How does Christ save us?

[jochoa]

I so agree with you…I think being “saved” is completely dependent on learning the “hows” of unconditional love/ forgiveness as Jesus modeled for us during His life and particularly as He died…thanks for your comments!

Thank you very much for your kind thoughts!

I do find it interesting that you used the word “hows.” Can you explain further?

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

If I lend someone 100$ and they can’t pay it back, I cannot forgive this debt without making myself 100$ poorer in the process. Sin incurs a debt to God and the absolute Holiness of God would suggest He cannot forgive it without restitution. Jesus does this… but there isn’t just one definition capable of explaining salvation. It is a Divine Mystery that is beyond us to understand. It is a quest comparable to understand the Mind of God, but the Church has been given the Divine Revelation, authority, and the task of providing us with the grace necessary and the explanations satisfactory to the “what” we are to do, to believe, and to avoid. This forum certainly has no such mandate.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Doctrine of the Atonement

It is essentially a sacrifice, the one supreme sacrifice of which the rest were but types and figures. And, as St. Augustine teaches us, the outward rite of Sacrifice is the sacrament, or sacred sign, of the invisible sacrifice of the heart. It was by this inward sacrifice of obedience unto death, by this perfect love with which He laid down his life for His friends, that Christ paid the debt to justice, and taught us by His example, and drew all things to Himself; it was by this that He wrought our Atonement and Reconciliation with God, “making peace through the blood of His Cross”.

Salvation

As sin is the greatest evil, being the root and source of all evil, Sacred Scripture uses the word “salvation” mainly in the sense of liberation of the human race or of individual man from sin and its consequences.

Sanctifying Grace

Grace (gratia, Charis), in general, is a supernatural gift of God to intellectual creatures (men, angels) for their eternal salvation, whether the latter be furthered and attained through salutary acts or a state of holiness. Eternal salvation itself consists in heavenly bliss resulting from the intuitive knowledge of the Triune God, who to the one not endowed with grace “inhabiteth light inaccessible” (1 Timothy 6:16). Christian grace is a fundamental idea of the Christian religion, the pillar on which, by a special ordination of God, the majestic edifice of Christianity rests in its entirety. Among the three fundamental ideas — sin, redemption, and grace — grace plays the part of the means, indispensable and Divinely ordained, to effect the redemption from sin through Christ and to lead men to their eternal destiny in heaven.

Merit

In the theological sense, a supernatural merit can only be a salutary act (actus salutaris), to which God in consequence of his infallible promise owes a supernatural reward, consisting ultimately in eternal life, which is the beatific vision in heaven.

Not only the above but the entire nature of the Church, the whole of the Bible, and Sacred Tradition are related to how Jesus saves us.

 

[4paws]

Earnest,
Thank you. One question… (Sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know how to use the quotes yet).

Doctrine of the Atonement says:

“It was by this inward sacrifice of obedience unto death, by this perfect love with which He laid down his life for His friends, that Christ paid the debt to justice, …”

That is exactly what I’m talking about.
That is a sacrificial system --the same system used while Christ was alive when the Jews were sacrificing animals. If you are truly Catholic, or truly Protestant, you have to believe that God wanted Christ to die and to die a torturous death. You also have to believe that through this death, we were made one with Christ/God. Since “atonement” is not biblical, HOW does this make sense?

Thank You

 

[4paws]

I should have included this. My apologies. You wrote:

“It is a Divine Mystery that is beyond us to understand.”

This is what all the scholars say, after they’ve attempted to understand the exact same thing I’m trying to understand. But please answer as best you can… The leap that’s being taken here is that you believe in the Catholic claim --“obedience unto death.” You believe God wanted Christ to suffer and die on the cross and that this was necessary for our salvation.

If the other question is not something you feel you can answer… Is it fair to say that the belief (above) is grounded on the same principle that sacrificed animals?

 

[Reggy]

I should have included this. My apologies. You wrote:

“It is a Divine Mystery that is beyond us to understand.”

This is what all the scholars say, after they’ve attempted to understand the exact same thing I’m trying to understand. But please answer as best you can… The leap that’s being taken here is that you believe in the Catholic claim --“obedience unto death.” You believe God wanted Christ to suffer and die on the cross and that this was necessary for our salvation.

If the other question is not something you feel you can answer… Is it fair to say that the belief (above) is grounded on the same principle that sacrificed animals?

I don’t believe that God wanted Christ to suffer and die on the cross. I believe that our sin (read; our missing the mark, our missing God’s repeated attempts to get through to us as to how to live with each other as per his instructions through prophets and such) brought Jesus to the cross and that his love for us was such that he voluntarily died, not to make our sins disappear like some type of magic or something, rather, he died to teach us about real love, to show us with his own actions, as costly as they were to him, what real love looks like and to prompt us to follow him in this love, in so far as we can, our sin diminishes and so does our separation from the Father. We are immortal souls that will live on forever, it is our choice as to whether this is with God in happiness and love (in heaven) or without him (this is called “hell”)…God doesn’t “send” people to hell…he has given his all, to point us in the right direction…what more can he do?..it’s up to us.

 

[rainbow1]

I so agree with you…I think being “saved” is completely dependent on learning the “hows” of unconditional love/ forgiveness as Jesus modeled for us during His life and particularly as He died…thanks for your comments!/QUOTE

Jochoa, I am thinking that the unconditional and unending love/forgiveness Jesus modelled are the daily sacrifices leading up to the ultimate sacrifice of his life … where He chose to continually return human ridicule, hatred, exclusion, denial, physical abuse, etc with pure, merciful and chaste love for all…leading up to providing us the Eucharist to continue to nourish us after his physical death… when He died, the actual “sacrifice” He made was to not return hatred for hatred shown towards Him…still the formula for living a live of love and forgiveness…

 

[rainbow1]

I should have included this. My apologies. You wrote:

“It is a Divine Mystery that is beyond us to understand.”

This is what all the scholars say, after they’ve attempted to understand the exact same thing I’m trying to understand. But please answer as best you can… The leap that’s being taken here is that you believe in the Catholic claim --“obedience unto death.” You believe God wanted Christ to suffer and die on the cross and that this was necessary for our salvation.

If the other question is not something you feel you can answer… Is it fair to say that the belief (above) is grounded on the same principle that sacrificed animals?

I believe that God the Father did NOT want Jesus to die on the cross…I think He was willing, though, to allow humans to chose what they wanted to do…and the good part is Jesus was strong enough to still offer total forgiveness and love for the atrocities He underwent, understanding the brokenness of a people who would act in such a way. I find it helpful to pray to our Lady of Sorrows, and feel her grief about the cruelties she saw her Son subjected to. I believe God the Father was right there with her!

 

[jochoa]

rainbow1;8073084:

I so agree with you…I think being “saved” is completely dependent on learning the “hows” of unconditional love/ forgiveness as Jesus modeled for us during His life and particularly as He died…thanks for your comments!

Excellent Interpretation! Thank you for sharing!

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

“He learned obedience by the things that He suffered” “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory?”

Jesus could have been accepted but was not. That was their fault and it is the same fault for us.

The sacrificial system is a prefigurement of the One Perfect Sacrifice on the Cross. The Last Supper is the perfection of the Seder meal of Passover and the sacrificial lamb is eaten after sacrificing. God offers His Son for us because He wants not killing and death but eternal life for us. Because of us, this means sacrifice, Jesus’ sacrifice.

I want to be with God, and this too means sacrifice, denial, working on virtue, and perhaps martyrdom. Only God’s Life in me by His Grace can accomplish any of this in me. Eternity will be worth it as “But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.”

 

[4paws]

Thanks for answering my question, Earnest.

If you can, I would appreciate knowing where Catholicism bases this idea --biblically. Specifically, what verses does the Catholic church use to show this interpretation, that God wanted Christ to suffer and die?

**THANK YOU **

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

Thanks for answering my question, Earnest.

If you can, I would appreciate knowing where Catholicism bases this idea --biblically. Specifically, what verses does the Catholic church use to show this interpretation, that God wanted Christ to suffer and die?

**THANK YOU **

The statement “that God wanted Christ to suffer and die” is extrapolating a desire from the mind of God by that which happened in time. “God wanted us to fall” is the same extrapolating based on putting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil within our reach. It is a false extrapolation and a false statement, in and of itself.

 

[4paws]

OK, I hear you.

But you quoted, “obedience unto death.” Your interpretation is Catholic. Catholics have a substition atonement theory. That theory makes it very clear that God wanted/needed/required/…obedience was foremost here … —> DEATH.

I’ll change the wording of my question:

I would appreciate knowing where Catholicism bases this idea --biblically. Specifically, what verses do the Catholic church use to show this interpretation, that God required Christ to suffer and die?

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

How about this: The Cross, the Passion, God being Supreme, people have the freewill to reject God’s Grace, etc… It happened this way because God set it up this way. It wouldn’t have happened unless it was God’s Will.

The entire Bible is about our salvation, The woman, Her seed (women don’t have seed, virgin birth? yes), Jonah three days in the fish, Passover meal, Moses lifting up the snake on a stick to save people from physical death, the Ark of the Covenant and Mary as the “New Ark”, blood sprinkled on the Mercy Seat of the Ark, Israel’s Day of Atonement for the forgiving of sins, etc.

Atonement power of Jesus: Gal. 3:13: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.

2 Cor. 5:21: Him, who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in him.

Heb. chapter 9: And almost all things, according to the law, are cleansed with blood: and without shedding of blood there is no remission…For then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world: but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself. … So also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many; the second time he shall appear without sin to them that expect him unto salvation.

 

[4elise]

Message to 4paws…

Please forgive my co-oping the forum to respond to a pm:

Your private message box is so I was unable to answer your question
i will post the answer on the group

 

[4paws]

Earnest,
I can see where you’re deriving your thoughts but I don’t feel they’re accurately derived. I am enjoying the alternate point of view, though, and I’d like to look into this further. Also sent a message to the veggie group moderator to see what their thoughts are. Thank you for responding and thank you for the biblical verses. Really appreciate your time and all your (name removed by moderator)ut.(The Galatians verse has a verse right after it about faith -IMO, it needs to be taken as a whole.) The Hebrews chapter is probably the strongest one in your argument.

Any other thoughts, I’m glad to hear them. Thanks again.

 

[Mark_David]

Romans 5 is a good place to go for this in the Bible.

For if, by the transgression of one person, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one person Jesus Christ. In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all. Romans 5:17-18

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

What this sacrifice does for us is the main point though. Through the atoning death of Christ we could accept what is not natural to us, God’s Life through His Spirit. Baptism, penance, the Eucharist, prayer, are all for our transformation and our union with God. Our natural love is not worthy but God’s Grace builds on this with His Spirit in us and loving as He Loves.

It is having God’s own Life in us that saves us, Galatians 2:20 “And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me.” This union is the difference between belief and faith. His Spirit informs us and we understand from above, although we do not see, we know and we trust because it is a knowing that does not come from us.