The theological answer, as I learned it, is most clearly spelled out in James 2:14-26, often referenced through the phrase “faith without works is dead”. The short version is: faith in Jesus will save you, not good deeds. However, if you have faith in Jesus, then that faith will manifest itself through good deeds. If someone proclaims their faith but doesn’t act lovingly, then they don’t actually have faith and won’t be saved. So a Christian should be a good person not because being good will save them, but because being good is a result of genuine faith.

The simple answer is that the “you have to be good” Christians are not the same people as the “Jesus forgives no matter what” Christians. Beliefs and doctrines vary wildly throughout Christianity, and different Christians often believe contradictory things. This isn’t helped by the fact that the Bible itself, being a collection of many books by many authors, contains contradictory viewpoints. This allows believers to focus on the elements they like and ignore the ones they don’t.

Imagine Jesus as a director of a company that accepts all sincere applicants. The director assumes responsibility for all the mistakes his employees make, but he doesn’t assume responsibility for people who only claim to be employees. People who purposely commit crimes get fired and applications by people who apply with the purpose of commiting crimes get rejected for not being sincere. (That’s not to say someone who once was fired can’t reapply if they’re actually sincere about it, but since God sees into people’s hearts and minds, you can’t trick him.)

The “be a good person” and “you’ll be forgiven” are two separate ideas. Digging into it requires digging into a lot of different religions and their beliefs. Churches and people disagree on how those go together.

I don’t feel your request of “understanding the reasoning that Christians use” relates well to the question in your title. Much of religion now is repeating dogma rather than spiritual awareness and bettering yourself.

In Jesus’s time, there were three different sects of Judaism.

One of them, the Sadducees, allegedly believed there was no life after death and that God didn’t care at all about what people did or didn’t do.

Their answer to your question of following the law is perhaps the most interesting.

They believed that what was put forth as laws were a gift to humanity and that following them inherently led to a better life in the here and now.

While I don’t personally see all of the laws put forward as beneficial, there are certainly instances where that makes a lot of sense.

For example, look at the full version of one of the commandments:

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

• Exodus 20:12

Would following a commandment to take care of your parents in their old age (‘honor’ here comes from the word for burden) benefit you by setting an example such that when you are old that you too would be taken care of?

This was almost like social security in antiquity, much like the Sabbath was one of the first labor laws preventing working anyone more than 6 days in a row.

There’s something called the overjustification effect, where when you introduce external reward systems for something intrinsically rewarding people over focus on the external and forget the internal benefits. I think a number of religions have serious issues with that.

There’s even a certain irony in Job, named ‘persecuted’ in Hebrew because even though he lived a good life he experienced suffering which it explains by the intervention of Satan, today in the most common language among believers being the exact same word as “to do a task with the expectation of a reward.”

Maybe we’re too focused on the rewards.

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TLDR: He doesn’t forgive anyone who sins, he forgives those who repent. Repent not meaning “feeling sorry” as many seem to explain, but actually meaning “to turn away” which means changing fundamentally as a human being. From a bad person to a good person.

Someone who doesn’t change and act good most of the time isn’t repentant, so isn’t forgiven. So basically, you prove it with your actions and how you live your life, not with just words only. By this measurement, Republican “Christians” aren’t repentant and so aren’t forgiven.

Not a Christian anymore, but I used to be for a very long time. Sidebar: “You will know a tree by it’s fruit” AKA you’ll know what kind of person someone is by what they do. Anyone who’s even skimmed the bible (especially the new testament) would easily understand that most conservative “christians” aren’t Christian at all, but rather like the Pharisees (phony religious types) that Jesus constantly argued with and condemned.

Other note: Sikhs actually live the way Christian claim to. I could easily make a “hard to swallow pill” meme which said: “Sikhs are better Christians than actual Christians are.”

You have to be sorry to be forgiven. If you weren’t trying in the first place, it’s hard to be sorry.

But also, the thing isn’t designed to be balanced or suitable.

Jesus will forgive you because that’s how it works. The system wasn’t designed by humans.

You won’t be forgiven no matter what. If you carry on sinning, there is no more forgiveness. The only thing you can expect is to be thrown into outer darkness forever where you will be mourning and regretting your decision.

Put it this way: you drove drunk and killed someone. You’ve been given the death penalty by the judge. But a person called Jesus steps in and says “I’ll take his place. Let him go free”.

Would you ever drink drive again after someone died in your place to give you a second chance? Surely not! You would be sober, very grateful and even yet to help other people not make the same mistake.

It’s the same with sin. Jesus paid a HEAVY price to redeem you. Don’t spit in his face by carrying on with the same sins. Instead be grateful and find out how you should live instead.

Read the 10 commandments in Exodus 20. And also read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) to see how Jesus further explains and practices these.

The goal is to become holy like Jesus

Hope that helps.

Raised Catholic. Don’t believe in hell. Lost my mom recently so i hope there’s a heaven. If there is i assume it would be accepting of all. I try not to do things that hurt people because i don’t like to see people hurt.

IIRC the trick is to get your forgiveness after the last dick move, but before you die. If you mess up the timing, eternal damnation so it’s safer to be good.

Welp you don’t want to hear it but the best explanation is religion is a system to scam commoners of their devotion and money. If things start not making sense then you should stop believing in Santa Claus

You absolutely don’t have to. But when you’re a Christian, you love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul; and you love your neighbor as yourself. The result is that you do good works by virtue of doing God’s will. Good works are a result of salvation.