Written on the 12th of November, 2024
Since birth I have attended church every Sunday for a decade while living with grandparents who were very religious Catholics. Until recently, I had no idea I have been so impacted by the horror of Jesus’ torture and crucifixion, supposedly to save me from my sin. I remember feeling the sadness and the morbidity, as well as guilt as part of the church atmosphere, constantly being reminded of Jesus’ suffering for our sin. Until now, I didn’t ever get to feel the sorrow of that trauma, I’ve just lived in denial of it, eventually becoming very angry with the church and the religion to further suppress the sadness.
I have carried, as I am sure many do, a lot of guilt and shame about my contribution to Jesus’ suffering, pain, torture and prolonged death. This false doctrine, also greatly contributed to my fear of God based on His supposed decree to have His only obedient child sacrificed and killed in such a horrific way.
In the below video Jesus explains the dreadful error of the blood sacrifice doctrine (5 minutes in).
20130310 Bible S02Q06 – Romans 10:13 Will people only be saved believing you are Jesus?
Vivid memories of the priest repeating supposedly the words of Jesus to eat and drink the body and blood of Christ as a reminder of his sacrifice for us, have begun to surface. Intellectually I had no idea really what it all meant as a child, but now I understand the emotional impact these words and feelings I’ve heard repeated each Sunday, have had on me.
It was traumatic as a child to be hearing this all the time and living with the guilt of it, there was never any joy associated with any of the religious doctrines taught at church. Walking out of church into the sunshine and bird song, and trees, and the promise of ice cream and play with friends, was like being released from prison. Church was something we had to endure, to forcefully recognise the suffering Jesus went through, to never forget that he had to suffer so terribly for my wrong doing.
The effect of the constant oppressive feeling of guilt has on us, is the desire to run and hide from it, because there is no resolution given by the church as to what one can do to alleviate it and no longer sin. The amount of sin that many jump right back into after church, is evidence of the lack of any efficacy of Jesus’ blood and death to redeem us from sin. The violence, the drunkenness, the child abuse, the hatred towards one another, and then back to church on Sunday for some more guilt tripping.
This horrible lie of Jesus’ blood sacrifice is extremely damaging, because it teaches us that someone else will pay for our sin and we have no power to overcome or deal with our own evil. It keeps us trapped in sin and evil desires, there is no responsibility and accountability on us as the sinner.
The belief that God has decided to sacrifice his only good and obedient child for the sake of saving all His other rebellious children, portrays God as a very evil man. Can you imagine doing that to your own children? Would you ever consider torturing and killing the most obedient child you have to save your other unruly children from wrong doing? Would you even believe that this would work? If so, how? Where is the logic in it? There is none!
Below Jesus explains that when we distance ourselves emotionally from a religious doctrine such as the belief that Jesus died for our sin (at 9.18 minutes), it demonstrates that the doctrine is false, as God’s Truth must be felt to find lodgement in our soul.
0130929 Divine Truth S05Q01 – Quality 13: Divine Truth is felt – It is emotional
Are we sinless because Jesus was sacrificed? Obviously not! How can we then attribute this complete nonsense to God? How can we then say that God is loving? This is not the behaviour of a Loving God, any parent that would do that, would be thrown into jail! So let’s use some logic, and even more so, use our heart to decide for ourselves if what the Bible teaches about the sacrifice of Jesus feels like a loving thing, or whether it is pure blasphemy and really damages God’s character, and therefore our relationship with Him, for which we must repent. This tragic lie has been used to obscure Jesus true mission to bring the glad tidings of God’s Redeeming Love being reinstated to us! It takes time and effort to resolve the pain and confusion, dispel the lies and work on the desire to learn the truth from God about God’s Merciful Love.
In the below video, Jesus explains how to overcome false religious doctrines.
20130318 Religion Christian S02Q01 – How can heart-felt false beliefs & false doctrines be overcome?
We celebrate Jesus’ death instead of celebrating his life. Yet, had he lived longer, he would have taught many more people the real message he was born to teach humanity, that all of God’s children could receive God’s Love, be redeemed and desire to live in harmony with God’s Loving Laws, thus bringing the Kingdom of God onto Earth. When Jesus said that “unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:1-8), he meant that if we desire to see God’s Kingdom, we must receive God’s Transforming Love, via the Holy Spirit into our souls, to such an extent that we become sinless and in complete harmony with how God Loves.
Below Jesus describes the operation and function of the Holy Spirit in bringing God’s Love into the human soul.
2013318 Religion Christian S02Q08 – Does God connect directly to us through the Holy Spirit?
Why is this fundamental teaching of Jesus stated only once in the Bible and often completely ignored and misinterpreted when stated? It is because the people who wrote the Bible like the rest of us, want someone to pay for our own wrong doing, for someone else to take away our pain, for someone else to save us, and most of all because we love our sin and we want to continue sinning. We love the idea of someone rescuing us from pain and suffering, and not having to go through the penalties demanded of us by God’s Loving Laws. A sincere person desires to admit, pay for and repair their own mistakes, their own sin, their own wrong doing. We cannot be sincere while we believe that Jesus has died for our sins, and therefore we cannot have a relationships with God, while blaspheming against God’s Character by calling Him a murderer.
Below Jesus explains how to determine if we are connecting to God, which must be based on the qualities of love, truth and humility on our part.
20130318 Religion Christian S02Q06 – How can we learn to trust and feel God as a real experience?
We can see from this, that if we believe that Jesus was made to pay a debt for our sins, we obviously believe that others should suffer for what we have done and that we should be absolved from any penalty, as long as someone else pays it for us. Yet, our Loving God demands of us to become the self responsible children He created us to be, and sooner or later we will come to recognise that we are already paying the penalty for our own sin, that we already suffer the pain our sin brings to us, as part of God’s system of correction. The sooner we recognise it, the sooner we can go to God and ask for God to help us to repent and work through our sin, so we can be forgiven, redeemed and free of sin, becoming loving and self responsible people. With this attitude God can share God’s Personal Love with us if we pray for God’s Forgiveness, so we can be the most happy we can ever imagine. However, God requires of us to experience and express the sorrow for what we have done and for us to turn our hearts to God with utmost heartfelt sincerity. God desires for us to know the extent of the harm our sin has caused to others and to ourselves, and feels glad when His children come to Him with a repentant heart filled with remorse and desire to repair the wrong we have committed.
Loving God 