Far from being a mere historical fact (supported, as we have seen by many testimonies), the death of Jesus is a very important fact.
Why do Christians insist so much on his death? Why did Jesus Christ die? If He is the Saviour, why should he not have just saved humanity without dying? These are important questions. They are at the heart of the Christian faith.
To answer it, we must return to the beginning of creation. We need to understand what happened in the Garden of Eden (جنة عدن).
Genesis: how it all began
All that God created in this world was good. There was food and drink for all living beings. It was in this favorable context that Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman, first lived. God had warned them that as long as they lived for him, in obedience, they would live forever, but if they disobeyed, they would surely die. God had commanded man: “You may eat of all the trees in the garden; But thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die. “(La Torah, Genesis 2:16) [emphasis added]. The warning of God was very clear: disobedience produces death.
Let’s see how the devil, Satan (شيطان – meaning “the seducer”) tempted Adam through his wife Eve. Appeared to her in the form of a serpent, he made her an attractive proposition: ”
He said to the woman, “Did God really say, you will not eat all the trees in the garden?” The woman said to the serpent, “We can eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But as for the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, unless you die. “Then the serpent said to the woman, ! You will not die! God knows: the day you eat it, your eyes will open and you will be like gods who know what is good or bad. “The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasant for sight, That it was desirable for discernment. She took of her fruit and ate of it; She also gave to her husband who was with her, and he ate of it “(The Torah, Genesis 3: 1-6).
Though the temptation came from outside, it was from within themselves that they paid attention to it, they willingly agreed to believe in the lie of Satan. Eve, like Adam, did not heed the warnings of God; They believed that He wanted to deprive them of something, and ambition was born in their heart to become like God, His equal. For his part, Adam is not a victim of Eve, he has not reproached him and made no objection to his proposal to taste the forbidden fruit. For the first time, man (the human being) has experienced sin, that is, disobedience to God.
What were the consequences of this disobedience?
God is not a man to go back, he immediately applied what he had foretold: “The day you eat it, you will die” (The Torah, Genesis 2:16). Yet Adam and Eve did not die physically at once; they first experienced spiritual death, the loss of their relationship with God and the invasion of sin in their lives: they began to fear God, To want to hide, and both have sought to save appearances before God, as if He did not see everything; Adam even tried to blame his wife for his fault.
God could not keep in his paradise his creatures, so associated with the revolt of Satan, and drove them out. Their expulsion from the Garden of Eden illustrates the reality of this rupture of their communion with God. Adam and Eve then found themselves in an environment subject to physical suffering and death; The earth was cursed because of them, it began to produce “brambles and thorns”, they were subjected to the need to work hard to survive in a world become hostile. Later, they themselves went through physical death, experiencing what it is like to “return to the dust”. The striking narrative of these events is found in the Bible, the Torah, Genesis 3. Later, the Injil will summarize the divine principle applied by God to the sinful man: “The wages of sin, Is death “(The Injil, Romans 6:23).
Has Adam been forgiven?
I know that Muslims believe that Adam and Eve sinned against God, but that they eventually repented and were forgiven. Everything would have become normal as before, and God’s plan for Adam and Eve would have resumed its course.
Yet Muslims are unanimous in saying that, as a result of their sin, Adam and Eve were driven from the garden. If they have sinned and after their repentance everything will be Before, why have not they been reintroduced into the garden? Neither they nor any of their descendants have ever been able to return to the garden.I would like to ask you the following question: “Why do you and I suffer the consequences of Adam’s sin since we were not born in paradise and Let us all pass through death? I invite you to continue reading for the Scripture’s answer to these questions.Adam, a reflection of humanity! The Scriptures teach us that God created man in his own image, created him The image of God, representing us in the Garden of Eden (جنة عدن). In Hebrew, Adam means: the human, drawn from the humus, but in which he blew with his breath. Adam was the perfect creation of God, the humanity from which we all sprang, you as I did. However, Adam corrupted himself by his unbelief leading to his disobedience, and could only engender corrupt men . Following this, the Bible states (in Genesis 5: 1) that “Adam, a hundred and thirty years old, begot a son in his likeness, according to his image”; The children of Adam were no longer the perfect image of God, but that of their parents, tainted by sin. Adam was able to transmit life only to sinful men like himself. Sin (as a poison) had infiltrated the world and the whole human race inevitably succumbed to it. Think of this as the domino effect. Line up all the chips in a domino. As soon as the first falls, what happens to the rest? They also fall. In the same way, when the first man fell, all the rest of the human race fell with him. The fall of Adam was also ours. This is what Christians mean when they speak of “the heritage of original sin” which extends to the whole human race. When God condemned Adam, by taking away his original righteousness and allowing him to die, we were similarly condemned with him – we all died with him. The curse of the fall has spread to all. The Hadith speaks of the concept of original sin inherited from Adam. I would like to remind our Muslim friends that the concept of the heritage of original sin is present in this Hadith in which Adam, allegedly, explicitly bears the responsibility for the expulsion of the human race from paradise: “According to Abu Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with him), the Prophet of Allah (Muhammad) said:” Adam Moses said to Adam, “O Adam, you are our father who caused our loss, our privation, and brought us out of Paradise.” O Moses, ‘Replied Adam,’ you Allah has chosen to give you His words and to whom He has written with His hand (the Tablets). Do you dare to blame me for something that Allah has commanded me Forty years before I was created? “(Hadith, Bukhari, vol 8, book 77, no. 611) This shows Very clear that the human race shares Adam’s expulsion from paradise. The test of facts We might disagree with all this explanation of the contamination of man by sin, his transmission to his offspring, and Its consequences like the expulsion of paradise then death. However, if we examine the world in which we live, we can not deny that it does not resemble a world that God would have created perfect. Every day we witness human wickedness, our own wickedness, that of our compatriots and that of all the peoples of the earth, and we find that efforts to fix things do not succeed, that jealousy , Violence and injustice prevail in families and peoples, that men have become enslaved to their passions. Inequalities prevail everywhere, each pursues his interests and tries by all sorts of dishonest means to escape the order we have been given to earn our living by the sweat of our brow, and when we want to do it, others Have taken the place before us. There are some who seem to have become gods by their wealth and power, but this is of no use to them, for “crises” can carry away their wealth in their lifetime, and they also end up sick and die. The earth continues to produce “brambles and thorns”, the elements turn against us: earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, cyclones, storms, global warming … We ourselves pass at all ages by all kinds of diseases , We grow old and die.We can find all this unjust and accuse God, but it is the world we live in, that the facts are there and that they are in accordance with the explanation that Give the Scriptures. If all this is so, it is because of the sin of Adam and Eve, because of the sin of men their descendants and because of our own sin, yours, mine, for since Adam and Eve every human being , You and I, was born with ambition To be his own God and to lead an independent life with God. The prophet David exclaimed, “Behold, I was born in iniquity, and my mother conceived me in sin” (Zabur, Psalm 51: 5). That is the sad truth! Think of children. One of the first words stammered by a child, is “no”! We are all aware that their disobedience does not depend on their age. Who teaches them to disobey? Do you think they need a course on disobedience? Of course not ! Parents teach them good manners, but no one needs to teach them the bad. They are inherent in their nature and they are born predisposed to evil. The words of the prophet David are more than true: we are born into iniquity, and our mothers have conceived us in sin. God is holy and we are sinners completely separated from him. A prophet said, “But it is your crimes that put a separation between you and your God; It is your sins that hide his face from him and prevent him from listening to you “(The Bible, Isaiah 59: 2). In sum, we can say that you and I are called to the same punishment as Adam’s, for as We are disobedient and tied to sin! Let’s be realistic instead of believing that the world today is what God wanted originally. What is the solution? God’s solution! People want their own solution, but we must always and only stick with the one provided by God. Enough bad news for man! Let’s get some good news! Did God only punish Adam and Eve when they disobeyed? He could have destroyed them, but, on the contrary, he made them presentable by dressing them in the skins of beasts that He Himself sacrificed. The first blood that sank to the ground as a result of the sin of the human being, it was God Himself who caused it to flow, giving an example that was going to repeat itself. Indeed, to be presentable Before Him, God did not say to men, “Do more good works (حسنات) and less evil (سيآت)”? No ! There was no question of them redeeming their evil deeds by good deeds, for only the blood shed, the death of a victim, could provisionally allow them to approach God; Abel (Habil), son of Adam, then Noah (Nouh) after the flood, Abraham (Ibrahim), and Moses (Musa) in Egypt, did this later. In fact, from the start, God announced to our first parents, in the face of Satan, sin and death, what would be the definitive solution for men to become presentable again in His eyes. We read in the Torah the announcement made by God to Satan about his future defeat: “The Lord God said to the serpent,” Since you have done this, you will be cursed among all the cattle and among all the animals of the field, Thou shalt walk upon thy belly, and thou shalt eat dust all the days of thy life. I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thee, and hurt her heel. “(La Torah, Genesis 3: 14-15). Let us praise God that we Have here exposed not only His Holiness, but also His mercy. God’s words to Satan were called “the first gospel” (the first good news). What is God announcing? The coming of “the posterity of woman”. This refers to the birth of Jesus born of a virgin. It should be noted that there is no question of the posterity of man and woman, but it is said “the posterity of woman” exclusively, without the intervention of a man. In other words, it is as if God had said to Satan, “The day will come when the” seed of the woman “born of a virgin will crush your head Satan! She will be defeated by her opponents, “wounded in the heel,” but in fact this apparent defeat will be a great victory over you and death. “Now in the history of this world is born a woman without The intervention of a man? Who in the history of the human race has never had a human father but Jesus Christ? Born by the power of the Holy Spirit in the bosom of the Virgin Mary, it is the fulfillment of the prophecy mentioned in Genesis 3: 15. “What will the promised Deliverer do?” “I will put enmity between you [Satan] And the woman, between thy seed and her seed, shall crush thy head, and hurt thy heel. There is a prophecy about the sufferings, the death, and the victory of the woman’s posterity over Satan. The power of Satan will be crushed by the posterity of the woman. How will this happen? This implies death. Let us recall that “the wages of sin is death”. Thus, death is the number one problem of man. How could Jesus Christ deliver us from the consequences of sin without first paying the full punishment our sins deserve? This salary is Necessary to restore broken communion with God. This, you and I could never have done it for ourselves or for others. God, in His goodness, tells us that the only means of salvation is Jesus Christ – the seed of the woman – who has taken upon himself the death we deserve. He alone could do it, for he was the only one without sin, having refused to succumb to temptation. The Muslims know that he is the only one who has lived without ever sinning. This is how we can understand the profound meaning of the sacrifice God asked of Abraham. The Prophet Abraham When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to him, He obeyed without hesitation and he left with the young man. When they arrived at the place of sacrifice, his son asked him where the lamb his father was to slaughter. Abraham then replied that God would supply the lamb himself. Then he bound his son and put him on the altar over the wood. As he stretched out his hand to sacrifice it, an angel of God called him from heaven and begged him to do no harm to the child. Abraham then stopped his gesture and saw a ram retained in a bush by the horns. Abraham took the ram, and offered it to God instead of his son. God had himself replaced the son of Abraham, who was to die, by an innocent victim. This animal victim prefigures Jesus, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (L’Injil, John 1:29). It is he whom God has sent as a substitute to take the place of the condemned that we are. The illustration of the Viking king tells the story of a Viking king. In his kingdom reigned peace, for the king practiced and exercised righteousness, the malefactors were punished. One day, however, a robbery took place in the royal treasury – a robbery of objects of inestimable value, enough to raise a great army! Never had anything like this happened. What criminal could have done that? The king begged his officers to do all they could to find the malefactor, and decreed that if he were found he would be whipped to death. One day, the culprit was unmasked. Imagine who? The king’s own mother! She plotted to overthrow her eldest son and put an illegitimate son in his place. What was the king doing, to execute his sentence? On the one hand, he loved his mother and would have spared him, but on the other side he had to uphold order and justice. The day of execution came. The place of the palace was black, the whole town was there. The king ascended the throne which had been erected there, and settled there with his own son, his successor. His mother was then presented bound before him; He had only to order the execution. A silence of death reigned over the place! Everyone was waiting for the king’s decision. Would he make his mother benefit from a right-wing or would he put her to death? It was then that the king rose with determination, removed his crown, laid it on his son’s head, got rid of his royal tunic and put it on, and then went down the steps of the throne. He rejoined his mother, who stood face down, humiliated, a prey to remorse, expecting her just execution. To the general amazement, the king wrapped him in his arms, covered her with his body, and gave the order to the executioner: “Strike me! The executioner flogged the king until death ensued. The people, enthusiastic, began to shout “Long live the King” to the son who remained on the throne. The young man, almost a child, rose and ordered that his grandmother, weeping in repentance, be released and reintroduced into her apartments. No one contested this decision, why? Because everyone knew that the unworthy queen’s son had endured her punishment, that her fault had been redeemed and that nothing was hanging over her. This is but a small illustration of what Jesus did for sinners . The King of kings came to earth saying: “I come to save you, to pay the ransom of your sins, to endure the punishment of death in your place; I will die so that you may live. The prophet Isaiah tells us thus: “However, it is our sufferings he has borne, it is our sorrows that he has loaded himself; And we considered him punished, struck down by God, and humiliated. But he was wounded for our sins, broken for our iniquities; The punishment which gives us peace has fallen upon him, and it is through his stripes that we are healed. We were all wandering like sheep, each one following his own way; And the LORD God hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all … And of those of his generation who believed that he was cut off from the land of the living, and struck down for the sins of my people? His knowledge my righteous servant will justify many men, and he will take care of their iniquities (he will take upon himself our injustices) … Because he gave himself to death, and that he was put To the number of malfeasance Because he bore the sins of many men, and interceded for the guilty … “(The Bible, Isaiah 53: 4-12). Would the love of the Viking king for his mother, Is it greater than the love of God for the creatures he created? No ! “We have known love, in that he [Jesus Christ] gave his life for us” (The Injil, 1 John 3:16). “There is no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13). If Jesus was not dead, he would never have been the Savior, for the Consequences of my sins and your sins – including death – would never have been paid. Without the death of Christ, there would never have been an escape from the just punishment of God. But he died, crowned with thorns and brambles, produced after the sin of Adam and the curse that followed (La Torah, Genesis 3:18). Summarized – the first Adam and the last Adam Here is how the Bible Injil) summarizes what has been said in this booklet: “Indeed, since death came by a man [Adam], it was also by a man [Jesus Christ] that came the resurrection of the dead. And as all die in Adam, so also shall they all revive in Christ “(1 Corinthians 15: 21-22).” Therefore, as by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world , And by sin death, and thus death has spread over all men, because all have sinned … But it is not the free gift [of God] as of the offense [Adam]; For if by the offense of one [Adam] there are many who are dead, all the more so the grace of God and the gift of grace from one man, Jesus Christ, did they If by the offense of one [Adam] death reigned by him alone [Adam], much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign, They in life by Jesus Christ alone. Thus, as by a single offense, condemnation has reached all men, so by a single act of justice the justification that gives life extends to all men. For by the disobedience of one man [Adam] many have been made sinners, so by the obedience of one [Jesus Christ] many will be made righteous “(Romans 5:12). 20)
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