Why did Jesus have to die?

[Revelation13_16]

When I heard this this morning I thought of you. We must learn to pick up our cross. What do you think our cross is. Do you believe that it is all flowers and sunshine? Our Lord showed us how to pick up our cross and follow Him. It is hard work, why do you think most will reject it?

Jesus words tell us to follow the commandments not just say we believe, we must also follow His commandments.

Ofcourse, I don’t disbelieve this.

St. Paul says we become ‘slaves to Christ’ (or bondservants), that’s what the Holy Spirit works in us to do, to make us obedient in everyway, to live for him and not for us.

This is what I’ve seen many Catholics assume incorrectly about Protestants here at CA, just think about it, if Protestants didn’t “take up their cross and follow Jesus”, the whole U.S would be a far worse place than it is now.

Also I really loved seek’s explanation. How do you answer that?

False conversion.

Seek asks “why would that be. Is it because he sinned after conversion?”

The answer is no, everybody will sin after their conversion unless you convert on your death bed.

A true conversion invites the Holy Spirit inside you to convict you of sin. Seek’s hypothetical ‘new christian’ clearly has no conscience and feels justified to live however he pleases because he thinks “I’m saved”, when in fact I think he’ll be suprised after death.

I also prayed for you today. I hope you did the same for me.

Thankyou, ofcourse I’ll pray for you.

God Bless,
Rev

 

[Revelation13_16]

For example in your above example lets say the man converted to protestantism … Jesus pre-paid for that sin, now all that was left was for the man to sin in the natural course of history!

No, you forget the Holy Spirit.

In Catholicism Jesus paved the way for us to be able to once again obey God and receive His rewards. When we sin, we are guilty but due to the merits of Jesus we can ask for foregiveness each time. In this manner God is still just and merciful, He still recognizes sin and punishes for sin but provides a means of recociliation (which we never deserved).

Jesus also pre-paid for the sin you commit here to.

You see, where you are going wrong (and not only you but many Catholics here) is that you assume under Protestantism that because Jesus made one oblation on the cross, we never have to repent of our sins after our ‘conversion’.

This shows an ignorance (and I promise, I don’t mean this negatively) of the Scriptures and protestant theologies.

Upon conversion, the Holy Spirit indwells in the believer, sin quenchs it because light has no communion with darkness - God can’t be in you if you’re intent on inviting sin in also.

So if you bring sin in, God has to remove a portion of himself, which ofcourse makes it easier for you to sin again. But each time you sin, God will convict you of it, to which a true Christian will repent, and the Holy Spirit will fill again.

The more of the Holy Spirit you have, the more you resist sin, the less, the harder it is to keep pious.

This is all based on the Scripture.

God Bless,
Rev

 

[Valke2]

If good people could already get into heaven without Jesus dying, then I guess he didn’t really need to die…which of course is the whole point.

Until the perfect sacrifice was offered by the perfect priest (in both cases, Jesus), mankind was estranged from God.

In terms of “waiting” until Jesus died…since heaven, hell, God are outside of time, I’m not sure waiting is exactly the right term. When Jesus was sacrificed on the cross, and then later ascended to Heaven to offer his sacrifice before God the Father, it affected past, present and future. In fact, we are taught that Jesus is the eternal high priest and continuously offers his perfect sacrifice in the past, present, and future.

I think I got that right (but please correct me if I didn’t)

God Himself did not say that the Jews were enstranged from Him. In fact, He made a covenant that said quite the contrary.

 

[Revelation13_16]

Scripture is pretty clear salvation can be lost to those had it, and they sin. Don;'t fall for this erroneous doctrine. OSAS is unbiblical.

Manny you disappoint me, surely you’ve read enough of my threads to know I’ve said there are three ways to lose salvation before, but they are all conscious decisions to reject the Holy Spirit from within you.

OSAS is not unbiblical though if you remove the 3 ways I’ve aforementioned., answer me this question:

Q. Will God cast out who has come to him?

God Bless,
Rev

 

[Mannyfit75]

Manny you disappoint me, surely you’ve read enough of my threads to know I’ve said there are three ways to lose salvation before, but they are all conscious decisions to reject the Holy Spirit from within you.

OSAS is not unbiblical though if you remove the 3 ways I’ve aforementioned., answer me this question:

Q. Will God cast out who has come to him?

God Bless,
Rev

If you reject God completely, you will be cut off. However, if you are sorry for your sin, and come to the Lord and repent with a contrite heart, he will not reject you. God has never rejected anyone who come to him. We have to repent when we sin.

 

[scylla]

Manny you disappoint me, surely you’ve read enough of my threads to know I’ve said there are three ways to lose salvation before, but they are all conscious decisions to reject the Holy Spirit from within you.

OSAS is not unbiblical though if you remove the 3 ways I’ve aforementioned., answer me this question:

Q. Will God cast out who has come to him?

God Bless,
Rev

As a Catholic I can say easily the God wont cast those who have come to Him, unless they reject Him.
People who are turned towards God not rejected by Him, God loves us and desires all men to be saved.
We can cut ourselves off from Him by rejecting Him.
We have free will and our sins do matter to God.
We are not forced to repent, we might be moved to want to repent but we all have the freedom to reject Him.

I have a question for you, as this is interesting to me…
When we sin and are saved does this matter to God? What happens if we have no chance to repent, we are still angry when we die? You can PM me if you want to not derail the thread. I am just interested in free will and if we really have it in some non-catholic systems.

In Christ
Scylla

 

[Revelation13_16]

If you reject God completely, you will be cut off. However, if you are sorry for your sin, and come to the Lord and repent with a contrite heart, he will not reject you. God has never rejected anyone who come to him. We have to repent when we sin.

So any sin is a complete rejection of God?

God Bless,
Rev

 

[Revelation13_16]

I have a question for you, as this is interesting to me…
When we sin and are saved does this matter to God?

Sin is always serious, to downplay sin or justify it is deny the horrible pain Jesus endured on the cross to conquer death - the place where all sins lead to.

God hates sin, he always has and always will.

What happens if we have no chance to repent, we are still angry when we die?

I don’t understand the ‘angry’ part, but it is of no consequence.

So lets say we die with sins on our soul but we are ‘saved’, what happens?

“Saved” as you can see is past tense, something that has already occured, so do we lose our salvation with these sins on our soul?

Hebrews 10:10-18 sums this up the best:

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”

then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

God Bless,
Rev

You can PM me if you want to not derail the thread.
I am just interested in free will and if we really have it in some non-catholic systems.

These questions are fine as they are within topic, but I don’t want to discuss Free Will here because if you look at my thread “Catholicism & Free Will” you’ll see that the subject of Free Will is absolutely huge.

God Bless,
Rev

 

[Mannyfit75]

So any sin is a complete rejection of God?

God Bless,
Rev

Yes sin any breaking of God’s commandments, to include the rejection of grace of God…

 

[Mannyfit75]

Do you believe in OSAS, Rev?

 

[Fidelis]

Fidelis, thankyou.
If the Catholic view of Christ’s death “brought us back” from sin, then we should be as Adam was befoe eating of the fruit - perfect and sinless in the eyes of the lord, and having eternal life.

And so we are! – except that we retain a certain weakness, called concupisense by Catholics and called sin nature by some Protestants.

After we place our faith in Jesus and are baptised, we are “perfect and sinless” unless we commit serious sin, at which point we must repent and confess our sin, after which we are again reconciled to God.

John chapter 3 is divided into two parts: Jesus & Nicodemus - John the Baptist.

You have quoted from verse 36, the last verse of chapter 3. The surrounding verses don’t clarify 36, so the context is moot. (John chapter 3 switches the story from Jesus & Nicodemus to John the Baptist at verse 22)

It is clear they are different scenes, but it does not render “moot” the fact that it shows what Jesus means when he talks about what it means to believe. The meaning of the word doesn’t change just because the scene does.

Regarding “belief” & “salvation”, John 3:16 is oft quoted without context, but that’s because the context only seems to reaffirm it, which makes it unecessary: What’s interesting about this is not John 3:16, but actually John 3:14-15.

Jesus says he must be lifted up like Moses lifted up the serpent.

Moses did this in Numbers chapter 21.

The people of Israel were whinging again, so God sent snakes among them and bit them, and many of the Israelites died. The Israelites repented and asked Moses to pray to God to stop the snakes. God told Moses to make an image of a snake on a pole, and that “everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live”. Moses made a bronze snake, set it on a pole, and if a snake bit anyone, that person would look at the bronze serpent and live.

Now, notice this.

**All an Israelite who was bitten had to do, was to look at the **bronze snake on a pole and believe (trust) it would make him live, by his faith he would live.

Now if Jesus says the same thing about himself - that he is like that bronze snake on a pole - how can anything more than faith be required so that we may live?

God Bless,
Rev

Now notice this…

The actual quote from Numbers 21:

…and the LORD said to Moses, “Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if anyone who has been bitten** looks at it,** he will recover.” Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he recovered.

O.K.: So let’s say there was an Israelite who had been bitten by a serpent was in his tent when he had been told about what God told Moses. What if he had said, “You know, I don’t need to go and look at that brass serpent. I think as long as I believe that God will heal me, I’ll be healed.”

Do you suppose that Israelite would have been healed? Not likely, since the command was to both believe and do – just like Jesus tells us in John 3 – and throughout the whole Gospel.

 

[GregoryPalamas]

Wow, can’t believe it’s so simple. That answers everything.

I am not a Calvinist.

God Bless,
Rev

Demonstrate your claim.

CDL

 

[Revelation13_16]

Do you believe in OSAS, Rev?

No I don’t, it’s against Hebrews 6:

For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6if they then fall away, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

God Bless,
Rev

 

[Revelation13_16]

And so we are! – except that we retain a certain weakness, called concupisense by Catholics and called sin nature by some Protestants.

After we place our faith in Jesus and are baptised, we are “perfect and sinless” unless we commit serious sin, at which point we must repent and confess our sin, after which we are again reconciled to God.

I agree we need to repent, though even I commit a small sin I repent, I wish not to offend God even in the slightest, and I’m sure we’d agree the unrepentance of small sins soon enough makes them become medium sins, and from there, large.

But If our faith in Christ’s sacrifice restored us to a pre-fall Adamic state in the eyes of the Lord, I don’t believe anything but a ‘discarding of Christ’ (through apostasy, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, taking the Mark of the Beast) is enough to make God reject us.

It is clear they are different scenes, but it does not render “moot”

I didn’t say it rendered the verse moot, you said it had to be “in context”, I said there was no context outside the shift in “scene” as you call it.

Look at verses 34, 35 (the context for 36) and tell me how it helps the exegesis of 36?

O.K.: So let’s say there was an Israelite who had been bitten by a serpent was in his tent when he had been told about what God told Moses. What if he had said, “You know, I don’t need to go and look at that brass serpent. I think as long as I believe that God will heal me, I’ll be healed.”

Do you suppose that Israelite would have been healed?

No, because that Israelite is not following what God said.

You could compare that Israelite to the Agnostic that says “I believe in God, I live a good life, I think I’ll go to heaven, but I don’t have to believe in Jesus”

Not likely, since the command was to both believe and do – just like Jesus tells us in John 3 – and throughout the whole Gospel.

I’ve covered this on page 1.

God Bless,
Rev

 

[Mannyfit75]

No I don’t, it’s against Hebrews 6:

God Bless,
Rev

That’s great!

 

[Revelation13_16]

Demonstrate your claim.

I don’t need to.

You said:

Slough off the Calvinist lies that presently delude you and come into the Light of Christ.

I said:

I am not a Calvinist

Therefore the onus is on you to go back to whatever information source led you to believe that I was a Calvinist, and recheck it.

I’m offended by your arrogance.

God Bless, (nevertheless)
Rev

 

[Fidelis]

I agree we need to repent, though even I commit a small sin I repent, I wish not to offend God even in the slightest, and I’m sure we’d agree the unrepentance of small sins soon enough makes them become medium sins, and from there, large.

But If our faith in Christ’s sacrifice restored us to a pre-fall Adamic state in the eyes of the Lord, I don’t believe anything but a ‘discarding of Christ’ (through apostasy, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, taking the Mark of the Beast) is enough to make God reject us.

God NEVER rejects us. But by definitively and blatantly choosing our will over his – and this is what “mortal” sin consists of – WE reject him. And if we unrepentedly reject him, God respects our free will and our own decision to seperate ourselves from him.

Originally Posted by Fidelis
O.K.: So let’s say there was an Israelite who had been bitten by a serpent was in his tent when he had been told about what God told Moses. What if he had said, “You know, I don’t need to go and look at that brass serpent. I think as long as I believe that God will heal me, I’ll be healed.”

Do you suppose that Israelite would have been healed?

Originally Posted by Revelation13_16
No, because that Israelite is not following what God said.

My point – and Jesus’ – exactly. Such a one is required to both believe AND obey. Now go and do likewise.

 

[kaycee]

Christ didnt die in such a manner that He substituted Himself (pre-paid) for your sins, which is what Protestantism claims. That concept is blasphemous once you take it to its logical conclusion. For example in your above example lets say the man converted to protestantism (he is saved because Jesus took the punishment for that man’s sins) and later the man became slothful as in your example. The problem is according to that theory Jesus took the punishment for the sins that man was yet to commit! In otherwords, Jesus pre-paid for that sin, now all that was left was for the man to sin in the natural course of history!

Exactly the objection Paul thought you would make and he replies with Romans chapt 6.

Take note that the True Gospel of Grace will make people object, wrongly thinking that we can now run amuck with sin, just as you have stated.

You have demonstrated almost to a T, an expected response to hearing THE GOSPEL Paul preached!

Paul answers your response in Romans 6.

A Gospel that does not bring up this objection is NOT THE GOSPEL.

peace <><

 

[Catholic_Dude]

No, you forget the Holy Spirit.

What?

Jesus also pre-paid for the sin you commit here to.

No He didnt “ALSO pre-pay” according to my position.

You see, where you are going wrong (and not only you but many Catholics here) is that you assume under Protestantism that because Jesus made one oblation on the cross, we never have to repent of our sins after our ‘conversion’.

Technically you dont, and to repent would be superfluous if the sin is already forgiven.

Upon conversion, the Holy Spirit indwells in the believer, sin quenchs it because light has no communion with darkness - God can’t be in you if you’re intent on inviting sin in also.

I have been down this road many times with Protestants, your only two options are as follows:
1)According to you a Christain is not capable of sinning any longer.
2)What we normally think of as sin, is not sin if your a Christain.

So if you bring sin in, God has to remove a portion of himself, which of course makes it easier for you to sin again. But each time you sin, God will convict you of it, to which a true Christian will repent, and the Holy Spirit will fill again.

This is not correct because according to you Jesus already took the punishment for your sins…so He cant exactly “convict you”

The more of the Holy Spirit you have, the more you resist sin, the less, the harder it is to keep pious.

Catholics would generally agree with this, we just realize that resisting sin is essential and not a guarantee, falling into sin can lead to grave consequences like damnation.

Exactly the objection Paul thought you would make and he replies with Romans chapt 6.

Take note that the True Gospel of Grace will make people object, wrongly thinking that we can now run amuck with sin, just as you have stated.

You have demonstrated almost to a T, an expected response to hearing THE GOSPEL Paul preached!

Paul answers your response in Romans 6.

A Gospel that does not bring up this objection is NOT THE GOSPEL.

peace <><

No, Paul nowhere says in that chapter that sin wont be punished, he says by grace you have been set free from sin and clearly warns not to be come a slave to sin again.

So far neitheir you nor Rev has disagreed with my claims regarding the Protestant position of pre-paid sins.

 

[scylla]

I see what you mean that we are justified, and I agree, I would probably disagree on what seriousness of sin can cut us off.
I agree that rejection of the Holy Spirit, Blasphemy, Apostacy can cut us off.

I don’t believe anything but a ‘discarding of Christ’ (through apostasy, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, taking the Mark of the Beast) is enough to make God reject us

This is pretty much what a mortal sin is, what you described, just Catholics would probably look at some sins that don’t look so serious more seriously, as worthy of rejecting Christ.

I would be as a Catholic pretty much in agreement that we would be saved minus any grave sins that essentially reject Christ.

Thank you for the response, I will check out the free will thread if I have the time.

God Bless
Scylla