Salvation Four of the Greatest Term Paper

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On Mount Sinai, God forgives all but those who have gone against Him (Exodus 32). The implication of this is that salvation comes to those who refuse, like Moses and the Levites, to stray from the path of God.

The Christian New Testament describes salvation, according to the word of God, through his Son Jesus (Christians believe Jesus was the son of God, who came to earth to save humanity; the Jews do not). One example of this may be found within the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). In the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus preaches the way to salvation, beginning by saying "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5, p. 1209). The content of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in many ways reinforces that of Moses' Ten Commandments and other teachings of the Old Testament, but also contains some key differences.

For example, Jesus states (as a direct challenge to the Pharisees of the time, a sect of Judaism that insisted on strict interpretation of the Mosaic laws): "That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5, p. 1209). This means that followers of Jesus must seek to be more righteous than the Pharisees, whom Jesus implies are less than righteous.

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Similarly, Jesus preaches, in Matthew 6, that it is hypocritical to pray "standing in synagogues and in corners of the streets" (p. 1211), just so others may see one in the act of praying. Instead, it is righteous to pray privately (i.e., to "enter into thy closet," Matthew 6) so that one's prayers are clearly not just for show, but instead between oneself and God only. Jesus also states that, when fasting (Jesus lived and preached as a Jew, so it is likely, here, that he refers to the Yom Kippur fast of the Jews, on the Jewish Day of Atonement) one should not be "as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast"; but instead, should "anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret." In essence, Jesus suggests, within Matthew 5-7, that salvation comes from true, sincere, essentially private relationship to God, rather than through a more public (but also, possibly a more unfeeling, or even totally unfeeling) one.

Of all of the holy books of the great world religions, the Koran of Muslim religion, Islam, addresses.....

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