In our first part of the series, “What is the point of Christianity?” we took a look at the 5 Rs of the Christian faith. They are Reality, Not Simply Religion, Broken Relationships, Restored Relationships, and the Resurrection. In this blog, we will dive deeper into the reality of the fact that there is a God. Let’s look at our first question: What is the point of Christianity if there is a God?
What is the point of Christianity If There Is A God?
The point of Christianity is to know not only if there is a God but also what He is like.
Is He an angry being?
Can I communicate with Him?
Does God love?
Does God love me?
Does God know or care about me?
Or am I such a small creature in His eyes that He cares very little about me?
These questions can be answered in the teachings of Christianity.
If there is a God supreme over all the universe, then we need to know what He is like and what He thinks of us (and, more specifically, you as an individual).
The answer to all of these questions is found in the teachings of Christianity.
One of Christianity’s central points is that God wants to have a relationship with us humans. To have this relationship with us, God has set boundaries on how we should communicate with Him. At one time, we humans had clear, direct, and open communication with God until His clear instructions were violated, and humans proceeded to live on their own authority. This violation of trust broke the relationship between God and humans.
The point of Christianity is to repair this communication “link” with the almighty, supreme God of the universe.
How can this be done?
We can’t simply call God up on the phone or stop by his office. God is so holy and set apart from us.
Wait, I thought we can just pray to God? Yes, you can, because of a very simple but heart-wrenching event, Jesus’ death, to pay the penalty for our sins. You see, in order to reconnect us with God, we needed to pay the penalty for our disobedience to God. But the penalty is way more than we can pay; it requires our death. This is where Jesus comes in. He pays that penalty in full by dying and then returns to life on the 3rd day to prove it.
What’s The Point Of Christianity If Everyone Says They Love God?
The point of Christianity is that even though everyone may say they love God, there is only one way to worship God: through a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus brings you into the right relationship with God through the sacrifice of his life for your sins.
Everyone may say they love God. However, God tells us how we are to love Him properly. We all have messed up terribly, Romans 3:10-11 explains this: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.” In other words, we have no idea how to love God.
Simply stating you love God is not sufficient to have a relationship with Him. The relationship with God needs to be a reality. Think of a spouse; saying you love them and then never giving them another thought takes away all meaning to the words.
Instead, the point of Christianity is to have a loving relationship with God, the creator of all things. This relationship includes knowing God’s desires and requests, laws, and how he blesses those with whom He has a personal relationship.
To truly show you love someone or something, you need to have a relationship with the person. If I say that I love God but have little or no connection with Him, my “love” is called into question. If this love is more like my love for pizza, you could call it a preference.
A significant point of Christianity is to learn how God is to be loved. Two passages of the Bible come to mind when we think about this relationship.
The first passage is John 4, where Jesus talks to a woman at a well in Samaria. Talking to her was considered a cultural taboo because this group of people was seen as unclean in the Jewish tradition. In addition to that stigma, this woman also came from a promiscuous past. Being seen one-on-one with this woman in the middle of the day would be very scandalous.
While Jesus is at the well, he and the woman begin to talk. Specifically, they get into a discussion about when and where to worship. Jesus cuts to the chase and tells her that the time is coming and that all worshippers will worship God “in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23). Jesus is saying that the worship will not simply be a formality but done from the heart and in truth.
The other passage is in 1 John 4:20-21 (ESV): “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom He has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” So what do these verses mean? Simply put, your love for God is directly tied to your love for fellow humans. What this means is my care for other people is a reflection of what I think of God. You might disagree; you say, I love God, but I hate Mr. So-and-So. This passage points out that your relationships with people are where your relationship with God is worked out.
What’s the point of Christianity if Jesus is the only way to God?
The point of Jesus in Christianity is that He claims He is the only way to a right relationship with God. The claim that Jesus is the only way to God may seem very narrow-minded. We enjoy having options and variety in any decision we make. In the case of Jesus, the Bible indeed teaches Jesus is the only way to connect with God. Not only does the Bible teach that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, but the Bible is also the only holy book that claims Jesus is The Messiah and God in the flesh.
To understand the point of Jesus in Christianity, you need to look at what Jesus taught. He was unequivocal that He was from God and was the specially chosen one to bring the whole world back to God, to redeem the broken relationship we have with God.
What’s the point of Christianity If Jesus Said He Is The Only Way to God?
Christianity’s core belief is that God exists and revealed himself in human form through Jesus Christ. The existence of Jesus and God is supported by various pieces of evidence, including the New Testament and historical accounts of Jesus from non-religious sources. Additionally, many people from different backgrounds and beliefs at the time recognized Jesus as a real person.
Furthermore, the Bible’s descriptions of Jesus performing healings in front of skeptics are not contested as fictional. This showcases Jesus’ supernatural abilities, which cannot be explained by scientific means. Therefore, it confirms his divine nature. Here are a few examples of what Jesus says about himself.
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; also believe in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”
Let us look more closely at (John 14:6 ESV) Jesus said to him [Thomas], “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
This verse is pulled from a much longer discussion Jesus had with His disciples the evening before He was to be arrested and crucified. (John 13-17) Throughout this discussion, Jesus explains how He wants His disciples to love each other and to prepare for his death. He tells them that He is leaving and going to the Father (God). Thomas wants to know where Jesus is going and how he could follow Jesus to His destination. This is when Jesus tells the disciples that He is the only way to God, who is his Father.
After Jesus’ death, resurrection, and subsequent ascension to Heaven, it was only then that the disciples understood and taught that Jesus is the only way to God. Even more so, they taught that the point of Christianity is believing that Jesus is God in human form and that he is the only one able to restore our relationship with God. Here is another passage of scripture that shows what Jesus is all about.
In the book of Acts, chapter 3:1-11, Peter and John go out and heal a disabled beggar. In Chapter 4, we find Peter defending his actions to a group of religious leaders called the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was a group of Jewish religious leaders that were responsible for the death of Jesus just a few months before this event of the man being healed. Peter took this time to talk to these leaders and explain that what had happened was through the power of Jesus Christ.
Peter becomes filled with the Holy Spirit and says to the religious leaders in Acts 4:11-12” This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.[b] 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
In this way, Peter points out the fulfillment of the prophecy that the religious leaders would reject Jesus who is in reality, God. From this, we see that the point of Jesus in Christianity is to fulfill what the prophets spoke of that the rejection of Jesus would happen yet God would use his son to bring the world back to Him through his sacrificial death on the cross. So if Jesus was alive and died and came back to life how did he give the disciples the power to heal a disabled man?
Many to this day ask, “How was this healing possible through the power of Jesus?”. For that answer, we look At the book of John (written by the other man who was with Peter at the healing event in Acts 3). In John 14:12-13 we hear the words of Jesus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
In reading these words, we see that Jesus blesses his followers with the ability to perform the same kind of works that he himself did. By Peter and John doing these works we see that they are showing that the cornerstone of their faith is Jesus Christ, the power by which they perform these miracles.
Keep in mind that the Sanhedrin crucified Jesus for saying He was God. So for Peter and John to say these things were done by his power was quite risky. However, Peter knew that Jesus fulfilled his promise of saying that he would rise from the dead (as seen in John 2:19-22) and that Jesus claimed to be God.
So the point of Christianity is this: Jesus claims to be God, fulfills what the prophets said about the coming Messiah, and then shows that he fulfills the prophecies he says about himself when he returns to life. These things point to the fact that Jesus is the only way to God.
This makes one of the major points of Christianity knowing and understanding who Jesus is and, in some ways, who He is not. In this case, we learn that Jesus is the only way to have a connection with God. To understand who God is, we then need to deal with the broken relationship we have with Him.
What’s the point of Christianity if Jesus is God?
The central point of Christianity is that Jesus claimed to be God,
“‘Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.’ So the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid and went out of the temple.” (John 8:56-58)
If you are unfamiliar with Jewish history like me, you might think Jesus saying “I AM” has nothing to do with claiming to be divine. However, these two words are essential. So what is the significance of saying, “I am “?
To understand the significance of this better, we are going to look at Exodus 3:13-14. In this passage, you find God in conversation with Moses. Moses asks God, who are you? What is your Name? God’s answer is, “I AM WHO I AM.” This means when we see Jesus saying that He is older than Abraham and invoking the same Name God used when He spoke to Moses, Jesus clearly says to the Jews, “I am God.”
For the Jewish people to hear Jesus say this, they realize that he is claiming to be God. You may ask, “Why would they stone Jesus for claiming to be God? At this time to claim that you were one with God was a capital offense. In attempting to stone Jesus, the people were following what they thought were the commands of Scripture; however, they were missing all of the truth Jesus was telling them, and they were missing how he was fulfilling the prophecies right in front of them.
In the book “More than a Carpenter” by Josh and Sean McDowell, they draw from the writings of C. S. Lewis to deal with the question of Jesus’ deity. C. S. Lewis proposed that Jesus can only be 1 of 3 options, a liar, a lunatic, or the Son of God.
The only way to prove that Jesus was more than just a lunatic or a magician you need to look at His resurrection. Rising from death after brutal torture and crucifixion is physically impossible. A liar would tend to repent at the point of death, a lunatic may not, but only He who is “one with God” can die and rise again.
What’s The Point Of Christianity If God Isn’t Real?
If God is not real, there is not only no point in Christianity. In reality, Christianity is then dangerous at best causing unneeded division. To a certain point, Christianity would be only ancient folklore, myth, or just a way to teach a few moral lessons. The Bible itself claims in 1 Corinthians 15:19 “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Simply put, if all of these Christian ideologies are a farce as many suggest, then Christians should be the people whom everyone feels terrible for because Christians are deceiving themselves.
The point of Christianity is that God is real and revealed himself to us through Jesus. We have much evidence to trust that Jesus and God are real. Some of this evidence comes from the books of the Bible in the New Testament, as well as multiple historical accounts of Jesus outside of the church. People from different backgrounds and beliefs during that time also acknowledged Jesus as a real person.
Moreover, the Bible accounts of the healings that took place in front of Jesus’ biggest critics are not disputed as being real. This demonstrates that Jesus’ abilities are beyond scientific explanation and that he is truly divine in nature.
The facts ring true Jesus is God. He actually lived according to historical documents in and outside of the Bible and performed miracles that go outside the normal understanding of the world. This all leads to the point of Christianity that God is real and Jesus is God in the flesh.
In addition to these facts showing that Jesus truly lived, and was divine in nature, one must also think about how He controlled all of these created things.
How could he have power over death if he did not create it?
How could he have power over illness if he did not create the body in which it was found?
How could he have power over the weather if he did not create it?
How could he have the power to vanish from human sight if he did not create it?
How could he have power over creation itself by turning water into wine or killing a fig tree with just his words?
Saying that all of these things happen by chance arguably takes more faith than believing someone created it all and is in power over it all. Christianity points to Jesus as being the God of the Bible and says that all we experience around us is created by God and under the control of God, even when God is in the human form of Jesus.
The facts ring true Jesus is God. He actually lived according to historical documents in and outside of the Bible and performed miracles that go outside of normal replication. This all leads to the major point of Christianity that God is real and Jesus is God in the flesh.
One would have to say that there is no point in Christianity if God isn’t real. The whole point of Christianity is to have the right relationship with God through Jesus and to worship Him.