I believe that the greatest source of understanding comes from a common lack of understanding of the Bible we all accept. I have recently found that one of the greatest passages that is a springboard to discussion is
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
Too many of the non-denominational “just Christians” tend to believe that they study just the Bible and ignore the world when in fact The Bible, God, tells us to look in the world. What is in the world should correlate with revealed truths.
Truth. Whenever truth is not true I also point out that to suppress the truth, my God, tells me that this is what is considered to warrant the wrath of God.
I believe too many Christians ignore what Scott Hahn calls “the bad news” that Paul paints before he speaks of the good news in the Book of Romans.
In summary The Bible is not written as most Protestants are taught to be a handbook. It has messages that have to be understood. Here the message is overlooked and rather than look in the world they keep their noses in the Bible and skip passages that do not satisfy the theology or history they are taught in Bible study.
The other issue has to do with understanding what is taught and unfortunately many Protestants take their theology to the Bible rather than extract it from the Bible. This is why you will find some belief followed by several non related passages strung together to satisfy the belief.
Matthew Then Judas went out and hanged himself.”
Luke And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Sort of does not make sense.
There’s something else, too.
All Protestantism except for Methodism denies that Jesus does anything to your soul when you are “saved.” Again excepting Wesleyans, they all subscribe to the concept of imputed justification, or as Luther supposedly put it, that you are a dung heap and after you are “saved,” you remain a dung heap, just with some snow (Christ’s merits) on top of you.
But keeping in mind that God is Love, and that everything He made is good, let’s consider why it is that one would be a dung heap at all. It is because of original sin, specifically, the devil tempting Adam and Eve. Now, if God is Love, then He does not delight in sin or dung heaps. Therefore, why would He have allowed the fall of man into original sin in the first place? He should have just stepped on the serpent before the tempter got anywhere near them. But He didn’t. Instead, God permitted the fall of man, and all of the sin, death, disease, suffering, torture, etc. that we know in this valley of tears we call the world today.
WHY WOULD GOD DO THIS? There is no way that we can safely say “God is good” or “God is Love” unless He allowed all of this for our own good. And He did. The purpose of the fall, as the Easter Vigil liturgy says, was to win us so great a Redeemer. But what does that Redeemer do for us? For non-Methodist Protestantism God’s solution to this problem was just to arrange the death of His Son so that He could hand out get out of hell free cards. But that leaves us in a situation WORSE than that of the pre-fall Adam and Eve. They merited heaven because they had no sin, and they were also not subject to death. Protestantism says that a person who is “saved” also gets into heaven on the merits of Christ–but I’ll bet you that Protestant church had a funeral within the last year. We are still subject to death, and by Protestant reckoning, that seems to mean that Christ didn’t do a complete job in redeeming us.
That is why sanctification, or Christian perfection as the Methodists call it, or theosis as the Orthodox call it, is so critical. Sanctification, the ability to become a saint, is the real purpose behind the fall of man and the redemption won for us by Christ. Far from being just issued get out of hell free cards, we are to partake of the divine life; we are to be transformed over the course of our lives into holy men and women by the Holy Spirit Who lives in us after our initial justification at baptism. Thus, the sin of the world is simply a device that allows us to become capable of choosing Love and ultimately becoming like Love, that is God, ourselves. Of course, the Communion of Saints follows from that; the Saints are complete in their righteousness and that is why we seek their communion and intercession. And it is because we ultimately share in the Body of Christ that we each have to be joined to Him in each and every thing–including His death, which is why we still die.
But Luther, and non-Methodist Protestantism, deny all that and say that we are still worthless dung heaps now and until the end of time. That results in a very dim view of God,
a view that ultimately comes from Islam, a view that God permitted the fall of man for no good reason, and that He supposedly and despotically flings souls into hell because they didn’t say the right things (like the sinner’s prayer) or go to an altar call. And of course, their “saved” people still die for no good reason.
No thanks. I am Catholic.
