More Evangelicals Join Lent Observance

Interesting article here.

The Old Law in The New Covenant

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Of course not! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to righteousness?  Rom. 6:15-16 

St.Paul, here states the function of the law (of the Old Covenant) with grace (of the New Covenant). He starts out by asking the ridiculous question,”Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Of course not!” Without the guidelines of the law, how would we know God’s qualifications of righteousness? God didn’t design salvation for His people to be obscure, but founded upon obedience. That is what Paul goes on to say,”if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves you are slaves of the one you obey. So that is the question. Who are we going to obey?

“According to Christian tradition, the Law is holy, spiritual, and good,(Rom. 7:12,14,16) yet still imperfect. Like a tutor(Gal 3:24) it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. According to St.Paul, its special function is to denounce and disclose sin, which constitutes a “law of concupiscence” in the human heart.(Rom.7) However, the Law remains the first stage on the way to the kingdom. It prepares and disposes the chosen people and each Christian for conversion and faith in the Savior God. It provides a teaching which endures for ever, like the Word of God.” CCC 1963

One last thought; Paul in Ephesians 6:2, quotes one of the Ten Commandments as if it was to still be adhered to. One of those things I’ve read a thousand times, and I just came to realize.

The law is still to be followed, for it is the Word of God.

Accepting The Deuterocanonical Books

Click here to read a great article about the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament.

Speak the Truth

Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, for we are members of one another.    Eph. 4:25    (NAB)

So far in our study, we have confirmed that God is truth, Jesus (being God) is truth, His Church is truth and His Word is truth. In fact, we even looked at the rules for interpreting His word to find His truth.

Now, let’s look at speaking the truth.

In God’s covenant with Israel, He gave them certain rules to live by. The most famous of these rules are The Ten Commandments. The Eighth Commandment states: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Ex. 20:16) When we, as children of God, speak or act contrary to the truth, we lie. “Since God is “true” the members of His people are called to live in truth,”(CCC 2465).

” Truth as uprightness in human action or speech is called truthfulness, sincerity or candor. Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists of showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and guarding against duplicity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy,” (CCC 2468).

“Men could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another. The virtue of truth gives another his just due. Truthfulness keeps to the just mean between what ought to be expressed and what ought to be kept secret; it entails honesty and discretion. In justice,” as a matter of honor, one man owes it to another to manifest the truth”, St. Thomas Aquinas, Sth II-II, 109,3, corp.art.” (CCC 2469).

As a follower of Christ, I am not only obligated, but commanded to be truthful with my fellow man. In my words and my actions. That is my witness. My witness reveals who my “Lord” is, who my “God” is, and it reveals who “I” am. A true believer or a hypocrite.

As it is written; If we say,”We have fellowship with Him,” while we continue to walk in darkness we lie and do not act in truth.”   I Jn 1:6  (NAB)

Interpreting the Truth Part II: The Senses of Scripture

These things happened to them as an example and they have been written down as a warning to us, upon whom the end of all ages has come.   I Cor. 10:11   (NAB)

What are the senses of Scripture?  ”According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual with the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical.” (CCC 115)

“The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation,”( CCC 116). (see previous post, Interpreting the Truth Part I, for the “rules of sound interpretation”)

What is exegesis? It’s the critical explanation or analysis of a text. (American Heritage Dictionary)

“The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of scripture, but, also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism, (1 Cor.10:2).

2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says they were written for our instruction, (1Cor. 10:11, Heb. 3:1-4:11).

3.The anagogical sense. (Greek: anagoge,”leading”) We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us to our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem, (Rev.21:1-22:5).” (CCC 117)

 To summarize;” The Letter (literal) speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith; The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny,” Augustine of Dacia, (CCC 188)

One of the biggest misconceptions I had about the Catholic Church, as a Protestant, was  their interpretation of Scripture. I thought you had to see it their way or hit the highway, and we see clearly, that is not the case. There is still room for my personal application along side the Church’s interpretation and they should never contradict each other. If they do, then someone is wrong. But for true students of the Word, you’ll find you line up with Church teaching.

God uses rules and structure to protect His children. He wants us to be safe and secure in His love and fellowship. The way He has chosen to do this, is through the Church He established.

Interpreting the Truth Part I

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name- He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.   Jn.14:26  (NAB) 

After the last post, “Our Guide to All Truth”, we came to understand that the Holy Spirit reveals God’s Word as truth, Jesus as truth and the Church as truth. But the question still remains; How do we interpret the Scriptures?!

“To interpret the Scriptures correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words” (CCC 109). “ To truly discover the sacred authors intentions the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking, and narrating then current”(CCC 110).” But since Sacred Scripture is inspired there is another, and no less important principal of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. It must be read and interpreted in light of the same Spirit by whom it was written. The second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it”(CCC 111).

The first is;” Be especially attentive to the content and unity of the whole scripture. Different as the books that comprise it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since His Passover”(CCC112).

Second; “Read the Scripture within the living Tradition of the whole Church. According to a saying of the Fathers, sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture(” according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church”, Origen, Hom. in Lev. 5,5: PG12, 454D”), (CCC113).

Thirdly; Be attentive to the analogy of faith(Rom.12:6). By “analogy of faith” we mean the coherence of the truths of the faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation” (CCC 114).

What does all this mean? Well ,what it means basically, is that there are rules to interpretation. It goes beyond just the Scripture itself, to the times and places and cultures long ago and far removed from us. We must step “back in time” as it were, to fully understand what was trying to be conveyed, and ask ourselves in the “here and now” what is God trying to show/teach me?

Next time, we will look at the senses of Scripture.

God: The Father

In Exodus, God speaks to Moses from a burning bush. He tells him to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses asked, “Who do I tell them sent me”. God replies, “The God of your fathers sent you….I AM who am.”

God says, in effect, that He’s not like any of the many gods people worshiped. There is a great distance between Himself and human beings. Yet, at the same time, He is very personal. The “I AM” though distant, is near. He’s above all, yet among us. He doesn’t tell us what He is in Himself, but reveals who He is to you.

God has two main characteristics in His Old Testament revelation:

1. He is personally close to you and yet is beyond all time and space.

2. He is bound to nothing, but binds all things to Himself.

“I am the first and I am the last;/ there is no God but Me.”  Is. 44:6  

Centuries after these revelations to Moses and Isaiah, He reveals His name in Person; God’s Word, “became flesh and made His dwelling among us” John 1:14, shattering all human expectations and assumptions.

I AM revealed His name in His Son Jesus. Is the burning bush drawing you to it’s light?

That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And I have made known thy name to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them.  John 17:21, 26.

God [The Father] is love.

Tenets of the Faith: The Trinity

Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Matt. 28:18-20 

This is perhaps the the clearest expression in the New Testament of Trinitarian belief. Yet, before this doctrine could be fully developed, heresy arose.

How can we truly worship the “One true God” if we don’t know who “He” is?

The God of the Bible is a Trinity, as defined by the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.(Anno Domini – Latin for The Year Of Our Lord).

“The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life,” CCC 261. The “mystery” of God is not a puzzle to be solved, as in a detective novel. It is a truth to be reverenced for He is beyond all human comprehension. The doctrine of the Trinity includes three truths of faith:

1. The Trinity is One. Not three gods but One God. A unity of Persons in One Divine nature.
2. The Divine Persons are distinct from one another. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three appearances of modes of God, but three identifiable Persons, each fully God, yet distinct from the others.
3. The Divine Persons are in relation to each other. Their distinction is understood only in reference to the others. The Father cannot be the Father without the Son, nor can the Son be the Son without the Father. The Holy Spirit is related to the Father and the Son who both send Him forth.

All three Persons work together in the works of Creation, Redemption and Sanctification.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” Jesus said to him in reply, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed him. After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened (for him), and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove (and) coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matt. 3:13-17 

St. Augustine in his Sermon II [LII. BEN] concerning the Trinity, says this in these excerpts from paragraphs one and two;

“For we behold and see as it were in a Divine spectacle exhibited to us. The notice of our God in Trinity, conveyed to us at the river Jordan… when He was baptized then, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit came down upon Him in the form of a Dove: and then a voice from on High followed, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” Here then we have the Trinity in a certain sort distinguished. The Father in the Voice,- the Son in the Man,- the Holy Spirit in the Dove. It was only needful just to mention this, for most obvious is it to see. For the notice of the Trinity is here conveyed to us plainly and without leaving room for doubt or hesitation.”

“But one may say to me, “Show the Trinity to be inseparable rather. Remember that thou who art speaking art a Catholic, and to Catholics art thou speaking.” For thus doth our faith teach, that is, the true, the right, Catholic faith, gathered not by the opinion of private judgement, but by the witness of the scriptures, not subject to the fluctuations of heretical rashness, but grounded on Apostolic truth: this we know, this we believe. This though we see it not with our eyes, nor as yet with the heart, so long as we are being purified by faith, yet by this faith we most rightly and most strenuously maintain- that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a trinity inseparable; One God, not Three Gods. But yet so One God, as that the Son is not the Father, and the Father is not the Son, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. This ineffable Divinity, abiding ever in itself, making all thins new, creating, creating anew, sending, recalling, judging, delivering, this Trinity, I say, we know to be at once ineffable and inseparable.”

So as we see through Sacred Scripture, the teaching of St. Augustine and the Catechism of the Catholic Church the proclamation of the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. Defined by the Church as doctrine, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit,  in A.D. 325 it still stands true today.

Glory to God who has given His Church His authority to teach the faith!

                                         Act of Faith  

O my God, I firmly believe that You are one God in three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; I believe that Your Divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe that these and all truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because You have revealed them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.