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Posted on 10/19/2017 8:52:17 PM PDT by Salvation
We continue to read from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans in daily Mass. In today’s reading, we learn that we are justified by faith apart from the Law. The debates about faith and works are often the result of varied interpretations of today’s text.
One of the sources of confusion is a failure to understand the deeper point: that we are saved by Jesus Christ. It is by being put into a saving relationship with Him that we are saved. This relationship changes us; it affects what we do and do not do. Thus our works change, but it is as a result of the relationship with the Lord. Catholics and Protestants often talk past each other on this topic. It is not simply faith, or faith and works, it is Jesus to whom we must look.
Another confusion is over what we mean by the Word of God. It does not just refer to a book we call the Bible. Reading the Bible is a good thing, but meeting the Lord there is deeper and better. Many people think of the Word of God as an “it” when in fact the Word of God is a person, Jesus Christ. Jesus did not come merely to give us information and to exhort us. He came to give us His very self. Jesus is the “Word made Flesh.”
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI made this point in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Verbum Domini.
[There is a] statement made by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews: “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (1:1-2). … Here the Word finds expression not primarily in discourse, concepts, or rules. Here we are set before the very person of Jesus. His unique and singular history is the definitive word which God speaks to humanity. We can see, then, why “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a definitive direction.” … “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14a). These words are no figure of speech; they point to a lived experience! Saint John, an eyewitness, tells us so: “We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14b). … Now the word is not simply audible; not only does it have a voice, now the word has a face. (Verbum Domini 11-12).
The Word of God is not merely words on the pages of a book. The Word of God is not just an idea or an ethical system. The Word of God is not just a set of teachings or doctrines. The Word of God is Jesus Christ. In order to really grasp this Word, we cannot read ink spots on a page, we must come to know Him, and experience Him and His power active in our lives.
It is dangerous to turn Scripture into an abstraction or to treat it as just a text. St Thomas Aquinas wrote, The Son is the Word, not any sort of word, but one Who breathes forth Love. Hence Augustine says (De Trin. ix 10): “The Word we speak of is knowledge with love.” Thus the Son is sent not in accordance with [just] any kind of intellectual perfection, but according to the intellectual illumination, which breaks forth into the affection of love, as is said (John 6:45): “Everyone that hath heard from the Father and hath learned, comes to Me” (Summa Prima Pars, 43.5 ad 2).
Hence we cannot really grasp Scripture unless we come to know Jesus Christ. Further, to authentically read Sacred Scripture is to encounter Jesus Christ there. Before we analyze a passage from Scripture we are summoned to encounter the One who is speaking to us.
It is surely possible for some people, even secular scholars, to analyze a Greek text of Holy Writ and translate it into English (or another language). Some scholars can analyze the idioms used or the historical context. Such research can help us to understand what a particular passage is saying on one level, but only a deep, personal knowledge of Jesus Christ can help us to know what the text really means. It is this personal, communal, historical, and ongoing encounter with Jesus Christ that distinguishes true theology from mere literary analysis or religious study.
Indeed, theologians and Scripture scholars can be dangerous if they do not personally know Jesus Christ. Knowing Jesus is not the same as knowing about Him. I might know about Jesus Christ from reading a book or from being told by someone, but this is not enough; I must know Him. Being a true authority in Scripture requires meeting and knowing the author. Do you notice that the word “author” is in the word “authority”?
Note how Pope Emeritus Benedict quotes the Prologue of John’s Gospel: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14a) and then continues on to say, These words are no figure of speech; they point to a lived experience! He also says, in reference to the passage from Hebrews 1, Here we are set before the very person of Jesus.
In the liturgical context of Scripture, this fact is enshrined in our ritual. As the priest or deacon proclaims the Gospel, the congregation stands out of respect. For it is Christ Himself who speaks to them and whom they encounter in this proclamation of the Word. At the conclusion of the proclamation of the Gospel, they acknowledge that they are encountering Jesus as they say to Him personally, Laus tibi Christe (Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ).
Scripture and the wider concept of the Word of God authentically interpreted by the Church, is not merely a book or a set of ideas. It is an encounter with a living God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God is a person, Jesus Christ.
Perhaps a couple of short stories will help to illustrate the difference between seeing Scripture as merely a text, and seeing it as an encounter with the Word made Flesh, Jesus.
Well, you get the point. When you’ve met Jesus Christ you just don’t doubt that He walked on the water, multiplied loaves, raised Lazarus, knew perfectly well that He was God, and stepped out of the tomb on Easter morning.
The Word of God is not merely a text; It is a person, Jesus Christ, the Logos, the Word made Flesh. Once you’ve met Him, His spoken (and later written) Word begins to make greater and greater sense and there is just no doubt that this Word is true and powerful.
I’ll let Pope Emeritus Benedict provide the concluding words to today’s post: … the Word finds expression not primarily in discourse, concepts, or rules. Here we are set before the very person of Jesus. … These words are no figure of speech; they point to a lived experience! Saint John, an eyewitness, tells us so: “We have beheld his glory, the glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Msgr Pope ping.
Interesting piece by him.
Amen and Amen! on this one.
I, too, have read those "wrong books".
Read them and rejected them.
that we are saved by Jesus Christ.
It is by being put into a saving relationship with Him that we are saved. This relationship changes us; it affects what we do and do not do. Thus our works change, but it is as a result of the relationship with the Lord.
The Msgr nails it.
If we keep our focus on Christ we will do well.
Can one have a partial knowledge of Jesus or a partial relationship with Jesus?
Can one accept part of the Truth of Jesus and deny other parts of the Truth?
Amen.
Can one have a partial knowledge of Jesus or a partial relationship with Jesus?
Can one accept part of the Truth of Jesus and deny other parts of the Truth?
Rev 3:16 But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth!
We all see in part and know in part (1 Corinthians 13) because we see through a glass darkly.
For one thing, we are human and cannot fathom God fully. Ever.
The other is that our spiritual eyes are clouded while living here on this earth. The Holy Spirit can open them to some extent and draw us to Jesus and reveal spiritual truths to us but without His enlightening, we are still blind.
We aren’t in partial relationship with Him, ever. If may be imperfect but it’s either all, we have it, or nothing, we don’t.
We must accept all the Truth about Jesus as found in His word. It’s not comfortable many times, but that’s what it is and that;s what we have to deal with.
Thank-you, God Bless, and so very TRUE.
WE NEED to be in “right relationship with the Lord.”
“One of the sources of confusion is a failure to understand the deeper point: that we are saved by Jesus Christ.”
Well I’m confused because the Roman church teaches that they are saved by the false mary, a re-crucifixion of Jesus, the sacraments, and then Jesus Christ. Are you saved by just Christ or by all the others and Christ?
“All the Elect obtain eternal salvation through the means of Mary.” -Saint Ildephonsus, Bishop, d. 667 AD
”I have great doubts about the salvation of those who do not have special devotion to Mary.” -Saint Francis Borgia, 1510-1572 AD
”A man is no true Christian if he has no devotion to the Mother of Jesus Christ.” -Saint John Eudes, 1601-1680 AD
”To desire grace without recourse to the Virgin Mother is to desire to fly without wings.” -Pope Pius XII, 1876-1958 AD
“One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours.”
—Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)
1129 The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation.51 “Sacramental grace” is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. The Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature52 by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior.
While I agree completely that we are saved by Jesus Christ the roman church doesn’t believe that nor does it teach that.
“This relationship changes us; it affects what we do and do not do.”
Is this at infant baptism or at some other point that I’m not aware of? The only change I see for the most part is they make sure that they go to mass Saturday night before going to get drunk, dance, and other obscene things at the roman church ordained kc hall.
“Hence we cannot really grasp Scripture unless we come to know Jesus Christ.”
And the only way we know Jesus Christ is to be born again (John 3:7) which I’m curious which ceremony does the roman church do that makes one born again?
While this all sounds great it’s a secular understanding while denying the power of God Himself.
2 Timothy 3:5
holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
“deeper point: that we are saved by Jesus Christ”
We are saved by GRACE through faith and faith alone in Jesus Christ. The cross, piercing, crushing, death, burial, and resurrection were mechanisms that God used so that He could declare us righteous, holy, justified, and thus allowing us to be saved.
Ephesians 2:5,8
Romans 3:24
Acts 15:11
1 Peter 1:5
Without God’s grace and mercy He would have never sent Jesus Christ to pay the penalty of our sin.
Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, become born again, and run from the roman church and you to will see the Holy Scriptures as they are truly written.
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