Why be good?

[Janet_S]

**“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”****(Matthew 5:48)**Janet:

What he does mean is this:

(1) You are in a state of being perfect.(2) Remain in this state of perfection.However, what he does not mean is this:

I see where you’re trying to take me, and I’m not going there.

Are you suggesting I take this one sentence (Matthew 5:48), remove it from its context, analyze the grammar, ignore the fact that Jesus is talking about morality (specifically loving your enemies), and then have an Epiphany moment about the Protestant doctrine of imputed righteousness?

Sorry, but trying to read this doctrine (imputed righteousness) into this text is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Ask any reputable Protestant Bible scholar, and I bet they would tell you the same thing.

Here are some independent commentaries on this verse. Look it up for yourself if you think I am biased (and I am BTW).
salvationhistory.com/online/advanced/class1_lesson3_2.cfm
In the Sermon on the Mount, He gives us not written commandments, but His Law to be written in our hearts. God will no longer be our “Master” but our Father. And His New Covenant is given with the gift of His grace which will **enable us to aspire to ****the perfect imitation of our heavenly Father **- to forgive our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and give alms with generosity worthy of God (see Matthew 5:48).

ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/Matthew5.48.htm
In Matthew 5:48 Jesus commands us to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. However, on rare occasion one hears the view that this verse is not a command and that therefore the Lord wasn’t telling his followers they had to strive to be perfect. **The fact that Matthew 5:48 is a command to achieve perfection can be clearly seen in any good translation of the New **Testament. Let’s take a look at some of the many translations that could be quoted. Note that all of the versions cited below translate the **verse to mean that attaining perfection is something **we are commanded to do.

nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew5.htm
[43-48] See Lev 19:18. There is no Old Testament commandment demanding hatred of one’s enemy, but the “neighbor” of the love commandment was understood as one’s fellow countryman. Both in the Old Testament (Psalm 139:19-22) and at Qumran (1QS 9:21) hatred of evil persons is assumed to be right. Jesus extends the love commandment to the enemy and the persecutor. His disciples, as children of God, must imitate the example of their Father, who grants his gifts of sun and rain to both the good and the bad.
[47] Jesus’ disciples must not be content with merely usual standards of conduct; see Matthew 5:20 where the verb “surpass” (Greek perisseuo) is cognate with the unusual (perisson) of this verse.
[48] Perfect: in the gospels this word occurs only in Matthew, here and in Matthew 19:21. The Lucan parallel (Luke 6:36) demands that the disciples be merciful.

luthersem.edu/word&world/Archives/19-3_Politics/19-3_Smith.pdf
There Jesus says, in a free paraphrase of Lev 19:2, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect!”
This perfection is the condition of being fully mature, all grown, up, of having reached the end and goal of human life under God. It means being children of God, sharing in the divine nature that is marked by stunning and indiscriminate acts of generosity to all.. . .
That kind of perfection, loving as God loves, is the end and goal of life. ** All the material in Matthew about the end of the world is at the service of this loving or ethical end.**

Also look here:
bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Bible.show/sVerseID/23283/eVerseID/23283

 

[sophie1]

I realize I’m late to this conversation, but I also got a giggle and a sigh out of it, especially the part that tries to reduce salvation to an equation…

Catholics have always viewed their relationship with Jesus as a marriage. Now, I also enjoy a good rational discussion about faith issues. But a marriage relationship is decidedly not an equation. I once heard a homily at a wedding Mass in which the priest pointed out that a marriage is not a 50/50 proposition. It is a 100/100 proposition. Each partner gives 100% of himself/herself. After 35 years of a good marriage, I can assure you that if my husband ever approached me with: “I’ve given you this and this and done this and that, so you owe me thus and so” he would most likely find himself on the couch that night!

All kidding aside, I am painfully aware that the truth is his 100% far outweighs mine, but it’s all I’ve got. Truth be told, I am eternally grateful to God for bringing this man into my life. I see the same inequality magnified into infinity in my relationship with Jesus. I have nothing to offer Him but 100% of myself. There is no keeping score.

 

[Angainor]

8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.(Ephesians 2:8-10)

How would I put that in equation form?
Salvation = grace through faith

s = g (→f)

 

[petra]

How could someone, after realizing the depth of his own depravity and the undeserved depth of God’s love ever turn his back on the Father?

I might be prepared to die for someone who does not deserve such a sacrifice from me, but think of the Father. I could never allow one of my sons to suffer and die for someone who did not deserve it. Yet, this is exactly what the Father did for you and me, Janet. Would you ever do the same for someone else? No. How could you? That kind of love is unreasonable, if not, well, insane. The Father is crazy in love with you and me. Knowing this to be true, how could you or i ever do anything but want to return his love by loving him and others?

Hi Socrates,

Unfortunately, this happens all the time. Many people who knew and understood the depths of God’s love have subsequently fallen away. Frequently this happens when they endure a hardship and God doesn’t act in the way they expect Him to. They ask, “God, where were you when I needed you?” And they lose faith and turn from Him.

It also happens incrementally. The world can slowly creep in…the pursuit of money and favor among men. Slowly, slowly, the realization of what God has sacrificed for us can become faint and the tempation to return to confomring to a relativist society stronger.

Hopefully, you and I never fall prey to this. But it happens all the time.

petra

 

[Angainor]

Again I get back to my position that only Calvinism (we do nothing, God does everything) and traditional (Catholic & Orthodox) Christianity (God initiates all, but our life-long free-will response is critical in accepting the gifts) are consistent theologies. To hold an in-between position, that our having faith is critical to our salvation, but our doing works is not, is inconsistent. It is neither fish nor fowl, but an artificial division of a person’s entire salvation story.

What about:

God initiates for all(period)
“Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world!”

Is that consistent?

 

[Janet_S]

Here is something else for you to ponder, S4J. This is a different idea from what we have talked about before, but it is related to the original question “Why be good?”

2 Peter 1:3-4–His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power. Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.

Humans are called to share in the divine nature of the Trinity. This is a subject that probably seems very “weird” to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, but it is a teaching of the CC and it goes back to the writings of the ECF’s. This scriptural teaching goes by the names deification, **the divinization of **humanity and theosis. Theosis simply means that we participate as creatures in God’s very nature and life.

Athanasius (AD 296-373) provides us with perhaps the most concise description of theosis when he writes: “God became human that we might become God”.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions theosis numerous times:

“The Word became flesh to make us ‘partakers of the divine nature’…‘For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.’ ‘The only begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods’” (CCC 460).
(See also paragraphs 1129, 1265, 1812 and 1988).

Here are a few articles that explain theosis:
home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/grace3.html
bringyou.to/apologetics/a124.htm

 

[Janet_S]

Here’s one more plug for Virtue:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=2066820&postcount=82

2 Peter 1:1-11-- Symeon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of equal value to ours through the righteousness of our God and savior Jesus Christ:
may grace and peace be yours in abundance through knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power.

Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire. **For this very reason, make every ****effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with ****knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with ****endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual **affection, mutual affection with love. If these are yours and increase in abundance, they will keep you from being idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Anyone who lacks them is blind and shortsighted, forgetful of the cleansing of his past sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more eager to make your call and election firm, for, in doing so, you will never stumble. For, in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

I see where you’re trying to take me, and I’m not going there.

Are you suggesting I take this one sentence (Matthew 5:48), remove it from its context, analyze the grammar, ignore the fact that Jesus is talking about morality (specifically loving your enemies), and then have an Epiphany moment about the Protestant doctrine of imputed righteousness?
…

Janet:

Actually, i’m not a partisan. My intention is much the same as Socrates, who was a philosopher (or seeker of truth):
Now, the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions. And the difference between him and me at the present moment is merely this – that whereas he seeks to convince his hearers of what he says is true, i am rather seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers is a secondary matter to me.
– Socrates (Phaedo)
Would you consider yourself a partisan or a philosopher, Janet?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

I realize I’m late to this conversation, but I also got a giggle and a sigh out of it, especially the part that tries to reduce salvation to an equation. …Catholics have always viewed their relationship with Jesus as a marriage. …All kidding aside, I am painfully aware that the truth is his 100% far outweighs mine, but it’s all I’ve got. Truth be told, I am eternally grateful to God for bringing this man into my life. I see the same inequality magnified into infinity in my relationship with Jesus. I have nothing to offer Him but 100% of myself. There is no keeping score.

Hey, Sophie, i agree! Christianity should be more a relationship than a religion.

In a relationship you care about what the other person says and strive to understand what he means when he speaks to you. That is what i am trying to do. Though i would not consider Jesus my husband, i would like for him to be as close as a loved brother or dad. That is why i am seeking to know the truth, for he said he is the truth. It is my sincere hope that, in some way, getting closer to the truth of what he says will help me get closer to him.

Tell me, please, Sophie, since Janet says she will go no closer to him than she is now, will you come nearer to him with me? She does not want to approach him and help me see him more clearly, will you? That is, i am asking you to please tell me what Jesus meant when he said:

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”(Matthew 5:48, New American Bible)
​

Perhaps you are closer to him (and the truth) than i am and can explain this to me.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

How would I put that in equation form?
Salvation = grace through faith

s = g (→f)

Yes, Angainor, i agree. However, the question for which i am seeking an answer is on which side of the so-called equation do the good things i do out of love for Christ belong?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Hi Socrates,

Unfortunately, this happens all the time. Many people who knew and understood the depths of God’s love have subsequently fallen away. Frequently this happens when they endure a hardship and God doesn’t act in the way they expect Him to. They ask, “God, where were you when I needed you?” And they lose faith and turn from Him.

It also happens incrementally. The world can slowly creep in…the pursuit of money and favor among men. Slowly, slowly, the realization of what God has sacrificed for us can become faint and the tempation to return to confomring to a relativist society stronger.

Hopefully, you and I never fall prey to this. But it happens all the time.

petra

Rocky:

Thank you for your concern. I should think that if we were to hang out in a coffee shop the conversation would last long into the evening and bring much satisfaction to me. I must apologize if i left any of your replies unanswered. The constraints of other obligations forced me to choose to spend my time with Janet, in hope that she would help me see the truth of Jesus’ words.

Regarding someone walking away from Jesus after knowing the incredible extent of our Redeemer’s love for each of us personally, have you ever meant someone who has? I’m not talking about someone walking away from the Catholic church, but walking completely away from Jesus Himself?

I have, and i have had long and personal conversations with some who have. Every one of them suffers from the same condition: a lack of trust in the Bible. When i ask such people why they forsook Jesus, each of them has told me that they do not believe he was God, nor that he suffered and died to make the only way to heaven for us.

In other words, every person i have met who was once a Christian but now says he is not, does not do so out of incredulity. I have never meant one person who told me he knows the Bible is true but he refuses to believe any way. Each person has always argued with me that the Bible must not be true and, therefore, he should not believe.

Have you?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Rocky:

You have also been kind to me and do not seem the kind of person who cares only about winning some kind of argument. Perhaps you are as concerned about my seeing the truth as i am. Would you like to answer my question? That is, i’m seeking to know the meaning of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:48:

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”(Matthew 5:48, New American Bible)​

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

I would really like to open the question up to anyone who is willing to give me an answer as to the meaning of our loving Savior’s words:

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
(Matthew 5:48, New American Bible)

Has the Holy Spirit revealed to anyone what this might mean?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

… Have you?

Sorry, Rocky, i meant to ask, “Have you meant anyone who says he knows the Bible is true but refuses to believe anyway?”

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

I would really like to open the question up to anyone who is willing to give me an answer as to the meaning of our loving Savior’s words:

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

(Matthew 5:48, New American Bible)

Has the Holy Spirit revealed to anyone what this might mean?

Perhaps it would be best to post the question at another discussion thread so others might be more inclined to help me out. If you want to answer this question, please do so at: “How can we be perfect?”