Teachings of Christ
The story of Adam and Eve from the Old Testament offers a reason that man faces death after a short time on earth. The sin of Adam and Eve is inherited by all men. In the story, God originally provided them with an idyllic, everlasting life free of all pain and suffering in the Garden of Eden. He only requested that they not eat the fruit from a certain Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The symbolism is that only God has complete knowledge, and that no one else can presume to be like God. But God had given Adam and Eve free will so that they could choose to eat or not eat the fruit. The temptation to eat was too great and they were banished from the Garden of Eden to suffer in their life on earth. They disobeyed God and committed the first sin, commonly called the original sin. Some believe that all men are descendants of Adam and Eve and have this original sin, whether or not they are aware of it.
For some, this simple story of Adam and Eve impacting all of mankind is hard to comprehend. Should the disobedience of Adam and Eve condemn billions of people to a life that ends with death? The Old Testament says that all men now have knowledge of both good and evil, not just the good that God wanted, and they have the free will to choose one or the other. Good is obeying God, evil is disobeying God. Man's life is filled with unsatisfied needs and automatically ends in death on this earth. Man's "scorned" life is what God has willed. But is there some way that man can obey God while on earth and be forgiven?
Before coming to earth as Jesus, God revealed Himself sporadically to various people in various roles, called prophets, as told in the Old Testament. His most extended involvement was with the Israelites when He freed them from slavery in Eqypt to migrate to the land now called Israel. He ruled that they should live under 613 specific laws, that included the Ten Commandments, in a kind of theocratic society. God wanted the Israelites to live as He willed and spread their influence to other nations. The definition of obeying God is in those rules because God gave them directly to Moses as their leader. In exhange for obedience, God's Covenant was that the Jewish nation would survive and prosper under His supervision. Obeying those secular laws changed the behavior of the Jews by instructing them how to worship God and by defining cooperative relationships among them. The design of God's secular laws was to cause a spiritual change within each person.
Christianity is known as a faith of "good news." The term, "news," suggests that something has changed. Two thousand years ago, God did something He had never done. His divinity came to earth through a man, Jesus. The life of Jesus provides the model of an exemplary life that God wants every one to follow. Jesus died violently by Roman crucifixion, but reappeared again on earth after death to prove there is a possible eternal, spiritual life. While only the Jews were offered the original Covenant by God, this was a New Covenant offered to all believers, whether Jew or non-Jew, who will accept and obey the two great Commandments that Jesus taught. The reward is the possibility of the soul's salvation.
Jesus taught that there are two great Commandments comprising the Will of God. The first is to be aware and respectful of God at all times, that He is all powerful and all knowing, and worthy of our unmitigated glory and undivided attention. An essential part of this first Commandment is acceptance that God came to earth through Jesus to make possible salvation for believers. The second is that God is the Creator of everything including all other humans, and that man should care about those who are less fortunate. Only God can see and judge if someone obeys this New Covenant since it is based on a personal relationship with God. Although there may be outward signs of a Christian's spiritual obedience of the Commandments observable by other humans, such as good works, only God can and does judge the hearts of all humans.
It is interesting that God chose to come to earth within the Jewish society. The events of Jesus' life and teachings clashed with the way the Jewish laws were being applied. The Jewish religious leaders had corrupted God's Laws by using them as a tool for developing self-centered power. Jesus lived a humble human life, submitting to a death that was encouraged by the very Jewish leaders who were then the self-proclaimed interpreters of God's laws. Jesus lived a perfect life to provide an example for believers to emulate. Jesus revealed that salvation could not come from mortal leaders or their religious infrastructure, but only directly from God.
“Reborn” Christians, that is, those who experience the birth of a Christian spiritual conscience, are forgiven previous sins and have the opportunity to live the rest of their lives recognizing what sin is and striving to avoid it. Sin is defined simply as any thought or action that offends God by not following His Will. Man commits sin in two ways. When he has a thought or performs an action that is contrary to the two Great Commandments, he commits a sin. But since he is living and breathing as a creation of God, man should find ways to obey the Commandments, not just avoid disobeying them. So when he misses an opportunity to have a thought or perform an action that obeys these Commandments, that is also a sin. Thus there are both sins of commission and sins of omission. To obey the Commandments glorifies God. To do otherwise is to sin. And God does not want sin in His Kingdom.
