Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Why Did Jesus Christ Come to Earth?
Reformed Bibliophile ^ | August 31, 2012 | B.B. Warfield

Posted on 02/23/2015 5:41:49 PM PST by RnMomof7

“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” – 1 Timothy 1:15

Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield (1851-1921)

“Christ Jesus came to save sinners.

Not, then, merely to prepare salvation for them; to open to them a pathway to salvation; to remove the obstacles in the way of their salvation; to proclaim as a teacher a way of salvation; to introduce as a ruler conditions of life in which clean living becomes for the first time possible; to bring motives to holy action to bear upon us; to break down our enmity to God by an exhibition of His seeking love; to manifest to us what sin is in the sight of God, and how He will visit it with His displeasure. All these things He undoubtedly does. But all these things together touch but the circumference of His work for man. Under no interpretation of the nature or reach of His work can it be truly said that Christ Jesus came to do these things. For that we must penetrate deeper, and say with the primitive Church, in this faithful saying commended to us by the apostle, that Christ Jesus came to save sinners.

We must take the great declaration in the height and depth of its tremendous meaning. Jesus did all that is included in the great word ‘save.’ He did not come to induce us to save ourselves, or to help us to save ourselves, or to enable us to save ourselves. He came to save us. And it is therefore that His name was called Jesus—because He should save His people from their sins. The glory of our Lord, surpassing all His other glories to usward, is just that He is our actual and complete Saviour; our Saviour to the uttermost. Our knowledge, even though it be His gift to us as our Prophet, is not our saviour, be it as wide and as deep and as high as it is possible to conceive. The Church, though it be His gift to us as our King, is not our saviour, be it as holy and true as it becomes the Church, the bride of the Lamb, to be. The reorganized society in which He has placed us, though it be the product of His holy rule over the redeemed earth, is not our saviour, be it the new Jerusalem itself, clothed in its beauty and descended from heaven.

Nay, let us cut more deeply still. Our faith itself, though it be the bond of our union with Christ through which we receive all His blessings, is not our saviour. We have but one Saviour; and that one Saviour is Jesus Christ our Lord. Nothing that we are and nothing that we can do enters in the slightest measure into the ground of our acceptance with God. Jesus did it all. And by doing it all He has become in the fullest and widest and deepest sense the word can bear—our Saviour. For this end did He come into the world—to save sinners; and nothing short of the actual and complete saving of sinners will satisfy the account of His work given by His own lips and repeated from them by all His apostles.

It is in this great fact, indeed, that there lies the whole essence of the gospel. For let us never forget that the gospel is not good advice, but good news. It does not come to us to make known to us what we must do to earn salvation for ourselves, but proclaiming to us what Jesus has done to save us. It is salvation, a completed salvation, that it announces to us; and the burden of its message is just the words of our text—that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”


TOPICS: Apologetics; Evangelical Christian; Mainline Protestant; Theology
KEYWORDS: attonement; christ; purpose; sacrifice; salvation
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-109 next last
To: A CA Guy
To help fill up heaven with the big vacancy Lucifer and his followers left.

Kinda like the hole CHOICE has created in our National soul: It's being filled with Illegal Aliens AKA Boarder Invaders.

61 posted on 02/24/2015 2:56:18 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Arthur McGowan
Jesus Christ was born in order to found the Catholic Church, which exists to dispense his grace to mankind through the ordinary means of his sacraments.

I love the smell of brimstone in the morning!!

62 posted on 02/24/2015 2:57:15 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: smokingfrog
One man’s opinion...

Nope; MILLIONS of them opine this way.

63 posted on 02/24/2015 2:57:49 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Arlis
How about Jesus own words?

HERETIC!


64 posted on 02/24/2015 2:58:28 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: terycarl
Ya beat me to it!

To compensate; I'll post your FAVORITE stuff!



Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]

Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.

Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy

Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy

Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]

Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]

Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]

Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Popes

65 posted on 02/24/2015 3:01:45 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: aMorePerfectUnion
That statement is grossly ignorant of what the Holy Scriptures reveal.

That statement is brilliantly illustrative of what the Religious Organization that is based in Rome, has produced in the minds of it's followers.

66 posted on 02/24/2015 3:03:38 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Old Yeller

67 posted on 02/24/2015 3:06:19 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: Arthur McGowan

Actually, Jesus Christ was born so that Mary could be the Mother of God, the Mother of All Christians, Queen of the Angels, and Mediatrix of All Graces.


 
 
 
Bernadine: …all gifts, all virtues, and all graces are dispensed by the hands of Mary to whomsoever, when, and as she pleases. O Lady, since thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can ONLY come through thy hands, OUR SALVATION DEPENDS ON THEE.

Bonaventure: …the gates of heaven will open to all who confide in the protection of Mary. Blessed are they who know thee, O Mother of God, for the knowledge of THEE is the high road to everlasting life, and the publication of thy virtues is the way of ETERNAL SALVATION . Give ear, O ye nations; and all you who desire heaven , serve, honor Mary, and certainly you will find ETERNAL LIFE.

Ephem: …devotion to the divine Mother…is the unlocking of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Blosius: To the, O Lady, are committed the KEYS and the treasures of the kingdom of Heaven.

Ambrose: …constantly pray ‘Open to us, O Mary, the gates of paradise, since thou hast its KEYS.

Fulgetius: …by Mary God descended from Heaven into the world, that by HER man might ascend from earth to Heaven.

Athanasius: …And, thou, O Lady, wast filled with grace, that thou mightiest be the way of our SALVATION and the means of ascent to the heavenly Kingdom.

Richard of Laurence: Mary, in fine, is the mistress of heaven; for there she commands as she wills, and ADMITS whom she wills.

Guerric: …he who serves Mary and for whom she intercedes, is as CERTAIN of heaven as if he were already there…and those who DO NOT serve Mary will NOT BE SAVED.

Anselm: It suffices, O Lady, that thou willest it, and our SALVATION is certain.

Antoninus: …souls protected by Mary, and on which she casts her eyes, are NECESSARILY JUSTIFIED AND SAVED.

68 posted on 02/24/2015 3:07:31 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Arthur McGowan
You are a deeper theological mind than Augustine?


As regards the oft-quoted Mt. 16:18

 

Augustine, sermon: 

"Christ, you see, built his Church not on a man but on Peter's confession. What is Peter's confession? 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' There's the rock for you, there's the foundation, there's where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer.John Rotelle, O.S.A., Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine , © 1993 New City Press, Sermons, Vol III/6, Sermon 229P.1, p. 327

Upon this rock, said the Lord, I will build my Church. Upon this confession, upon this that you said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer her (Mt. 16:18). John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 236A.3, p. 48.

 

Augustine, sermon:

For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, 'On this rock will I build my Church,' because Peter had said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself built. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church. — Augustine Tractate CXXIV; Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, Volume VII Tractate CXXIV (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.cxxv.html)

 

Augustine, sermon:

And Peter, one speaking for the rest of them, one for all, said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:15-16)...And I tell you: you are Peter; because I am the rock, you are Rocky, Peter-I mean, rock doesn't come from Rocky, but Rocky from rock, just as Christ doesn't come from Christian, but Christian from Christ; and upon this rock I will build my Church (Mt 16:17-18); not upon Peter, or Rocky, which is what you are, but upon the rock which you have confessed. I will build my Church though; I will build you, because in this answer of yours you represent the Church. — John Rotelle, O.S.A. Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1993), Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 270.2, p. 289

 

Augustine, sermon:

Peter had already said to him, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' He had already heard, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not conquer her' (Mt 16:16-18)...Christ himself was the rock, while Peter, Rocky, was only named from the rock. That's why the rock rose again, to make Peter solid and strong; because Peter would have perished, if the rock hadn't lived. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 244.1, p. 95

 

Augustine, sermon:

...because on this rock, he said, I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not overcome it (Mt. 16:18). Now the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Hold on to these texts, love these texts, repeat them in a fraternal and peaceful manner. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1995), Sermons, Volume III/10, Sermon 358.5, p. 193

 

Augustine, Psalm LXI:

Let us call to mind the Gospel: 'Upon this Rock I will build My Church.' Therefore She crieth from the ends of the earth, whom He hath willed to build upon a Rock. But in order that the Church might be builded upon the Rock, who was made the Rock? Hear Paul saying: 'But the Rock was Christ.' On Him therefore builded we have been. — Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Volume VIII, Saint Augustin, Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXI.3, p. 249. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf108.ii.LXI.html)

 

• Augustine, in “Retractions,”

In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: 'On him as on a rock the Church was built.'...But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' For, 'Thou art Peter' and not 'Thou art the rock' was said to him. But 'the rock was Christ,' in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable. — The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine, The Retractations Chapter 20.1:.

 

69 posted on 02/24/2015 3:11:42 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: Arthur McGowan; boatbums
It’s funny how he never said that everything he taught was to be transmitted ONLY in writing, either.

But Jesus had John write everything that Jesus taught that was necessary for us to know about our salvation...

And THAT is funny when one listens to Catholics claim that Jesus didn't give John enough information to write down...

In reality you guys are saying, 'do not listen to Jesus, listen to us instead...NO THANKS...

70 posted on 02/24/2015 3:23:32 AM PST by Iscool
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: Elsie

Augustine wasn’t a very good Catholic...


71 posted on 02/24/2015 3:25:22 AM PST by Iscool
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: sushiman
The sun is reborn every year on Dec 25th when it stops at it’s lowest point in the sky and remains there for 3 days under the southern cross (crux) constellation.

Someone doesn't know much about ASTRONOMY!

As a side note: have you guys noticed Venus and Mars together in the evening sky this month?

Venus is brilliant and Mars a weak sister off to the right about 1°.

http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-jupiter-venus-saturn-mercury
 
 
Think photo opportunity! The thin waxing crescent moon joins up with the Venus and Mars on February 20

 


Winter solstice is the day with the fewest hours of sunlight during the whole year. In the Northern Hemisphere, it occurs around December 21 or 22.

72 posted on 02/24/2015 3:27:52 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: boatbums
Hmmmm...you would think Jesus would have SAID all that as long as He was here and all. Funny how He didn’t.

Oh; but HE did!

Mere men just FAILED to record those words!

Have you no FAITH in the Church?

Why do you hate Mary and the Scriptures so?


John 21:25
Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

73 posted on 02/24/2015 3:30:27 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: Arthur McGowan
It’s funny how he never said that everything he taught was to be transmitted ONLY in writing, either.

TADA!!!


74 posted on 02/24/2015 3:30:53 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: Iscool

Poorly Catechized has a LOOOooonnnng history!


75 posted on 02/24/2015 3:32:16 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 71 | View Replies]

To: Elsie; sushiman
The sun is reborn every year on Dec 25th when it stops at it’s lowest point in the sky and remains there for 3 days under the southern cross (crux) constellation.

Most FREEPERS are in the Northern Hemisphere, and have never even SEEN the southern cross.

It's a poor Southern sister of the North Star (which is off true north by about 3/4 of a degree) but it'll have to do for those sailing the southern seas. (It's closest star is 27° away from true south.)

76 posted on 02/24/2015 3:45:39 AM PST by Elsie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: Arthur McGowan; aMorePerfectUnion; RnMomof7; Iscool

LOL You should have used the line “the Catholic Church was created so that Jesus could be born” Arthur. If you’re going to just use lines to see what reaction you’ll get that one would have been good.


77 posted on 02/24/2015 4:25:32 AM PST by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Arthur McGowan; Iscool
>>You are a deeper theological mind than Augustine?<<

1 Corinthians 2:16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

78 posted on 02/24/2015 4:37:22 AM PST by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: sushiman; RnMomof7

Stop with the puffer fish sushiman. Focus more on how the aliens built the pyramids.


79 posted on 02/24/2015 4:45:02 AM PST by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: terycarl

Which goes to show the depth of deception that so many people can be under.

It’s no wonder the Catholic church tried so hard to keep the word out of the hands of the unwashed.


80 posted on 02/24/2015 4:48:45 AM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-109 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson