History is full of men/women who have claimed that they came from God, or that they were gods, or that they bore messages from God. For examples: Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Lao-tze and thousands of others, right down to the person who founded a new religion this very day. Each of them has a right to be heard and considered. But as a yardstick external to and outside whatever and all ages, by which they can decide whether any of these claimants, or all of them are justified in their claims. These tests are of two kinds that we normally use and work on: - Reason and History - Reason because everyone has it, even those without faith. History because everyone lives in it and should know something about it.
Reason dictates that if any one of these person actually came from god, the least thing that God could do to support His claim would be to pre-announce His coming. Automobile manufacturers tell their customers when to expect a new model. If God sent anyone from Himself, or if He came Himself with a vitally important message for all men/women, it would seem reasonable that He would first let men/women know when His messenger was coming, where He would be born, where He would live, the doctrine He would teach, the enemies He would make, the program He would adopt for the future and the manner of His death. By the extent to which the messenger conformed with these announcements, one could judge the validity of his claims.
Reason further assures us that if God did not do this, then there would be nothing to prevent any impostor from appearing in history and saying 'I come from God' or 'An angel appeared to me in the dessert and gave me this message'. In such cases there would be no objective, historical way of testing the messenger. We would have only his word for it, and of course, he/she could be wrong and deceiving.
If a visitor came from a foreign country to Washington and said he was a diplomat, the government would ask him for his passport and other documents testifying that he represented a certain government. His paper would have to antedate his coming. If such proof of identity are asked from delegates of other countries, reason certainly ought to do so with messengers who claim to have come from God. To each claimant reason says, 'What record was before you were born that you were coming?'
With this test one can evaluate the claimants. (And at this preliminary stage, Christ is no greater than the others.) Socrates had no one to foretell his birth. Buddha had no one to pre-announce him and his message or tell the day when he would sit under the tree. Confucius did not have the name of his mother and his birthplace recorded, not were they to men centuries before he arrived so that when he did come, men/women would know he was a messenger from God.
But, with Christ Jesus it was indeed very different. Because of the Old Testament prophecies, His coming was not unexpected. There were no predictions about Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tze, Mohammed, or anyone else; but there were predictions about the Lord Jesus Christ . Others just came and said, 'Here I am, believe me.' They were, therefore, only men among men and not the Divine in the human. Christ Jesus alone stepped out of that line saying, "Study and Search the writings of the Jewish people and the related history of the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans." (For the moment, pagan writings and even the Old Testament may be regarded only as historical documents, not as inspired works.)
It is true that prophecies of the Old Testament can be best understood in the light of their fulfillment. The language of prophecy does not have the exactness of mathematics. Yet if one searches out the various Messianic current in the Old Testament, and compares the resulting picture with the life and work of Christ Jesus, can one doubt that the ancient predictions point to Jesus and the kingdom which he established?
God's promise to the patriarchs that through them all the nations of the earth would be blessed; the prediction that the tribe of Judah would be supreme among the other Hebrew tribes until the coming of Him Whom all nations would obey; the strange yet undeniable fact that in the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible of the Alexandrian Jews, the Septuagint, one finds clearly predicted the virgin birth of the Messiah; the prophecy of Isaiah 53 about the patient sufferer, the Servant of the Lord, who will lay down his life as a guilt-offering for his people's offenses; the perspectives of the glorious, everlasting kingdom of the House of David - in whom but Christ have these prophecies found their fulfillment?
From the historical point of view alone, here is uniqueness which sets the Lord Jesus Christ apart from all other founders of world religions. And once the fulfillment of these prophecies did historically take place in the person of Christ, not only did all prophecies cease in Israel, but there was discontinuance of sacrifices when the true Paschal Lamb was sacrificed.
Turn to pagan testimony; Tacitus, speaking for the ancient Romans, says, "People were generally persuaded in the faith of the ancient prophecies, that the East was to prevail, and that from Judea was to come the Master and Ruler of the world." Suetonius, in his account of the life of Vespasian, recounts the Roman tradition thus, "it was an old and constant belief throughout the East, that by indubitably certain prophecies, the Jews were to attain the highest power."
China had the same expectation; but because it was on the other side of the world, it believed that the great Wise Man would be born in the West. The Annals of the Celestial Empire contain the statement: In the 27th year of Tehao-Wang of the dynasty of the Tehao, on the 8th day of the 4th moon, a light appeared in the South-West which illuminated the king's palace. The monarch, struck by its splendor, interrogated the sages. They showed him books in which this prodigy signified the appearance of the great Saint of the West whose religion was to be introduced into their country.
The Greeks expected Him, for Aeschylus in his Prometheus six centuries before His coming, wrote, "Look not for any end, moreover, to this curse until God appears, to accept upon His Head the pangs of thy own sins vicarious."
How did the Magi of the East know of His coming? Probably from the many prophecies circulated through the world by the Jews as well as through the prophecy made to the Gentiles by true prophet Daniel centuries before His birth.
Ciscero, after recounting the sayings of the ancient oracles and the Sibyls about a "King whom we must recognize to be saved," asked in expectation, "To what man and to what period of the time do these predictions point?" The Fourth Eclogue of Virgil recounted the same ancient tradition and spoke of "a chaste woman, smiling on her infant boy, with whom the iron age would pass away."
Suetonius quoted a contemporary author to the effect that the Romans were so fearful about a king who would rule the world that that they ordered all children born that year to be killed - an order that was not fulfilled, except by Herod - Matthew Chapter 1 & 2 -Not only were the Jews expecting the birth of a Great King, a Wise Man and a Savior, but Plato and Socrates also spoke of the 'Logos' and of the Universal Wise Man "yet to come." Confucius spoke of "the Saint"; the Sibyls, of a "Universal King"; the Greek dramatist, of a savior and redeemer to unloose man from the "primal eldest curse." All these were on the Gentiles side of the expectation. What separates Christ from all men is that first He was expected; even in Gentiles had a longing for a deliverer, or redeemer. This fact alone distinguishes Him from all other religious leaders.
A second distinguishing fact is that once Christ Jesus appeared, He struck history with such impact that Jesus split it in two, dividing it into two periods: one before His coming, the other after it. Buddha did not do this, nor any of the great Indian philosophers. Even those who deny God must date their attacks upon Him, A.D. so and so, or so many years after His coming.
A third fact separating Him from all others is this: every other person ever came into this world came into it to live. He came into it to live and die. Death was a stumbling block to Socrates - it interrupted his teaching. But to Christ Jesus, death was the goal and fulfillment of His life, that is the goal He was seeking. Few of His words or actions are intelligible without reference to His Cross. He presented Himself as a "Savior" rather than merely as a Teacher and otherwise. It meant nothing to teach men/women to be good unless He also gave them the power to be good, after rescuing them from the frustration of guilt.
The story of every human life begins with birth and end with death. In the Person of Christ, however, it was His death that was first and His life that was last. The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible describes Him as "the Lamb slain as it were, from the beginning of the world." He was slain in intention by the first sin and rebellion against God. It was not so much that His birth cast a shadow on His Life and thus led to His death; it was rather that the Cross was first, and cast its shadow back to His birth. He has been the only life in the world that was ever lived backward. As the flower in the crannied wall tells the poet of nature, and as the atom is the miniature of the solar system, so too, His birth tells the mystery of the gibbet. He went from the known to the known, from the reason of His coming manifested by His name "Jesus" or Savior" to the fulfillment of His coming, namely, His death on the Cross.
Apostle/Saint John gives us Jesus Christ eternal prehistory; Apostle/Saint Matthew, His temporal prehistory, by the way of His genealogy. It is significant how much His temporal ancestry was connected with sinners and foreigners! These blots on the escutcheon of His human lineage suggest a pity for the sinful and for the strangers to the Covenant. Both these aspects of His compassion would later on be hurled against Him as accusations: "He is a friend of sinners"; "He is a Samaritan." But the shadow of a stained past foretells His future love for the stained. Born of a woman. He was a man and could be one with all humanity; born of a Virgin, who was overshadowed by the Spirit and "full of grace," He would also be outside that current of sin which infected all men.
A fourth distinguishing fact is that He does not fit, as the other world teachers do, into the established category of a good man. Good man do not lie. But if Christ Jesus was not all that He said He was namely, the Son of the living God, the Word of God in the flesh, then He was not "just a good man"; then He was knave, a liar, a charlatan and the greatest deceiver who ever lived. If He was not what He said He was, Christ, the Son of the living God. Then he is just like any other man. If He was only a man, then He was not even a "good" man.
But He was not only a man. He would have us either worship Him or despise Him - despise Him as a mere man, or worship Him as true God and true man. That is the alternative He presents. It may very well be that the Communists, who are so anti-Christ, are closer to Him that those who see Him as a sentimentalist and a vague moral reformer. The Communists have at least decided that if He wins, they lose; the others are afraid to consider Him either as winning or losing because they are not prepared to meet the moral demands which this victory would make on their souls.
If Jesus is what He claimed to be, a Savior, a Redeemer, then we have a virile Christ and a leader worth following in these terrible times; One Who will step into the breach of death, crushing sin, gloom and despair; a leader to Whom we can make totalitarian sacrifice without losing, but gaining freedom and Whom we can love even unto death. We need a Christ today Who will make cords and drive the buyers and sellers from our new temples; Who will blast the unfruitful fig tree; Who will talk of crosses and sacrifices and Whose voice will be like the voice of the ragging sea. But He will not allow us to pick and choose among His words, discarding the hard ones and accepting the ones that please our fancy. We need a Christ Who will restore moral indignation, Who will make us hate evil with a passionate intensity, and love goodness to a point where we can drink death like water.
BY VENERABLE / ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN (1895-1979)
Indeed, it is for Christians to teach, proclaim, and to preach the behaviour which goes with proper and healthy doctrine. So, keep as our pattern the proper and sound teaching we have heard and learned from the apostles, prophets, disciples in the faith and love that are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians have been trusted to look after the 'Gospel' or 'Good News'; something very precious. Thus, we must guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. What is this word? It is 'Good News' or 'Gospel' that has been brought to us, from the everlasting word of the living and eternal God.
Testimony of God existence and to be witnesses of the Good News or 'Gospel' to the world is represented the witness of the apostles, prophets, disciples, who are the Lord Jesus Christ, special witnesses. The zeal generated by "Pentecost" together with growing persecution of the apostles, prophets, disciples, and the Lord Jesus Christ faithful, led them to preach and proclaim the greater glory of God, the Father, and the Son of the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ everywhere in the known world. As a result, the Christians was nourished by preaching and proclaiming the Gospel or the Good News. "John has written down everything he saw and swears it is the word of God guaranteed by Jesus Christ." - Revelation 1:2 -
Then I knelt at his [angel] feet to worship him, but he said to me, 'Don't do that: I am a servant just like you and all your brothers who are witnesses to Jesus. It is God you must worship.' The witness Jesus gave is the same as the spirit of prophecy. - Revelation 19:10 -And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven: there at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it. - Mark 16:19-20 -
Apostle Peter, and all the apostles, disciples, and the preacher's personal testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ power in his own life was featured in many sermons. As a consequence of such evangelistic passion, thousands was saved when apostle Peter preached and proclaimed God greater glory at Pentecost.
I [apostle Paul], the prisoner in the Lord, implore you therefore to lead a life worthy of your vocation. Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience. Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together. There is one Body, one Spirit, just as you were all called into one and the same hope when you were called. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God who is Father of all, over all, through all and within all.
Each one of us, however, has been given his own share of grace, given as Christ allotted it. It was said that he would: When he ascended to the height, he captured prisoners, he gave gifts to men.
When it says, 'he ascended' what can it mean if not that he descended right down to the lower regions of the earth? The one who rose higher than all the heavens to fill all things is none other than the one who descended. And to some, his gift was that they should be apostles; to some, prophets; to some, evangelists; to some, pastors and teachers; so that the saints together make a unity in the work of service, building up the body of Christ. In this way we are all to come to unity in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God, until we become the perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself.
Then we shall not be children any longer, or tossed one way and another and carried along by every wind of doctrine, at the mercy of all the tricks men play and their cleverness in practising deceit. If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to its function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love. - Ephesians 4:1-16 -
Christians must always remembered that God's gift was not a spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of power, and love, and self-control. So we are never to be ashamed of witnessing to the Lord Jesus Christ. - 2 Timothy 1:6-8 -
When we start teaching, preaching of the 'Good News' and the proclamation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Most of us insist on the dignity of our qualification by quickly reprimanding those who show us disrespect or who disagree with us. In fact, most of us practices it, including the Church and it has became a norm. But truly, qualification cannot be apply to the Church and to practicing Christian, because the reason Christian missionary societies attract the young, unbelievers, pagans, and atheists, is that members give a living witness to their zeal for Christ Jesus, the Lord. The hardships they endure, the souls they convert, the complete trust in God despite poverty and even persecution, these make them love God.
Christian primary duty is to search out the lost sheep and stay with it once found. This is what distinguishes the true disciple from the hireling disciple, the intellectual from the intelligentsia. Both are learned and scholarly. The difference lies in their relation to the people. The intellectual never loses that compassion for the multitude which characterized the Word Incarnate. The intelligentsia, on the contrary, live apart from tears and hunger, poverty and ignorance. They lack the common touch. Only the cream of bookish learning, not the milk of human kindness, flows through their veins.
But Peter and John retorted, 'You must judge whether in God's eyes it is right to listen to you and not to God. We cannot promise to stop proclaiming what we have seen and heard.' - Acts 4:19-20 -
No one can come to me unless he is drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets: They will all be taught by God, and to hear the teaching of the Father, and learn from it, is to come to me. - John 6:44-45 -'If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free.' - John 8:31-32 -Jesus said: 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 -
Jesus answered his disciples: I have told you all this so that you may find peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but be brave: I have conquered the world. - John 16:33 -God preserves all things through His providence. Without God continual care and activity the world or universe or earth would not exist. God also preserves His people through His providence. Therefore, the doctrine of providence affirms God's absolute lordship over His creature and confirms the dependence of all creation on the Creator.
It is the denial of the idea that the world or universe is governed by chance or fate or otherwise. In other words, nothing happens by chance and there is always a reason for everything. God is King of the universe who has given the Lord Jesus Christ all power and authority to reign. - Matt. 28:18 - "God gives Jesus the Spirit without reserve. The Father loves the Son and has entrusted everything to him." - John 3:35 -
'For this reason the whole House of Israel can be certain that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.' - Acts 2:36 -
This you can tell from the strength of his power at work in Christ, which he used to raise him from the dead and to make him sit at his right hand, in heaven, far above every Sovereignty, Authority, Power, or Domination, or any other name that can be named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. He has put all things under his feet, and made him, as the ruler of everything, the head of the Church; which is his body, the fullness of him who fills the whole creation. - Ephesians 1:20-23 -
Apparently, God permits sinful acts to occur but God does not cause man to sin or tempt or entice man to sin. If man chose to sin, do man think he and she will escape God's judgment? Be sure that, man stubborn refusal to repent is only adding to the anger of God and when His just judgment will be known, God will repay each one as his and her works deserve.
By divine power, he has given us all the things that we need for life and for true devotion, bringing us to know God himself, who has called us by his own glory and goodness. In making these gifts, he has given us the guarantee of something very great and wonderful to come: through them you will be able to share the divine nature and to escape corruption in a world that is sunk in vice. But to attain this, you will have to do your utmost yourselves, adding goodness to the faith that you have, understanding to your goodness, self-control to your understanding, patience to your self-control, true devotion to your patience, kindness towards your fellow men to your devotion, and, to this kindness, love.
If you have a generous supply of these, they will not leave you ineffectual of unproductive: they will bring you to a real knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But without them a man is blind or else short-sighted; he has forgotten how his past sins were washed away. Brothers, you have been called and chosen: work all the harder to justify it. If you do all these things there is no danger that you will ever fall away. In this way you will be granted admittance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. - 2 Peter:1:3-11 -
However, man is not free to choose and act independently from God's will and God's plan. God chooses and acts in accordance with them. In His sovereignty, God controls man's choices and actions. "Then Joseph said to his brothers, 'Come closer to me.' When they had come closer to him he said, I am your brother Joseph whom you sold into Egypt. But now, do not grieve, do not reproach yourselves for having sold me here, since God sent me before you to preserve your lives." - Genesis 45:4-5 - God's actions, however, do not violate the reality of human choice or negate man's responsibility as a moral being. Yes! God knows! For He is Omnipotence! Omnipresence! Omniscience! In accordance with the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, God transferred our transgressions, our sufferings, our poverty to Himself and bore them away as the Heavenly Scapegoat. More important still, God overcame them, and the Lord Jesus Christ triumphed by overcoming the pain by giving the earth the only serious wound it ever received - the wound of an empty tomb. ( the Passion, Death, Resurrection )
If this were not true, what do people hope to gain by being baptised for the dead? If the dead are not ever going to be raised, why be baptised on their behalf? What about ourselves? Why are we living under a constant threat? I face death everyday, brothers, and I can swear it by the pride that I take in you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If my motives were only human ones, what good would it do me to fight the wild animals at Ephesus? You say: Let us eat and drink today; tomorrow we shall be dead. You must stop being led astray: 'Bad friends ruin the noblest people', Come to your senses, behave properly, and leave sin alone; there are some of you who seem not to know God at all; you should be ashamed. - 1 Corinthians 15:1-34 -
All around us, potential converts abound. The tragedy is not that they lack faith, but we seldom ask them to embrace it. A non-Catholic Christian lawyer was asked on his deathbed by his Catholic Christian partner of twenty years, "Now that you are nearing your end, how about coming into the Church?" The dying man raised his eyebrows. "If your faith meant so little to you during the twenty years you have known me", he replied, "it cannot make that much difference now."Conversions are not more difficult in our times than before, but the approach must be different. Today, people are looking for God not because of the order they find in the universe but because of the disorder they find in themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment