Judaism and Christianity Judaism Is Term Paper

Today, Christianity is the belief of more than a billion people in the world, who believe in the teachings and in the life of Jesus Christ. Therefore, to a Christian, 'Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Messiah or Christ promised by God in the prophecies of the Old Testament', and he, through his life, then his death, and finally his resurrection, 'freed those who believe in Him from their sinful state and made them recipients of God's saving Grace'. (Christian General Information)

There are many people, even today, who eagerly await the Second Coming of Christ, with which they feel that the entire plans for Salvation of man made by God, would be finally completed. The Christian faith believes in the word of the Christian Bible, or the Holy Scripture, which describes Jesus Christ as being the Lord and also the Savior of man. The basic tenets of the Scriptures, as interpreted by the Fathers of the Church, and also by the first four ecumenical councils, are generally accepted by the major traditions of the Christian faith, that is, the Lutheran, Reformed Calvinist, Anglican, and sectarian branches of Christianity. Herein, it is stated that the first human beings happened to rebel against God, and this resulted in the world being consumed with Sin. (Christian General Information)

This was the state of affairs until the Coming of Christ, during which time the Hope of a final reconciliation with God was kept alive in the minds of the people with a God's 'Covenant' with the Jews of the time, because of the fact that it was from Jews that Jesus Christ happened to spring forth. The savior, Jesus Christ therefore vanquished, albeit partially, both sin and Satan, but the sad fact is that although Jesus Christ preached the coming of God's Kingdom, he happened to be completely rejected by the Jewish leaders of the time, and these were the people who finally delivered him to the Romans to be sacrificed and killed, or in other words, crucified. However, on the Third day after his death, God managed to raise him up again, and Jesus Christ was resurrected. He then appeared to all his disciples, to command them to spread the ideals of salvation form sin and form death to all the people. This then is the basic belief of the Christian Faith.

Christians are basically monotheists, although during the early times, the concept of the Trinity was very strong, and this comprised of the Creator or the Father, the Redeemer or the Son, and the Sustainer or the Holy Spirit. What Christianity in essence created was a modification of the Jewish belief that the entire world would be transformed and changed with the coming of the Reign of God. They also held the belief that the bodies of all those who had died would rise again, and this would mean that all the righteous would triumph, and that the evil would be punished. This idea, along with that of 'eternal life', created a belief in eternal rewards, in Heaven, and eternal Punishment, in Hell. (Christian General Information) However, if one were to analyze the exact date in which Christianity became a Gentile religion form when it was a mere off shoot of Judaism, it may be found that it would probably be in the middle part of the second century, CE. (From Jewish Movement to gentile Church)

When the course of early Christianity is taken into consideration, it can be seen that there is one single thing that has had a wide impact on the faith, and that is the Council of Nicea in the year 325. This was when the Roman Emperor, Constantine, who was at that time newly converted to Christianity, invited numerous Bishops from all over the world to the present day Turkey, in order to discuss the Christian Faith and all its principles.Even at this time, it is said that the Christian faith had in fact reached a theological crossroads of sorts. An Alexandrian theologian named Arius led the discussion. While one school of thought felt that although it may be true that Jesus was a leader, it may not be true that he was the flesh of God, and Arius stated that Jesus of Nazareth could not in any manner share God's unique Divinity. (Breaking the Da Vinci Code)

However, it must be noted that in early times, early Christians happened to worship Jesus Christ as their 'risen Savior and their Lord', and even before the Church could effectively adopt these doctrinal creeds, the early Christians had already developed a set of beliefs and faiths in Jesus Christ, wherein the truth of Jesus being the only Savior was reinforces in the written form of these beliefs, which were named 'rules' or the 'Canons' of Faith. For example, according to the Corinthians 8:6: "Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ." (Breaking the Da Vinci Code) Lord here meant divinity, and this was the term that the Early Christians adopted to describe Jesus Christ. This was how the Christian faith happened to be adopted by a large number of people, and although faced with numerous challenges, the early Christians kept up their faith and found the appropriate solutions at the right times, and today, more than a billion people all over the world follow the tents of Christianity in full faith. (Breaking the Da Vinci Code)

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