Luke 8:49 While he was still speaking, someone from the synagogue official’s house arrived and said, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the teacher any longer.”
50 On hearing this, Jesus answered him, "Do not be afraid; just have faith and she will be saved."
As this** thief on the cross & paradise **thread led some of us to consider the doctrine of Purgatory a bit … both thread and doctrine have been on my mind.
While searching for a scripture pertaining to another subject, I happened upon Luke 8 - and these verses established a principle or “Biblical precedent” if you will (for those who need such things in addition to or*** instead of *** :tsktsk: Church teaching on the doctrine) to believe it.
Daughter dead. (Really dead).
JESUS says: “Do not be afraid; just have faith and she will be saved.”
Q: Why does this man’s having faith “save” his daughter?
THAT it saved her we find out later. Deductively then, he DID (continue to) “have faith” and the resurrection was accomplished.
Shall we be angry about this? Was not ***Christ’s power “sufficient to accomplish ***the miracle?”
< this sufficiency stuff is an argument Catholics sometimes have to deal with - but it is a change of subject actually, especially when it does not agree with things Jesus (or the Church He commissioned to “teach the nations” in His name ) SAID or has actually DONE!
I hadn’t noticed it before, but Jesus continues to attend to this man’s original intercessory request. Intercession: One person asking God to do something for someone
ELSE! < Which is loving one’s neighbor, VERY unselfish, acting as part of the body of Christ or a branch of the vine (when WE do this) – and we can see the results here.
Q: Was this resurrection miracle (which included intercession and perseverance in faith)
a lesson to us the Church? Or just an interesting event relevant just to the first century Jews to whom it applied?
A: To us also - or it would not have been included in the New Testament.
Q: Since the girl later died (we must assume) what great lesson can be learned from this. WHERE does it apply to a Christian.
A: Per Purgatory: Although souls in Purgatory are all “saved” as regards eternity; they are being purified (and in need of help, graces, etc.), One who intercedes for such a soul is doing a work of mercy and loving his neighbor and showing faith in something beyond earth and being unselfish and loving, and offering a sacrifice of time and effort as this official did for his daughter.
Critics in the parable said to cease interceding. Jesus contradicted this and told the man to continue and have faith - despite the intellectual deductions of his “advisors”. And his daughter was released from death, and her previous illness.
“Saving” a departed soul from aspects of justice:
… in the (time or place or state) where some “… are saved yet only as through fire,” (1 Corin. 3:15)
… or where " … you will not be released until you have paid the last penny. (Matt 5:26, Luke 12:59) "
would be an act of love and charity.
CAN one through faithful prayers … “pray to God and he will give him life … for those whose sin is not deadly.”? < from 1 John 5:16
Verse 16 does say “who sees his brother sinning …” indicating prayer for a “sinner” who is still alive and can repent. But what of one who dies in the state of being guilty of
"not deadly" sins. Since “nothing unclean can enter it …” Revelation 21:27. < heaven!
Jesus’ words to this synagogue leader to keep interceding so that his daughter would be “saved” < (this last word is Jesus’) give us some guidance.
And if one needs another scripture for guidance, THIS from the OT:
2 Maccabees 12:38 As the week was ending, they purified themselves according to custom and kept the sabbath there.
39 On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his men went to gather up the bodies of the slain and bury them with their kinsmen in their ancestral tombs.
40 But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had been slain.
41 They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden.
42 ***Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. ***The noble Judas warned the soldiers to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.
43 He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view;*
The thief of the cross in one sense DID go to paradise that same day … yet he continued to suffer until he died.
- something to ponder: purged here, there or both?
**** The Sadducees who did not believe in the Resurrection of the dead, nor Jesus, rejected this book from the Bible in the (so-called) “Council of Jamnia” … a non-Christian (anti-Christian?) Council held AFTER Jesus had come. Some Protestant Churches agree with that body. The Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church (and more?) hold the Septuagint including Maccabees 1 and 2 as scriptural. ***
:coolinoff: - phew!