Posted on 01/04/2019 8:20:14 AM PST by Salvation
Rest on Flight to Egypt, by Caravaggio (1597)
At Christmas we celebrate the Word becoming Flesh, but what does this mean for us today? Fundamentally, it means that our faith is about things that are tangible. As human beings, we have bodies. We have a soul that is spiritual, but it is joined with a body that is physical and material. Hence, it is never enough for our faith to be only about thoughts, philosophies, concepts, or ideas. Their truth must touch the physical part of who we are. Our faith must become flesh; it has to influence our behavior. If that is not the case, then the Holy Spirit, speaking through John, has something to call us: liars!
Therefore, away with sophistry, rationalizations, and intentions. Our faith must become flesh in the way we act and move. God’s love for us in not just a theory or idea. It is a flesh and blood reality that can be seen, heard, and touched. The Word of God and our faith cannot simply remain on the pages of a book or in the recesses of our intellect. They must leap off the pages of the Bible and the Catechism and become flesh in the way we live our life, in the decisions we make, and in the way we use our body, mind, intellect, and will.
Consider the following passage from the liturgy of the Christmas Octave:
The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked (1 John 2:3ff).
Note some teachings that follow from it:
Faith is incarnational. What a practical man John is! Faith is not an abstraction; it is not merely about theories and words on a page. It is about a transformed life; it is about truly loving God and making His commandments manifest in the way we live. It is about loving our neighbor. True faith is incarnational. That is to say, it takes on flesh in our very “body.”
Too many people spout the phrase, “I’ll be with you in spirit.” Perhaps an occasional absence is understandable but after a while the phrase rings hollow. Showing up physically and doing what we say is an essential demonstration of our sincerity. We are body persons and our faith must include a physical, flesh-and-blood dimension.
Keeping the commandments is a sure sign. John said that The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. Now be careful of the logic here. The keeping of the commandments is not the cause of faith; it is the fruit of it. It is not the cause of love; it is its fruit.
In Scripture, “knowing” refers to than an intellectual understanding. It refers to deep, intimate, personal experience of the thing or person. It is one thing to know about God; it is quite to “know the Lord.”
In this passage, John is saying that in order to be sure we have deep, intimate, personal experience of God, we must change the way we live. An authentic faith, an authentic knowing of the Lord, will change our behavior in such a way that we keep the commandments as a fruit of that authentic faith and relationship with Him. It means that our faith becomes flesh in us. Theory becomes practice and experience. It changes the way we live and move and have our being.
For a human being, faith cannot be a mere abstraction. In order to be authentic, it must become flesh and blood. In a later passage, John uses the image of walking: This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked (1 John 2:6). Although walking is a physical activity, it is also symbolic. The very place we take our body is physical, but it is also indicative of what we value, what we think.
Liars – John went on to say, Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar. This is strong language! Either we believe and thus keep the commandments, or we are lying about really knowing the Lord and we fail to keep the commandments.
Don’t all of us struggle to keep the commandments fully? John seems so “all or nothing” in his words, but his point is clear. To know the Lord fully is never to sin (cf 1 John 3:9). If we know him imperfectly, we still experience sin. Hence, the more we know him (remember the definition of “know”) the less we sin. If we still sin, it is a sign that we do not know Him enough.
It is not really John who speaks too absolutely; it is we who do so. We say things like “I have faith,” “I am a believer,” “I love the Lord,” and “I know the Lord.” Perhaps we would be more accurate if we said, “I am growing in faith,” “I am striving to be a better believer,” or “I’m learning to love and know the Lord better and better.” If we do not, then we risk lying. Faith is something we grow in.
Many in the Protestant tradition reduce faith to an event such as answering an altar call or accepting Christ as “personal Lord and savior.” We Catholics do it too. Many Catholics think that all they need to do is be baptized; they don’t bother to attend Mass faithfully as time goes on. Others claim to be “loyal” even “devout” Catholics yet dissent from important Church teachings. Faith is about more than membership. It is about the way we walk, the decisions we make.
Without this harmony between faith and action, we live a lie. We lie to ourselves and to others. The bottom line is that if we really come to know the Lord more and more perfectly, we will grow in holiness, keep the commandments, and be of the mind of Christ. We will walk just as Jesus walked and our claim to have faith will be the truth, not a lie.
Faith and works cannot be separated. This passage does not claim that salvation is by works alone. The keeping of the commandments is not the cause of saving or of real faith. Properly understood, the keeping of the commandments is the result of saving faith actively present and working within us. It indicates that the Lord is saving us from sin and its effects.
The Protestant tradition erred in dividing faith and works. In the 16th century, Protestants claimed that we are saved by “faith alone.” Faith is never alone. It always brings effects with it.
Our brains can get in the way here and tempt us to think that just because we can distinguish or divide something in our mind we can do so in reality, but that is not always the case.
Consider, for a moment, a flame. It has the qualities of heat and light. We can separate the two in our mind but not in reality. I could never take a knife and divide the heat of the flame from its light. They are so interrelated as to be one reality. Yes, heat and light in a flame are distinguishable theoretically, but they are always together in reality.
This is how it is with faith and works. Faith and works are distinguishable theoretically, but the works of true faith and faith itself are always together in reality. We are not saved by works alone or by faith alone; they are together. John teaches here that knowing the Lord by living faith is always accompanied by keeping the commandments and walking as Jesus did.
Therefore, faith is incarnational. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, really and physically. Similarly, our own faith must become flesh in us, in our actual behavior.
Enjoy this incarnational Christmas carol:
Verbum caro factum est The Word was made flesh
Porque todos hos salveis. for the salvation of you all.
Y la Virgen le dezia: And the Virgin said unto him:
‘Vida de la vida mia, ‘Life of my life,
Hijo mio, ¿que os haria, what would I [not] do for you, my Son?
Que no tengo en que os echeis?’ Yet I have nothing on which to lay you down.’
O riquezas terrenales, O worldly riches,
¿No dareis unos pañales will you not give some swaddling clothes
A Jesu que entre animals to Jesus who is born among the animals
Es nasçido segun veis? as you can see?
Preach it!
We are saved by faith alone, and the proof of the genuineness of that faith is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
But works neither add to nor detract from the actual salvation itself. That's a done deal.
There are rewards for faithful service, for the works we do, but that is not salvation. The reward isn't salvation, or getting to heaven. The reward is crowns we get.
Seems that Catholicism never heard of that.
We donn need no steenking STATEMENT!!
Af,
“The truth of the matter is that we are saved by grace through faith, ”
Are you now claiming you are saved??
When did this happen?
Now that claim sounds exactly like Humble Hillary! (She always claimed loudly that she refuted all Trump's arguments too, and that she won all those debates with him, and her claims displayed a similar level of veracity as yours!) :-)
However, "daniel1212", you are completely missing the point of my post #38. It was in response to a post that was suggesting that Catholics only read two little sections of the Gospel of John, and my post 38 proved beyond all doubt that that suggestion was completely, 100%, blatantly false. (That was the point you are completely missing, "daniel1212". Whether you agree with any of those sources or not is an entirely different question, and is beside the point, but only Satan - the father of lies, and his slithering followers, would agree that those Catholic folks I posted links for never even read the rest of that Gospel of John, since they actually go through the entire Gospel, step by step, in most of their various books and videos listed there, as you can easily check there for yourself in those links.)
P.S. Why do you always "ping" a long list of your "homies" when you are debating someone, "daniel1212"? It's like a guy going into the ring to challenge a fighter to a fight, but first he has to bring his whole gang into the ring to fight the other guy too, right there alongside of him, (sort of like the way the MS-13 gang does things). Now, it is plain to see why you might want to do such a thing, to signal like-minded individuals to gang up on someone you disagree with, so that if those others respond to your signal, and join in, posting way too many posts for your opponent to possibly respond to, your side will dominate the volume of words on the issue, and monopolize the space used in a thread. But, honestly, does that really seem like the honorable, manly thing to do? If you really have full confidence in what you are saying, be bold, like Peter and Paul, and duke it out man to man. not like some urban street gang, ganging up on some individual!
 MS 13 Gang |
Brother Elsie, did Paul do something wrong when he called that man (Abraham), the father of all believers in Romans 4:11-12? When the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write those words in Romans 4:11-12, was the Holy Spirit contradicting Jesus Christ? And, in those same texts, was the Holy Spirit inspiring Paul to do something wrong, in having him call that man Abraham the "father" of all believers? Or is it just possible that your personal interpretation of Matthew 23:9 is missing the real thrust and hyperbolic meaning of that text, such as was done when Jesus said to pluck your eye out (Matthew 5:29), or when he said that unless you hate your father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, and even your own life, you cannot be his disciple (Luke 14:26)?
Also, that "call no man father" reference comes from Matthew 23:9. Just before that, in Matthew 23:2-3, Jesus instructs folks to observe and do whatever the Scribes and Pharisees bid you to observe and do. Brother Elsie, do you obey that directive from Jesus Christ, and "observe and do" whatever the Scribes and Pharisees bid you to observe and do? Do you know any Protestants who observe and do whatever the Scribes and Pharisees bid them to observe and do? Do you believe all the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 23, or just some portion of them that you personally approve of?
To everyone reading this post, I love my dear Protestant brothers and sisters, and I find many of them to be sincere, decent, and fair-minded individuals. And some of them are also a real hoot, when it comes to mirthful entertainment, as can be verified by watching some of these youtube clips of various Protestants doing their thing: Protestant Links. Enjoy!
And when two people interpret the Scriptures in contradictory, mutually exclusive ways, (as often happens, such as the question involving whether or not the Scriptures still prohibit active homosexuality), which of those two biblical interpretations is right, and why? Who do those two YOPIOSers go to to truly determine which of those two opposing interpretations of Scripture is correct, and the truth?
(Now I must get back to my studies, so I wish you, and anyone else reading this post, a very good night, and God bless!)
What a delightfully condescending and completely off-topic answer.
Typical really.
The earliest teaching and interpretation is the Word itself, and the words spoken are plain and easy to understand.
The problem isn’t that there are two or more different teachings that can both be defended by the Word.
The problem is that Roman Catholicism’s teaching is in blatant contradiction of the plain Word of God and the teaching of the Apostles, as recorded in Scripture, and they use ‘tradition’ and ‘we were first’ to try to shut down any debate about the topic.
It’s only Rome that says that “By grace you have been saved (Perfect tense in Greek, meaning a completed action with lasting effect), through faith, and it is not the result of works so that no man may boast” really means “You have to do works in order to earn salvation and you don’t ever know if your salvation is ever completed or not” as the Catholic catechism teaches.
Nope, he’s not. He was just quoting me in order to try to defend Rome’s indefensible teachings with the usual bluster and strawmen.
It’s getting kind of tiresome.
A logical fallacy of false equivalence. I did not say all his arguments were refuted here, since few have posted his material, while backed up my claim.
However, "daniel1212", you are completely missing the point of my post #38.
I do not think so. You post a whole slew of links including the supposedly virulently anti-Catholic apologist Scott Hahn, which denotes evangelism of Protestants under the premise of showing Catholics do not only read two little sections of the Gospel of John (which was more sarcasm than literal).
P.S. Why do you always "ping" a long list of your "homies" when you are debating someone, "daniel1212"?
You ask this after your litany of actual links? It is my practice to ping to my first post on a thread those who expressed they want to be pinged to such, and others ping me. And some Catholics do the same, not only to caucus threads, and then often charge us with being divided. Thus you must charge them with the same motive, but what you imagine this results in is hardly the case here.
But, honestly, does that really seem like the honorable, manly thing to do? If you really have full confidence in what you are saying, be bold, like Peter and Paul, and duke it out man to man. not like some urban street gang, ganging up on some individual!
If you actually followed my posting then you would see that i can hardly be said toi have backed down, or just ask your comrades, including salvation. But now either put up or shut of, or bring one of your heroes to fight for you. You really want to go, and take on my challenge of distinctive Catholic teachings not being manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed? Let me know big boy.
(Sorry if you are not a male, I only assumed that, and your home page says nothing.)
Thanks, Songcraft!
Spin away; Dude.
Spin away.
You keep ASKING this but yet you continue to fail to produce just what it is that " the Scribes and Pharisees bid you to observe and do".
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