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guitarplayer
DISRAELI
reply to post by guitarplayer
Yes indeed.
Not so much "easy grace" as a recognition that we don't stand much chance without it.
Years ago I read a parody on the Sermon on the Mount by Keith Green and the subject of greasy grace it was quite good.
colbe
Justification is life long.
DISRAELI
The cross and the atonement
One of the most difficult tasks of modern evangelism and apologetics is trying to explain why it was necessary that Christ should die.
There's enough evidence for this difficulty in the queries raised in threads in this very forum.
What exactly is the connection between the Cross and the Atonement?
It isn't easy, as we all discover, to give an explanation which will satisfy the modern mind, since the modern mind is not at ease with concepts of substitutionary sacrifice.
It also occurs to me that trying to put forward an explanation of the "mechanics" of the Atonement might be misplaced energy.
Are we not, in effect, trying to make the Cross accessible to human wisdom?
Isn't this precisely what Paul says cannot be done?
I wonder if we are not obliged to fall back on the New Testament statements that we are reconciled to God through the death of Christ, without attempting to offer any rationalisation of the way the connection works.
Especially since human wisdom always understands these rationalisations as "folly".
Perhaps Faith demands trust without full understanding.
DISRAELI
colbe
Justification is life long.
I think you are confusing justification with sanctification.Text Justification is the new relationship with God made possble by what Christ did.
It is sanctification which is the life-long process.
The distinction is clear in Romans.
On the one hand, "Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ"- Romans ch5 v1
On the other hand, "Let not sin therefore reign over your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not yield your bodies to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life"- Romans ch6 vv12-13. That is the life-long process, which we call our sanctification.
In one sense, in Paul's usage, we have already been sanctified as well as justified;
"And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ"- 1 Corinthians ch6 v11
But he is using "sanctified" as in the opening verses of the first chapter, in the sense of "being set apart for God", like the vessels of the Temple.
His urgent advice to the Corinthians amounts to telling them that they should live up to the sanctification which they've already got.
(This will be the subject of a later thread, on "The saint and his holiness", when I get to that part of the letter).
When someone is behaving childishly, they are told to "act your age" ("act your age and not your shoe size", in extreme cases).
The life-long process is the process of "acting out" our sanctifcation.
I hope you agree, anyway, that the event of the Cross was the MINIMUM necessary for either justification or sanctification.
That is the point. If Christ had not died on the cross, we could not have been saved or justified.edit on 28-9-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)
colbe
You've heard it, a Protestant will past an image of the Corpus, Our Lord on the Cross NOT the Protestant
empty Cross and declare, Jesus did all, He took on all your sins, you are saved!...
Nonsense.
V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee; (Kneel)
R. Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world. (Rise)
colbe
I have to look up the meaning of atonement and imputation. And maybe another word "substitutionary."
There is an awful heresy, stems from the rotten Faith Alone heresy. It is called the "imputation" heresy.
Jesus substitutes his obedience for our disobedience
615 "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous." By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who "makes himself an offering for sin", when "he bore the sin of many", and who "shall make many to be accounted righteous", for "he shall bear their iniquities". Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.
DISRAELI
colbe
I have to look up the meaning of atonement and imputation. And maybe another word "substitutionary."
There is an awful heresy, stems from the rotten Faith Alone heresy. It is called the "imputation" heresy.
It is also simply untrue that the teaching of "substitutionary" atonement is an invention of the wicked Protestants.
It goes back to Anselm, for heaven's sake. It's all in Cur Deus Homo. Have you not read Cur Deus Homo?
It is endorsed by Aquinas and the Council of Trent.
I refer you to paragraph 615 of your own official Catholic catechism.
Jesus substitutes his obedience for our disobedience
615 "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous." By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who "makes himself an offering for sin", when "he bore the sin of many", and who "shall make many to be accounted righteous", for "he shall bear their iniquities". Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.
The problem seems to be that you have an ignorance even of your own church's doctrine, to the point that you're unable to recognise the extent of agreement between your fragment of the church and my fragment of the church on the fundamentals of Christian teaching.
I suggest that we need to focus on the points of agreement, and on that basis confront the unbelieving world in partnership, instead of having this knee-jerk obsession with points of difference.
DISRAELI
reply to post by colbe
Nevertheless, the important point is that salvation comes through the death of Christ- that is to say, through the Cross.
The whole of Chrsitianity agrees on that point, including the Catholic community, as I was demonstrating by quoting your own catechism and other teachings.
That is what Paul is talking about, and that is what "human wisdom" is incapable of understanding.
In other words, the conflcit in this chapter is between God and the world.
Can we focus on that conflict?
Those for God on one side- those against God on the other side.
edit on 1-10-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)
guitarplayer
reply to post by colbe
The one faith one church is the body of Christ.
DISRAELI
Since your mind was not able to take in the point I was making earlier, I will repeat it.
The important point is that salvation comes through the death of Christ- that is to say, through the Cross.
The whole of Christianity agrees on that point, including the Catholic community, as I was demonstrating by quoting your own catechism and other teachings.
That is what Paul is talking about, and that is what "human wisdom" is incapable of understanding.
All Catholic/Protestant controversy is entirely beside the point, as far as this chapter is concerned.
The only controversy we are dealing with, and the only controversy which ultimately matters, is the controversy between God and the world.