I have looked through other threads and they are helpful but I’m still not clear. The atonement views seem to leave huge gaps.
There is a “God” → I have absolute conviction of this. It’s not about faith -this is a fact.
Christ resurrected in the flesh → This is my
faith. I don’t have absolute conviction.
But
how does he save us?
I am familiar with the scriptures. I’m afraid I need a logical argument.
Thank You
With the fall, humankind fell into a pit, exiled from the God who created and still sustained them. But the exile was a matter of their own free choice. They *preferred *themselves to God, according to the Catechism. Original sin could be described, in part, as this unnatural separation-and this preference to keep things that way. Anyway, as a result we don’t even know where we came from, if anywhere, what we’re to do here, if anything, and where we’re going, if anywhere. And that pretty well describes the situation of someone who’s
lost.
Who can save us? Can anyone from within our own ranks tell us who we are and why we’re here, let alone answer the ultimate question, is there life after this one-does any of it all really matter in the end? No one here can answer those questions because we’re all in the same pit. So the Good Shepard came to save His sheep, by first of all showing us the face of God, IOW that God exists, giving us FAITH, meanwhile demonstrating that God is good, giving us HOPE, and ultimately showing us the LOVE of God, and proving it in no uncertain terms by the sacrifice on Calvary. And the resurrection caps it all off by telling us that it ain’t all over at death and that a life of eternal happiness awaits those who follow Jesus on this path of humility and love.
None of this makes any difference unless we can believe it, of course, but this is exactly what the reconciliation won for us-that God would, by His grace, indwell us and work with us, and give us the power, by His grace, to believe again what Adam & Eve should’ve already known, and what they let go of and lost for us all. IOW, Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners. But God didn’t override Adam & Eves’ freedom and He won’t override ours now. He desires that, via those lessons learned like the Prodigal did while away from home, we come to cooperate, that we come to our senses and recognize His wisdom and our need for Him after all.
All of this, from the original revelations of God to man recorded in the OT, through the fullest revelation of Christ by the incarnation, is a work of His grace, of His initiative, His plan of salvation. We’re the wild card in it all. Mankind “hated Him without reason”, according to scripture, and
mistrusted Him without reason, according to the Catechism. He seeks, by a radical act of loving sacrifice, to draw us back to Him, proving what He should never have had to prove, that He loves us with an unfathomably powerful and unconditional love, and that nothing but sin separates us from that love. As part of the reconciliation He forgives us our sin and promises that, if we live like Jesus did, continuously in union with the Father, we, too, can overcome sin.
Jesus saves us by bringing us back to the authentic Father, who then writes His laws on our hearts and in our minds by perfecting us in love, fulfilling OT New Covenant prophesies such as those found in Jer 31 and simultaneously fulfilling the greatest commandments, thereby making us fully just…
