Posted on 04/14/2015 6:04:24 PM PDT by ShasheMac
In desperation, the Philippian jailor cried, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul’s reply was simple: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”
(Acts:16:31). The great apostle said nothing about baptism or sacraments, candles, incense, church attendance, reforming one’s life, or anything else being necessary or even helpful for salvation. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible makes it clear that there is nothing a sinner can do , much less must do , to pay the infinite penalty required by God’s justice. One can and need only believe in Christ, who paid the penalty in full: “It is finished” (Jn:19:30)!
Scripture could not be clearer: “[T]o him that worketh not , but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly , his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom:4:5); “For by grace are ye saved, through faith... not of works , lest any man should boast” (Eph:2:8,9). To attempt to do anything for one’s salvation beyond believing “on the Lord Jesus Christ” is to deny that Christ paid the full penalty for sin on the cross and to reject God’s offer on that basis of forgiveness and eternal life as a free gift of His grace. Clearly, we can be saved only by faith in Christ —but exactly what does that mean? What must one believe?
Suppose someone claims to be a “Christian,” believes in Christ as a historical person and the best of men, admires and seeks to follow Christ’s selfless example, is emotional about Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, and regularly goes to church. Yet he thinks it doesn’t matter whether or not Christ was virgin-born, or whether He is God come as a man to die in full payment for our sins upon the cross, or whether He rose from the dead. Is such a person saved? Does he really “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”? Or does he admire and believe in “another Jesus...another spirit...another gospel” (2 Cor:11:3,4)? Does it really matter, or are we just “splitting hairs”?
Paul declares that “the gospel of Christ...is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom:1:16). So believing “the gospel of Christ” gives salvation. But is believing the gospel the only way to be saved—and if so, what is the gospel? Peter declared, “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts:4:12). No answer is given to the question, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation...” (Heb:2:3)? There is no escape except in Christ: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Jn:14:6).
Yet nowhere, in one place, does the Bible define the gospel of Christ fully. Yes, the gospel is “how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again [from the dead] the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor:15:3,4). But this declaration by Paul says nothing, for example, about Christ being born of a virgin or being the Son of God.
Common sense tells us that Paul’s statement, “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts:16:31), does not mean merely to believe that there was once a man called Jesus Christ. Obviously, there must be much about Christ not included in that brief statement, but which Paul had already explained to the Philippian jailor. One could not “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” if a false understanding were held about Him.
Christ warned a group of Jews, “ye shall...die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come....if ye believe not that I am he ...[ he is in italics, added by the translators] (Jn:8:21,24). “I AM” is the name of God that He revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Ex 3:14) and that Christ clearly claims for Himself: “I and my Father are one” (Jn:10:30). Isaiah declared prophetically that the Messiah who would be born of a virgin (Isa:7:14) would be “The mighty God, The everlasting Father” (Is 9:6). Christ’s language is precise. He doesn’t tell the Jews, “Before Abraham was, I was.” He says, “Before Abraham was, I am ” (Jn:8:58). He is the self-existent One without beginning or end, “the Alpha and the Omega” (Rev:1:8, 11; 21:6; 22:13).
So we have it from the lips of Christ himself that in order to be saved, one must believe that He is God come as a man through the promised virgin birth. Of course, that makes sense. No one but God could be our Savior. Repeatedly, Yahweh, the “God of Israel” (203 times from Ex 5:1 to Lk 1:68) declares that He is the only Savior (Isa:43:11; Hos:13:4, etc.). Thus, to be saved, one must believe that Christ is God. To deny this essential is to reject the gospel that saves.
Believing that Christ resurrected is also essential for salvation: “[I]f thou shalt...believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom:10:9). Yet there are pastors and seminary professors who believe neither in Christ’s deity nor in His resurrection. They teach “another gospel” that will not save—and millions seem willing to believe such false teachers instead of the infallible Word of God. The doom of both teachers and followers is on their own heads because they have rejected the very salvation that Christ obtained upon the cross in dying for our sins.
And here we face another essential of the gospel that must be believed for one to be saved: “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1 Cor:15:3). His being scourged, abused, beaten, or mistreated by men —or even crucified , though in fulfillment of prophecy—could not pay the penalty for sin and would not save us. Christ died for our sins. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Eze:18:4, 20); “the wages of sin is death” (Rom:6:23). Salvation comes through Christ’s death. Death is the penalty for sin, and Christ had to pay that penalty for all mankind in full. In full? Isn’t death just death? Could it be worse than we imagine? Indeed, it is!
While we dealt briefly last month with the distinction between the physical sufferings inflicted by men and the spiritual sufferings at the hands of a holy God against sin, this subject is of such importance that we ought to consider it further. Sin is a moral, spiritual problem involving God’s law and man’s rebellion against God. That Christ’s suffering for sin was not just physical but spiritual is clear: “when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin...he shall see of the travail of his soul...he hath poured out his soul unto death” (Isa:53:10-12
); “Christ...through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God” (Heb:9:14).
Just before Judas betrayed Him, Christ “took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it , and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you...[T]his do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19,20; 1 Cor:11:24,25).
Most Christians periodically take the bread and cup as Christ commanded. Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches teach that the bread and cup are Christ’s literal body and blood offered on their altars and that He is continually suffering for sin. The Bible declares that Christ: “ once ...hath...appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself...was once offered to bear the sins of many...after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever , sat down on the right hand of God...by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified...there is no more offering for sin (Heb:9:26, 28; 10:12, 14, 18); Christ... once suffered for sins (1 Pt 3:18).
If Christ, as Peter says, “is gone into heaven,” where Steven saw Him when he was stoned to death (Acts:7:55,56), how can He continue to be offered (immolated) on Roman Catholic altars? What of Catholics who really love Christ, believe that He died for their sins, but have believed Catholic doctrine that the wafer becomes the body and blood of Christ and that He continues to be offered? Could they be saved in spite of such ignorance or misunderstanding? What are the limits of the error that can be held within the gospel, and does it matter? Would it matter if they believe that Christ died for our sins yet participate in the “sacrifice of the Mass,” imagining that Christ is still being offered for our sins and that they are ingesting Him into their stomachs when they take that wafer and cup? Yes, Scripture says Christ “suffered once ” for our sins—but is it so serious an error to believe that He continues to be offered? Yes, it is!
Christ’s offering of Himself to the Father for sin took place on the cross: “who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Pt 2:24). So, again, it was not in being scourged that Christ bore our sins. He endured something far worse than physical suffering. In the garden, in dread anticipation of that horror, “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Lk 22:44).
When we take the bread and cup as Christ commanded, we do so not to receive forgiveness of sins (as Catholics and Orthodox imagine), or nourishment for the soul (as Luther and Calvin taught), but gratefully in remembrance of Christ in the sacrifice of Himself upon the cross. It is so easy to imagine that in the physical participation of eating and drinking we have done our “duty” to the Lord once again in commemoration of His physical suffering—and to fail to take adequate time to meditate upon what He spiritually “once suffered for sins, [He] the just for [us] the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pt 3:18).
And here again we see the vital importance of distinguishing between the physical suffering our Savior endured at the hands of men, and the punishment He endured from God: “...the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all...it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief...” (Isa:53:6, 10).
As we noted last month, it would be absurd to imagine that sinful rebels against God were His servants in executing His justice upon Christ. How would they know just how hard to strike and how many blows to give Him? And how could physical suffering pay the spiritual price of eternal separation from God that sin merits? Christ said, “I lay down my life...no man taketh it from me” (Jn:10:17,18). Thus the soldiers could not and did not kill Him. But Christ died for our sins—so again, what the soldiers did could not have paid for our sins.
“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” We tend to think of death as physical, but surely it is much more. Death is first of all spiritual separation from God—which ultimately causes the separation of the soul and spirit from the body in physical death. Adam was warned, “In the day thou eatest thereof [of the forbidden fruit] thou shalt surely die” (Gen:2:17). He did not die physically that very day but nearly 1,000 years later. Adam and Eve must therefore have died spiritually on that very day. They suddenly realized that they were aliens in the garden of Eden, separated from God by their sin, and they tried to hide from Him among the trees (Gen:3:8)—dead to God in their spirits.
All of the descendants of Adam and Eve inherit this spiritual death. We are born “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph:2:1). Physical death began its process in Adam and Eve the very day they sinned. We are born sinners. Thus our bodies begin to die from the moment of birth—a fact for which medical science has no explanation.
No person (except Christ) has yet experienced the utter horror of death in its fullness. That will only occur after the final judgment: “death and hell...and whosoever was not found written in the book of life...were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev:20:14,15). Christ became a man so that He “by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Heb:2:9). Therefore, His death on the cross had to include the “second death.” Thus Christ endured on the cross the eternal suffering that all mankind face in the lake of fire! This could only have been at the hands of God, not at the hands of man.
“The wages of sin is death” (Rom:6:23)—not merely temporary physical separation of soul and spirit from the body, but eternal separation from God. Therefore, in suffering for sin, Christ must have experienced the horror of the eternal separation from God that was due to all mankind. No wonder He cried out in agony, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Ps:22:1; Mat:27:45; Mk 15:34)?! No physical suffering, especially at the hands of sinful men, could mete out that awful penalty. Sin is a moral, spiritual problem involving God’s law and man’s rebellion against God. Both the punishment and the solution can only be spiritual.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that in addition to Christ’s suffering the eternal penalty, we must suffer the “temporal” punishment for sins, either in this life or in purgatory—and few Catholics expect to escape the latter. Supposedly, the flames of purgatory are the means of purging our sins. Here again we have confusion over spiritual and physical suffering, a denial of Christ’s finishing the work of our redemption, and the attempt to earn in part one’s salvation. Scripture unequivocally declares: “[Christ] purged our sins [then] sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb:1:3); “without shedding of blood is no remission [of sins]” (Heb:9:22); “[Christ] washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev:1:5).
Recognition that what Christ suffered for our sins was far beyond any physical suffering should increase our gratitude to Him. The deeper our understanding, the greater will be our appreciation for what Christ suffered in our place. May the Lord awaken in our hearts an overflowing river of praise and gratitude so that we continually express our love to the Father for giving His Son, and to Christ for enduring the punishment that we deserved for our sins. TBC
I guess that’s why God had to keep chastizing the Hebrews, because they were so closley adhering to His commandments.
In point of fact, no one can follow them perfectly.
And Christ gave no man a free pass.
Check out Romans 6, escpeciall verse 15
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
There is the one Catholic Church established by Christ investing it with infallible authority to teach ONE truth for ALL times, and then there is everything else under the sun. The books in the Bible did not fall from the sky. They were assembled over nearly three hundred years by the early Church fathers and the canonical texts approved in the Synod of Rome in AD 382 remains to this day. If you doubt that infallible authority, then perhaps you must doubt whether some books were accidentally left out or included. That infallible authority did not fly out of the window at some point in time.
“Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
“believes in HIM” i.e. His TEACHING. For this purpose Christ established ONE Church and commanded Peter and his successors to “Go forth and TEACH...”
Presumably this is to TEACH ONE Truth.
Not every Tom, Dick, and Harry gets to crack open the pages of the Bible and authoritatively interpret scripture. That authoritative interpretation was directed specifically to Peter and his successors. When Christ said “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep..,” it was directed specifically to Peter in the presence of the other apostles.
The direction was not to all. Peter was the new head of the Church established by Christ. The successors to Peter form an unbroken line of authority. This is why the canonical texts we use today were officially the identical texts ratified in manner, form, and selection by the Synod of Rome in AD 382. What greater authority than poring over hundreds of written manuscripts and fragments, including some, and discarding others, and then pronouncing that what the Catholic Church deemed authentic inspired by the Holy Spirit as the true word of God.
This authority did not fly out of the window at some late point in time. No one gets to authoritatively interpret the Word of God except the Catholic Church, and its rituals, liturgies, and forms of worship of veneration. The authority was absolute. “WHATSOEVER, thou shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven...”
Acts 15:8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; 9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
Stop with the nicolaitan cast system already.
Ummm ... you stick with the Catholic Church and I’ll stick with Jesus and the Bible ... :-) ...
Yes, the early Church fathers got it all wrong didn’t they, including the infallible authority that enabled them to sort out the various written fragments and provide us the Word of God? I will take the interpretation of the early Church fathers.
“Com to Me.” The “Me” is the Eucharist, not a bed time story about a dead man coming to life.
**not a bed time story about a dead man coming to life.**
The resurrection of Jesus is a “bedtime story”?
Just what “religion” are you?
The Eucharist is the risen Christ. If you deny the Real Presence of the Risen Christ, then as Benedict XVI says it amounts to no more than a story of dead man coming to life. The Risen Christ is in his words an “ontological” event changed the very nature of man’s existence. Evolution itself was turned upside down. By dying He gave Life. God who humbled Himself as a human now comes into our very own very being.
“I am the living bread which has come down out of heaven: if any one shall have eaten of this bread he shall live for ever; but the bread withal which I shall give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
The real body of Jesus ascended into Heaven.
What you are parroting is a Papist fairy tale. Clinging to this balderdash will not end well for you.
Obviously, you have nit read the beliefs, practices, and rituals of the early Church Fathers,(ECF) but instead is still hewed to the heresy of Protestantism.
If based on infallible authority under Petrine authority the ECF gave us the Bible in the Synod of Rome in AD 382, some eleven centuries before Protestantism washed ashore, then please tell us when that infallible authority was extinguished? If not, may be Protestants must go about selecting the various written fragments at the time and assembled their own Bible and not use the canonical texts of the Catholic Church.
I cannot agree with your post as it underestimates the power of His Spirit within us to do the work Jesus promised He would do....making Him insufficient...which He is not.
Popes die, and how could the true Church live if its head dies again and again?.... The true Head ever lives and the Church ever lives in Him ,and that is Christ Jesus Alone..”
The One Unified ‘Church’ is the Globalist Agenda not Christs’s........
.... Rather by and through His Spirit HE unites the Body of Believers with Himself as the Head....the true church is made up of ALL believers regardless of their denomination or church relation.
It is His Spirit that Unites believers.... The Bible is the authority, and Christ is the head...one cannot escape that truth.... His true church bows the knee to Him.
Here is what your Catechism says:
1365 Because it is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: “This is my body which is given for you” and “This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.”187 In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”188 (2100, 1846)
1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit: (613)
[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.189
1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner... this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”190 (1545)
1368 The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. The Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ’s sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering. (618, 2031, 1109) http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm
Can you understand why someone would think Catholics believe "Christ’s literal body and blood offered on their altars and that He is continually suffering for sin.”?
That's all very nice, but it doesn't answer the question posed - if the post about Christ dieing for our sins was "simplistic rot", how does one respond to what God told Jeremiah when He said that He would make a New Covenant and would forgive our wickedness and recognize our sins no more?
That's obvious in your posts. The cult of Catholicism is strong.
If Protestant do some really serious reading they will soon learn that without belief in the Eucharist as representing the risen Christ, the resurrection is no more than a vapid story about a dead man coming to life.
This why eminent Protestant theologians like the Rev. Richard Neuhaus, after a lifetime of inquiry, teaching scholarship, and contemplation considered as America’s foremost Lutheran theologian converted to Catholicism. No small step to take.
A good place to start is here by reading someone who is regarded as the Theological Einstein of Our Times.
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Apostles-Early-Church-Benedict/dp/1586172204
So now Jesus and the apostles were already eating the flesh of the risen Christ at the last supper before He died and rose again?
>>the Theological Einstein of Our Times<<
There you go with worship of man again.
Scientist don’t worship Einstein the man. However serious and inquiring minds of science inform themselves through his understanding of mathematics and their vision of our universe.
Benedict is for inquiring minds on the teachings of Christ that was commanded, not to every Tom, Dick, and Harry and neighborhood Foursquare Church pastor, but to the Church He founded to insure that ONE true teaching of the very author of the universe be spread to all nations. Benedict demonstrates why this is the Catholic Church as believed by the Apostles and early disciples of Christ.
If his explanation goes over the heads of shallow minds unfortunately that’s something we cannot help.
Christ did after all say He came for the most elite and sophisticated among us didn't He. Oh,,,,,,,,,,wait.......
No. But He wanted to be sure that He taught ONE truth and gave Peter and his successors an unbounded authority, that ‘WHATSOEVER.... bound on earth shall be bound in heaven...”
This is why Christ commanded his apostles to “Go forth and TEACH...,” both His written and unwritten words.
To make sure this teaching is HIS teaching is why we have theologians. Not the teaching of Joel Osteen; Billy Graham, or David Koresh, or Jim Jones.
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