WHAT ROLE DOES CHRIST PLAY IN OUR SALVATION?
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The research paper is based on the analysis of Jesus Christ’s role in people’s salvation and on the analysis of Pelagius and Augustine’s opinions concerning His action. The hypotheses of the paper are: Jesus Christ’s primary mission on earth was to save people by means of personal death; Pelagius and Augustine expressed totally different opinions concerning the action of Jesus Christ and thus established two different trends in history, Pelagianism and Augustinianism. The hypotheses of the research paper will be either supported or refuted in the process of conducting a research.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, played an increasingly important role when He was on earth. He glorified His Father; He made a lot of miracles, such as curing people and resurrecting them; He conducted moral lessons of life, the main purpose of which was to inform people that if they want to make truly intimate relations with God, they should follow His commandments, and so on and so forth. Jesus Christ did a lot of good things to people, but He always reminded that He was provided with power to do all that by His Almighty Father. However, the primary role of Jesus Christ on earth was to propagate the ideas of His Father first of all and to save people. Jesus Christ died and He saved people’s lives by His death. Nevertheless, not all people approved of His deed. Augustine and Pelagius had quite controversial opinions concerning Jesus Christ’s death as a means of people’s salvation. Pelagius supported the idea that Jesus Christ died in order to save people. However, Augustine expressed quite a controversial idea.
1
CHAPTER 2
THE ROLE OF JESUS CHRIST IN OUR SALVATION
Jesus Christ, the only Son of His Almighty Father, was sent on earth to spread the information about His Father and Father’s kingdom. He spread information that eternal life on earth is possible if people develop strong faith in God and if they live a decent life, not only externally, but internally as well. Jesus Christ stated that people should have only positive thoughts, as all the thoughts and intentions are seen and evaluated by God. Jesus Christ lived a decent life on earth, doing a lot of positive things and thus proving that a miracle is possible. However, God created people with a dual type of nature, which possesses both positive and negative features. Jesus Christ provided all people with equal possibility to obtain knowledge and implement it practically later on, though not all of them listened to Him in the same way due to their biological nature. If some people were His true pupils and followed all His teachings with much respect, then the other category of people became very jealous and wanted to get His power. The evil side took priority and jealous students killed Jesus Christ. However, God resurrected Jesus Christ on the third day after He was killed and thus proved that people’s intentions are nothing in comparison with God’s …