Posted on 11/19/2019 9:06:56 AM PST by Salvation
This is the tenth in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.
Continuing our series on the Four Last Things, in today’s post we consider an aspect of Heaven called the Communion of Saints. I have discovered that it is frequently misunderstood. Many of you know that I write the weekly “Question and Answer” column for the Our Sunday Visitor newspaper. Every once in a while, someone poses a unique question, one that I had never thought of before. such is the case with the question below. It led me to reflect on the deeper experience of what we call the Communion of Saints in Heaven.
My answers are required to be no more than 600 words, so this response is relatively brief.
(There is an online catalogue of my “Question and Answer” columns available here: Msgr. Pope’s OSV Columns.)
Q: The descriptions in the Bible seem to describe a vast amount of people, and the paintings I have seen from the Renaissance make it look rather crowded and busy. Frankly, I hate big cities and crowds. Are these descriptions accurate or am I missing something? Doris Leben, Wichita, Kansas
A: The danger to avoid when meditating on Heaven is taking earthly realities and merely transferring them to Heaven. Even if there are similarities to things on earth, things in Heaven will be experienced in a perfected way, with unspeakable joy.
The more biblical and theological way to understand the multitudes in Heaven is not as a physical crowding but as a deep communion. In other words, the Communion of Saints is not just a lot of people walking about or standing around talking.
St. Paul teaches, So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members, one of another (Rom 12:5). Although we experience this imperfectly here on earth, we will experience it perfectly in Heaven. As members of one another we will have deep communion; we will know and be known in a deep and rich way. Your memories, gifts, and insights will be mine, and mine will be yours. There will be profound understanding and appreciation, a rich love and a sense of how we all complete one another and really are all one in Christ.
Imagine the glory of billions of new thoughts, stories, and insights that will come from being perfectly members of Christ and of one another. Imagine the peace that will come from finally understanding and being understood. This is deep, satisfying, and wonderful communion—not crowds of strangers.
Therefore, the biblical descriptions of Heaven as multitudes should not be understood as mere numbers, but as the richness and glory of communion. The paintings showing “crowds” should be understood as an allegory of deep communion, of being close in a way we can only imagine.
St. Augustine had in mind the wonderful satisfaction of this deep communion with God and with one another in Christ when he described Heaven as Unus Christus amans seipsum (One Christ loving Himself). This is not some selfish Christ turned in on Himself. This is Christ, the Head, in deep communion with all the members of His Body, and all the members in Christ experiencing deep mystical communion with Him and with one another—together swept up into the life of the Trinity. As St. Paul says, you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s (1 Cor 3:23).
The One True Holy Church is made up of ALL Believers since Pentecost who have the Holy Spirit Seal upon their spirit, whether they are dead or still alive. There are even some in the Catholicism.
“You alter my sentence to read the way you want it to so you can continue the blind pugnaciousness.”
No, I altered it to simply tell the truth.
“You are on ignore now ...”
That’s how you have always been. Maybe now you’ll just honestly follow through.
“until you spittle forth something I choose to dispute.”
Excellent.
“Deception is not a Christian trait.”
But we know it’s a common enough Protestant trait as many anti-Catholics show.
“Twisting someone’s sentence to produce something they did not write is deception.”
I didn’t say it was your sentence. I didn’t use quote marks or even imply it was your sentence. Get a grip.
“You are trying to deceive and I will not assist you in your efforts.”
I am not trying to deceive and that sure sounds like “mind reading” on your part.
So was St. Paul not letting the message sink in when he called the Galatians stupid or foolish?
I see you completely miss the point.
Your tagline is not one that reflects a person gifted with the fruits of the Spirit.
It displays the same haughty attitude of another Roman Catholic poster who used to say something along the lines of playing chess with pigeons.
Perhaps you should read ALL of Galatians....along with the NT.
Jesus did not die on that cruel Cross to redeem the flesh of sinners. The concept of a 'cleansing purgatory' is all about cleansing the soul part of the flesh. But that part of the flesh is destined for discarding when GOD gives believers a new soul and body in which will dwell the eternal born again spirit which has God's Holy Spirit seal upon it when we are born again.
Paul writes that we war against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The flesh is all about sinning, as Paul also wrote, that if he sins it is the flesh of sin which dwells within him, in his soul, not his spirit.
When we die, the fleshly soul ends it's tyranny over our body and behavior. The dead do not sin. But without the Life of God sealed in the spirit of the alive and dead, the being who is that spirit is in a state of deadness and cannot be redeemed thereafter. That dead spirit does not go to purgatory to be made clean else Jesus died on that Cross for nothing that could not be achieved by suffering in an imagined purgatory for each of us.
Jesus died for us so our dead spirit can have His Life in it, a Life that is eternal counting from the moment God seals the spirit with HIS SPIRIT.
The spirit state of deadness in the unregenerate is not nothingness, for the spirit is going to be around for eternity, either as Born again God-family member or a sequestered sin-laden exile from God ... for eternity.
At new birth the spirit is made alive with ETERNAL LIFE at that moment of new birth. But the soul of the flesh inherited from Adam is still around, being tempted and giving in to the 'fun' of sin. That's why we are told to confess our sins, because the taint of sin blurs the glorious new Holy Spirit SEED within our spirit, so it must be cleansed away during our life on Earth from the connection between soul and spirit, so the New Life can shine through as a witness to having been born again.
Would God send His Holy Spirit through purgatory? No reason to, according to Catholic dogma, for the Holy Spirit has no sin to purge.
In more than one place Paul instructs us that it is God Who is in the believer, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. John even gives us a huge clue as to what this means in the spirit of the believer when he, John (1 John 3:9), tells us that the members of God's family, as present spiritually in the family, cannot sin for HIS Seed, God's Seed remains (in us abides, in the Greek) within us while we are alive and forever more, in our spirit.
The born again spirit cannot sin for it is God's Holy Spirit SEED that remains within us until He,God, gives us a new soul and body and takes us back to the Father's House, as Jesus promised in John 14 and Paul reiterated for the Thessalonians (1 Thess 4:13-17).
For the born again, sin of the flesh is like mud splattered on the Crystal surface of the eternally alive spirit. The confession is God's means to wipe away the mud so the beauty of His Life in us is displayed through a new behavior directed by the new Life in our spirit.
Consider, Paul taught his converts to Christ that in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, alive members of God family would be transformed into beings with bodies and souls fit for eternal living, physically (1 Corinthians 15:51-53). But before we are transformed, the dead in body and soul, who are in the family by their born again spirit, will be given new bodies and new behavior mechanisms such that they are immune to sinning! Does this mean that those transformed in an instant will not go for cleansing in the 'purgatory'? Yes, for there is no purgatory.
The Saved in Christ have a new eternally alive spirit that has been cleanse through the blood of Christ. Such a sinless spirit has no need for further cleansing in some imagined purgatory.
For the born again, to be absent from the body (and the fleshly behavior mechanism called soul) is to be present with the Lord. And those asleep in Christ GOD will bring with Him to receive new bodies and souls fit for Heaven and living in the shekinah glory of the Righteous God, forever. The Bible speaks of the snatching away rescue / Rapture of ALL Believers, then the wrath of God is poured out upon the unbelieving earth dwellers in a seven year period known as The Tribulation.
chapter and verse please, like a good prot.
***
Also, stop using bigoted slurs.
You want chapter and verse, here:
John 20:30–31
[30] Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; [31] but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (ESV)
There, the REAL definition of sola scriptura is true because John the Apostle himself says that just the Gospel of John is enough to have sufficient knowledge of salvation.
I’m expecting your apology any moment now for your insulting behavior.
What's a prot?
I’ve got popcorn cooking!
I’m gonna have soup.
Good night for soup! I made some chili Sunday night.
Lots...
Untier of Knots; for one.
I plan on making one of my ‘for the winter days’ cauldrons of Chili this weekend. I make enough each time for freezing three or four quarts after eating my fill for two days of Football games.
The recipe I use for my soup is a can of Cream of Chicken soup and two heaping cups of frozen mixed veggies (corn, peas, carrots, and green beans). Use six ounces of water to boil the frozen veggies, then add the condensed cream of chicken soup to the pot of veggies and water and stir until boiling again. A small sauce pan makes a good serving dish, too ... less dishes to wash.
Oops, I should have put that in a freepmail.
Sounds good. I’ll have to try that one.
“I see you completely miss the point.”
No, you apparently missed it. That’s why you’re not dealing with it.
“Your tagline is not one that reflects a person gifted with the fruits of the Spirit.”
It’s a tagline. And it’s fitting. And you’re proving that. That’s why I adopted it in the first place.
“It displays the same haughty attitude of another Roman Catholic poster who used to say something along the lines of playing chess with pigeons.”
I don’t know who that is, but that might very well have been simply a reflection of what it is like to deal with anti-Catholics.
“Perhaps you should read ALL of Galatians....along with the NT.”
Already did. Maybe you should just lighten up and stop attacking Christ’s Church and then falsely claim the high moral ground.
It’s a tagline. And you’re proving that it’s accurate.
“The idea of a purgatory to cleanse the soul of departed humans is anathema to what the Gospel of Grace is all about.”
The Catechism of the Catholic notes:
1030 All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.606 The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:607
As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.608
End paste
What exactly is it that people need to get to heaven? Grace.
Who goes to Purgatory? Those who “die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified”. Those who DIE IN GOD’S GRACE.
What cleanses a person’s soul in Purgatory? Grace.
It’s the Gospel of Grace rather than the Protestant denial of God’s grace cleansing souls so they can enter heaven (Revelation 21:27).
Already did.
Maybe you should re-read and allow it to sink in.
Then perhaps that haughty attitude of yours would change. Though I doubt it as you seem to take pride in your tagline as evidenced by your post.
There was another RC who had a similar egotistical tagline. You two would be two peas in a pod.
Hey, isn't pride one of those "mortal" sins per Roman Catholicism?
You stand condemned by your own denomination...though I doubt you will see it.
Jesus did not die on that cruel Cross to redeem the flesh of sinners. The concept of a ‘cleansing purgatory’ is all about cleansing the soul part of the flesh. But that part of the flesh is destined for discarding when GOD gives believers a new soul and body in which will dwell the eternal born again spirit which has God’s Holy Spirit seal upon it when we are born again.
Paul disagrees with you.
8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Eph 2:8-10 NASB
The believer in Christ doesn't go to the RC false purgatory.
There is no further "cleaning up" to do for those who have been saved by Christ.
13When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Colossians 2:13-14 NASB
As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire.
So Rome just lets their adherents just suffer in fire for thousands and thousands of years??
Why doesn't the pope just forgive them and let them out?
What a horrible denomination to teach something so contrary to the Word.
Thankfully the New Testament teaches the following:
13For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:13-14 NASB
John gives us a huge clue as to what this means in the spirit of the believer when he, John (1 John 3:9), tells us that the members of God's family, as present spiritually in the family, cannot sin for HIS Seed, God's Seed remains (in us abides, in the Greek) within us while we are alive and forever more, in our spirit.
So, Would God send His Holy Spirit through a purgatory? No, for the Holy Spirit has no sin to purge. The Holy Spirit is in the born again, in their spirit, so God does not need some mythical purgatory for He has already made the spirit of the born again to be sinless.
Perhaps this is why the religion of Catholicism is unbelieving in the Rapture, since it is integral in debunking the mythos of purgatory to 'cleanse the sin-laden soul'? GOD is giving the born again a new soul (behavior mechanism) and a new body when He comes in the first heaven to remove The Bride, the Body of Christ (composed of ALL BELIEVERS since the Day of Pentecost, even some Catholics) from the Earth He is about to start pouring out the 'wrath of the Lamb' upon. [See The Revelation and the Lamb opening the sealed scrolls (Rev 6).
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