum)
The Ancient Way - Eastern Orthodox
Why must it be either/or? His atonement is multi-faceted.
 
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I posted this in intros but I was told it would be better to post it here!

I'm wondering, what does 'Jesus died for our sins' mean? I hear that as a common line, though I don't understand it. How does him getting crucified and suffering have anything to do with us sinning? I don't really see the logical connection here.

Thanks!

It means that through his death, he was punished for what our sins deserve under God's wrath. His crucifixion was not what satisfied that justice...
 
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I believe the atonement can be multifaceted but I believe those theories mentioned are plain wrong.

This is why I don't mind 'both'...

(Substitutionary) 1 Peter 3:18 (KJV) For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

and

(Christus Victor) Ephesians 1:20-22 (KJV) Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
 
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shadow2

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That may be your concept of sin but that is not the Christian concept of sin. If you don't understand what Christians mean by "sin" then the cross won't make much sense to you.
Okay! Would you be interested in sharing what Christians mean by "sin"?
 
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Okay! Would you be interested in sharing what Christians mean by "sin"?

Sure. I appreciate how the Westminster Standards have summed it up:

Shorter Catechism:
Q. 14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.

Confession of Faith Chapter 6:
VI. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal.

My thoughts:
Sin presupposes the idea of God and God's Law. The Law of God is a reflection of God's own nature and character. God has created human beings in his image and requires that they be normal. By normal I mean conforming to the norm of God's Law. So humans are accountable to be what God requires them to be.

Sin is a lack of conformity to this norm. This means a falling short. God commands that we love our neighbor as ourselves, for example. Sin is any failure to live up to this calling.

Sin is also a transgression of God's Law. This means crossing a boundary that God has set. God commands that we not commit adultery and be faithful to our spouses. Adultery violates this command by doing what God forbids us to do.

Sin invites God's wrath as a just judge. God curses and punishes sin in order to vindicate his own righteousness. The sinner's primarily problem then is not sin itself but God's wrath toward sin. But sin is also self-destructive. Since God is not only the Law-giver but also the wise Creator, his Law is in perfect conformity with our nature. His Law is wisdom. To obey his Law would result in peace, life, and flourishing. To disobey his Law would be to violate our own nature and result in dysfunction, unrest, disorder, and destruction.

So sin is both a violation of God's Law and a violation of our own nature. As such, it makes us guilty before God and liable to his judgment but is also self-destructive.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Okay! Would you be interested in sharing what Christians mean by "sin"?

More often than not, they mean something along the lines of what Dr. Tim Mackie means by it in the following vid ;) :

 
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I posted this in intros but I was told it would be better to post it here!

I'm wondering, what does 'Jesus died for our sins' mean? I hear that as a common line, though I don't understand it. How does him getting crucified and suffering have anything to do with us sinning? I don't really see the logical connection here.

Thanks!

This is a really large topic, and you aren't going to get the same answers from everyone.

In Christian theology we sometimes talk about "Atonement Theories" or "Theories of the Atonement". Think of these as explanations for what it means to say "Jesus died for our sins", though it's more than that, as it covers larger territory, such as Jesus' life, Jesus' resurrection, and other aspects of Christian faith and teaching. These "Atonement Theories" are, basically, condensed explanations for many different themes and statements we find written in the New Testament.

Perhaps we can actually begin by explaining what "atonement" means. This is actually a somewhat modern word in the English language, it was coined by William Tyndale in the 1500's when he was trying to translate a particular concept in the Greek New Testament text. The coining of this word is, quite literally, at-one-ment, that is, the state or condition of being "at one", to be reconciled, united, healed, made whole, to bridge the gap, etc. There have been other ways to translate this same Greek word in other English translations, such as propitiation. The relevant Greek word is hilasterion, a word which is often a source of debate.

In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures made 300 years before Jesus, the Hebrew word kapporeth is used to refer to part of the Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred artifact in ancient Judaism, located in the inner sanctuary of the Temple. Effectively the Ark was where God's Divine Presence was on earth, and only the High Priest could enter into the inner sanctuary (called the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place) to pray and make sacrifice for the whole nation. The covering on the Ark, where blood was sprinkled, was called the kapporeth. Martin Luther in his German translation calls this the Gnadenstuhl, literally "grace-stool" or "seat of grace", in English this became "mercy seat". The Septuagint renders this word, kapporeth, as hilasterion.

In the New Testament this word hilasterion is used only twice, in Romans 3:25 where the Apostle St. Paul writes, "[Jesus Christ] whom God put forward as a [hilsterion] by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins." It seems quite sensible here that Paul is linking Christ's own death and suffering with the Temple sacrifice(s) made over the kapporeth in the Holy of Holies. This word has been translated by various translations as "atonement", "sacrifice", "atoning sacrifice", "propitiation", and "mercy seat".

This is an example of the New Testament writers making a connection between Jesus' death and the old sacrifices of Judaism. Jesus is often described as a sacrificial victim, at other times He is compared to the Passover Lamb, whose blood was smeared over the doorposts to protect the Jews from the angel of death in Egypt, the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb was a yearly sacrifice during the time when there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the Passover being a yearly remembrance of God's deliverance of His people from slavery in Egypt and bringing them into the land of promise. In the same way Jesus is called, "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world", this comparison to the Passover Lamb brings continuity and symbolism from God's deliverance of the Jews from slavery in Egypt to God's deliverance of the world from the bondage of sin and death.

I'll probably offer a run down of the major Atonement Theories in a followup post. But here I want to focus on broad, basic concepts.

The idea of Christ "dying for the sins of the world" or "dying for your sins" or "dying for my sins" refers to the idea that Christ's suffering and death was a divine work by God to rescue us from that bondage of sin and death. To reconcile mortal sinners, estranged from God, back to God, in order that we can share in God's life. That even as Jesus Himself having died and then rose from the dead, God will do the same with us: There will be a resurrection of the dead, and God will make all things new, and there will be everlasting life in the future world.

That is, in a nutshell, what we are saying: Jesus is the means by which God has overcome sin and death, for us, in order that we can be reconciled to God and live forever with God in the age to come.

Of course all of that still needs to be unpacked. And I'll try and offer some unpacking in that follow up post I mentioned.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Okay! Would you be interested in sharing what Christians mean by "sin"?

In Hebrew what we translate as "sin" is an archery term, something like "missing the mark"; you fire an arrow and it doesn't hit its intended target, it's gone astray, deviated from what was supposed to have been. In Greek the word translated as "sin" means something like "error", "wrongness".

In the most basic sense sin is any error or wayward thing that is not in line with God's good will for us and the world. God's Law is about what is right and good, such as "Love your neighbor" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." etc, but there is a failure to actually do these things, to live rightly in accordance with this divine good. We fail to love as we should, we fail to do as we ought, our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, our behaviors are wayward, they are off. So when someone says sin is a transgression of God's Law, it means just that: We do not do as we ought to do, and we do what we ought not to do.

In Lutheranism we use the Latin phrase "homo incurvatus in se", that is, "man curved/turned/bent inward toward himself"; our thoughts, our will, our behavior, etc is inwardly bent, we are curved inward toward ourselves, to satisfy our own desires; whereas God calls man outward toward Himself and others in love.

This can all be generally seen by one of the penitential prayers we offer in traditional Christian worship (known as the liturgy), the following is used by both Anglicans and Lutherans (and there are many variations as well),

"Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in Your will, and walk in Your ways, to the glory of Your Name. Amen."

In "thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone."

It's not merely certain "really bad" things, like murder or theft; it's rather the whole waywardness of our basic disposition--our thoughts, our words, our deeds, both things done and left undone. All that is not in keeping with the perfect good of God and His will and way He desires for all of us to live, in love, in this world and toward all creatures.

Such waywardness, such brokenness in ourselves, keeps us estranged from God and having the fullness of life God desires for us and all creation. We are the architects of suffering, harm, and violence in the world, for ourselves and others. The strong against the weak, the rich against the poor; there is the powerful and the powerless, and there is the striving for power itself. There is malice, holding of grudges, competition, selfishness, contempt for others, bitterness, envy, greed, pride, and all manner of evil. All coming from a heart and mind that is embittered and enslaved to sin and our own mortality.

That is what sin is.

That followup is still coming, I just wanted to answer this question as well.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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shadow2

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This is a really large topic, and you aren't going to get the same answers from everyone.

In Christian theology we sometimes talk about "Atonement Theories" or "Theories of the Atonement". Think of these as explanations for what it means to say "Jesus died for our sins", though it's more than that, as it covers larger territory, such as Jesus' life, Jesus' resurrection, and other aspects of Christian faith and teaching. These "Atonement Theories" are, basically, condensed explanations for many different themes and statements we find written in the New Testament.

Perhaps we can actually begin by explaining what "atonement" means. This is actually a somewhat modern word in the English language, it was coined by William Tyndale in the 1500's when he was trying to translate a particular concept in the Greek New Testament text. The coining of this word is, quite literally, at-one-ment, that is, the state or condition of being "at one", to be reconciled, united, healed, made whole, to bridge the gap, etc. There have been other ways to translate this same Greek word in other English translations, such as propitiation. The relevant Greek word is hilasterion, a word which is often a source of debate.

In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures made 300 years before Jesus, the Hebrew word kapporeth is used to refer to part of the Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred artifact in ancient Judaism, located in the inner sanctuary of the Temple. Effectively the Ark was where God's Divine Presence was on earth, and only the High Priest could enter into the inner sanctuary (called the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place) to pray and make sacrifice for the whole nation. The covering on the Ark, where blood was sprinkled, was called the kapporeth. Martin Luther in his German translation calls this the Gnadenstuhl, literally "grace-stool" or "seat of grace", in English this became "mercy seat". The Septuagint renders this word, kapporeth, as hilasterion.

In the New Testament this word hilasterion is used only twice, in Romans 3:25 where the Apostle St. Paul writes, "[Jesus Christ] whom God put forward as a [hilsterion] by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins." It seems quite sensible here that Paul is linking Christ's own death and suffering with the Temple sacrifice(s) made over the kapporeth in the Holy of Holies. This word has been translated by various translations as "atonement", "sacrifice", "atoning sacrifice", "propitiation", and "mercy seat".

This is an example of the New Testament writers making a connection between Jesus' death and the old sacrifices of Judaism. Jesus is often described as a sacrificial victim, at other times He is compared to the Passover Lamb, whose blood was smeared over the doorposts to protect the Jews from the angel of death in Egypt, the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb was a yearly sacrifice during the time when there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the Passover being a yearly remembrance of God's deliverance of His people from slavery in Egypt and bringing them into the land of promise. In the same way Jesus is called, "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world", this comparison to the Passover Lamb brings continuity and symbolism from God's deliverance of the Jews from slavery in Egypt to God's deliverance of the world from the bondage of sin and death.

I'll probably offer a run down of the major Atonement Theories in a followup post. But here I want to focus on broad, basic concepts.

The idea of Christ "dying for the sins of the world" or "dying for your sins" or "dying for my sins" refers to the idea that Christ's suffering and death was a divine work by God to rescue us from that bondage of sin and death. To reconcile mortal sinners, estranged from God, back to God, in order that we can share in God's life. That even as Jesus Himself having died and then rose from the dead, God will do the same with us: There will be a resurrection of the dead, and God will make all things new, and there will be everlasting life in the future world.

That is, in a nutshell, what we are saying: Jesus is the means by which God has overcome sin and death, for us, in order that we can be reconciled to God and live forever with God in the age to come.

Of course all of that still needs to be unpacked. And I'll try and offer some unpacking in that follow up post I mentioned.

-CryptoLutheran

Interesting! Thank you very much for the thorough response. So it seems the concept of atonement comes from before Christ, to old Judaism, even if it was not called this then. But then I am lead to wonder, why in the first place was it conceived to sacrifice (especially through blood) as a method of reconciliation with God for sins? Whose idea was the kapporeth?
 
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shadow2

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In Hebrew what we translate as "sin" is an archery term, something like "missing the mark"; you fire an arrow and it doesn't hit its intended target, it's gone astray, deviated from what was supposed to have been. In Greek the word translated as "sin" means something like "error", "wrongness".

In the most basic sense sin is any error or wayward thing that is not in line with God's good will for us and the world. God's Law is about what is right and good, such as "Love your neighbor" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." etc, but there is a failure to actually do these things, to live rightly in accordance with this divine good. We fail to love as we should, we fail to do as we ought, our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, our behaviors are wayward, they are off. So when someone says sin is a transgression of God's Law, it means just that: We do not do as we ought to do, and we do what we ought not to do.

In Lutheranism we use the Latin phrase "homo incurvatus in se", that is, "man curved/turned/bent inward toward himself"; our thoughts, our will, our behavior, etc is inwardly bent, we are curved inward toward ourselves, to satisfy our own desires; whereas God calls man outward toward Himself and others in love.

This can all be generally seen by one of the penitential prayers we offer in traditional Christian worship (known as the liturgy), the following is used by both Anglicans and Lutherans (and there are many variations as well),

"Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in Your will, and walk in Your ways, to the glory of Your Name. Amen."

In "thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone."

It's not merely certain "really bad" things, like murder or theft; it's rather the whole waywardness of our basic disposition--our thoughts, our words, our deeds, both things done and left undone. All that is not in keeping with the perfect good of God and His will and way He desires for all of us to live, in love, in this world and toward all creatures.

Such waywardness, such brokenness in ourselves, keeps us estranged from God and having the fullness of life God desires for us and all creation. We are the architects of suffering, harm, and violence in the world, for ourselves and others. The strong against the weak, the rich against the poor; there is the powerful and the powerless, and there is the striving for power itself. There is malice, holding of grudges, competition, selfishness, contempt for others, bitterness, envy, greed, pride, and all manner of evil. All coming from a heart and mind that is embittered and enslaved to sin and our own mortality.

That is what sin is.

That followup is still coming, I just wanted to answer this question as well.

-CryptoLutheran

Again, very interesting response. Especially "homo incurvatus in se": how true. Perhaps I presume to understand this with too little thought, but when I read this I see a similarity between Christian morality and contractarian ethics.
 
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Cool, thanks for the explanation. Though I didn't understand "The idea is that Jesus released people from the penalty of the Law by suffering the penalty in their place. All of humanity is under the God's covenant curse because of sin". Why should everyone be suffering in the first place because of sin?

You're right that I'm probably missing context. Well, got to dive in somewhere! :)

Some people believe in what’s known as original sin which teaches that all humans are born with sin because of Adam & Eve’s sin of eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. Others believe we are condemned by our own sins which is why we still need Jesus as our Savior. Personally I don’t believe in original sin. I believe we are born with a natural rebellious and sinful nature and as a result we will all sin and are in need of atonement to be cleansed of our sins in order to receive eternal life.
 
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I don't know. My understanding of sin is that it is a concept created as a method of social control, such that the fear of punishment for sins prevents people from harming one another even when they otherwise might. I look at the origins of religion, and the time when it was most influential, as being one where baseline morality was not well understood or tangibly enforceable among a largely poor and uneducated populous. So in that sense I see it as an accepted standard of what is wrong in Christian society.

All of God’s commandments can be summed up into two commandments which are love and honor God and love others. There’s not only the threat of hell but also the promise of eternal life in heaven as God’s beloved adopted children. So it’s not only a consequence of punishment but also a promise of an overwhelmingly great reward. Different people need different motivation. :)
 
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Okay! Would you be interested in sharing what Christians mean by "sin"?

Question: "What is the definition of sin?"

Answer:
Sin is described in the Bible as transgression of the law of God (1 John 3:4) and rebellion against God (Deuteronomy 9:7; Joshua 1:18). Sin had its beginning with Lucifer, probably the most beautiful and powerful of the angels. Not content with his position, he desired to be higher than God, and that was his downfall, the beginning of sin (Isaiah 14:12-15). Renamed Satan, he brought sin to the human race in the Garden of Eden, where he tempted Adam and Eve with the same enticement, “you shall be like God.” Genesis 3 describes Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God and against His command. Since that time, sin has been passed down through all the generations of mankind and we, Adam’s descendants, have inherited sin from him. Romans 5:12 tells us that through Adam sin entered the world, and so death was passed on to all men because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Through Adam, the inherent inclination to sin entered the human race, and human beings became sinners by nature. When Adam sinned, his inner nature was transformed by his sin of rebellion, bringing to him spiritual death and depravity which would be passed on to all who came after him. We are sinners not because we sin; rather, we sin because we are sinners. This passed-on depravity is known as inherited sin. Just as we inherit physical characteristics from our parents, we inherit our sinful natures from Adam. King David lamented this condition of fallen human nature in Psalm 51:5: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

Another type of sin is known as imputed sin. Used in both financial and legal settings, the Greek word translated “imputed” means “to take something that belongs to someone and credit it to another’s account.” Before the Law of Moses was given, sin was not imputed to man, although men were still sinners because of inherited sin. After the Law was given, sins committed in violation of the Law were imputed (accounted) to them (Romans 5:13). Even before transgressions of the law were imputed to men, the ultimate penalty for sin (death) continued to reign (Romans 5:14). All humans, from Adam to Moses, were subject to death, not because of their sinful acts against the Mosaic Law (which they did not have), but because of their own inherited sinful nature. After Moses, humans were subject to death both because of inherited sin from Adam and imputed sin from violating the laws of God.

God used the principle of imputation to benefit mankind when He imputed the sin of believers to the account of Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty for that sin—death—on the cross. Imputing our sin to Jesus, God treated Him as if He were a sinner, though He was not, and had Him die for the sins of the entire world (1 John 2:2). It is important to understand that sin was imputed to Him, but He did not inherit it from Adam. He bore the penalty for sin, but He never became a sinner. His pure and perfect nature was untouched by sin. He was treated as though He were guilty of all the sins ever committed by the human race, even though He committed none. In exchange, God imputed the righteousness of Christ to believers and credited our accounts with His righteousness, just as He had credited our sins to Christ’s account (2 Corinthians 5:21).

A third type of sin is personal sin, that which is committed every day by every human being. Because we have inherited a sin nature from Adam, we commit individual, personal sins, everything from seemingly innocent untruths to murder. Those who have not placed their faith in Jesus Christ must pay the penalty for these personal sins, as well as inherited and imputed sin. However, believers have been freed from the eternal penalty of sin—hell and spiritual death—but now we also have the power to resist sinning. Now we can choose whether or not to commit personal sins because we have the power to resist sin through the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, sanctifying and convicting us of our sins when we do commit them (Romans 8:9-11). Once we confess our personal sins to God and ask forgiveness for them, we are restored to perfect fellowship and communion with Him. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

We are all three times condemned due to inherited sin, imputed sin, and personal sin. The only just penalty for this sin is death (Romans 6:23), not just physical death but eternal death (Revelation 20:11-15). Thankfully, inherited sin, imputed sin, and personal sin have all been crucified on the cross of Jesus, and now by faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

www.gotquestions.org/definition-sin.html
 
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Theo Barnsley

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Jan 4, 2019
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I posted this in intros but I was told it would be better to post it here!

I'm wondering, what does 'Jesus died for our sins' mean? I hear that as a common line, though I don't understand it. How does him getting crucified and suffering have anything to do with us sinning? I don't really see the logical connection here.

Thanks!
If you want to understand it you have to suspend all critical thinking, & turn off the logical part of your mind. I was bought up as a christian for 16 years, & I never understood it either.
 
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