The Benefit of Christ – The Most Influential Book You Have Never Read

It was 1543. North of the Alps, Protestant reformers were busy publishing books. In Rome, the papacy was busy banning them. Still, the publishers in Venice, a proudly independent republic with a reputation of opposition to the pope, were persistent. That year’s best-seller was an Italian essay by a characteristically long name: Trattato utilissimo del beneficio di Giesù Cristo crocifisso verso i cristiani (Most useful treatise on the benefit of Jesus Christ crucified for Christians). It was called, for short, Il Beneficio di Cristo (The Benefit of Christ). A Much Hated Best-Seller HOME COLUMNS ABOUT SUBSCRIBE DONATE Cloud of Witnesses By Simonetta Carr The Benefit of Christ – The Most Influential Book You Have Never Read print It was 1543. North of the Alps, Protestant reformers were busy publishing books. In Rome, the papacy was busy banning them. Still, the publishers in Venice, a proudly independent republic with a reputation of opposition to the pope, were persistent. That year’s best-seller was an Italian essay by a characteristically long name: Trattato utilissimo del beneficio di Giesù Cristo crocifisso verso i cristiani (Most useful treatise on the benefit of Jesus Christ crucified for Christians). It was called, for short, Il Beneficio di Cristo (The Benefit of Christ).

How does that saying go? ... Wait and see! Paul wrote about it. I believe him, because his inspiration was first hand knowledge. He was raptured to Heaven and came back to tell us of things to come. Philip was Raptured from where he baptized the Ethiopian back to the Gaza. Jeremiah was Rapture and returned to give witness of what was coming.

Jesus told His disciples that He was going to prepare a place for them and then come and take them back to the Father's House to be with Him. I believe Jesus. He instructed Paul on the matter, in person, and Paul instructed those he evangelized:

Jesus speaking: 1 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 There are many rooms in my Father’s house. If there weren’t, I wouldn’t have told you that I am going away to prepare a place for you, would I? 3 And since I’m going away to prepare a place for you, I’ll come back again and welcome you into my presence, so that you may be where I am. [John 14]
Paul elaborating upon what Jesus said, to comfort those who were grieving for loved one who had died: 13 But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve like other people who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring those who have died with him. 15 For we declare to you what the Lord has told us to say: We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died. 16 With a shout of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of God’s trumpet, the Lord himself will come down from heaven, and the dead who belong to the Messiah will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 So then, encourage one another with these words.[1 Thess 4]

There's more in 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Thess 2-5. What is coming is no laughing matter. Just wait and see!

I'm sure the people who lied in Noah's day did the same thing.

Rain? What's that?

Flood? Are you kidding me?

Float? Seriously?

Boat? That's going to float in the flood and keep you alive? Yeah, sure........

Hey, Noah, when's that rain coming? Where's that flood of yours? You been working on that boat 100 years now. (with no proof or validity. Just working on faith because he believed God.)

Mockers gotta mock.

2 Peter 3:1-18 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Catholics are all saved at their Baptism.

No Catholics are saved by baptism because baptism does not save anyone.

If baptism saved, Christ died for nothing.

But if baptism saves, then nobody needs to eat Jesus every Sunday.

And that means that all Catholics will go to heaven no matter what they do. so they can go out and sin with impunity, commit adultery, have an abortion, etc, and still go to heaven.

What a racket......

Which means that all the lecturing about the sin of presumption because someone is certain of their salvation, is nothing but a bunch of hot air.

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